Cherry Cheesecake Brownie Cupcakes Recipe

The double dulce de leche cupcakes disappeared in about two minutes, and I got yet another cupcake idea last night, so I ended up making more this afternoon. At any given time I have a list in my head of at least four or five recipes I want to try, so maybe I bake too many cupcakes, but it's either that or fall behind! Although I got a lead on a good chocolate chip cookie recipe today, so I suspect that I'm no further ahead.

These cupcakes were inspired by a recipe for cherry cheesecake brownies that my Dad used to make when I was little. Don't let their humble appearance fool you. These cupcakes are dense, moist and packed with flavour. They're topped with a fudge frosting so rich that you only need a thin layer on top rather than a big swirl. Really, they don't need frosting at all.Here's the recipe. You should definitely try them!

One quick note about the recipe: I was running out of butter and cocoa towards the end of this, so I just threw together the frosting out of what I had. Feel free to use a different recipe, I just included this one for completeness.

Recipe: Cherry Cheesecake Brownie Cupcakes

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Makes approximately two dozen cupcakes

Ingredients:

Brownie Batter:

• 1 cup butter
• 2 cups white sugar
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Cherry Filling:

• 1 8oz package of cream cheese
• 1 egg
• 2 Tbsp flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2/3 cup maraschino cherries (chopped)
  

Chocolate Fudge Frosting

• 1/4 cup butter
• 2 (1 oz) squares unsweetened chocolate
• 1 lb icing sugar
• 2 Tbsp cocoa
  
• 4 Tbsp milk

To make the brownie batter, first melt the butter. Add ingredients in the order listed, mixing until combined after each addition. Mix flour, baking powder and salt together in a separate bowl before adding to the liquid mixture.

In another bowl, beat cream cheese and 1 egg with an electric mixer until light and fluffy (about three minutes). Add sugar and flour and stir until combined. Mix in cherries.

To assemble cupcakes, first put a small spoonful of brownie batter into each cup. The batter will raise while baking, so you only need enough to cover the bottom of the cups. Use a small spatula to spread the batter out to the edges of the bottom of the cup.

Spoon a generous tablespoon of cherry filling into each cup. If you have any left over filling, you can fill any empty spots in your muffin tin with it. Its not exactly a cupcake, but it tastes good.

Top with another spoonful of brownie batter. Using a spatula, gently spread brownie batter out to the edges of the cupcake cup so that the cherry filling is completely covered (add more batter if required). The cups should be about 3/4 full.

Bake for 23 to 25 minutes. Cupcakes are done when the top center of each cupcake is cooked.

To make frosting, melt butter and chocolate in a small bowl in the microwave, stirring every 30 seconds until melted and smooth.

Place icing sugar, cocoa and 2 Tbsp of milk in a large bowl. Add melted butter and chocolate and mix until smooth and uniform. Add remaining milk until the frosting reaches the desired consistency. Lightly frost the cupcakes using a smooth spatula or butter knife.

Here is a picture of what the cupcakes look like inside. As you can see, the batter rises up in the middle, while the cheesecake filling stays the same size, so it makes a stripe across the inside of the cupcake.

August 4th Bento Lunch

Messy bento!
I tried a couple of new things today. The first was an attempt to duplicate the gorgeous onigiri that Lyvvie from Obento Baby made back in May. To make the onigiri I first soaked 2 Tbsp of forbidden rice (black rice) for about an hour in order to pull out some of the colour so that it didn't completely overpower the white rice. I put it in the rice cooker with enough white rice to make 1 cup and then formed the onigiri as usual, using bonito flakes and soy sauce as a filling and sprinkling with white sesame seeds. I do like the way they turned out, but the colours didn't turn out as bright as Lyvvies!

The second new thing I tried was the rolled omelette in the top left corner. Instead of doing a rolled omelette in layers, this time I made one thick layer and then laid a sheet of nori on top (I need to get a tamagoyaki pan!!!). I then rolled the omelette using a sushi mat and sliced it to get the spiral pieces in the bento. I'm really pleased with how this turned out. Next time I might try using a larger pan and a thinner omelette to see how that looks. For some reason I absolutely love rolled foods in bento lunches. I always get really excited when I find or think of a new roll I can make.

