Water Boils: Demystifying Brown Bagging

No I am not dead, nor I quit blogging. My hiatus took much much longer than I imagined due to multiple life changes:

1. I extended my househunting trip to visit my partner and test for my upcoming cohabitation. If you don’t kill each other in one month, does this mean you are fit to live together?

2. I had to finish and defend my dissertation which literally made me eat things that I consider unfit for human consumption

3. I gave two weeks of my life for a documentary project that turned into a nasty case of homophobia and exploitation. I quit and asked them to never ever use my name; but still feeling naive and stupid, I forayed into a little bit of depression.

4. I am currently in the process of cross country moving. Hence, I am living out of a single suitcase. No bento supplies on board.

So if you still have some faith in me, please remain on the line. I should be settled within a couple of weeks.

until May 9th.

I really am too tired to elaborate; but in two weeks I will be a free person, with a degree, without an advisor (hence free), hopefully have a nice apartment with decent counter space, hopefully have instant access to a farmers market and more importantly have instant access to my boyfriend (finally). So I really have to work hard these days, you know, in order to get out of here. I really missed writing a little bit more elaborate and edited posts, but please bear with me.

I tried sweetening the mini cheesecakes with maple syrup this time, since I literally have a gallon of maple syrup to finish up before leaving for Canada, the land of maple syrup. I am thinking that by the time I reach their land I will possible hate this thing. I don’t know how the cheesecakes turned out, because I am patiently waiting for them to cool but they look a little bit spongy. Too bad, but it is a weekday and I needed to use up the ricotta. Maybe I could find another ricotta cheesecake recipe. Maybe ricotta cheesecake looks like this? Any comments? Somebody?

Oh the title of the post? If you can’t recall the reference, maybe you should watch more Seinfeld. Perhaps twice a day would be sufficient. You can even do it four times a day if you coordinate your channels, and you can do this all on network TV. So why are these dried apples making me thirsty? Because those little things bought from “the store that shall not be named” turned out to be salted. I should have read the package carefully.  It was appalling first, but then grew on me; sort of feels like eating green grapes with salt.

After spending 8 hours in Craigslist, begging residents of a certain Canadian city for their apartments, I decided to take a quick break for tomorrow’s lunchbox. It really needed to be quick, because I haven’t done any other work today; so I used whatever I had in hand.

I had previously (over)roasted some Peruvian purple potatoes from the farmers market. I coated them with olive oil, salt and rosemary and then forgot them in the oven while trying to stalk the owner of that sunny 2 bedroom with a garden/terrace. The end product was a little bit too crunchy on the outside, and a little bit too starchy on the inside. Not bad still; I’d rather overcook a proper dinner than microwave something out of a box.

For those who think purple potatoes are a strange concept, I should add that their skins were almost jet black prior to cooking, a deep and shiny color with a glaze of purple. This truly is an indigenous tuber; in fact after googling them I learned that they were the first of the species to be cultivated in Andes, at least according to some of the blogs. So I am happy that somebody decided to plant them in the midwest. They taste more like yams, in the sense that they are a little bit sweeter; and had I not overcooked them, they would have a wonderful texture.

On its left there are five meatless meatballs. They are unfortunately from frozen. I just heated them in the oven while assembling rest of the lunch. Below that there are some Greek yogurt (or suzme yogurt if you know Turkish), some giant papaya chunks (I swear the fruit was the size of a football), and a little tub of maple syrup that I am planning to drizzle over yogurt. This is a new concept for me, I mean putting something sweet on my yogurt. Sweet yogurt? (Fake) meat and potatoes? What is happening to me and my eating habits? Merde!

Went to the farmers market today and got myself some ramps. Nothing is yet in season since the snow just melted a week ago. There were just its and bits and pieces and lots of baked/cooked stuff but the ramps looked interesting. “What to do with it?”, I asked myself. Myself couldn’t answer the question, so I asked others. “Keep it simple” was the verdict, so I did:

Step 1:

Wash the ramps. Meanwhile boil water for pasta.

Step 2:

Cut the ends (those nasty parts where the roots get muddy), and wash again.

Step 3:

Chop and sautee in olive oil and a little garlic.

Step 4:

Cook the pasta. This one is fresh, again from the farmers market.

Step 5:

Almost done! See, they got brighter and softer. Don’t overcook, you know until they get mushy. Add some red pepper and salt. White wine would be nice too. If the pasta is not done yet, turn of the heat under the ramps and set aside. Practice your timing, so that next time both pasta and ramps will be done at the same time.

