9/17/2009-Gyoza bento

The other night I made delicious Japanese-styled foods for my housemate and I for dinner. We had gyoza, some store sushi and seaweed salad, miso soup, annnd sauces and some broccoli and bell peppers (raw). I think that was all. It was tasty and light. The gyoza were the frozen vegetarian ones from Trader Joe's and I steamed them in my mini bamboo steamer. It's the first time I've used it, but MAN, is it great! I can just put it over a little sauce pan with a cup or two of water and go. I have a large size one, too, but it's kind of a pain to use.

Contents of Bento: Gyoza, celery, and carrot sticks on the right side. Garnished with some red bell pepper. Rice on the left with green grapes on top. Other stuff (clockwise) steamed broccoli, 2 prunes, mini baybel cheese, hummus stuffed pepper.

In the past when I've done stuffed peppers, I've been able to find mini peppers. This is just the end of a skinny pepper from the farmer's market. The little jar has gyoza sauce (rice vinegar and soy). I put it in a glass jar because it was the left over dipping sauce from the night before and had some gyoza oil in it. (Which I wanted to avoid getting stuck in my little fishes). And of course, the Bear of Salt appears to be looking over to the right, possibly to keep watch for marauders. This picture was actually taken at my desk at work, right before I ate everything. The rice had been leftover in the fridge for a while and I didn't reheat it or anything "to restore texture" so it was hard and crunchy. :( Other than that, everything was quite tasty.