Menu: Lunch Box Adventure Menu from Vegan Lunch Box

Vegan Lunch Box is a book full of, no surprises, lunch box menus for kids. But you don't have to be a kid to have fun with it. (Also, if you do have kids, you don't have to make fancy lunch boxes for them to take to school every day.) In my previous posts, I have mostly been making and presenting the menus to take as lunch for myself. But meh, effort. So for this one I decided just to make it for dinner and serve it on a plate. An excellent idea! This menu comes from the Lunch Box Adventure chapter of the book.

Musubi: I made a half recipe of this, and got three big rice balls out of it - two for me and one for my dad (who had a big lunch so only wanted a light dinner). The book suggests stuffing them with an umeboshi plum or peanut butter. I didn't have any whole umeboshis, so I did some umeboshi paste and that was a very strong flavour! I also did one with peanut butter, which was fun. I would have preferred a bit of seasoning in the rice itself, as they were very large and a little more flavour would have been good.
Rating: :)



Adzuki Beans with Pickled Ginger: This is a quick and easy bean based salad, with lots of chopped picked ginger in it (including the pickled ginger juice, which forms part of the dressing). I left out the scallions in it, but did add a bit of chopped celery for texture. I had some leftovers after dinner, and I mashed them up with some mayo to make a nice beany sandwich filling.
Rating: :)



Japanese Spinach: I've made this sort of recipe before from other books, but this one was sadly lacking in seasoning. It needed a bit of salt, or a lot more soy sauce. I only made half a recipe using one bunch of spinach, which was enough for two.
Rating: :|



And here is the final plate! It also includes a nashi (aka Asian Pear), as suggested by the book. But I also added some miso soup as well (just from a packet) to round it out. It made a nice dinner, not to heavy but not too light.



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



As promised, this is where I put Gizmo's beautiful portrait. This is the bookshelf in my bedroom, an don the shelf below you can see her urn (and Sahara's next to her). I love looking at this beautiful piece every day. I've been in my new bedroom for several months now, but it is a slow work in progress with filling and decorating it. I want everything to be just right for this room. My old bedroom is now my study, so that has all the rest of my stuff in it (including a lot of beautiful art as well), so I can take my time with deciding what I want in my new room.