Typical Dutch: Carrot Cake with Speculaas Spices

I made this bundt cake a few weeks ago because we had some carrots leftover. And what better to do than make carrot cake? This cake has a Dutch twist because there are speculaas spices in there which give this cake a wintery warm taste. You could use all spice blend if you can't get speculaas spices. I wanted to share this recipe before we head onto spring, which won't be very long. I am sure it will even taste great then, but I know that I stray away from wintery flavors naturally when spring hits. The original recipe comes from Over Eten. Nick took most of this cake to his work, and they loved it there.

Carrot Cake with Speculaas Spices:
- 240 ml sunflower oil
- 125 gr cane sugar
- 125 gr castor sugar
- 4 eggs
- 240 gr selfrising flour
- 280 gr carrots, grated
- 2 tbsp speculaas spices
- 1 tbsp cinnamon
- pinch of salt
- 50 gr pecan or walnuts

Pre heat the oven to 170 degrees. Make sure you grease the bundt pan unless you have a silicone one like we do. Mix oil, sugar and eggs first. Then sift the selfrising flour above the bowl with the salt, speculaas spices and cinnamon. Mix on low speed until you have a smooth batter. Then add in the carrots and nuts. Stir through the batter with a wooden spoon. Pour the batter in the bundt pan and bake in the oven for about 55 minutes. The cake is done when a toothpick comes out clean. Make sure the cake has cooled before removing the bundt pan.

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Slow Cooker: Red Cabbage Mashpot

One of the first things I tried in my slow cookers was making mashpot. It would be ideal if I could make his typical Dutch winter food in the Slow Cooker. I used a recipe from the Dutch Slow Cooker Facebook group for red cabbage, which I adapted to a mashpot recipe. Because me made this twice already, it was time to blog the recipe. Please so excuses the pictures. Mashpot doesn't photograph well in the best of circumstances, but in the winter light it is impossible to shoot appealing pictures. Unless I am going to eat at noon, which I am not planning to do any time soon.

Red Cabbage Mashpot: (serves 3)
- 3 large potatoes
- half a red cabbage
- 2 tbsp brown sugar
- 2 apples
- 4 bay leaves
- pepper
- dash of vinegar
- cube of butter
- 4 slices gingerbread
- some milk

Peel and cube the potatoes, shred the cabbage and peel, core and cube the apple. Put everything in the slow cooker except for the gingerbread and the milk. Pour water in until everything is just under water. Cook is for 6-7 hours on low. In the last 2-3 hours lay the slices of gingerbread on top of the cabbage.
Drain everything in a colander and remove the bay leaves. Add some milk and mash everything together.

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Best Breakfast: Winter Granola

Ever since I made my first granola recipe for a foodblogswap, I am hooked to the stuff. I have made several batches and tried different variations. One that I really liked is this wintery granola. I think this would also make a great Christmas present for a foodie. The inspiration for this recipe comes from Het Grote Sinterklaas Kookboek.

Winter Granola (makes about 600 gram)
- 250 gr oats
- 50 gr hazelnuts
- 50 gr walnuts
- 50 gr sunflower seeds
- 50 gr pumpkin seeds
- 50 gr line seeds
- 50 gr sesame seeds
- 50 gr shredded coconut
- 2 tbsp cinnamon
- 100 ml agave syrup

Pre heat the oven to 180 degrees. Chop the nuts coarsely or leave them whole if you like that better. Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl. Line a baking tray with parchment paper. And spread the mixture evenly on the lined tray. Make sure your tray isn't too full. I need to make it in two batches. Place the tray in the middle of the oven for 20 minutes. Stir through one time halfway. Leave the granola to cool. You can keep it for 2 months if your store it in an air tight container.