For protein there are some leftover pork bites from last night's supper, covered with a few parsley leaves. For veggies there are asparagus, broccoli, sugar snaps, zuchinni slices and raw red pepper strips.

For fruit there are a couple of slices of yellow tomato, a few chunks of a fruit called a cactus pear (it actually comes from a cactus! The peel is spiny and can irritate your skin), a lychee and some berries. I included the last of the chocolate banana cupcakes for dessert.

July 30th Bento Lunch

I accidently drained the battery on BF's fancy camera, so the picture quality today isn't great since I used my little point & shoot.

Today deliciousness won out over pretty.
The main component of today's bento is rice paper rolls. They started out from a recipe in my Vietnamese cookbook, but by the end of it I had made so many substutions and changes that I think it is now an original recipe.

The rolls are filled with a layer of lettuce, followed by a few dots of hoisin sauce, strips of sausage, two egg sheet strips and topped with a layer of sweet potato matchsticks fried with canola oil and garlic. Yum! So this covered off a lot of the carbs and most of the protein for the bento.

I find it really tough to make rice paper rolls look pretty. Does anyone have any suggestions? This time I just put a few parsley leaves on them.

For added carbs, I cooked up some lotus root slices with red pepper. They're propped up against some lentil snacks that you can't see. The rest of the veggies are the standard asparagus, broccoli, sugar snaps and yellow zucchini. For fruit there is half of a clementine, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and some tiny choke cherries. I think these are super cute and they are crazy sour.

No dessert today because I sent BF into work with a batch of chocolate and vanilla cake balls. I will try to post pics/recipe later today.

July 10th Bento

This has been a pretty busy week so far. It was snack bentos mostly and they were nothing special, so I didn't bother posting them.

This morning I actually managed to get up and make a proper bento. Nothing new today, just all foods that I love!
I made two rolls of chicken teriyaki sushi (one for BF and one for me). I made a two egg and spinach omelette, which makes exactly enough to put to hearts in each bento. I fried up some gyoza and some plantain hearts together to save time. For veggies there is asparagus, broccoli, sugar snaps and sesame fried baby bok choy.

I used all kinds of different fruits today. There is half an apricot, cut into slices, two lychees, some satsuma wedges, cherries, strawberries, raspberries and blueberries.

Simple but yummy, with lots of variety!

July 7th Bento

We went to the grocery store yesterday as usual. BF went to the meat counter and ordered some stuff. As we walked away, I asked "What do you plan to do with that ground bison?"

He replied "Give it to you to put in a bento!"

Of course.

Seeing as how this was the first I'd heard that people even eat bison, I didn't know what to do with it. Luckily I know how to use Google.

And that is how we ended up having buffaloaf for lunch.
I followed the recipe at the link above. The only changes I made were to divide it in four and use a quail egg instead of a regular egg (because it's easier than measuring a quarter of an egg). This is the first time in my life I've ever made meatloaf. I don't think I've even eaten meatloaf since I was a kid. It turned out much better than I expected. I actually prefer bison to beef as it turns out.

The other interesting component to this bento is a Vietnamese dumpling called bahn khuc. The recipe is from my Vietnamese cookbook (listed in the carousel in the left column of my blog). The basic idea is that the dumpling dough is made of spinach puree and glutinous rice flour. The filling is ground pork, mung bean paste and shallots. It's then rolled in uncooked rice and steamed for about 20 minutes until the rice is cooked (I did all of this the night before and then put it straight in the bento from the fridge in the morning).

These were a whole lot of work, although I suspect it would have been faster if I had the mung bean paste already prepared, waiting in the freezer (it takes two hours to soak the beans). And for how much work they were, the taste was only so-so, so I don't think I'll make them again. The consistency was similar to a daifuku, which didn't carry over well to a dumpling in my opinion. BF wasn't so keen on them either. I really wanted to like this recipe because I thought it was a cool idea with lots of healthy ingredients, but alas, it was not to be.

