This month has been cut rather short – both by law (bank holidays), enforced leave (office Christmas closure) and taking a ‘personal holiday’ (helping out with events) has left December to be one of the shortest (and most tiring) I’ve taken. Being ‘the season’ there’s lots of store cupboard items like reconstituted mushrooms/fungus, frozen food and long-lasting cabbage and carrots.
Despite feeling run down we’ve still managed to do the ‘orphan’ Christmas lunch (ie: friends descend to a designated house where we all gorge ourselves on ‘potluck’ dishes and some traditional Christmas/celebration food) though in ‘evolving’ fashion it was not drawn out to the wee hours of the next morn.
Week 98
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- The calm before the storm, things will full on until next week.. eep! Lunch is chilli grilled squid, tomato, steamed broccoli, steamed tri-coloured carrot with mustard dressing, curried eggplant and anchovy & spring onion onigiri
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- Panicked over things later this week; rapidly running out of supplies.. Lunch is soy & ginger eggplant, steamed broccoli, bacon wrapped broccoli stems and tomato
Week 99
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- Finally back to the habit from skipping lunch altogether! A quickly made lunch from bits here and there…
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- With crabsticks, ramen egg, dry shiitake, spring onion, noodles, frozen stock and nori it’s time for miso ‘collagen soup’ ramen lunch. The premade stock tastes pretty rich for being purely made of chicken bones and water
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- The mad rush to get things done mean I’ve skipped yesterday’s lunch but hurried with today. Lunch is garlic meatballs, tomato, steamed baby carrot & sugar snap peas, soft boiled egg and ponzu/ginger eggplant
Week 100
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- Very tired today from this months shenanigans. Lunch is ginger & dashi simmered eggplant, lamb mince stuffed shiitake, tomato, sugar snap peas & baby corn in oyster sauce and makizushi (crabstick, mayo, avocado, sesame seeds, preserved lemon)
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- Hot onigiri sure does hit the spot, especially during these grey-sky days. Lunch is baby corn with oyster sauce, steamed sugar snap peas and broad beans, home-made pickles, tomato, lamb meatballs, broad bean skewer (with pickled garlic & capsicum) and rice balls (anchovy with ginger & spring onion and saucy meatball)
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- Perhaps it was a bad idea to have a large lunch. With home made chicken stock in the fridge it’s hard to avoid noodles. Toppings include: baby corn, sugar snap peas, ramen egg, chilli carrot, “Xmas spiced” sausage, spring onion and black cloud fungus
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- Not very pretty looking for something sharing a similar base to “beauty” hotpots. Next time I might try to reduce the collagen soup even further, though hopefully it won’t be too hard to liquefy and heat in the office kitchen
Week 101
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- It’s quiet around here and an ideal time for appreciating warm onigiri. Lunch is ‘quick’ sauerkraut, ponzu eggplant, tamagoyaki, tomato, gammon and gammon-filled riceballs
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- Lunch today is extremely simple and oddly satisfying with coleslaw, breaded black pudding and tomato. It might just as well be the unhealthy combination of mayo and fried things..
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- Probably my last bento for the year; lunch is coleslaw, fish croquettes, tamagoyaki, tomato, garlic & olive oil eggplant and baby broad beans. Lunch beer not pictured
Week 102
Definitely the last post of 2014: temarizushi! Snacking on smoked salmon , prawn, avocado and cucumber topped temarizushi as I’m behind the bar to call in the new year
I keep forgetting to take a picture of my potluck dish, but it was another molded sushi.
As an unusual turn this Christmas, it seems 2 other lunch guests had not tried sushi before – and being both cooked and minimal in nori it was a gentle introduction.
As a bonus, the left over ingredients went to a packed lunch during preparation for a new years eve event: it was worth the getting up early to for!
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