Dinner in a Box

After such an outrageously delicious weekend, I was not very hungry, but still graved something different.

My answer? A Bento box.

So instead of eating something very special, I presented simple, ordinary food in my cute little bento box. A quick dinner it was too, apart from eating, because I don't use chopsticks very often at all!

I filled my marine blue box halves with rice, carrots, courgette and mushrooms. It looks a lot, but really was just the perfect portion size. Since I was eating at home and did not need to pack it tightly, as usually is the case with bento, I filled the lid with some fruits for dessert.

Yes, it is more dishes than one plate, but variety is the spice of life and if that means eating from a box sometimes, so be it.

French Weekend

This weekend I've had the pleasure to spend a lot of time with French friends. Thursday evening it was wine, foie gras, terrine and tiny duck sausages. All very good. I cannot remember the name of the white wine, but it was very sweet. The red was Châteauneuf-du-Pape. On Friday we had a small barbeque of sausages despite the rain, more wine, baguette, French moustard, cheese and salami.

Saturday we went to the city center, first some blonde Belgian beer in Porterhouse and then dinner in Da Pino, Parliament Str. It was a very nice, lovely little restaurant. I had bruchetta for starters, so did the guys. And a strawberry daquiri too. Then green pasta with a creamy salmon sauce. So good! To finish all off I had an after-dinner cocktail called Japanese Sleeper.

The rest of the evening was spent back in the Porterhouse with Belgian raspberry beer Floris ..finally got my raspberry. The guys had "proper" beers. On Sunday afternoon our culinary weekend ended in Burger King. But even so, they do make nice frites.

The Irish weather favoured us too, in a way. Ok, for mid-July it was not the best, but at least the only heavy rain fall was on Sunday. Which in Dublin, is pretty good.

There's no photos at all from the entire weekend, sorry.. Only great memories. :)

Crêpes

My grandmother is the best crêpe-maker I've ever known. Hers always turned out beautifully lacy and crispy on the edges with just the perfect saltiness. I aspire to learn the skill she had.

So today I made savoury crêpes for lunch and sweet ones for dessert.


Crêpes

Egg
Milk
Flour
Oat Flakes
Salt

1. Whisk egg and milk lightly. Add salt, flour and oat flakes.
2. Let stand for a while.


Crêpes with oven-roasted Vegetables

Aubergine
Courgette
Mushroom
Leek
Oil
Parsley, Chive

1. Slice and chop the aubergine and courgette, halve the mushrooms. Keep aubergines separate.
2. Drizzle some oil over the chopped vegetables, spice with pepper and herb mix.
3. Roast in the oven. 200C. Aubergines for 20 minutes. Courgettes and mushrooms for 10 minutes. I threw in some leeks as well with the courgettes and finely chopped some extra ones to sprinkle over the crêpe while it was cooking on the other side to integrate with the crêpe.
4. Put a crêpe on a plate, cover with roasted vegetables, sprinkle some chopped parsley and chives on top and layer with another crêpe and vegetables. Repeat as many times as necessary depending on the size of your crêpes and tower you want to create.



Sweet Crêpes

Blueberry Jam
Vanilla Ice Cream

Top some warm crêpes with jam and ice cream, cover with a crêpe and serve.


In memory of my grandmother who passed away July 4th 2009.

Rice with Avocado

I'm continuing with my easy Japanese influenced theme. Today for lunch I made rice with avocado and cucumber. So simple! And yet, definitive Japan-esque flavour! Credits to this quick and good student-like dish go to my big sister.

I love this tiny gem lettuce, the perfect lettuce size for a single person. They're so small, you won't have any leftover lettuce going brown in the fridge!


Rice with Avocado

Rice
Avocado
Cucumber
Little Gem Lettuce
Soya Sauce

1. Cook rice. I used a mix of Basmati rice and porridge rice so the result was stickier and closer to sushi rice.
2. Peel and chop avocado. Chop cucumber.
3. After rice is ready, drizzle some soya sauce (Kikkoman Less Salt) over it. Add the avocado, cucumber and lettuce to get some greens on your plate.

I'm sure this could be fancied up with some low-fat fish or seafood. Or just adding nori.

Misoish Soup

I've been wanting to go to a Japanese restaurant here in Dublin, but sadly as it is, I cannot afford to eat in restaurants at the moment.

I've got some tofu in the refrigerator and thought about trying miso soup. I have no miso or dashi however, so I just threw in things I do have to create a small resemblance to the real soup. Of course the flavour is not quite there without actual miso, but in midst of recession one must make do with less. Even so, it was very good.


Misoish Soup

Tofu
Noodles
Leek
Carrot
Parsley
Vegetable stock