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Heartwarming Soup: Curried Pea Soup

I wanted to share one of my spring recipes with you today, but the weather here is so stormy that I thought this wintery recipe was more suitable. In the Netherlands there is a typical pea soup called snert. I was looking for a vegetarian recipe for snert when I found this recipe and decided to make this instead. I am glad I did because honestly, I like this soup better than classic snert. Even though I still want to make that too. But that probably won't happen until next winter. The original recipe is from PoppelePats Weblog.

Curried Pea Soup: (serves 4)
- 2 spring onions
- 100 gr carrots
- 25 gr butter
- 2 tbsp mild currypowder
- 275 gr dried split peas
- 1.5 L herbal broth
- 250 gr matured cheese
- salt and pepper
- bread for serving

Chop the spring onions and clean and cube the carrots. Heat the butter in a soup pan. Add carrots, onion and currypowder. Bake softly for about 2 minutes. Rinse the peas in a colander and add these and the 1.5 L herbal broth to the pan. Bring to a boil, then let the soup simmer for about 45 minutes.
Cut the cheese into small cubes. Taste if the soup needs salt and pepper.
Pour the soup into 4 soup bowls and divide 125 gr of the cheese over the 4 soup bowls. Serve with bread and the rest of the cheese. We choose for Italian buns. For a vegan soup, omit the cheese and use margarine instead of butter.

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Kale Week: Vegan Kale Mashpot with Homemade "Bacon"

I started the week with a mashpot recipe and now I will close with one. But not just any mashpot, but a vegan twist on a Dutch classic with homemade "bacon". I just loved this mashpot and I am very happy that I tried this out. The recipe is from the book Plant Power. The mashpot looks a bit soupy here, but the flavours are great! It is always a bit of hit and miss with mashpots and it's consistency, but no matter!

Vegan Kale Mashpot with Homemade "Bacon": (serves 2)
- 300 gr potatoes, peeled and in chunks
- 1 spring onion, in rings
- a bit of olive oil
- 0.5 clove of garlic, chopped
- 3 sundried tomatoes, cut
- 1 tsp paprika powder
- 0.5 tbsp rosemary
- 100 gr kale, chopped
- bit of soy cream
- lemon juice
- 125 gr tofu, cubed
- 1 tsp cane sugar
- shoyu soy sauce
- pepper

Boil the potatoes. Meanwhile heat the ol in a pan and bake onion and garlic shortly. Add kale, sundried tomatoes, paprika and rosemary and stir fry the mixture. Then add some water, place a lid half on the pan and let the kale simmer for about 10 minutes. Add a dash of soy cream and lemon juice and bake a bit longer until the cream has mixed well. Remove from heat.

Heat some oil in a pan. Make sure your tofu is dry. Then bake the tofu shortly on all sides. Add the sugar, bake some more and then add the soy sauce. Bake until the cubes are nicely coated and the sugar starts to caramelise. Remove from heat.

Drain the potatoes and mash them with a bit of soy cream. Mix with the kale and add some pepper to taste. Serve with the homemade bacon.

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Kale Week: Kale and Bell Pepper Quiche

Two more recipes to go in this kale week. Today I will share a hearty quiche with kale from Uit Pauline's keuken. One of my go to blogs for easy recipes. The recipe uses 250 gr kale and because we often buy them in 500 gr sacks, there is always a chance to make 2 different dishes with kale. Very budget friendly this way. And look how nice you can cut this quiche :)

Kale and Bell Pepper Quiche: (serves 4)
- 2 spring onions
- 1 clove of garlic
- 2 red bell peppers
- 250 gr kale
- 7 savoury pie dough sheets
- 5 eggs
- 200 ml cooking cream
- 75 gr goat cheese / feta
- handful of breadcrumbs
- salt and pepper
- olive oil

Defrost the sheet of pie dough and pre heat the oven to 200 degrees. Cut the spring onions in to rings and chop the garlic. Cube the bell peppers. Heat olive oil in a skillet and bake the onion and garlic shortly. Them and the bell pepper and bake for another 2 minutes. Add the kale and bake for about 8 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Grease a 23 cm springform and coat with parchment paper. Lay out a bottom from the dough and prik holes in the dough with a fork. Spread a handful of breadcrumbs on the bottom to soke up the moist. Then spread the kale mixture on top.
Beat 5 eggs with the cream and some pepper. Pour this mixture over the kale and crumble the cheese on top.
Bake the quiche in the oven for 35-40 minutes.