For additional carbs, I included two heart shaped red bean onigiri.

For veggies there is some steamed red swiss chard (I really liked this last time so I bought another bunch this weekend), broccoli, asparagus, sugar snaps, raw carrot and daikon flowers and yellow zucchini.

For fruit there is half a fig, a strawberry that I thought was adorable, some fresh pineapple chunks, blueberries, raspberries and a cherry.

Sometimes my lunches take even me by surprise. I never would have guessed bison and mung!

July 1st Bento

I felt like everything about today's bento was overshadowed by the fact that I overcooked the veggies. I missed the beep of the microwave timer and ended up steaming them about five minutes too long. They turned out soggy and a sickly green instead of a bright, delicious green.

Oh well, I won't make that mistake twice.

In the bottom tier there is some delicious yaki udon. I boiled one pack of noodles for three minutes and then fried with 1 Tbsp each of canola oil, soy sauce and sake. On top of that are some carrot flowers with snow pea leaves. On the other side there are some delicious seasoned lamb bites and some chinese broccoli (gai lon).

On top we have asparagus pieces, sugar snaps, a mini banana and a delicious mix of black beans, sweet onion, cilantro, red pepper, lime juice and olive oil that I picked up at the deli on the weekend. It was called a salsa, but it seems more like a salad to me, so that's how we ate it.

For fruit there are fresh lychees (yum!), cherries, the last few satsuma wedges, strawberries, blueberries and raspberries.

Happy Canada Day Everyone!

We're going to fireworks tonight - yay!

June 26th Bento

I have not been this excited about bento rice since I found those banana leaves and made lemper. Omg, it was so delicious today.

Last night BF was helping a friend move, so I suggested we go for some late night sushi after he got home. So I was making onigiri, thinking about the restaurant, and I started thinking about this dessert sushi I had there one time. It was made with mamenori soy paper, and it didn't stick together very well. I remember thinking that if a sushi chef can't get it to stick together, what chance did I have?

Then I had an epiphany. I would made dessert sushi for today's bento and to get it to stick together, I would brush the last couple of inches of mamenori with warmed up honey.

Worked like a charm!

The sushi is made with short grain white rice seasoned with a syrup I made by microwaving 2 Tbsp of lime juice and then mixing in 3/4 Tbsp sugar. It's filled with strawberry and kiwi slices, wrapped in sesame seed mamenori and sprinkled with a little ginger. When I cut it up this morning and saw how pretty it was, I wished I had made two rolls. At least I'll know for next time.

The meat is chicken cordon bleu (premade from the butcher, I just cooked it last night). I baked a couple of slices of acorn squash with it, and then mashed them with a little butter. It's in the little cup, sprinkled with a smidge of allspice and topped with a tiny tomato. I had never cooked squash before, but it was yummy, I'll make it again.

I steamed some more of the beet greens, some asparagus and snow peas. The edamame and sweet potato butterflies were boiled for 5 minutes.

For fruit, there are some apple hearts, cherries, raspberries and blueberries.

I thought this bento was especially delcious.

I have an interesting plan for some baking tonight. If it turns out the way I'm hoping, I'll post pics later!

June 25th Bento

I swear I had a plan for today's bento. No, for real!

It was so gorgeous out last night, and I spent most of the evening on a patio downtown sipping pineapple and vanilla flavoured martinis with BF. I got home at 11:30pm and realized I had nothing to put in the morning's bento.

So I threw a chicken breast (cordon bleu style) and some veggies in the oven for 45 minutes, thinking that would cover off enough of it that I could just throw in some onigiris and fruit in the morning.

I was falling asleep towards the end of it, but I knew it would be worth it in the morning when the bentos were already half planned. After the 45 minutes were up, I pulled the pan out of the oven, removed the foil, and to my utter disbelief, everything was still completely raw, and the pan was only a little bit warm.

