shrimp | mulberryshoots

September 5, 2016

bento box lunch prep ideas . . .

found on google bento box photos. . .

So here we are on Labor Day, the Monday before a full week of school for a lot of folks. One of the ideas I had for my daughter’s lunches (she teaches high school French) was to give her an insulated bento box that I found on Amazon (where else?) Along with it was a very cute recipe book to make rice cakes (onigiri) wrapped in nori and such. Very appealing but might be too much effort for busy people getting ready for school!

Today, I woke up thinking about (really) quick and easy ways to do a master prep to provide lunch food ahead of time, drawing from ready made dishes from Whole Foods or one’s local Chinese take-out or Trader Joe’s. So, here’s some ideas to simplify as well as to expand one’s way of thinking about making bento box lunches to take to work or school. The secret is that you don’t have to do everything yourself! YAY!

The idea is to make or buy a batch of something and divide it into serving sizes on your work table. Then, package a lunch up in a heavy duty Glad freezer bag and freeze them. Take them out in the morning, pop them into your bento box and by the time you’re ready to eat lunch (unless it’s at 10:30 in the morning because school starts so early,) it should be ready to go. Might have to nuke it a little to bring to room temp though I’m not sure about that. So here goes my imaginary lunch sous chef prep ideas:

BUY from Whole Foods in small portions for the week: 1. salad bar yummy fare: edamame salad, pickled beets, cherry tomato salad, chick peas, etc. 2. barbecued chicken wings; 3. piece of cooked salmon; 4. avocado to ripen, cherry tomatoes, eggs
BUY from your favorite Chinese carryout: fried rice, veggie lo mien, moo shu without the pancakes
COOK: 1. boil up some frozen shrimp (16-25 size) or skillet cook with a little teriyaki sauce; 2. Trader Joe’s Thai shrimp dumplings; 3. hard boiled eggs; 4. cucumber/wakame salad (dress with Japanese vinegar, soy, sesame oil

With these ready-made, carry-out and home-cooked ingredients, then apportion combinations that will be appetizing and also avoid monotony. Pack up in freezer sandwich bags. Seal and you’re good to go. At least for a couple of weeks – then you can get pad thai from the Thai restaurant, chicken nuggets, and slaw or other veggies from Whole Foods.

And maybe somewhere along the line, try your hand at making rice balls. It seems labor intensive to me because the secret to delicious rice balls is the filling or condiments you add to it. There’s a little Japanese tea sandwich place in Brookline that makes a delicious rice ball. I have no idea what’s in it but the tastes are so subtle, I don’t think you just get it out of a jar.

In the meantime, here is a photoarray of bento box photos that might inspire you with new combinations – I find it useful to see visuals for ideas. And adding a couple of cherry tomatoes, some hard-boiled egg, avocado slices and a little fresh fruit goes a long way.

Hope these ideas are convenient enough to pull off. The idea of bento box lunches is to provide a concept for healthy and fun lunches – not to slave over how to prepare food for them all week, right?

Enjoy!

Footnote: Here are directions from the Food Network for boiling eggs:

Soft:
Bring a pot of water to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to low, then add your eggs and cook 4 to 5 minutes. Drain, cool in ice water and peel.
Medium:
Bring a pot of water to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to low, then add your eggs and cook 7 to 8 minutes. Drain, cool in ice water and peel.
Hard:
Place your eggs in a pot and cover with cold water by 1 inch. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then cover, remove from the heat and set aside 8 to 10 minutes. Drain, cool in ice water and peel.

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January 23, 2014

soba noodles . . .

We’re having a cold snap this week with temperatures hovering around zero outdoors. When this happens, I start rummaging around in the pantry and fridge to see what I can make for dinner that’s appetizing and filling so that I won’t have to go to the store. I found myself back on Pinterest last night, after a few months away and came upon some scrumptious looking photos of soba noodles. They’re Japanese noodles made from buckwheat. Sure enough in my pantry, I found a sleeve of green soba noodles made with mugwort (whatever that is.) On another note, I have a friend who has been writing to me about making herbal infusions with herbs such as nettles and oatgrass so I was right in the mood for using these mugwort soba noodles (turns out mugwort is an artimesia family herb with tonifying qualities.)

In the fridge, I found a package of fresh shitake mushrooms, baby spinach, scallions, two good sized florets of broccoli and half a head of baby cabbage. I knew that I also had a treasure trove (to me at least!) of large frozen shrimp in the freezer that I draw from in times like this. I took out about half a dozen shrimp and set them in a bowl of water to defrost. Now, I had a melange of appealing ingredients (see photo above.)

