Minimalist Bento

I could not remember the last time I made a bento lunch.  But the moment I saw the Chef Bento Contest organised by Bento & Co, I told myself that I must give it a try.   It was like a push button that flashed back loads of fond memories in the preparation of many bento lunches for my boy.  Interestingly, this year contest required participant to submit a 'before' and 'after' pictures each.  Feeling overwhelmed with excitment, I forgot to present the bento box in the 'before' photo.  Oops! Nevertheless, it still worth all my effort because my big boy enjoyed eating the bento, including Papa who came home out of the blue for lunch.

The star of the bento is the tofu chicken patties which I adapted the receipe from Just One Cookbook.  Healthy and high in protein.  It had become one of our favourite dish on our dining table. It was a simple bento that anyone could assemble.  Nothing fancy and hence, the theme was 'Minimalist Bento'.

Before

After

Blueberry Yogurt muffin

I like blueberry muffin a lot!  Therefore, I baked it t more often than chocolate muffin especially when blueberry was in season and sold at discounted price at the supermarket.  This receipe that I adapted from Baking Tai Tai was moist and soft.   I added extra fresh milk to make up the 160g yogurt as required in the receipe because I left with only 133g of Meiji yogurt.  The rest of the yogurt had found its way into my big boy's stomach. ;P  Because big boy has big appetite, my muffins has increased its size over the years.  No longer the petite ones.  I tweaked the receipe by including 1/4 teaspoon of vanila essence for more flavour and 2 tablespoon of rolled oats.  It turned out tasting so delicious!  I reckoned this was the best blueberry muffin receipe I have tried so far.

Ingredients (Receipe adapted from Baking Tai Tai)
(6 big muffins)

2 eggs

100g caster sugar

120g oil (I used extra light olive oil)

70g milk  (I use Greenfield fresh milk)

160g yogurt (I used Meji plain yogurt)

200g low protein flour (I used Top flour)

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

100g blueberry

(I added 1/4 tsp vanila essence and 2 tbsp rolled oats)

Method

1.  Mix all wet ingredients and set aside.

2.  Shift the flour, baking powder and baking soda. 

3.  Pour the wet mixture into the dry ingredients and gently fold in.  Do not overmix.  Lumpy is fine Just make sure there is no trace of flour.

4.  Lastly, mix in the blueberry.  

5.  The original receipe indicates to preheat the oven 190 degree celcius top heat,  180 degree celcius bottom and bake for 25 to 30 minutes.  I knew my old Ariston oven will overbake at 190 degree celcius.  Hence, I baked at 180 degrees celcius for 20 minutes (lowest rack).  Then, the middle rack for the last 5 minutes to give it a nice golden brown crust.