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Kale Week: Kale Lasagne

Like I said yesterday, we experimented a bit more with kale in the past winter and one of the recipes we tried was a kale lasagne. Very different from the traditional version, but very good and comforting. In fact, I am craving it as we speak. Original recipe is from De Volkskrant.

Kale Lasagne: (serves 4)
- 10 sundried tomatoes in oil, drained
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 spring onions, in rings
- 3 cloves of garlic, chopped
- 500 gr kale
- 400 ml water
- 200 gr cream cheese
- 200 ml + 3 tbsp Greek yoghurt
- 20 gr fresh ginger, chopped
- 2 large eggs, beaten
- 150 gr lasagne sheets
- 100 gr grated cheese
- salt and pepper

Pre heat the oven to 185 degrees. Cut the tomatoes. Heat olive oil in a pan, and bake garlic and onion for about 3 minutes. Then add the kale and let it slink a bit. Then add 400 ml water and leave the kale to simmer for about 30 minutes with a lid on the pan.

Mix cream cheese with 3 tbsp Greek yoghurt. Mix in the kale, ginger, half of the beaten egg and salt and pepper to taste. Start with a layer of this mixture in the ovendish. Top this with 1/3 of the tomatoes and cover with lasagne sheets. Make 2 more layers and end with lasagne sheets.

Mix 200 ml Greek yoghurt with the rest of the eggs and half of the grated cheese. Scoop the sauce over the lasagne and top with the rest of the cheese. Bake the lasagne for about 40-45 minutes until golden brown.

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Kale Week: Kale Mashpot with Shawarma

Kale season is almost over here in the Netherlands. Unlike in the USA, Kale is only in the stores during the autumn and winter months. So before we can't get it anymore, I want to share the kale recipes that I made in the past winter. I have really discovered kale this winter. Of course I cooked with it before, but I only made mashpots with it, as the Dutch usually do. But this year I also made kale lasagne and a kale quiche. These recipes will be shared during the week, together with 2 different mashpots. Original recipe for this mashpot is from the AH website.

Kale Mashpot with Vegetarian Shawarma: (serves 2)
- 150 gr kale
- 1 orange bell pepper
- 750 gr potatoes
- 200 gr vegetarian shawarma
- 2 tbsp sunflower oil
- 4 tbsp garlic sauce

Peel the potatoes and cube them. Cook them together with the kale for about 15 minutes. Cube the bell pepper. In a skillet, heat the sunflower oil. Bake the shawarma for about 3 minutes. Then add the bell pepper and bake 2 minutes more.

Drain the potatoes and kale, but save a coffee cup of cooking water. Mash the potatoes with the kale and some of the cooking water. Add the shawarma, bell pepper, and garlic sauce.

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Typical Dutch: Wintery Ovendish

I notice that next to experimenting with cuisines from other countries, I also start to cook more Dutch dishes. I always considered Dutch food as boring. And the regular things I still consider that way because a tyipcal week day meal is no more that potatoes, veggies and meat. All separated on a plate, next to each other. Very boring indeed. We hardly eat it, but you can see it in my menu's some times. But there is more to the Dutch kitchen than that. Of course we have the mashpots, which you can find plenty of recipes for on the site. That is still fairly standard. One of our most standard ones is kale mashpot. I know that in other countries kale is used for a lot of things, but here I hardly see it used in any other way than in mashpots. So today I have a kale mashpot for you with a twist. Made as an oven dish.