Next, I went to Pinterest and typed in “soba noodle recipes” in the “Search” box. Scrolling through numerous tempting combinations, I soon recognized that I had too many ingredients to make one dish. I could make the shrimp into crispy tempura and serve on the side of a simpler soba noodle dish; or I could cook the noodles and then add lightly cooked shitake mushrooms, broccoli and scallions–or have a cleaner tasting, simpler shaved raw cucumber and raw shitake mushrooms atop soba noodles dressed in a light sauce. I was happy to see that the teriyaki sauce that I made a couple of weeks ago which I still have a little bit left of, would be a tasty condiment to add to dashi broth. I also remembered a NYTimes clinical article months ago about a rare allergic (appeared neurological!) reaction to undercooked shitake mushrooms.

broccoli and shitake mushrooms

So, here’s what I think I’m going to make: leave the shrimp in their shells, dry them and saute them briefly with garlic, ginger and scallions with a little teriyaki sauce added just at the end. In a separate pan, saute sliced shitake mushrooms with broccoli and shallot, chopped thin. Make a dashi broth and add a little teriyaki seasoning. Cook the soba noodles in boiling water and drain well. Slip the soba noodles into individual large soup bowls filled with the dashi broth and fresh baby spinach. Serve the shrimps on the side to be eaten in their savory sauce.

shrimp with garlic, scallions, ginger and mirin

All this just to keep from going outside and going to the store! I’ll bet there are a few more variations that we could try in a few days: a broth with cooked spinach and cabbage, and so on.

soba noodles in dashi broth with fresh baby spinach

Oh, and while the afternoon sun was still shining in through the skylights, I decided to use a half bag of Macoun apples from the pantry to make an open faced apple pie for dessert.

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April 9, 2013

clean up! cook in! . . .

sticky rice cooking beside chinese chives, bitter melon, bean sprouts, cilantro, ground pork, shrimp and cucumbers

sticky rice cooking beside chinese chives, bitter melon, bean sprouts, cilantro, shrimp and cucumbers

Okay, so today is a gloriously sunny day with a nice breeze outside which can only mean one thing: strip the bed of our winter flannel sheets with colorful fish printed on them, wash a fresh mattress cover, then wash our usual white damask sheets and pillowcases and hang them all out on the clothesline to dry. The turnover from flannel sheets to fragrant cotton sheets dried in the sun feels just right for today.

In the kitchen, the rice cooker is already steaming, making its way to heavenly, aromatic sticky rice that will become more tender as the day goes by. I rummaged around in the fridge because about five days ago, I stopped by the 88 Asian food market when I went into town for a doctor appointment, and went wild for fresh greens all of which cost under a dollar or two: a huge bunch of fresh cilantro, chinese chives, two medium sized bitter melon, three tiny Portuguese cucumbers, fresh watercress, scallion and fresh bean sprouts which usually wilt and go bad before I get around to using them. But, not TODAY!, she says. One of my pet peeves with myself is being too ambitious while buying groceries and then not carrying through to cook everything while they are still fresh.

So, here goes. My plan this afternoon is to:

Make bitter melon stuffed with ground pork and shrimp:
Prepare the bitter melon by cutting them lengthwise and removing the seeds and spongey insides; slice the cleaned halves into 2-3 inch pieces. Chop three large, raw shrimp and add to fresh ground pork. Add chopped green onion, soy, sherry, cornstarch and an egg. Mix well. Heat up a skillet and add grapeseed oil. Scoop up the stuffing mixture into the pieces of melon, then place them stuffing side face down into to the hot oil until nicely browned. Carefully turn them over with a spatula and cook the remaining pieces of squash and stuffing. When all the pieces have been browned and turned over to the melon side, add half a can of chicken broth and cover the pan with a lid. Simmer for twenty minutes or until the squash is cooked through and soft. Hold at room temperature until ready to serve.

browning stuffed bitter melon pieces

steaming bitter melon in chicken broth

For dinner, I’ll combine three organic eggs from the egg farm in Concord (on the way to the 1st doctor appt.,) chopped scallion pieces, cleaned shrimp cut into bite size pieces, fresh watercress and cilantro leaves; a handful of fresh bean sprouts, mix the whole thing together and fry pancake size fritters in a good sized skillet with sizzling grapeseed oil. Turn them over when golden brown and crisp, then fry on the other side until the choice shrimp pieces turn pink. Drain on paper towels. Serve with an oyster and soy sauce dipping combo diluted with a little water and with a little seasoned Marukan vinegar. The sauce makes the whole shrimp/egg crunchy melange taste wonderful.

shrimp/bean sprout/egg fritters in the frying pan

Served with sticky rice, the shrimp/beansprout fritters are the main dish; while the tender bitter melon with stuffing adds its own texture to the meal.

tonight’s supper!

Now, I feel a little less irresponsible for buying so many great fresh things–my eyes being bigger than figuring when we were going to eat it all before it spoiled. We will never starve, I think to myself, because all the groceries and little bits of pork and shrimp combined probably cost no more than eight to ten dollars! Tomorrow, I’ll saute the Chinese chives with 5 spice pressed tofu and char sui and make a tiny cucumber salad. For the next few days, we’ll have some tender leftover drunken chicken dipped in oyster sauce, stuffed bitter melon, pressed tofu and chinese chives and, of course, a fresh batch of sticky rice. I probably won’t have to cook again until the weekend!

On a nice Spring day like today, though, it’ll be a treat to have freshly laundered sheets on the bed and tasty morsels to pick and choose from on the kitchen table.

We are fortunate and we give thanks.