I glanced up at the temperature gauge and the oven was turned on to 350 degrees, although the light was on indicated that it was warming up. For the life of me, I can't figure out what happened. My best guess is that I didn't close the oven door all the way, but I can't even imagine that happening. I've been baking since I was like 12 and I don't ever recall not shutting the oven properly.

So it was 12:30 and I was exhausted, so I just went to bed.

And to top it off, when I got up in the morning, and went to grab some onigiri out of the freezer, I realized I was down to the very dregs of my onigiri bucket (I lost track of what I had stocked while I was on vacation), so I used everything that was there, but it meant I was a bit limited in what I could do creatively.

So I think the moral here is to plan better and don't stay out so late on weeknights. But given that the hot weather is finally here and I love summer nights, I'm not sure that's a realistic goal for me :P

Anyway, enough rambling. Here is what I came up with:

On the left, there are two sets of three onigiri (one tumeric and vinegar, one plain). For meat I fried up some pork schnitzel in a little canola oil. These cuts of meat are very thin, so they cook really fast - perfect for bento!

I picked up some Shang Hai bok choy on the weekend which I sauteed in sesame oil. This was the first time I had tried it, and I have to say I can't tell the difference between this and regular baby bok choy at all. I think regular bok choy is prettier with the darker green and the white, so I don't think I'll buy the Shang Hai version again.

There are some sugar snaps and asparagus pieces. I divided the broccoli florets into really small pieces because there were tiny gaps everywhere. I tucked in one of the tiny tomatos.

On the right tier, there is another onigiri (heart shaped, filled with lotus seed and white bean paste), some rolled omelette (tamagoyaki) slices, more sugar snaps and broccoli.

For fruit there are some apricot pieces, strawberries, blueberries, cherries. Dessert is a truffle.

So it was nothing fancy, but we didn't starve!

Tonight I'll be cooking up and freezing lots of rice!

June 23rd Snack Bentos

My apologies for the lack of posts. I was on vacation last week and I didn't make a single bento. I truly meant to make bento lunches for BF all week but somehow I managed to sleep in every single day. And I ended up not having time to go for groceries over the weekend, so this morning when I got up to make bento I was pretty short on options and ingredients. Which is how we ended up with snack bentos instead of bento lunches.
I grabbed some onigiris from the fridge and put some faces on them. There are gyoza from a batch I made this weekend and a boiled quail egg for some added protein. For veggies there are edamame (frozen), sweet potato sakuras (I love sweet potatos, they last forever), the last two stalks of asparagus and some sugar snaps. I used a few black sesame seeds to decorate the sakuras and I think they turned out really cute. For fruit there are just two cherries in each and a few blueberries.
I used my Cinnamoroll snack bento box and BF used his blue polka dot snack bento box. From the picture it looks like mine is much larger, but they're actually about the same size, BF's is just deeper. I kind of enjoy the fact that they are different shapes because I like the mental exercise of figuring out two different layouts. It's a good little puzzle to help me wake up in the morning.

We managed to get out for groceries tonight, so it should be back to business as usual. My favorite thing that we picked up was the tiniest bunch of vine tomatoes that I have ever seen in my life. They are so small!! And so pretty still on the vine. I put a quarter next to them so you can get a feel for the size. In the back of the bunch there is the tiniest one of all, it's my favorite.

June 10th Bento

Have I mentioned that I love banana leaves? BF used them last night on the barbecue and it was phenomenal. For supper he made some sort of coconut milk-curry-ginger-cayenne rice in banana leaf packets with bites of seasoned lamb. We made a couple of little ones for the bentos as well of course (it's in the top center). You can't really tell from the picture but the rice was crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside and all stuck together sort of like rice loaf. I wasn't sure I would like crunchy rice because I thought it would just taste like uncooked rice, but it wasn't like that at all. The texture was actually really nice.

