Tiffin Tuesday - It's all about colours!

Daily Tiffin News

We'd like to introduce you to our newest addition to the DT team - Abby of Eat The Right Stuff. She knows good healthy food and if you visit her blog you will know that eating good food can be so scrumptious and healthy - go figure! Abby will be sharing secrets on how to make good healthy homemade meals your family (yes and the kids) will love. She will also share the latest food trends in and around the UK.

Here is a little about Abby in her own words:

"I lived in Malawi until I was 14 and grew up eating homemade food made with seasonal ingredients. Moving to the UK and encountering processed food for the first time as a teenager was a real shock. I feel very fortunate to have always eaten homemade food and have the confidence to cook. I am always keen to share how easy it can be to cook and eat healthily. As well as being a keen cook I'm also studying nutritional medicine. My blog is eat the right stuff and I live in London, UK."

Look forward to Abby's first article on Thursday, in the meantime let's all welcome Abby to the Daily Tiffin.


Today's Tiffin is not just about the yummy food - the eyes also eat!




Top: Potato latkes on salad, bear container with ketchup (latkes are pretty much the only thinkg I WILL order ketchup with), tsatsiki and a cherry tomato/basil deco.
Bottom: More fritters on peas, salad and frozen strawberries.

Latkes or as I know them, "Kartoffelpuffer" are one of those "poor man's steak" foods you find all over the world. I have known them since my childhood and frankly know of noone who doesn't like them. This is my mother's family recipe for them, which is really easy:
Peel raw potatoes, grate them and press out the liquid. Mix with egg, flour, chopped onion, parsley salt and pepper to taste. Heat neutral oil (enough to cover the bottom of the pan thinly, it's sadly not too healthy) and drip spoonfuls of the mixture into the pan, flatten them out really thinly with a ladle and flip them once you can see the edges become slightly brown from the top.
I prefer ketchup with them but they also go well with tsatsiki, applesauce or cranberry preserve, and some places in Germany even serve them with sugar and cinnamon.

I try to follow the rule of colours in every bento I make: Red (tomato and strawberries), yellow (the bear and also the latkes), green (peas and salad), light (tsatsiki) and dark (the latkes again). This is not something that I do because I feel bentos should be done according to strict rules - I was doing this long before I ever read that such a rule existed! I like contrasts and use them - you will find that even in bentos that strive to be monochrome, the creator uses contrasts artfully to make the bento visually appealing.
These techniques do not only ensure a pretty to look at bento, but also force me to balance the lunch with healthy fresh vegetables and fruit! Doesn't fresh fruit have the best colours you can think of?
If I find that my bento is complete in ingredients but still needs another touch of colour, I use minicontainers or add a piece of fruit or candy as dessert to balance out the colors. But I always find that the best colours are found in nature!

Sorted by colour, you can mix and match a lot of ingredients:

Red/Orange: Bell peppers, carrots, radishes, red apples, strawberries, raspberries, cherries, cranberries... take your pick!
Yellow: Bell peppers, yellow carrots, yellow squash sorts, pickled radish, egg yellow/tamagoyaki, apples and pears...
Green: Again, bell peppers (can you see a pattern?), all kinds of leaf vegetables, cucumbers and zucchini, leeks/chives/spring onions, green grapes, green apples and pears, gooseberries...
Light: This is traditionally the domain of starch: Rice, pasta, noodles, potatoes (if you don't count them as yellow). But also egg white, white sesame seeds, parmesan or chopped leek as contrast on meaty or saucy dishes.
Dark: Traditionally you think of nori. But dark bread, any kind of meat that is prepared with a brown sauce like teriyaki, and a lot of fruit (purple grapes, blackberries, plums...) fall in that category... be creative!

There aren't many foods that are naturally blue, and because of that, the human mind will often find blue-colored food unappetizing. There are however several types of fruit and vegetable called "blue" which you will find are really purple: blue potatoes, blueberries, "blue" cabbage...

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This Post was written by jokergirl from Were Rabbits