Monday 19th July
On the Sunday a friend came to visit and we ate outside on a bench overlooking the Grand Union Canal. It was a light lunch with finely sliced cucumber marinaded in lime juice, Vietnamese fish sauce, a little sugar and garlic and chili which was served on top of cold soba noodles and freshly harvested mizuna and some tender dragon's tongue mustard leaves. To go with this I'd made a very thick and potato heavy rice cooker frittata
http://www.justbento.com/handbook/recipe-collection-mains/rice-cooker-frittata-summer-vegetables
Our ten month old daughter had all of this, chopped up and mixed with some avocado, the frittata on the side.
This meant I had leftover frittata for the next day.
MONDAY'S HURRIED BENTO
Tier 1
white rice from the rice cooker (made the night before by my husband) with a sprinkle of ume shiso furikake (from packet)
Tier 2
a few mizuna leaves, some sliced frittata, instant cucumber pickles, tuna soboro, kimchi (from packet)
Cooking/preparation time, under 20 minutes
Preparation consisted of:
cutting cucumber in half lengthways and scooping out seeds. Chopping remaining cucumber into little finger sized sticks. Placing cut cucumber in colander with a sprinkle of salt and allowing to drain.
In the meantime:
http://justbento.com/handbook/johbisai/tuna-soboro-with-ginger
But in the absence of pineapple juice I used pressed apple juice
And whilst that was cooling I blended together
2 tablespoons sushi vinegar
1 teaspoon caster sugar
half a teaspoon of finely chopped ginger (the same as from the tuna soboro)
half a teaspoon of finely chopped garlic
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
a few drops of rayu chili oil
Last part was to rinse the cucucumber, squeeze it dry and add it to the sushi vinegar/soy sauce/sesame oil marinade stirring it all together. Ideally it should sit in the marinade for at least ten minutes, my cucumbers were in there for 5 at the most while I packed the two lunches (one for me, one for my husband). The cucumber was added last.