I've been looking into the idea of "bento box" lunches recently. I am interested in eating better and shedding a few pounds, and, as of yesterday, Wife is officially sick of sandwiches. And she makes an excellent point about all the nasty preservatives and other crap in tasty, tasty deli meats.
I did some research, and have concluded that people who pack bento-style lunches are either A) also interested in eating healthier and losing some weight, B) Japanese, or C) a little crazy. Sometimes a lot crazy. Some of these people make animals out of and faces on their food. That seems bizarre to me, though I admittedly have little interest in "kawaii" things or manga/anime.
While I am neither Japanese nor interested in making my food look like panda bears and octopods, I still think bento box lunches would be a good idea for us. So I found a very cool website, written in English, called "Just Bento." It has some great "how-to" sections, pictures of (normal) bentos, and lots of recipes.
Today, I tried one of her recipes for tuna-tofu burgers. I changed it up a bit based on what we had in the house, and while I would do a few things differently next time, I probably will make it again at some point.
Mini Tuna-Tofu Burgers E's Way
Ingredients:
- 1/2 block extra-firm tofu, drained and cut into smaller pieces
- 1 can water-packed tuna
- Approx. 2 tbls chopped onion
- Approx. 2 tbls chopped celery
- 2 tbls bread crumbs
- 1 tbls soy sauce
- 1 medium egg, beaten
- Olive oil
Directions:
- Drain the tofu by placing it on a pad of paper towels on a plate, topped with more paper towels, and put a cutting board or plate on top with a bowl/measuring cup of water on it to weight it down. Let sit 10-20 minutes; change the paper towels 1-2 times while draining.
- Drain the tuna REALLY well. Feed the "tuna juice" to your dogs or cats, if applicable. Otherwise dispose of it.
- Combine all ingredients in a zippered plastic bag, seal, and squeeze the hell out of it. Mush and mix in the bag until everything is a pretty evenly-mixed paste.
- Heat up a little olive oil in a mid-sized frying pan.
- Form 6-8 mini burger-sized balls out of the mixture. Put them in the pan and press them flat with a spatula, just like with any kind of burger. Fry on one side until browned up the way you like it, 5-7 minutes. Flip and brown the other side.
- Devour.
These were tasty. I'll add more seasoning to them next time (they were a little bland). I also recommend making 8, not 6, mini burgers. The bigger size you get making 6 takes way longer to cook through and they're mushy. I think 8 slightly teenier burgers would be perfect.
That said, 2 of them were a perfect lunch, with an ungodly amount of protein.
I took pictures of the burgers, intending to post them here. However, a fruitless search of our coffee-table drawers has turned up about 7 million iPod cords and hands-free headsets for phones we no longer own, as well as a cable for hooking the camera to the television - but no cord to upload my photos. I'll try again later. Right now, I have a ridiculous mess to clean up before I go to a meeting.
Author's note - This post was edited 01/10/11 to include a link to the original recipe on Just Bento.
No comments:
Post a Comment