The original recipes comes from the 24-kitchen Winterkookboek. A book full of Dutch wintery recipes. I do like the idea of the book. But it is also a bit of a coffee table book. Next to pictures of dishes there are also a lot of pictures from the 24-kitchen chefs in a wintery snowy setting. And the book isn't as veggie friendly as I had hoped. This I didn't expect because the tv channel is very veggie friendly. But in this book there isn't even a veggie main course in the x-mas section, which is a shame. It does have a nice Sinterklaas chapter with a lot of baked goods though, which I like :) But I wouldn't buy the book. Anyway, on to the recipe, which I adapted from meat to vega.

Wintery Ovendish: (serves 4)
- 1 kg potatoes
- 200 ml milk
- nutmeg
- 2 spring onions
- 1 clove of garlic
- sunflower oil
- 400 gr vegetarian minced meat replacement
- 300 gr chopped kale
- 250 gr mixed mushrooms
- 150 gr grated cheese
- 1 egg

Peel and boil the potatoes. Heat the milk in a pan, and mix this with the potatoes to make a mash. Add salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste to the mash.

Chop the onions and garlic. Heat some oil in the pan and bake the onions, garlic and fake minced meat for a few minutes. Add the kale. Mean while slice the mushrooms and add those as well and place a lid on the pan. Remove from heat when the mushrooms have shrunk, about 6 minutes.

Heap the half of the mashed potaqtoes in an oven dish. Then add the kale mixture, add the cheese and top of with the rest of the mash. Beat an egg and coat the mash with it for a golden crust. Place in the oven for about 15 minutes on 200 degrees.

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Typical Dutch: Pepernoten Trifle

I don't make desserts often. This is not because I don't like them, but because it is too much work to prepare them after the main course for me. I simply don't have the energy. But ever since we are cooking for mostly 2 days, sometimes on the 2nd day, when we only have to warm our meal from the previous day, we make dessert. Nick got 2 huge bags of pepernoten from work, but we didn't have that much. So we still have plenty left. They are very seasonal here, because of the Sinterklaas celebration, but they keep long. I am going to use them in baking recipes and I used them for this dessert. If they are out of season, you can use speculaas biscuits. Gingerbread biscuits will work too. It is based on the English trifle but with typical Dutch ingredients. The original recipe is from Femme Magazine.

Pepernoten trifle: (serves 2)
- 90 gr pepernoten
- 1 box of klop klop (a light whipped cream)
- 125 ml whipped cream
- 50 gr dark chocolate
- 80 ml milk

Heat the whipped cream in a pan until boiling point. Remove from heat and stir in the pieces of chocolate. Keep stirring until the chocolate melted and is mixed well with the cream. Place in the fridge for 2.5 hours.

Crumble the pepernoten. You can do this in a plastic bag and a rolling pin, but we just used the food processor. Mix milk and klop klop and keep going until beaten stiff.

Get two glasses and start with the layers. Starts with the crumbled pepernoten, then 2 tbsp of klop klop mixture, then 2 tbsp of chocolate ganache. repeat this once more. Place another tbsp of klop klop on top and top with some whole pepernoten to finish.

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Party Food: Snowball Truffles

Today I want to share a tasty and easy recipe to make truffles. I made these on new years eve as a snack and people really enjoyed them. I know that I am late to the party because now the festivities are over, everyone is into diet mode ;) But I am not going to wait a whole year to share these ;) They are again really easy to make, most of my recipes are. The rolling part does take some time. But I just did that sitting on the couch and rolling on the coffee table, so that was quite relaxed. I do think I am hooked on these little things, and I already looked on Pinterest for more flavour combinations. I do plan to make things like these more often for get togethers :) And share the calories with all my friends! ;)
For these I used a recipe from Femme Magazine, that I will translate from Dutch. I also made a variation with colored sprinkles, for the people who are not that fond of coconut, and called these Firework balls :) Oh and the best part about these candies? They are very low budget to make :D

Snowball Truffles (makes about 30)
- 300 gr white chocolate
- 80 ml heavy cream
- grated coconut (or other coating such as colored sprinkles)

Place a pan of water on the stove and bring to a boil. Place a heat resistant bowl on top of the pan. Make sure the bowl does not touch the water (au bain-marie). Break the white chocolate in little pieces and let it melt. Make sure you keep an close eye on it. Meanwhile heat the cream in a pan, but don't let it boil. When chocolate is melted, remove both from the stove.