Step 6:

Assemble. Mix pasta with ramps. Add freshly grated pepper and parm, open a bottle of beer or wine, and enjoy!

This was early this week:

Ingredients were homemade mini cheesecake with nutella. I made the cake from this recipe and later spread some nutella on top. I also froze a few (without nutella) to see how it thaws, so you might see them in future bentos. Some artichoke hearts and olives with olive oil, lemon juice and herbs was my salad; a mini bagel with chevre was my sandwich; and a mix of couscous tomato and chickpeas were… I don’t know what they were. Another salad I guess? Ohh I also had some kumquats! Just to brighten up my day. I was too tired to blog about this lunch, but I enjoyed every bite of it.

For tomorrow I made this:

Gyozas are from frozen. There is some soy sauce in the mini pink container. I have some chocolate, some stir fried beans with soy sauce, sesame and ginger, and a hard boiled egg. Hello Kitty is hiding some raisins and almonds in her cute head. I also found single serving orange juice in a local grocery, but I think it is ridiculously expensive and wasteful to get juice this way. Can you readers suggest a environmentally sustainable juice container that is not made out of plastic that gets stinky after a few uses? And something small, less than 10 ounces? No $20 aluminum Swiss thermos please! I saw some at Wholefoods, fell in love, but I just am too cheap to get one. Besides, isn’t alimunum dangerous? If that is going to be the only alternative, maybe. Maybe still not.

By the way, I am done with writing my dissertation. All of it! Printed out, and circulated it and had a beer afterwards. My head still hurts, but I am feeling light as air.

I am finally able to have a lunch box appropriate life. To make writing more bearable, I have been working outside home, at coffee shops, cafes and other public places where I have to purchase food to occupy their space. I do not have much time for a real life, but at least I need minimum social contact to prevent insanity. That was my resolution. As a result, I haven’t cooked much in the last ten days. When I was at home, it was ridiculously simple dishes like omelettes, pasta, omelettes, pasta, scrambled eggs, pasta, pasta, OK you got it.

So, this my first bento after a long break. I am planning to take it to the recently opened lakeside cafe tomorrow and enjoy sun, free wi-fi, school sponsored beer and duck watching while working on the revisions of my dissertation. They don’t mind if you bring your own food there; and did I say there is beer? And ducks!

The contents of the lunchbox are: a mini bagel with chickpea/olive tapenade (or spread), roasted pepper salad, apples, almonds hiding inside Hello Kitty Easter treat head (I can’t get almonds out of my head either) and a home baked mini cheesecake. This is the first time I baked a cheesecake and I think I overcooked it; but it is tasty, wholesome, free of stabilizers and other yucky stuff. Recipes are after the picture:

Chickpea olive spread:

Ingredients:

A cup of cooked chickpeas
A handful of pitted black olives
A teaspoon (or more to taste) of Harissa (alternatives: sambal, sriracha, pepper paste, pepper flakes)
A tablespoon of very thinly diced red onion
A tablespoon of olive oil
No salt (olives are salty enough), but pepper will be nice

Mash chickpeas with a fork. Chop the olives roughly. Mix all ingredients gently. Spread on toasted bagel, bread or crackers.

Roasted pepper salad

Ingredients

Two big bell peppers (I used yellow and orange here. Add a red one and you could make this even prettier)
A teaspoon of capers
A few pieces of thinly sliced red onions
2 tablespoons of lemon juice
1 tablespoon of olive oil
Salt

Roast peppers on a stove, grill or broiler. Put them aside to cool. Peel. If you cool them in a sealed plastic bag they are supposed to peel easily, but I am neither a big fan of heat+plastics, nor am willing to waste another piece of plastic for something that I can do with a little more effort. Slice the peppers thinly, mix them with rest of the ingredients. Marinate, preferably overnight before serving.

Mini cheesecakes with apricot jam

Read this recipe. Adjust the ingredients by 1/4 and substitute Grand Marnier with extra orange zest and triple sec (well that’s all I have). Make it, but portion the mixture into tiny cake molds. Try to adjust the time. Overestimate the time needed to bake them. Overbake it. It’s OK, don’t worry it tastes good. A little bit dry, perhaps? Cool the cheescakes. Spread apricot jam or Nutella. Lick apricot jam from the spoon.