I also got to try out a recipe from a Vietnamese cookbook I ordered from Amazon a couple weeks ago, Into the Vietnamese Kitchen (Highly recommend!! I added it to the carousel in the left panel of the blog). It's called Chuoi Nuong and the basic idea is you take a chunk of banana and wrap it in some coconut rice mixed with shredded coconut. Wrap the whole thing in a banana leaf and fire up the grill. As you can see, the banana leaf gets kind of brittle on the barbecue, so I removed it before putting this and the curry rice in the bento.

No joke, Chuoi Nuong is quite possibly my new favorite food now (if only I knew how to say it). It was unbelievably delicious and I will be very sad when I can no longer get banana leaves because I want to eat this every day.

Both of the rice dishes were made the night before and kept overnight in the refrigerator, covered with plastic wrap. In the morning I removed the banana leaf and put them straight into the bento and the texture of the rice was still perfect by lunch time.

For a little bit more meat, there are three homemade pork shu mai, and just the standard veggies (I was running out of room!), although I did manage to sneak some steamed gai lon under the curry rice.

For fruit there are raspberries (red and white), cherries, strawberries (buried in there somewhere), some apricot bites, a couple of slices of kumquat along the bottom wall and a container of pomegranate seeds. I was just going to use a few of the pomegranate seeds to decorate the bento, but then I ate one and remembered just how much I love them, so it ended up being a whole dish full. Dessert is a (store bought) daifuku filled with red bean paste.

As far as lunches go, this was definitely one of the yummiest yet!!

June 9th Bento

I found all kinds of new things at the grocery store this week, so I got to try some new foods in today's bento. And I learned a new way to cook - with banana leaves! They only had about six at the store. They're about two and a half feet long and about a foot wide, dark green and shiny. So today we had lemper!
Lemper is an Indonesian food that consists of coconut rice in banana leaves. Here's how I made it:

The night before, cook up some short grain white rice using two thirds coconut milk and one third water. Fried up some ground chicken with a pinch or two of curry powder and some chives, and when it's cooked, splash on a little lemon juice. Cut 5 inch squares of banana leaf and put 1 Tbsp rice in a rough sort of rectangle in the middle of the banana leaf and 1 Tbsp of the chicken mixture on top of that. Fold up the sides and tie with a small strip of banana leaf, and they're ready to go in the fridge. In the morning when making the bento, steam the lemper packets for 15 minutes (this is the longest time I've ever spent cooking anything for a bento by a long shot, but it was so worth it), remove from the steamer and let them cool for a bit before placing them in the bento. I stacked up two in mine.

This was without a doubt the best rice I've ever had in a bento. It was so moist and flavorful, just heavenly. And making them was fun. There's something about wrapping rice in leaves that feels really simple and wholesome. I have more banana leaf cooked foods planned for this week (we went back today and bought two more), so stay tuned!

Because of the small amount of rice, I packed in a whole bunch of sweet potato flowers (boiled with a little butter and cinnamon on them) for additional carbs. And because of the small amount of chicken, I packed two of the mini quiches BF made yesterday, and a couple of bites of cheddar for additional protein. There was some empty space so I threw in a couple leek dumplings.

For vegetables we have the usual broccoli, asparagus, sugar snaps and yellow zucchini. I found some new fruits though! In the bottom corner there is a fresh lychee. I had never tried these before. They have delicious flavour with a bizarre juicy-membrane like consistency. Sorry, that's best way I can think to describe it. Appetizing, right?

There are a couple of cherries next to that (they're down to $4.99 a pound so I've been eating a lot of these), and above that there red and white raspberries. I didn't even know white raspberries existed. Turns out they taste just like red ones, but I like the colour that they add to the bento. There are some blueberries and strawberries, and to finish it off, a cupcake from the batch this weekend.

Here's a diagonal shot too because I liked how the banana leaf looked in this one:

June 5th Bento

This was another unplanned what-do-we-have-in-the-freezer-this-morning bento. I used the six element formula that never lets me down: rice/meat/veggies/fruit/dumplings/dessert. Aside from the fruit and veggies, everything in the bento started its morning in the freezer.

