Another lunch for my low-carb bento series: creamy caesar salad with chicken schnitzel coated with almond meal. Almond meal is a great alternative to the usual flour and breadcrumbs coating. It even tastes really good! The only drawback is, it can be quite crumbly, so you have to be careful when you pan-fry the schnitzel.

Almond Chicken Schnitzel

2 Servings

• 2 chicken breast fillets, cut into bite-sized pieces
  
• 1 egg
• 1 Tbsp oyster sauce
• almond meal
• oil for pan-frying
  

Mix the chicken with egg and oyster sauce. Coat the chicken pieces with almond meal. Pan-fry until both sides are golden brown. Set aside and keep warm in the oven.

Easy Caesar Salad

2 Servings

• 2 heads of romaine lettuce
• 5 cherry tomatoes
• 1 hard boiled egg, sliced
• Caesar Salad dressing
• coarsely ground black pepper, to taste
• grated parmesan cheese, to taste
• chopped green onions for garnish
  

Tear the romaine lettuce into 3 cm lengths and place in a bowl. Add cherry tomatoes and your favourite Caesar salad dressing. Mix well. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese, pepper, green onions and garnish with slices of hard boiled egg. Arrange the almond schnitzel nuggets on top of the salad. Serve.

Another try to do a low-carb diet...;). I did try it last year but it didn't last very long, I hope this year I can be more disciplined. One reason why I want to try this diet again is because I have noticed that I have been eating too much carb lately. I crave carb and I think I am even addicted to it, which I don't think is very good. This doesn't mean that I am planning to cut out carb completely from my life, since I don't want to go to another extreme. I will still eat it, but in much smaller portions. I will still eat out from time to time and enjoy my carb during these occasions, but I will try to eat low-carb meals at home. This means you will also see more low-carb bentos in my blog, just like this bento here. I will nevertheless try to make one or two cute bentos in a month, because making pretty, cute bentos is my hobby, which I don't intend to abandon in the near future :).

Soy Sauce Duck

• 1 duck breast, cut into bite-sized pieces
  
• 1/2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 medium red onion, sliced
• 2 Tbsp soy sauce
• sweetener, to taste (optional)
• black pepper, to taste
• 1 Tbsp chopped green onion

Pan-fry the duck for 1 minute with olive oil. Add the onion and stir until it's slightly brown. Add soy sauce, sweetener and black pepper. Cook for another minute. Garnish with green onions.

Creamy Rocket Salad

• 50 g mixed salad greens
• 50 g rocket
• 2 medium tomatoes, sliced
• 8 - 10 mini mozzarella balls
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp chicken powder
• 100 ml cream
• 1 tsp dried marjoram
• 1 Tbsp chopped red onion
  
• 1/2 tsp sweetener (optional)
  
• black pepper, to taste

Combine all the salad ingredients. Topped with the soy sauce duck and soy sauce egg for garnish.

SOMEBODY STOLE MY BLOG CONTENTS

Today, by chance I found a blog which copied and pasted my 'Bento - Charaben' section to his/her blog without my permission. I have seen my blogger friends getting furious because other people stole their blog contents. I thought that I was lucky that something like this never happened to me. Apparently this was just wishful thinking. There are so many irresponsible people out who don't even understand one of the most basic ethical codes. I have reported his/her blog to Google and I hope that this blog would be deleted soon. When you check this link out, you will notice that the rest of the blog entries are also stolen from other blogs: http://freecookingposts.blogspot.de/search/label/Bento%20-%20Charaben !!

On a lighter note, let me end this post with a HAPPY EASTER :)!

Finding low carb sweets and desserts is very hard in Germany, which could be deadly for me who's got a real weakness for chocolate, gummi bears and ice cream ;). A few days ago, I created some low-carb chocolate cookies, using gluten flour and ground almond. The cookies didn't turn out bad at all, they're soft and rather flaky but still delicious! Scroll down to find the recipe!

Ingredients (Makes 14)

• 100 g butter
• 1 egg
• 100 g gluten flour
• 100 g ground almond
  
• 4 tbs sweetener (of your choice - you can add or reduce the amount as you like)
• 4 - 5 tbs cocoa (without sugar)
• 1 tsp vanilla
  

Mix all ingredients well. Shape into little balls. Bake for 10 - 12 minutes.

