La petite biscotte

During the last two weeks I didn’t get much time to post but I managed to keep reading my favorite blogs and some very interesting things have been posted:

Biggie over at Lunch in a Box updated her link section (click here) with a lot of new bento blogs/sites. Over the past year or two the trend seems to have spread and there are so many bento blogs now, it’s amazing!

For everyone that lives in Europe and especially in France it might be very difficult sometimes to come buy Japanese articles such as bento boxes or cooking utensils. Ichiban Kan is a Japanese discount dollar store that has several subsidiaries all over America. You can get all those great colorful articles from Japan there for very cheap. Unfortunately in Europe there is no such store yet. But luckily thanks to Biggie on Lunch in a Box, I found out that Ichiban Kan is opening an online store. Check out Ichiban Kan’s blog for more info. Bento Toys r Us, yay!

Did you ever hear of furikake? No? (And I’m sorry to disappoint but it’s nothing filthy I’m getting at) Furikake is a topping for rice that can be made ahead of time and stored in the fridge. You can assemble bentos very quickly in the morning with it and most of the time it enhances the looks of the bento greatly. Maki at Just Bento made a few great posts about several furikake recipes. They are a great help, especially if you don’t have much time.

One last AWESOME thing I discovered for bento lovers is this flickr community, which is very active and frequently updated with bento pictures. There are so many that you couldn’t watch all of them in a whole day! Me likes.

That’s it so far, more to come soon!

Exams take their toll on students, not only mentally but actually physically as well. Personally, I have to ressort to take-out / fast food / sandwiches just to be able to eat anything (we really have that little time). I really loath this and I feel unhealthy during this period: I’m tired, don’t have much energy and am simply unsatisfied after every meal.

I’m still trying to squeeze in a bento every now and then and I wouldn’t be able to do so without my speed tips:

1. Plan your bento on the way home from work.
When you take the bus or the car to drive back home you probably have a minute or two to yourself. Use that time to plan your bento! Think about what you have in the fridge, what needs to be used, what you FEEL like eating and compose your imaginary bento. If necessary you can even stop by the supermarket and fetch a few ingredients on the way.

2. Cook more or cook in advance.
Once you come home you’ll have to eat anyway, so why not make more of what you eat tonight so you can put some in your bento for tomorrow (given the fact that you make something preservable)? That’s catching two birds with one stone. If you have the main dish already ready for your bento, the other components come together really quickly. There are also great dishes that can be cooked in advance and that preserve really well for up to a week in the fridge. More recipes for such dishes coming soon.

3. The principle of 3.
My bentos mostly have 3 components: Main dish, side dish, additions (decoration/dessert/condiments). If you think like that you are limited in the number of dishes you have to put together, which will prevent you from drifting away too much and cooking up too many things. Try to keep it simple and don’t stuff your bento with too many things, you can always get fancier when you have time.

4. Think about your bentos while shopping.
You can buy great things that are available in every supermarket to stuff your bentos quickly. A few examples: cherry tomatoes, little cheeses, canned foods (say what you want, I don’t find it a shame to use a canned foods once in a while), pickles, frozen vegetables (can be steamed quickly in the microwave), nuts, sweets or crackers in satchets, grapes etc. The trick is, you must stimply think about picking those things up while you shop.

5. Freeze in portions.
When you have rice left over (while it’s still hot) or any other type of food that freezes well, don’t just stuff everything in one bag. Measure 1-cup portions and freeze them individually. This will speed things up greatly because there is nothing more time consuming than trying to chop off one portion from a frozen chunk.

I’m actually never quite satisfied with the amount of vegetables and fruit that I manage to eat in a day. Normally one is supposed to eat five portions of fruit/vegetables a day of which at least three should be fresh. Beside there are other things like yogurt or nuts that are said to be good for the health too. The list of things a person should consume regularly gets quite long over time and actually one is never sure of the exact health benefits a certain type of food offers.

Overall I doubt that we can already determine exactly how good a certain aliment is for the human, but quite a lot of things are already known to us. And if there is one thing I love then it’s finding out how I can keep myself healthy and maybe even prevent illnesses by eating the right things and apparently a few little adjustments in the diet can already have a major effect.

There is a great site that offers a list of common foods and tells you exactly what nutrients they contain and what effects the particular aliment can have on you. I was quite surprised by a few things on the list and surprisingly I found myself browsing that list for about an hour because it was quite interesting So here is the address:

http://www.whfoods.com/foodstoc.php

The thing that impressed me the most (though I didn’t read through the whole list yet) is definitely green tea. I already knew that it could block cancer but what I didn’t know is that if consumed regularly it can protect from all illnesses including stroke, CVD and kidney diseases. But this is by far not everything, as you’ll be able to see on the list for yourself.
Other things that were quite amazing: tomatoes, peas, apples, yogurt, bell peppers. Although I already eat a lot of tomatoes and bell peppers, I’ll certainly try to include some more of the other aliments into my diet

I’m not quite certain about the green tea. I’m torn between trying to drink it pure, without sugar, just the way people drink it in Asia or actually sweeten it a little. I know that most Japanese will probably find the idea of sweetening tea ridiculous but as much as I’d love to appreciate tea in its basic form it’s just not possible. I’ve tried several times to brew a cup a sencha green tea (standard Japanese green tea) and drink it without sugar. Although it was always quite refreshing, the grassy and slightly bitter taste prevented me from brewing another cup the following day I guess that this is the result from a habit of being too used to sweetened beverages which has always been my problem. With sweetened beverages I don’t necessarily mean lemonade and coke and things like that but rather fruit juices and sweetened teas (like peppermint tea, a tea we drink quite a lot in Germany). I have a really hard time drinking anything that doesn’t have at least a slightly sweet taste… at some point I couldn’t even drink pure water without cringing.

Nevertheless this has improved over the years and I manage to drink water just fine now. However saying that I enjoy drinking unsweetened tea would unfortunately be lying. So if I want to drink green tea on a regular basis, I’ll probably have to make use of the sugar can Anyway, in my next post I’ll post about how to get sensha and how to brew it properly.