Mix the cream and the chocolate well. Now leave the mixture to cool for about an hour in the fridge.
Take a plate for each coating and put the coatings on different plates. Get a teaspoon of chocolate mixture and roll this into a ball and roll through one of the coatings. You want to do the coconut ones frist because the sprinkles do give off their coloring a bit. Repeat until you used all of the chocolate mixture. Put them back in the fridge and keep them there until about 10 minutes before serving. If they are left out of the fridge for too long they will melt because it is white chocolate.

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Recipe: Mashpot "Heerlijk Avondje"

Today it is Sinterklaas here in the Netherlands and on 24-Kitchen there was a most delicious looking mashpot with the title "Heerlijk Avondje". This is the name that we also give to the eve of Sinterklaas. So I had to try that of course, because I love trying new kind of mashpots. The original recipe was with Brussel sprouts, but I substituted endive, because I really don't like sprouts much. So below is my version of this recipe. I also cut the ingredients in half because we are with only 2, and mashpot doesn't re-heat that well.

Mashpot "Heerlijk Avondje": (serves 2)
- 500 gr potatoes
- 300 gr endive
- 50 ml milk
- 1 tbsp apple syrup
- 35 gr shaved almonds
- 1 Elstar apple
- bit of butter
- 35 gr dried cranberries
- 1 tsp speculaaskruiden
- 0.5 tbsp brown sugar
- 20 ml apple juice
- salt and pepper

Bring water to a boil. Peel and cut the potatoes in even chunks. Cook the potatoes until done, about 15 minutes. Meanwhile cut the endive. Drain the potatoes and steam them dry in the pan. Mash potatoes and endive together. Heat the milk for a short while in the microwave and add this to the mash together with the apple syrup. Put the almonds in a hot pan without oil and butter to give them some color. Stir those through as well. Add salt and pepper to taste.

For the apple mixture:
Peel and cut the apple. Heat a bit of butter in a pan and bake apple and cranberries with the speculaas spices for about 4 minutes. Add sugar and apple juice and let it simmer for 4 more minutes.
Scoop the mixture over the mashpot before serving.

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Recipe: Speculaas Brownies

It is almost Sinterklaas, the Dutch holiday for children that kind of resembles Santaclaus. Around this time us Dutchies start to eat all kind of season things like kruidnoten and speculaas. Two typical Dutch things. I already made a cheesecake with this Dutch spice blend and last Sunday I made speculaas brownies according to a recipe from Rozemarijn Koken & Foto. This. Were. The. Best. Brownies. I. Ever. Made. Let me tell you that! My boyfriend who isn't all that crazy about chocolate baked goods, just LOVED these. So Dutchies, please just click the link above. Non-Dutchies, here is a translation below.

Speculaas Brownies (makes about 15-16, depending if you cut 4x4 or 3x5)

- 200 gr butter (the rich kind), in cubes
- 120 gr dark chocolate, in pieces
- 3 eggs
- 200 gr sugar
- 100 gr flour
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- pinch of salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 25 gr cocoa
- 100 gr speculaas biscuts

Pre heat the oven to 180 degrees.

Melt the chocolate and butter au bain marie by putting them in a bowl and place this on top of a pan with a layer of water in it. Fire on low, keep stirring and never leave it from sight ;) Let it cool a bit.

