Tuesday 20th July
As my parents were looking after the baby on Monday and Tuesday they stayed over on Monday night. With their upcoming visit to Sweden very early on Wednesday morning we spent the evening preparing for the trip, online check in, booking buses and covering everything else. Cooking for today's lunch took a back seat, particularly as it was such a lovely evening. We spent us much time as possible out in the back garden before dusk fell and the mosquitoes reclaimed their domain.
Tuesday's Deja Vu Bento
Tier 1
white rice and zakkokumai mix
Tier 2
Rice cooker frittata, baby tomatoes, 'two tastes' cucumber pickles, cabbage kimchi, radish kimchi
Before going to bed I was able to make up a batch of white rice with seeds and grains (zakkokumai) in the rice cooker.
I had 30 minutes in the morning to get things ready.
With my parents staying over I wanted them to have something they could eat as breakfast/brunch as well.
Also, I had three large eggs that had cracked between the store where they were purchased and my home. They needed to be used immediately.
I made the uninspired decision of making another rice cooker frittata and stayed faithful to Maki's recipe (except for some thinly sliced red onion, which I couldn't resist adding).
I should feel embarrassed about this lack of variation, but the frittata is so good and easy to make that I couldn't resist it. And I wanted my parents to try some too.
I worked in this order:
Empty the rice cooker by filling up the bento box tiers with the rice and zakkokumai mix.
Cut the vegetables for the frittata and fry them up. Beat the eggs, add parmesan and put the mixture into the rice cooker (I used the 'quick' setting). Ten minutes to cut and fry the vegetables and 20 minutes in the cooker.
I still had a few cucumber pickles from the day before and I cut some more cucumber pieces, sprinkled a little salt on them, left them for 5 minutes, rinsed and squeezed them dry before mixing them up with the previous batch so that they could marinade in the same dressing. I like the combination of lighter and stronger tasting cucumber pickles.
As well as some 'standard' cabbage kimchi from the same packet I used on Monday, I also opened up a packet of radish kimchi and cut some of these small radishes up. They looked very cute. Sliced they looked like kimchi takuan.
Mini tomatoes just got dropped in.
So in all, pretty much the same as yesterday, but with just enough variation for it to hold my interest.
My husband had an extra tier of rice (three tiers in all) as he has a longer shift today. He also had a couple of micro packets of furikake, different flavours, to take with him.
I used an 80cm furoshiki for this extra large 3 tier monster.
I had the usual two tiers.
I left my parents and daughter with half a frittata, salad items, some boiled potatoes from the day before as well as bread and rice. I don't think they'll remember the kimchi is there too.
Five people fed - not bad for 30 minutes work.