Hello ladies,
I've noticed that alot of my fellow sisters here are vegetarian or vegan. I must admit that I am a meat eater. I don't eat a lot of meat but nonetheless I do eat it. Now that summer is fast approaching I tend not to eat any meat and tend to consume a lot more fish, fruits, vegetables and grains because they're lighter, faster and easier to cook during the hot weather. I broke out my Bento boxes this past weekend and thought of you ladies.
Bento boxes are small, traditional Japanese lunch boxes. You can get a lot in a bento box such as rice balls, a variety of vegetables (i.e. spicy miso asparagus), fish rolls, fruit, etc. Depending on the type of day that I may have ahead of me I will carry 3 or 4 of these boxes with me. They're small meals that are packed with nutrition, vitamins, flavor and goodness.
The idea of these handy little containers is a good one. You can actually 'create' your own bento box by packing a 1 to 2qt. gladware or ziplock container with your own favorite foods. Check out youtube for some how to videos. Check out ebay if you're interested in actually purchasing bento boxes or just google bento boxes to check other sites that offer them as well as bento box recipes (www.justbento.com, www.globalgourmet.com/food/special/bentobox). The following recipe is from justbento.com and one of my favourites.
Recipe: Spicy Miso Marinated Green Asparagus (from justbento.com)
500g or about 1 pound of green asparagus, tough parts cut off and cut into even pieces
4 Tbs. finely chopped spring onions
1/2 Tbs. oil
1 tsp. doubanjang (Chinese/Sichuan red chili paste), or a similar red chili paste
2 Tbs. red miso (or whatever miso you have)
1/2 Tbs. brown sugar
2 Tbs. mirin
a little water
Cook the asparagus in boiling salted water until crisp-tender. (To cook them evenly, put the stalks in first, cook for a few minutes, then add the tips and cook for 2-3 minutes more.) Drain and run under cold water to stop the cooking and to fix the green color. Drain well.
In the meantime, sauté the chopped onions in the oil until limp. Add the red chili paste and stir. Add the sugar and mirin, then add the miso. If it gets a bit stuck to the pan, add a few drops of water and stir and scrape to deglaze the pan. Take off the heat.
Add the aspargus and mix well so each piece is coated with the marinade. Layer into glass or ceramic bowl or container (not plastic, because the miso and chili will stain it) evenly. Cover with kitchen parchment paper, then put another bowl or container filled with water; this acts as a weight. Here I’ve used two identical glass bowls; the asparagus is layered in one, covered with parchment paper, then weighted down with the other bowl which is filled with water.
Leave the asparagus to marinate for at least an hour - you can leave it in the refrigerator overnight. Take off the weight and store the asparagus in a tightly covered container.
The asparagus will keep for a couple of days in the refrigerator, but it will gradually lose its green color so you should try to eat it up as soon as possible. This is not that hard to do. (It’s pretty good mixed with hot pasta.)
You can halve the amount of marinade, and marinade just half a bundle of asparagus and use the rest of the cooked stalks for dinner.
Notes:
Many cuisines call for a red chili paste of some sort. Here I’ve used doubanjang, which is a Chinese (Sichuang) chili paste; you can find it at Asian/Chinese or Japanese grocery stores (in Japan it’s called toubanjang and is written 豆板醤). You could substitute harissa or other red chili paste here. (At one point I had two kinds of harissa, two kinds of doubanjang, and a Hungarian chili paste in the fridge, which was a bit much.) Korean kochujang is a bit less intense, so you may want to double the amount to 2 teaspoons if you use that.
