GF Strategies

Yesterday I tried a new thing: Burritos wrapped in brown-rice tortillas. Usually I make quesadillas, but you gotta switch it up sometimes, right? Anyway, they were really fragile by lunchtime. La Primera didn't care, but La Segunda brought hers home in a delicate state, mostly uneaten. (I ate it, though. Yum!)

Some GF products, such as brown-rice tortillas or brown-rice pasta, are very delicious. For instance, with brown-rice pasta you get the benefits of whole grains AND the chewiness of regular pasta, which whole-wheat pasta lacks. (In fact, many of my non-GF friends have switched to brown-rice pasta; it's that good.) The downside of gluten-free products is that--well, there's no gluten! Gluten holds things together even in wet conditions. GF foods don't hold up as long. Biscotti will break off when dunked in coffee. Soup noodles and pasta salads will taste good the next day, but the noodles will have broken into smaller pieces. Brown rice tortillas filled with moist ingredients will soon become fragile.

You can still make all these dishes, just adjust your strategy. Wrap burritos in parchment and instruct your diner to leave it wrapped and just fold down the paper as they go. Or instead of burritos, send quesadillas and put beans and salsa on the side. For pasta salads, boil the noodles the night before and chill them, then mix the salad in the morning. You can also add chilled noodles to individual servings of hot soup to cool the soup and warm the noodles. Those nice Vietnamese rice papers make great roll-ups, as long as the fillings are fairly dry and the dip is on the side. As for biscotti and cookies--well, just dunk carefully! GF takes a little forethought, but once you are used to it, it's a breeze!

Assembly Line Lunch

Five in one blow: Sushi with brown rice, asparagus and avocado; steamed greens with soy sauce and sesame seeds; grapes; carrots. Mango gelatin on the side (not pictured).

Yes, I finally made a Japanese-style lunch with sushi in it. What took so long? Well, the nori I have on hand is not the best, but I needed something that would be good on a hot day, could be made ahead, and didn't require me to shop again. I was making lunch for the masses today, so it made sense to do the sushi and greens last night, then assemble it all in the morning. The silicone cups keep the flavors separate and also keep the nori rolls dry. For lunches, I leave the nori rolls uncut; it travels better that way, and is less likely to be distributed to everyone who asks for a piece ; )  (As a safety note, some smaller people find nori hard to bite and chew--you should definitely cut their sushi up.)

Sushi is a flexible lunch option. It can be filled with a variety of vegetables, or shrimp, or even tuna salad. You can roll it, as above. You can make chirashi sushi, which is sushi rice with the "fillings" on top. You can even make pressed sushi: Line a container with plastic wrap or parchment and layer warm rice, then fillings, then more warm rice. Press it down to fuse the layers, then cut it into shapes; it is like little sandwiches. The other great thing about sushi is that, once you have everything assembled, you can roll lots of them in a short time, so it's good for days when you are making LOTS of lunches.

Here is a great instructional video by a raw-food chef using a parsnip "rice" in the sushi. His instructions for making tight rolls are great. And parsnip "rice" really is delicious, by the way!

http://therawchef.com/therawchefblog/raw-food-recipe-sushi

GF Granola Revealed!

One of the hardest things about going GF/corn-syrup-free is breakfast. For me, anyway. What does this have to do with bento? Well, if I'm making lunch, I don't want to be making breakfast at the same time. You have to draw the line somewhere or you'll just turn into a crazy person. Cereal is easy, but most GF cereals are expensive. My husband, bless him, would make eggs or Cream of Buckwheat or miso soup in the morning. But he has to get ready, too. Our kitchen is too small for everyone to be in there making their own breakfast. What to do? Then, two days ago I made an amazing discovery in the Indian section of the grocery store: Poha.

Poha is precooked, rolled and dried rice flakes used to make quick and savory Indian breakfasts. It has been around for ages, of course, but the light bulb never went off before. For you see, it has the perfect dimensions to for granola, and it is pretty cheap. Hooray! And yesterday the temperature dropped from the mid-90s to the mid-60s, the perfect conditions to turn on the oven. Clearly, the granola gods were pointing the way. Last night I made an "imperial buttload" (to use one of my husband's units of measure) of granola. It will not only make a good breakfast, but can be sent as a snack in the kids' lunch bags!

There are only three components in granola: Dry stuff, syrup and dried fruit. Dry stuff is your bulk, syrup is your glue/sweetener, and dried fruit provides little treats. You add the dried fruit at the end or it turns into little rocks in the oven.

How to make granola: Mix a bunch of dry stuff together in a bowl--leave plenty of room for mixing. Melt honey and oil in a saucepan for the syrup; you can use other sweeteners as well. Toss the syrup with the dry stuff. Toast the raw granola in the oven on cookie sheets at about 325*. (You may need to do this in several batches so as not to crowd the pan.) You will need to stir the granola every 10 minutes or so to help it toast evenly. When it is toasted to your liking, pour it into a big bowl to cool. It will still be slightly soft and damp when warm--this is a good time to toss in salt and cinnamon. Once all the granola is cooked and cooled, you can stir in the dried fruit and put it into a sealed container. Yum!

