Simple Light Bento


It's been a tough schedule around here lately. Work's crazy and personal life is even crazier. But I did find time to pull off a bento this week. I had scheduled a pumpkin theme but decided that I needed to bust out something nice and easy since I had visitors in town. So Simple and Light was the theme, it's really the theme for this blog so I'm cheating a bit. Well lets just get down to business shall we?

First our main dish, I went with this Hoisin Dijon glazed salmon that I saw from Friendly Kitchen. Salmon is one of the few fish that reheats well without stinking up the office and it's always an easy dish to prepare. The recipe called for grilling but I opted for oven baking instead, the grill would have provided nice carmelization of the somewhat sweet Hoisin sauce, but oven baking had greater advantage in my mad dash in the kitchen. It was an interesting glaze, definitely an interesting idea to combine Hoisin and Dijon mustard, you had hints of sour and sweet.



First side dish is a Mushroom and Farfalle in a light cream sauce finished with white truffle oil. This was a no brainer, pasta is always an easy addition to a bento. I think I could have been a little more heavy handed with the truffle oil. I wanted to bring out the earthy qualities of the more plain crimini and white button mushrooms I was using. I'm overall pretty happy with the dish I eased up on the sauce to save a few calories and fat.






Next I replicated the oven roasted tomatoes I did with my friend Paula at the dinner party. Let me say, the tomatos roast down a lot faster in her convection oven then they did in my oven. Yeah, you just heard some gear envy in there. Anyhow, beautiful and delicious and so simple to make. Just cut a roma tomato in half sprinkle on your choice of herbs and top it off with minced garlic in olive oil. When you've got them all roasted down top them with a bit of cheese (I used parmesan) and hit it in the broiler till it's melty and delicious.



Finally Dessert: good old fashion Snicker doodle cookies. These and sugar cookies are one of my few dessert weaknesses. These came out a bit crunchier than I usually like. I think I needed to use a thinner dough.








Box Contents:
  • Dijon-Hoisin glazed Salmon
  • Mushroom and Farfalle pasta in a light cream sauce
  • Oven Roasted Tomatos
  • Snicker Doodle cookies

Comments

Brian Parent said…
Hey I commented back in June about the Big Green Egg and your chicken, did you ever get a chance to give it another shot?
October 26, 2010 at 4:10 PM
Ironjack said…
Actually just recently had some folks over for a cook out. We used it more like a grill than we did for temperature control. But now that the weathers nice and the mosquitoes are a bit more under control I'll be giving it another go. Haven't really had much time with all the travel. I'll post on my next adventure with the egg.

Oh I got to try some duck rilletes while in France, I'd say yours was pretty spot on!

Thanks for stopping by!
October 26, 2010 at 4:42 PM
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