Beet-Dyed Egg

 

This jewel-toned egg.

The garnet hue.

But the color goes all the way through the white, and into the yolk too!

This is what happens when you let the egg hang out in the beet juice for a few days. If only overnight, you get a nice red rim around the inside edge when you slice it open.

What should I make with this beauty? ❤

New Bento Box Review: Yumbox

Today's review is on the Yumbox. This box is designed by a pair of moms who wanted (from their website): "a bento-like tray, with one lid that sealed all compartments; designated food groups to encourage and assist parents in packing a balanced meal; built-in portion control; a cool design and illustrations to make this little box more of an adventure in good nutrition than just plain old lunch!" 

The boxes come in a variety of sizes and with different numbers of sections. The one I have has 6 sections; there are other versions with 3 and 4 sections as well. They come decorated with different themes on the bottom of each section, like Pirates, Mermaids, Circus, and Rockets. The theme of mine is Parisian Pink. It's very cute!

The graphics are very colorful and artistic. They are labeled with different food groups, in order to help with balanced and nutritious meal planning. The image is applied to the underside of the plastic so there is no risk of scratching from the food. The inner (clear) plastic compartment is removable for easy cleanups.

Our first bento contains a bunch of different foods, and this type of bento would be ideal for kids who prefer to graze upon smaller portions of lots of variety of foods.

I packed: spiralized zucchini raw "noodles" with fresh off the cob sweet corn and shredded mozzarella cheese, pickled napa cabbage and beets, garlicky smashed cucumber pickles, steamed Okinawan sweet potatoes, purple carrots, peaches with homemade granola, and little chocolate bear cookies because they fit perfectly into the tiny circular section. This box worked very well, kept everything separate, and prevented leaking of any liquid. The latch was easy to use and young kids will have no problem securing and opening it on their own. It would also work well as a snack box for an older child.

The garlic smashed cucumber pickles came from the Lucky Rice Cookbook, authored by Danielle Chang, who came with her crew to film a segment with Happy Little Bento for Lucky Chow a couple months ago. I thought her cookbook might contain lots of fun ideas for packing into bento, and I was right! I'll show you more of them in the future. Happy weekend, friends!

Disclosure: Yumbox generously provided me with this product for use without cost to me. I was not required to write a positive review, nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are my own.

Beet Kohlrabi Latkes Bento

Beet Kohlrabi Latkes Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Kohlrabi: never heard of it? Me neither, but I saw other people buying it at the market so I thought, why not? Latkes I've never made either, but it seemed pretty straightforward. The recipe called for coarsely grated kohlrabi, beet, and onion mixed with a beaten egg and 2 tablespoons of flour, to be formed into round shapes and fried 4-6 minutes on each side. I added grated zucchini and some cheese, because that's how I roll. I had to squeeze quite a bit of liquid from the ingredients before forming the patties, which ended up holding together very loosely. I'm not sure if that's the way regular potato latkes look or not. I was kind of expecting a more "burger-y" type of patty, similar to the beet patties I made here. The recipe also recommended serving with a horseradish sauce, which sounds great, but I had mine with chimichurri (this stuff is very versatile!). I sprinkled some green onion on TinySprite's two patties, which I packed into the divided container along with a homegrown mesclun microgreens salad topped with shaved iberico and yellow tomatoes, some marinated mini peppers, and a selection of white peach, blueberries and a super ripe dark orange apricot.

Seeing as tomorrow is the last day of school, I made shoyu hot dogs (by request) for the kids to share at their snack party. Can't believe the year is all over and we have the long hot summer ahead of us at last! I don't know who is more excited: me or them! Counting down the hours starting now...
Added to What's For Lunch.

Chicken and Broccoli with Beet Slaw Bento

Chicken and Broccoli with Beet Slaw Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

I haven't posted a MisterMan bento for awhile, so here's today's: Vietnamese soy chicken with steamed broccoli, a raw beet-carrot-onion-daikon vinegary slaw, and a selection of fruit (peach, strawberries, blueberries). It does look a bit ordinary, doesn't it? Actually, I haven't been posting his bento because he's been making his own, by himself, a couple of times a week. He decides what and how much he wants, and he likes to show me the finished result. I've taken phone shots of his creations, and I really should post them for posterity. Maybe I'll show you a few of his bento sometime!

Soba EcoLunchBox Bento

Soba EcoLunchBox Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Our heatwave is cooling off, but I decided to pack the kids a refreshing soba salad for their bento in the EcoLunchBox two-tier set. Toppings include shredded lettuce, ham, carrots and surimi. He'll pour the tsuyu and sprinkle furikake right before he eats. Sides include: carrot-beet salad (tossed with cider vinegar, ground ginger, and pomegranate juice), pickled cucumbers with bittermelon and kumquats, and sesame-marinated baby sweet peppers. Plus the favored farmers market strawberries. Seems like a summer lunch, and I personally can't wait!

