La petite biscotte

Contents

• Quick Mac’n Cheese (scroll down for recipe)
• Japanese Rice
• Red Bean Burgers (scroll down for recipe)
• Chicken sausages in octopus form (didn’t work very well, more about that later though)
• Tamagoyaki

When we decided to prepare a bento this morning we wanted to use up a few things that gathered up in the fridge: rice, pasta, sausages and some grated cheese. Grated cheese and pasta made me think of a quick mac’n cheese immediately. I decided to add a Tamagoyaki (rolled Japanese omelette) and octopus shaped chicken sausages. Unfortunately when I decided to use the octopus cutter I once ordered from ebay, I should have probably guessed that the cutting is supposed to be done before the cooking/frying of the sausages, so the shape can expand over heat :p Well well, the sausages do look extraordinarily amateurish but they still tasted good!

After finishing the above described components I thought that something was still missing. And I remembered a recipe I had seen on Maki’s blog (Just Bento) recently: black bean vegan burgers. I loved the idea immediately because I’m not really that much of a meat eater (especially minced meat). Unfortunately I didn’t have time to look up her recipe again, so I tossed something together myself and I’m quite happy with the result. The only thing I’d change in retrospect: buy a bottle of ketchup before making the burgers :p

Another thing that bothered me is that I didn’t get to pack more vegetables. I wanted to use up most of the left overs from the fridge so I didn’t really have a great choice, but next time I’m definately packing more green stuff!

Quick Mac’n Cheese

Ingredients

• 2 cups of cooked pasta (can be left overs, heat them up quickly in the microwave in that case)
• 1/2 Tbsp butter
• 1 generous Tbsp low-fat crème fraîche
• 2-3 Tbsp grated cheese (I used gruyère)
• salt, pepper
• 5 cherry tomatoes, cut in a half

Preparation

1. Melt the butter in a small pan over medium heat
2. Add the pasta and toss a little to cover with the butter
3. Add the crème fraîche and stirr well
4. Sprinkle with the grated cheese and sirr the pasta. Keep heating the pasta until the cheese is melted.
5. Season to taste.
6. Add the cherry tomatoes towards the end and remove the pasta from the heat.
7. Serves 2.

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Red Bean Burgers (adapted from Just Hungry)

Ingredients

• 400g canned red beans
• 1 shallot, finely chopped
• 1 tsp curry powder
• salt and pepper
• 2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp miso-paste
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• ketchup or tomato sauce to garnish

Preparation

1. In a food processor combine canned beans, shallot, curry powder, flour and miso paste. Blend until you have a rough paste (don’t blend too much). If you don’t have a food processor you can crush the beans with a masher or a spoon as well, it’s what I did.
2. Taste the paste a little and add salt and pepper to taste.
3. Cut off a piece of clingfilm and cover your hand with it. Spoon approx. 1/5 or 1/4 (depending of how big you want the burgers) of the bean paste on the clingfilm. Close the clingfilm and form a burger with your hands. Repeat until you’ve used up all the paste.
4. Heat up the olive oil in a nonstick pan over medium heat. Put the burgers in the pan and fry until golden brown.
5. Garnish with a little ketchup or tomato sauce to go with the burgers.

Makes 4-5 burgers.