What are little boys made of?

What are little boys made of?

Frogs and snails

And puppy-dogs' tails,

That's what little boys are made of.

What are little girls made of?

What are little girls made of?

Sugar and spice

And everything nice,

That's what little girls are made of.

For people who celebrate Chinese New Year: Gong Xi Fa Cai 2011 ! May you all have a prosperous and joyful Bunny year ahead :)!

Another beautiful dish that you can make from Shirataki noodles is Char Kway Teow. I still prefer the original Char Kway Teow of course, because I love rice noodles to death, but being able to eat such a dish during a low-carb diet is heavenly...!

Ingredients:

• 200 g Shirataki noodles
• 100 g prawns
• 1 Chinese sausage, sliced
• 100 bean sprouts
• 1/4 cup chopped green onions
• 1 egg
• 1-2 tbs pork lard (or substitute with olive oil)
• 1 tbs minced garlic
  
• 1 tbs fish sauce
• 2 tbs oyster sauce
• 1 tbs sambal oelek
  
• Pepper to taste
  

Instructions

• Heat the pork lard in a wok.
• Add the minced garlic, prawns and Chinese sausage. Stir fry for 2 minutes until aromatic.
  
• Add fish sauce, sambal oelek and oyster sauce. Simmer for 1 minute.
• Quickly add the noodles and stir until well combined.
  
• Toss in the egg, bean sprouts, green onions and add a dash of pepper. Stir fry for another 1 minute.
• Serve!

Eat the noodles with the Szechuan crispy chili in oil, as I told you in the previous post. It makes it even yummier :)!

A few days ago I bought 4 small packets of Shirataki noodles. I had never tried them in my life but I had a pretty a good idea of what it might taste, since it's made from konjac plant/konyakku and I love konyakku jelly. At the moment I am trying to reduce my carbohydrate and sugar intakes (which is very hard because I love my STARCHY rice and noodles...!!), I thought I should really give these so-called 'miracle noodles' - no calories, no sodium, and almost 0 carbs, a try.

I have to say I was not disappointed. The noodles taste like cellophane noodles but thicker, quite similar to Korean Daang Myun noodles which are usually used to make Japchae, but slightly chewier. I thought chewy noodles would taste better spicy, that's why I used Chinese hot bean sauce and Szechuan crispy chilli in oil (look at the picture below) to stir-fry the noodles.

Szechuan Crispy Chilli in Oil.
When you go to your local Asian grocery store, watch out for glass jars with a picture of this man - he makes very very tasty sauces...! Just absolutely gorgeous!

Shirataki noodles have a rather unpleasant smell, rather fishy I would say, that's why before you stir-fry the noodles, make sure you rinse and pat them dry.

Ingredients - serves 2

• 400 g Shirataki noodles
• 300 g ground pork
• 2 tbs oil
  
• 1 tbs minced garlic
• 1 tbs fish sauce
  
• 1 tbs hot bean sauce
• 1 tbs Szechuan crispy chilli in oil
• 1 tbs oyster sauce
• 1/ 2 cup chopped green onions
• 1 cup bean sprouts
  
• 1/2 tsp white pepper

Instructions

• Heat 2 tbs oil in a wok.
• Add the minced garlic and ground pork. Stir fry for 1-2 minutes until the ground pork is slightly brown.
  
• Add fish sauce, hot bean sauce, crispy chili and oyster sauce. Simmer for 3 minutes.
• Quickly add the noodles and stir until well combined.
  
• Toss in the bean sprouts, green onions and add a dash of pepper. Stir fry for another 1 minute.
• Serve!
  

For people who have to take care of their carb-intake, make sure that you check the labels and ingredients for ready-made sauces. They usually have sugar and thus some hidden carbs - so don't use too much!

Low-carbs dinner (well, minus the corns!)... Very easy to make and quite healthy too! You only need good quality beef steak and lots of greens (and reds and yellows too in my case ;)). I love to add mozzarella cheese and dried herbs such as basil, majoram or thyme to my salad. Drizzle with olive oil, salt and black pepper and voilà, your dinner is ready!