Summer Soba Bentos

Left to right: Summer Soba with carrot & cucumber, Sweet Love Broccoli & Tofu, rice underneath an apple flower with carrot center & cucumber leaves.

Top tier: Apple square, Sweet Love Broccoli, rice with Sweet Love Tofu

Bottom tier: Summer Soba with Dragon: Cucumber body & wings, mustard seed eyes, carrot fire & wing detail, onion clouds.

Top tier: Sweet Love Broccoli & tofu, apple bits, cherry tomato, rice chex cereal with mixed dried fruit.

Bottom tier: Summer Soba with carrots, cucumbers, onions & black sesame seeds.

The Sweet love broccoli is so well liked in my family that I decided to try expanding it with tofu, which was delicious! I fried the tofu triangles first and then browned them in the leftover sauce mixture after taking out the broccoli. Yum! (Sweet Love Broccoli recipe here: http://bentoanarchy.blogspot.com/2007/05/sweet-love-broccoli-recipe.html )

My Summer Soba dish is from the 'Cold Noodles with Sesame Sauce' recipe in Madhur Jaffrey's "World of the East Vegetarian Cooking". I didn't have any black vinegar so I substituted with balsamic vinegar instead and added about 2 TB more of the vegetable stock. It was fantastic, we all three loved it and ate every bite.