Beat the eggs nad sugar. Add flour, vanilla, salt, cinnamon and cocoa. Stir through and then add the chocolate mixture. Make a smooth matter of it. Then break the speculaas in little pieces and stir through the batter.

Line a square or rectangular oven dish with a baking sheet, so the brownies will go out easy. Bake for about 30 minutes (unless you have our dysfunctional oven, then it takes about twice as long). The brownies don't need the toothpick test, they still need to be chewy inside, but the top needs to be set. Let it cool a bit before cutting them.

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Recipe: Pepernotencake

Today in the Netherlands we celebrate Sinterklaas. And those festivities come with their own traditional treats. One of them being pepernoten or in this case technically kruidnoten. These are a kind of gingerbread mini cookies. All though I don't really celebrate Sinterklaas this year, I did so some baking and today I want to share that recipe with you.

I pinned that recipe on Pinterest, so this is also my first pin for another round of the Pin It and Do It challenge from Trish at Love, Laughter and a Touch of Insanity. You can find the Dutch recipe and original pin here.

Now for all my non Dutch readers, this recipe might be hard to make because of lack of pepernoten. But I am sure you will be able to find something that tastes similar. I just wanted to share a piece of Dutch tradition today.

Pepernotencake
- 250gr cake mix
- 200gr white castor sugar
- 200gr butter
- 3 free range or organic eggs (m)
- 75gr shaved almond
- 100gr kruidnootjes (gingerbread cookies)
- 1 tbsp Dutch "koek en speculaas" mix (a mix of cinnamon, coriander, nutmeg, clove, ginger, cardamom and orange peel)

Use butter to grease a cake tin. Mix the butter and the sugar together. Add the eggs one by one. Only add the next egg when the previous egg is well mixed in the batter. Then add the cakemix and the "koek en speculaas mix" and mix until you get a sticky batter. Add the "kruidnootjes" to the batter. Scoop the batter into the cake tin and sprinkle the almond on top. Bake the cake for about 60-70 minutes on 160 degrees. But it is different for each oven. Mine took 80 minutes. I baked the last 20 minutes with silver foil on top to prevent the cake from getting too dark. The cake is done when a wooden pick comes out clean.

Some process pictures:

 Before the cake went into the oven. The batter is sticky and a bit of a mess. That's okay.

 After it was baked.

I hope that everyone who celebrates Sinterklaas tonight, will have a great time! This is a great recipe btw to use up your leftover "kruidnoten" even when they are stale, because they will soften in the oven anyway.

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Book Review: Home Made Winter by Yvette van Boven

It is almost spring, but I was happy that it was finally my turn at the library to collect the book before it was spring. Next to vegetarian and vegan cookbooks I also love seasonal cookbooks and I was very curious about this book. However because it is not a vegetarian cookbook, I didn't want to buy it before I could try it.

Title: Home Made Winter
Author: Yvette van Boven
Subject: Winter cooking, home made cooking
Publisher: Fontaine uitgevers BV.
Release date: 2011
Length: 252 pages

Summary:
Home made winter is a book full of comfort food and the follow up of Home Made. Home Made Winter is the first of a series. Home Made Summer will appear later to make it all complete. This book is inspired by Irish recipes, but also French ones. Yvette gives an easy recipes for dishes that people think are hard to make. It is full of recipes that will warm you up.

Personal opinion:
While this book isn't a vegetarian cookbook, it does have plenty of vegetarian recipes. Also I love the fact that the author states in the beginning of the book that she uses free range eggs and organic meat. This book is very nice to use in combination with my organic vegetable bag in the winter because it is full of seasonal recipes. Most are easy and original. I tried three recipes from the book so far and they all came out good to great. The book is styled in a creative way with lots of gorgeous pictures. However in this case it does make the book a bit less practical to use. The recipes are not in a set format. Some are handwritten, some are printed and others are written over the pictures. For me this makes a book harder to use. It also has recipes related to the Dutch holidays in winter. Unfortunately these aren't in the right order so, that makes it a bit illogical. A last note is that plenty of recipes require more expensive ingredients, so it is not a budget cookbook. I am not saying it is a bad book, because it isn't and it will be great for a lot of people. But it isn't a book that I would buy personally even though I do like it, it is not practical enough for me. I will however check out her other books, because the recipes are great.

