Yvan's lunch
“I’ll work from home tomorrow” – Yvan’s words yesterday made me think that my preparation was all in vain. I had almost finished cooking some oven-roasted eggplants (the smaller ‘sausage shaped’ variety) in the frypan for a ginger eggplant sidedish and had kicked off the rice cooker. With the weather lately playing winter catch-up, the outlook for an al fresco lunch looked grim – or bitterly cold as it has been feeling.
Frugal Spicy Salmon Maki
Winter al fresco
Seeing that most of the lunch was pretty straight forward to complete, I continued in the morning to finish a pair of lunchboxes. With Yvan’s suggestion I used the last tin of ’emergency food’* (see below) for our makizushi: tinned red salmon. I spiced it up with sriracha and a little left-over lime rind. Paired with carrot kimpira, they helped warm us as we ate in the park overlooking town; though chilly it was rather pleasant outside in the sun.
Apart from the quinoa I was rather pleased that most of the ingredients were rather easy to come by, and rather inexpensive at that. Yay to frugality!
Top tier
Top tier contents: Spicy red salmon makizushi (sriracha and spring onion seasoned tinned salmon, mayonnaise – omitted from Yvan’s lunch, carrot, spring onion, sesame seeds, quinoa rice), ginger eggplant.
Bottom tier
Bottom tier contents: Soft-boiled egg, steamed edamame with capers, carrot kimpira.
* I like to keep a stash of what I dub as ’emergency food’ – for times that the house is void of fresh produce. Things like dry pasta, tinned tomato, tinned fish and preserved items are ideal for their long shelf-life and indulges the stomach when it is not ideal to eat out.