Here's what I used in this batch--of course, I just chucked things into a big bowl without measuring, and you could do the same. Just use what you have and like. I didn't add cinnamon or nutmeg this time, just a bit of salt:

~1 pound of Bob's Red Mill oatmeal
~1 pound of thick Poha flakes
several big handfuls of raw sunflower seeds
~1 pound of dry coconut
handfuls of flax seed
~1/4 cup coconut oil + 1 splash sesame oil (you can use any mild oil you have on hand)
~1 cup honey (for this amount of stuff, that made a mildly sweet granola)
dried, sweetened orange-flavored cranberries

I have used dry Cream of Buckwheat, but it's granular, not flakey--Poha is so much better. You can also add any kinds of seeds you like such as chia or sesame, and chopped nuts. For the dried fruit, you may need to cut it into smaller pieces.

Reality check here: La Segunda has decided that she hates granola. *Sigh*  But La Primera and her father are very pleased, and that's good enough for me.

Apologies to All!

Gee, I love everyone's comments! So sorry I never respond; it's not that I don't want to, I just haven't figured out how. The instructions at Blogger don't seem to work for me. But please keep those comments coming, and thanks to everyone for your support! Sending warm-sushi-rice love to you all!

Love, Mom

Meat & Potatoes & Black-Eyed Peas

Mmmmmm...Scotch eggs, potato salad, olives, pickles, carrots.

Sometimes you just have to get fancy. I made scotch eggs for dinner and saved out a couple for lunch. Mr. Meat-and-Potatoes (that's the guy I married) was thrilled. They are actually not hard to make, just a bit fiddly. They come out better made with small eggs or quail eggs, if you can get them. One of the kids complained that I did not devil the eggs, too. If you're feeling like your cholesterol needs a little extra boost, by all means, devil the eggs. And, sure, I'll have a bite. Otherwise, if you are good at timing eggs, just undercook them a bit so the yolk stays creamier.

Vegans, do not dispair! Just think "falafel" with stuffing! For instance, you could use felafel mix, or leftover lentils-and-rice, or maybe mashed potatoes with a little flour mixed in. Season to taste and wrap it around a small button mushroom, or some cooked eggplant, or a cherry tomato, or tofu-kan colored yellow with turmeric--anything that makes a pretty surprise inside when it's cut open. The pre-cooked filling is not just to be pretty--it's so you can cook the coating to perfection without worrying that the middle is raw.

My absolute favorite bean fritter is Akara:

Akara (African felafel)

Soak some black-eyed peas until they're plumped up, all day or overnight. Grind them in the food processor until smooth with salt and any spices you want. Cumin is always a good one. At the last minute, add some flavorings such as chopped onion, chopped red pepper, parsley and/or cilantro and pulse a few times to incorporate them but not completely break them down. The vegetables should be no more than about 1/4 of the total mass.

You should now have a stiffish batter. Shape the batter into patties or balls. We prefer patties because there's more crispiness, and you can be sure the inside is cooked before the outside is burned. An ice cream scoop works great for quickly shaping many same-sized portions. Fry in the oil of your people, or bake if you prefer. These are so good you will not believe you never ate them before. Way better than felafel, imho.

If you want a "real" recipe, there are many on the 'net. Here's one to get you started: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/saras-secrets/akara-recipe/index.html

Layout Fun

Hummus, grape leaves, celery, apples. GF pretzels and sliced mango not shown.

We eat a lot of hummus. It's delicious, nutritious, easy to make ahead, easy to transport, and is a great vehicle for increasing consumption of raw vegetables and fruits, plus it's quickly made from ingredients on hand. You can't go wrong. So, how do we keep it interesting? We change up the dippers; besides obvious ones like carrots, celery and pepper strips, there are peeled broccoli stems, mild radishes or turnips, or snap peas, to name just a few. It gets a bit thin in winter, but come spring the variety is endless. And, of course, we love the sweet-tart-crispiness of apple slices.

There were not many dipper options on hand this morning; luckily there was a can of grape leaves on the shelf. To make it interesting I laid out the components in a pattern of perpendicular stripes; I put the celery next to the grape leaves since they are sometimes oily, which is not bad for celery, but not great for apples. Apple slices cut in eighths look nice laid out this way, and you can fit more of them into the box. (In fact, if you are packing a container with an entire apple--that is, eight pieces--try cutting both a red and a green apple so you can alternate red and green stripes.) Little touches like these are fun for the packer and for the diner, and they take only a few more seconds.

Small Acts of Love

As I bid my husband goodbye this morning and handed him his lunch, he was quiet for a second, then had a recollection from many years ago. It seems he and his brother George were in high school and stopped at his sister's for coffee. As she chatted with them, she warmed the mugs with hot water before pouring their coffee. It was a small gesture, but an act of love both so unassuming as to be easily overlooked, yet so powerful that to this day the recollection reminds him how much his sister loves him.

There are many small ways to show people we love them. Maybe warming their coffee mug. Maybe making them gelatin. The heart of bento, for me, is not to make the prettiest lunch or the most nutritious. The heart of bento is to send something tangible but ephemeral that, even though it will be physically gone in a short time, will always remind your diner that they are loved.