Vegetarian Spices LunchBots Bento

Vegetarian Spices LunchBots Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

So today we are starting a week of unseasonally warm temperatures over here in the Bay Area; today was predicted to be the warmest, and it reached the upper 70s in my 'hood. It was a fantastic harbinger of summer! I decided I wanted to not-cook tonight, and just have salads, in honor of the heat and also the fact that it's Earth Day. I almost did no cooking, but I did griddle up some veggies to go with the chickpea salad. It didn't take long, though. I sliced some eggplant, zucchini, shallots, tomatoes and garlic, and fried in olive oil until tender. I drizzled honey and sprinkled oregano to taste -- very simple. The chickpea salad is simply fork-mashed chickpeas tossed with sliced onion, cilantro, cumin, lemon, salt and pepper. The next section has grated carrot and beet salad (tossed with cider vinegar, pomegranate juice, a sprinkling of ground ginger, salt and pepper), beside the pickled cucumbers, daikon, baby turnips and kumquats. I also added pickled red onion since she likes that. Some fresh farmers market strawberries and a little sprig of broccoli for color round out this fresh vegetarian bento for TinySprite. Happy Earth Day!

Beet Hash and Egg Bento

Beet Hash and Egg Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Today I tried something new, since my kids love taters so much: beet hash. It's just diced potatoes and onions, but with diced beets tossed into the mix. I'm telling ya; they couldn't really taste a difference. Or if they did, they didn't care too much. They obviously saw them in there, and I specifically asked MisterMan (since he doesn't care for beets) whether he knew they were beets, and he said "Of course! I know they're beets! But it's okay, I don't mind them when they're mixed in with other stuff." Score! I lay the hash on a bed of spinach and topped with a hard-boiled egg. It's kind of a breakfast-y lunch bento again, isn't it? The top tier of the tiffin holds broccoli, carrots, corn, grapes and white peach. We'll be eating this again for sure.

Red Drink!

Red Drink!, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

You've heard all the buzz about green drinks, right? Well, green schmeen. Sure green is great (and here's my go-to green drink recipe), but you can make a delicious, healthy, refreshing drink of just about any color you desire. Here's one of my favorites: Red Drink! Actually it might be more of a hot pink drink, now that I look at it. Doesn't it look gorgeous? You might even be able to get your kids to suck it down; I know mine do. That beautiful scarlet hue is mainly due to beets. That's right, you heard me: beets! Raw beets are a good source of vitamin C, folate, and iron, and have a natural sweetness that make them a good base for a vegetable juice. Did you know that? I'll give you my recipe, but really you can alter the amounts and kinds of fruit however you choose. That's what I do. The intense red color comes from the raw red beet and red cabbage. And maybe from the berries too.

Sheri's Red Hot Pink Drink

1C almond milk
handful of red cabbage

[blend these ingredients first, to get better liquification]

1 small raw beet (or 1/2 medium beet), peeled and cut into 1 inch chunks (I chop it because I'm using a regular Oster blender. If you have a superblender then feel free to toss it in whole)
1 celery stalk
1 apple, peeled
1 small orange, peeled
1 banana
1C strawberries (or raspberries, or cherries, or other red fruit)
sunflower seeds

I blend the remaining ingredients in batches, since (as I said), I don't want to blow my blender's motor out.
This smoothie tastes fresh, sweet, yet vegetal. Trust me; it's good. Oh, and just a tip: don't wear white while you're making this one. Bottoms up!

Rilakkuma and Kiiroitori Beet Burger Sandwich Bento

Rilakkuma and Kiiroitori Beet Burger Sandwich Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Recently I've discovered the joy of beets. Beets, beets, beets. The only way I've ever prepared beets before was roasted and tossed in salad. But I love the flavor and figured, why shouldn't we try to fit them into a main dish meal? Today I made beet bean rice burgers which happen to fit perfectly inside these mini whole wheat sandwich rounds. I made these sandwiches with red leaf lettuce, and melted some swiss cheese on top. I got the idea for these burgers from the plethora of online copycat recipes that tried to replicate the famous Northstar Cafe beet burgers. I've never had those Northstar Cafe veggie burgers, but the pictures and the glowing review make me want to. I really wish I had taken a photo of the burger itself so you can see how red it really looks. ETA: I took some photos; see below. It's pretty cool; you can kind of see part of it at the left side of the bun. I layered two mini burgers in this bento box, and decorated the round bread with Rilakkuma's face cut from Okinawan sweet potato. I added carrots and his pal Kiiroitori (a turmeric-dyed quail egg with nori and carrot detail). Other side has blood oranges (sadly not very vividly colored), strawberry, peapods and cherries. Here's my sort-of recipe that I borrowed from here and greatly changed, because I like the flavors of these spices together. P.S. Don't wear white while making this.

Beet, Bean and Rice Burger

1 cup cooked rice
1 large beet, grated (other recipes say to dice, but I thought grated beet would hold together better)
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbs balsamic vinegar
1 squirt Dijon mustard (or to taste)
onion powder, to taste
salt and pepper, to taste

Mix rice and beet well, until uniform color. Fork-mash the black beans, and add. Mix well. Stir in the rest of the ingredients. My mixture was pretty sticky and a bit difficult to mix, but the stickier the mix, the better it stays together as a patty.

Taste the mixture and add more spice if you need to. Use an ice cream scoop to portion out the burger mixture, and shape into a ball. Flatten with a flipper and place into a heated, oiled pan on medium high heat. Cook for 2 minutes, or until you see a crust form on the bottom. Mine kept its integrity pretty well, so it was easy to flip over. Cook the other side another 2 minutes or so. Put some grated cheese on top to melt if you like. Toast some mini buns or sandwich thins, and serve with fresh greens, onions and tomato. Delicious!