For rice we have a few plain rice cubes and a ground chicken filled triangle onigiri. The meat is marinated lamb pieces (these were so wonderfully spicy and peppery!). There are three gyoza and a hidden bottle of rice vinegar/soy sauce dipping sauce, as well as broccoli, asparagus, sugar snaps, carrot hearts and snow peas for vegetables.

I put some slices of star fruit in the bentos, but BF had never had them before and ended up not liking them. Lots of berries as usual (blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, cherries and strawberries) and a "midnight mint" square. I made a batch of them on the weekend. They're similar to a nanaimo bar but with a green mint filling. The trickiest part was cutting them into tiny bites without cracking the chocolate layer on top. I managed to cut about 15 before I gave up!

Although I didn't plan anything ahead of time, this bento was still really yummy and satisfying. The downside is that the ingredients aren't as creative and it's not the cutest, that's for sure. But when I'm feeling a little lazy in the morning and want a couple of extra minutes of sleep, it's nice to know I have a freezer with lots of great options for lunch!

The 11 Minute Snack Bento

A lot of times I sleep in or whatever and think I don't have time to make bento, but really, there's no excuse because bento making takes me as long as I have. If I have 5 minutes, it takes 5 minutes, and if I have 40 minutes, it takes 40. The trick is to multitask. Most mornings I have at least 3 out of 4 burners going on the stove, plus something in the microwave, and I'm chopping something up at the same time.

This morning I had 11 minutes. Here's a snack bento that I put together.
And here's how:

1. Boil some water in a kettle. While it's heating, cut out some flowers out of a slice or two of sweet potato. Heat some canola oil in another frying pan and a little water in another pot or steamer. Pour the water you just boiled into a small pot.

2. Add edamame and sweet potato to the boiling pot of water. Remove and strain after six minutes.

3. While that's going, throw some frozen pork shumai in the pan with oil. Periodically flip and smoosh with a spatula until cooked through.

4. Now you've got two things cooking. Slice up two stalks of asparagus, a couple of broccoli florets and two sugar snaps. Put the asparagus and broccoli in the steamer for 3 minutes. Add the sugar snaps and steam for two more.

5. Now you've got three things going. Heat a frozen onigiri in the microwave, about 20-25 seconds on each side.

6. Pour some tonkatsu sauce (or whatever your favorite dipping sauce is for pork) in a small container.

7. Slice up a strawberry.

8. Everything should be ready by now! Place onigiri in the bottom right of the left compartment. Place shumai above the onigiri and asparagus to fill in the gap on the left. Slice sugar snaps in half and tuck into the gaps. Cover the rice with edamame and position sweet potato flowers on top of it.

9. Place sauce container in the top left of the right hand compartment. Cover it with strawberry slices. Place any remaining edamame below the strawberryt. Place broccoli florets beneath the strawberry, and two cherries below that (on top of the edamame). Fill any gaps with blueberries.

10. Rush out the door!

So that's how I do it. And at 3:30 this afternoon when I was starving because lunch was hours ago, I had something delicious and healthy to snack on. It's a good thing too, because there was an open box of donuts in the office!

May 22nd Bento

Last night I felt like I'm starting to come down with something, so I decided that today's bentos would be made entirely with my favorite foods.
On the top we have some chicken sushi. This was my first attempt at making maki rolls with the soy paper (mamenori) and it was delicious and held up really well in the bento. I braised strips of chicken thigh with 1 Tbsp sake and 1 Tbsp ponzu sauce, and rolled them with a strip of green pepper and two chives and then sprinkled them with black sesame seeds after cutting the roll into pieces. They were juicy and crunchy, it was a great combination.

There are three gyoza and my favorite salad of chopped lettuce, mashed avocado and honey. For veggies there are edamame, a few sweet potato flowers, broccoli, sugar snaps, a couple of pieces of asparagus and a few fiddleheads.

For fruit there are apple slices, tangerine wedges, cherries, strawberry slices and blueberries. This is BF's bento so there's a truffle for dessert.

