Thursday 22nd July
My husband and I decided to take it easy yesterday evening. The weather was still warm and balmy so we had a cold ramen dish - but without the ramen. We used a good quality dried spaghetti instead. Once cooked, drained and rinsed in cold water, I added a 'mince' mixture made from finely chopped fried onion with finely chopped courgette/zuchini, a few tablespoons of Quorn mince and then a couple of tablespoons of Ja Jiang/Zha jiang sauce. I thinned it out a little adding stock and potato starch. This mince mixture was spooned over the pasta together with finely cut cucumbers (which I can't seem to get enough of lately). We decided to try it with sliced tomatoes also and the combination of all three with the pasta was really tasty.
My father had made us a summer pudding from a recipe by Delia Smith the day before and it was delicious with some Cornish clotted cream.
http://www.waitrose.com/recipe/Delia%27s_English_summer_pudding.aspx
We rounded off the evening watching Ratatouille which I hadn't seen before.
Lazy, lazy evening. I really was in no mood to do any prep work for a bento and left it all for the morning.
Tier 1
Quinoa with cucumbers, tomatoes, avocado and fish cake slices dressed in a lime,fish sauce and sweet chilli dressing
Tier 2
Delia's summer pudding with clotted cream
To start:
Cooked a small portion of Quinoa in the rice cooker.
Meanwhile, I cut up the marinaded cucumber I had still remaining from Wednesday's Bento, chopped up a tomato, chopped a leftover avocado half and tossed these in a marinade made from a teaspoon of sweet chili sauce, a sprinkle of sugar, the juice of half a lime and a few generous glugs of Vietnamese fish sauce. I added the drained vegetables to the cooked quinoa and mixed in some sliced cuttle fish balls which my husband had bought for me the day before at a Chinese grocery store (I've a huge weakness for many of the surimi fish paste products that are popular in Japan and other parts of Eastern Asia. To prepare them I rinse them in boiling water a couple of times to get rid of excess oil, which can taste a bit rancid)
This made up the first tier of the bento. It looked really pretty.
The second tier was a generous portion of the summer pudding my father prepared with clotted cream.
Time taken
20 minutes (including cooking time for the quinoa - 1 part quinoa to 2 parts water on the quick rice setting. We use a brand that requires no pre-rinsing)