Purchase links: bol.com
Challenges: Foodies Reading Challenge

As always a recipe, my favorite from the book. I was looking for a way to finish my green cabbage and this sounded like an interesting recipe, and I just love mashed sweet potatoes! Here is my adjusted recipe.

Sweet Potato and Green Cabbage Mashpot: (serves 4)
- 1/2 a green cabbage, in small shreds
- 1.5 kg sweet potatoes, peeled and in chunks from about the same size
- 2 tbsp fresh thyme
- 100 gr rich butter
- some milk
- salt and pepper

Cook the cabbage for about 15 minutes in some salted water. Cook the sweet potato in water in another pan until done. Drain both pans. Make a creamy mash from the sweet potatoes using a handheld mixer with the butter and some milk. Add the thyme and some salt and pepper to taste. Stir in the shreds of cabbage.

A note on the cabbage: it is always best to remove those thick outsides leaves of a green cabbage because they have a really chewy texture. Use the leaves that are more on the inside of the cabbage for this recipe. I always feed the outside leaves to our rabbits, they love it!

This post is part of Weekend Cooking. Please make sure you check out the other participants as well :)

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#78 - Penguin bento

This idea was waiting for weeks on the shelf and today I finally had time for it. I wanted to try to make a charaben inspired by the Hawaii's bento box cookbook from Susan Yuen. I loved the little penguins featured in there and all though most bento have a spring theme already, I thought I can just squeeze this by ;)

This is a snack bento for two. Zeronic and I start on a course tomorrow and after those 2 hours I know we will be hungry. Besides, I grab any chance I get now to make a bento ;) This is an adaptation from the penguin spam musubi recipe (page 69). My penguins are filled with rice & furikake since I don't eat meat. And we couldn't get kamaboko here, so I used crab sticks, which was a bit more challenging since they are shaped differently. It was a bit of a challenge all together but I am pretty satisfied. Zeronic helped by pressing the rice and cutting and wrapping the nori while I did all the small details.

Too bad though that our supplies were very low so I couldn't add much of fresh veggies. Next to the penguins there are some cherry tomatoes, cucumber, soy sauce and laughing cow cheese. It would have made for a nicer bento if I had some more fresh veggies, but I am sure our snack will be good all the same :)

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#60 - Lasagne bento with snowflakes

I recently bought this snowflake cutter at Koek-it, and I had to try it in a bento before the winter would be all gone. The first signs of spring are already showing here, so before you know it winter is a thing of the past :)

In the bento there is vegetarian lasagne with spinach as a main dish. On top there are some mozzarella snowflakes & basil leaves. Clementine, apple and veggie sausages as sides.

I have been experimenting making some veggie "meat" balls today. And played some more with mozzarella. But more on that tomorrow ;)

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#50 - Snowman Onigiri bento

Sometimes I forget why I don't do cute and make an attempt at it. Today I tried my hand at making snowman shaped onigiri. I have a snowman muffin tin, some rice and nori, sounded easy enough. Since I work slow, I spend like 2 hours in the kitchen making these. Not the best idea when you have chronic fatigue >.<
Anyway here is today's bento:

Bento contains lettuce (my BF bought pre cut lettuce since they were all out on crops, say what?!), grapes, mandarin, and tucked underneath under the lettuce are some wieners. And of course snowman onigiri. I only dressed the front one since I was so tired by then. I have 7 onigiri left though which I put in the freezer for later use. Maybe next time I won't forget the nose ;) These are just plain onigiri mixed with some furikake. I made them in the same way as my heart shaped onigiri but wrapped the hat with nori.

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