The tradition of Ayurveda encourages warming spices on colder days to help digestion. This bento features curry powder, Chinese 5-spice, and fresh ginger so it's just the thing to warm you up, even when eaten cold.
Top tier of bento: Curried Rice and Millet with Cilantro, Thai-style Red Onion and Radish Salad, radish flower, pickled carrot flower.
Bottom tier of bento: Carrot and Celery in "Peanut" Sauce, Chinese 5-Spice Fried Tofu, lettuce.
My Bento Recipes:
Curried Rice and Millet with Cilantro (2 portions, I freeze half)
Millet is a great gluten-free grain but on it's own it lacks the "sticky" power of white rice that is so well suited to grubbing on the go. Solution: mix millet with rice! Adding minced cilantro stems is a great (and thrifty) way to add a little more nutritional pow.
Ingredients:
1/4 cup millet
3/4 cup white rice
1 1/2 teaspoon curry powder
1/4 + 1/8 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 cup minced cilantro stems (I used kitchen scissors to snip-snip the stems into tiny pieces)
water
Put everything in your rice cooker or pot and cook as you would rice.
Chinese 5-Spice Fried Tofu (2 portions)
Ingredients:
1/2 block firm organic tofu
1 teaspoon Chinese 5-spice
2 tablespoons rice flour
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
oil for pan frying (I used coconut)
Directions:
* Press the tofu between two plates with a can of veggies (or something of equal weight) set on top of the top plate for 1 hour. This will squeeze out some of the extra water out of the tofu.
* Cut the tofu into 3 slices and pat dry.
* Heat the oil in a pan.
* Mix the Chinese 5-spice, salt, and rice flour and sprinkle on a plate.
* Coat the pieces of tofu in the seasoning mixture.
* When the oil is quite hot add the tofu pieces one at a time and pan fry for 1 minutes on each side.
* Put the fried tofu on some paper towels to blot excess oil.
* Cut into pieces to fit your bento.
* Serve with a dipping sauce if you like. A tamari-ginger sauce is wonderful!
"Peanut" Sauce for Veggies (1 portion)
Peanuts are an other food we avoid. Luckily there are many nut and seed butters on the market now which work just as well in most recipes. We enjoy a sunflower seed butter from Trader Joe's which is also free of hydrogenated oils and added sugar! Bonus!
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon sunflower seed butter
1/2 clove garlic
1 slice fresh ginger
1 teaspoon tamari
1 teaspoon lime juice
1 teaspoon water (to blend)
Directions:
* In a small blender blend until smooth.
* This sauce makes any veggie a treat so steam up whatever you've got and enjoy!
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