Leaning Vegetarian

Posts Tagged ‘lunch’

I’d had this sambal when I lived in BC, and found it less fiery than the Sriracha sauce. I tend to forget that this difference is trivial for the rest of the crew here that likes spice but not fire, so my ‘oh, you’ve gotta try this!’ resulted in a number of spectacular dives for the soy milk and yogurt. The consensus was that it was a really tasty chile sauce – in a somewhat smaller quantity.

This dish made up another easy-to-prepare lunch. I’d never popped mustard seeds in a pan before – but I’d caught the Alternative Vegan podcast by Dino* where he emphasized adding the mustard seeds to hot oil to pop and release their full flavor, and thought I’d try it.

I added a half an onion, a large clove of garlic, both chopped, and sauteed those until the onions were soft. Then I added the lentils from the freezer.

Since this is just me eating it, I drizzled a couple good spoonfuls of sambal over the top, and a couple dollops of greek yogurt. If it’s too garlicky (if there is such a thing), well, my officemate is off tomorrow and I have no meetings.

* Lots of good information packed in these podcasts – go listen.

Lentils are fabulously quick, so this was another pick for brown bagging.  These are plain green lentils, though red lentils would substitute just fine.

To start, rinse the lentils a few times and pick through to make sure there aren’t any rocks. I use the very scientific measurement of a cup of lentils and then water up to the first knuckle on my index finger.

Bring them to a boil:

When they reach a good boil, cover the pot, turn down the heat to very low, and simmer them until they absorb the water and are soft to the bite.

At this point, I let it cool a bit and then put half in the freezer and half in the refrigerator.

To make the curried lentils, we’ll need the lentils (that’s half of the one cup dry we started with) and

1/2 a small onion chopped
chopped ginger to taste (this is about a tablespoonful)
1 clove of garlic, chopped
carrots, chopped  (these tiny ones are from the carrot patch we should have thinned last month)
2-3 tablespoons coconut milk (We had some leftover coconut milk in the freezer – it keeps quite well this way if you don’t use all of a can.)
1 teaspoon green curry paste (ok, here, a generous knifetipful)

Saute the onions and carrots til the onions are a bit transparent, then add the garlic, curry paste, and ginger, and then the rest of the ingredients to the saucepan.

Bring this to a boil, and it’s ready to eat.

Ever since I saw the Breakfast Club I’ve wanted a Bento box like the one Molly Ringwald had. More often than not I’ve had the ANSI-standard brown bag, give or take a half-dozen fractured thermoses (thermi?) from grade school. Or just the OMG-I’ve-overslept three-can-grab: can of tuna, can of fruit, can of pop. If I was particularly together in my mad dash out the door, I’d remember the can opener and possibly even the fork that I’d need to actually eat said lunch.

I move pretty slowly in the morning, so if lunch requires lots of thought or extensive preparation, well, not gonna happen, so my lunch will have to be something that I can assemble the night before.

I love some of the ideas over at Just Bento – Kaela is fond of onigiri and it’s not complex to make. Cook rice (sticky if you have it, otherwise stir regular rice to make it a bit stickier) and cool it enough to handle. If you’ve got some biscuit cutters or other open-topped cookie cutter molds you can use those as a rice mold; we take a plastic sandwich bag and press rice into the corner, tucking a bit of plum sauce or pickled ginger or sesame seeds with finely chopped nori inside. Turn it out of the bag and wrap a strip of nori around one side.

I love soups too, and I’m lucky enough to have a fridge and a microwave in my office.  The miso soup at the top of this page is just a tablespoon of brown miso, a chopped green onion, and hot water. Normally I’d add some small cubes of tofu, too. The components fit nicely in a plastic bag, and then I can add them to my mug of hot water at work.

So far this week’s selections also include a dollop of the quinoa and chickpea pilaf from last week’s leftovers, plus some of the southern peaches that are out now.

This week I’ve checked Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian out of the library and I’m going to be bringing some of the basic lentil dishes for lunch this week. Check back in in a couple of days and we’ll have our attempts written up.