Scraping the bottom of the barrel

I got back from Adelaide on Friday evening. I was still feeling lousy from the cold I got the day after I arrived there so I popped into the supermarket on my way home for milk, and that was all the fresh food I had in the house. I had managed not to gain any weight while I was away, and that motivated me to pack a bento for today's lunch instead of buying something. There was also a) Maki's May vegetarian bento competition to consider, an b) the challenge of making something out of not much.

A rummage around the fridge produced some yoghurt that wasn't out of date yet, olives, and pickled jalapeños; and the freezer yielded any number of beige and orange things like smoked tofu, falafels and vege croquettes. I needed something green! The olives in the fridge were greenish, but don't really count as veges to me for some reason. I remembered the left over pea and potato bhaji from my dinner party, and figured I could do something with that, so I made a sort of frittata from it. The details are under the bento pic.


30 ml yoghurt = 23 Cal
pomegranate molasses = 10 Cal
dried fruit (ginger and strawberries) = 50 Cal
olives = 10 Cal
smoked tofu = 35 Cal
pea and potato bhaji frittata (100g) = 130 Cal
4 baked falafels = 120 Cal
pickled jalapeños = 10 Cal
miso for soup (under fruit) = 20 Cal

Total = 408 Cal

The pea and potato bhaji was just boiled potato bits and green peas stir fried in some oil in which skinny fresh ginger strips, mustard seeds and cumin seeds had been sautéed until they started popping. I had a fair amount left over from my dinner party, and froze it before I went away. It exuded a lot of water during the defrosting process - I think that has something to do with the way the texture of cooked whole potato goes ikky after its been frozen. Anyway, I drained that away …


… added three eggs …


… mixed it up and poured it into a buttered loaf tin …


… then baked it at ~150˚C for about an hour …


… or maybe longer. I wanted to be quite sure that the potatoes were well and truly re-cooked so the ikky defrosted texture would disappear.

It's very nice actually, I had some hot for my dinner last night, but I think it's even nicer cold. The pickled jalapeños went really well with it too.

Today I'm wearing the boots I bought at Melbourne airport on my way home.


They are so cool.