We have a bonus picture today! This is Macaroon, my hedgehog. He went in for surgery yesterday to have an infection removed from his ear and to have his legs examined. I guess they just put a little gas mask over his face to knock him out.

We bought him a few months ago from someone who didn't take good care of him, so he wasn't very healthy and he's never been able to walk properly. Since his surgery yesterday though, he's been the happiest and most active I've ever seen him. We have some antibiotics to give him, so I'm hoping that he will be even healthier in the next few weeks.

He was up this morning chilling with me in the kitchen while I made bento, so I thought I would share a picture of him. He's such a wonderful pet, I just love him to pieces.

May 16th Bento

This morning was one of those mornings where I wished my bento boxes were just a little bit bigger. I wanted to fit so much more in here than there was room for.

We got take out sushi last night because I was feeling lazy and we wanted a sushi late night snack. So there is some avocado maki, sweet potato tempura maki and a couple of unagi (eel) maki. Generally I'm nervous about putting fish sushi in a bento, but but the eel in unagi sushi is actually cooked, so it's not quite as scary.

The main protein in the bento is a chicken 'tournedo' (basically bacon wrapped chicken thigh) that BF cooked up last night. There are two homemade gyoza sitting on top of some asparagus pieces. For veggies there is some sesame fried bok choy, sauteed red pepper slices, steamed snow peas, carrot flowers and broccoli, all tucked into the various nooks and crannies.

For fruit there are blueberries and strawberries, the last of the cherries and half of an apricot. Dessert is a small piece of homemade whole wheat and walnut baklava (I made a batch last night to use up the rest of the phyllo from when I made spanakopita last week or whenever it was).

May 14th Bento

I feel like out of all the bentos I've made, today's was the most outstanding yet in terms of making the most delcious food while keeping it pretty. Oh man, it was so yummy!

I made tamagoyaki nigiri sushi. This was my first try making nigiri sushi and it was way easier than I thought it would be. I had no trouble at all making the rice balls uniform just using my hands. I made the rice last night and heated it in the microwave this morning, and it turned out nice and fluffy.

I made the omelette last night as well. For enough omelette for two bentos I used three eggs mixed with 1/4 cup chicken broth, 1/2 tsp mirin, 1/2 tsp sake, 1 1/2 tsp sugar and a pinch of salt, and rolled it into longer layers than usual to give it the right shape. I refrigerated it overnight and in the morning I just had to cut it into slices and attach it to the rice with strips of nori.

Under the sushi there is some sesame fried gai lon with dried cranberries. I never had gai lon before (or cooked it!) and I think next time I'll just steam it. The sesame oil was a little too sharp.

Beneath that there are three home made pork shumai, fried in a little canola and pressed with the spatula to flatten after every flip. That was the end of the batch, so I will probably make more this weekend.

At the bottom there is some broccoli hiding a soy sauce bottle, and this amazing little daikon salad. The taste of this salad is so incredibly sharp, so it has the same effect as pickled ginger with sushi. It's tiny but it packs a ton of flavor. To make it, the night before I sliced up some daikon and cut it into flowers with a punch. Sprinkle with salt, and then try to press/knead out the liquid in the daikon. Set the flowers on some paper towel and cover with plastic wrap in the fridge overnight. The paper towel will soak up even more of the liquid, so in the morning you'll have some really thirsty daikon. Also, the night before mix about 1 Tbsp white vinegar, 1 tsp sugar, 1 tsp lemon juice and a pinch of julienned orange peel and refrigerate overnight so the flavors mix. In the morning, add the daikon to the vinegar mixture and let it sit for ten minutes to soak it up. Drain the liquid and add to the bento.

There are some sugar snaps, sweet potato butterflies and the first fiddleheads of the season, all steamed. I added some lemon juice to the fiddleheads.

For fruit there is half of a honey tangerine and cherries! This was the first time I've seen cherries at the grocery store all year and they were $12 a pound if you can believe it. So I actually counted out ten cherries at the store (enough for bentos for two days). They were so delicious though, it was totally worth it. Then there are the usually strawberries and blueberrys, and a truffle.