Tuesday, November 16, 2010

11/16/2010- Hot soup at Work Bento- also some longer musings

Sometimes I like to have hot soup at work. One of the ways I do it is by making my own asiany rice stick or bean thread soup. Yes, I am aware that you can buy such things premade--just add hot water--really really cheaply. That's not the point.

When I make my own, I can put what I want into it. And it's fresher, less salt, and I just feel pretty smart making something like this up.

Here is what it looks like when I take it to work:
On the left is a small bowl of chopped carrots, dried-sweet Thai radish, a little onion, and snap peas. It has about a tablespoon of shoyu poured over it. The middle bowl has cut-up bean thread noodles, a vegetarian boullion cube, a secret blend of spices, and finely cut dried shiitake mushrooms. The sidecar has tamari almonds. This and an apple is a great lunch for me.

Here's a close-up of the vegetable bowl from the side. I layer it because it's easier, but it also looks pretty.


I keep the vegetables separate because I almost always make up my lunch the night before. This guarantees the noodles don't get over cooked or fall apart.

Then, at lunch, I'll pour hot water over the soup, microwave the vegetables for a little bit, then dump them in (with shoyu) and let it sit until it's cooked.

Here's what it looks like when it's in the process of cooking:
The mushrooms float to the top. And by the time it's cooked, it's cool enough to eat. Very efficient.

So, this isn't exactly a bento, per se, but I wanted to post it because it's a great way to think about hot soup and making your own, homemade equivalents to store-bought things. And that's really the way I roll (my bento-philosophy, if you will).

Forgive me some self-centered introspection, but food is really important to me. Making my own food, from scratch, preparing food for myself and the people I love, is really a part of how I define myself as an adult. Part of how I show care for myself and others is by feeding them, from the labor of my hands.

There have been times in my life previously where I have had difficulty "feeding" myself (both in a literal and a spiritual sense). For me, paying attention to literal feeding also helps the spiritual. That's why I make bentos for myself. In many of the bento blogs I read, mothers make bentos for children, but not for themselves. They use their labor and art to send their children off into the world with a physical representation of a mother's love for her child. When I pack a special lunch for myself, I am doing the same thing for myself. Because I *am* worthy of a unique and attractive lunch.

Of course this doesn't mean I never use convenience foods or eat out or whatever, but I do feel that being mindful of what you eat and what you feed your loved ones, however you would like to define "mindful," is a valuable practice.

And that's why I bento, just in case you were wondering.

Monday, November 15, 2010

11/15/2010- Pasta Salads Bento

Finally, our fridge has reached a point of maximum leftovers, so there is enough variety to pack the kind of bento I like to pack. Lots of little things. :D

Contents of Bento: Top tier- two pasta salads. The one on the left is tamari-roasted carrot and asparagus, wild rice, and mini bowties with lots of fresh ginger. I put it on some spinach leaves to prevent leakage across the barrier. This was what HB's mum made for dinner the other night. The pasta to the right is rotini with fake chicken and peppers, olives, onions, and artichokes. I made that for dinner last night. It was cooked down with some vegetable broth, a little red wine, and whatever else I felt inspired to throw in. It made a pretty good "Sunday night chicken dinner" for people who don't really eat chicken!

The bottom tier has two strips of red potato pizza with broccoli, snap peas, and a small tomato. I had to cut the bottom of the tomato off to fit it into the tier, so I shaped that slice into a sort-of heart shape, which is on the pasta above. Since the larger part of the tomato was bottomless and leaky, I put it in a silicone cup.
The side car has homemade chocolate-covered apricots. I made this great chocolate sauce (with a little southern comfort) the other night for dessert. It has also made great covering for apricots! Hooray!

I also took my little bbq sauce guy for the pizza.

The best part about this box is that it has chopsticks in the lid. It makes for very satisfying eating of portions like this. When you eat small portions with a fork, you can feel cheated (at least I sometimes do) but when you're using chopsticks, it's lots of trips to your mouth, even if it isn't a lot of food.

Well that's my real post of the week. I'm hoping that I'll be able to exceed my goal and post twice a week, but I'm going to resign myself to baby steps for the time being.

11/13/2010- Snack Bento

Sometimes I will take a plain ol' container of leftovers. Most of the time, in fact. But this time, I also packed up a little snack bento that was better than nothing :D

Contents of snack bento: olives, carrot sticks, hummus. Pretty straight forward. It was actually too many carrot sticks, but that's ok. I just ate them later.

10-2010- Veggie Burger pseudo bento

Sometimes I like to just take a simple lunch. This is one way to make a veggie burger and chips lunch into a bento-appropriate one.

Contents of bento: Condiments in the glasslock, blue corn chips in the small container. A frozen veggie burger is in the tinfoil, and a frozen pita bread is in the paper towel.

Everyone has their favorite ways of packing things, I like to pack frozen bread products in paper towels so they don't get soggy. I'm lucky to have a toaster oven at work, so I can just heat everything up there. I really don't like microwaved veggie burgers, they're much better when they're crispy. The burger is wrapped in tinfoil so I automatically have a little "pan" to use in the toaster oven. If you don't use the office toaster oven tray, you don't have to clean it. (And in some places I've worked, I seemed to be the only person that ever cleaned it....bluh)

Here is a detail of the condiments (which is actually the only strictly "bento" part of this lunch.)
Contents of Condiments box: lettuce, red pepper strips, tomato slice, a little silicone cup of cheddar, dill pickle slices, and a teeny-tiny container of bbq sauce. This little container originally held wasabi in a container of take-out grocery store sushi. Thanks, HB's mum, for saving stuff like this. I'm just thrilled because it actually fits in the glasslock. It's a pretty shallow box, so it's hard to find lidded containers that will work in it.

09/2010- Summer pasta bento, take 2

I'm not sure when I took this for lunch. I know it was sometime in September. I apologize for the terrible quality of the picture. I know I'm not exactly an artist-photographer, but I feel that at least people can *see* the things in my pictures. This one, not so much....

Contents of Bento: mini penne with pesto and sungold tomatoes, two olives, a mini baybel cheese. The salad is spicy asian greens and spinach with a small container of homemade tomatillo salsa in the middle which will act as dressing.

In the summer I often like to use salsa as a dressing for salad greens. It adds flavor and interest, without me having to make up dressing. (We don't really use the pre-made kind). I always pack dressing separately for salad because otherwise you end up with a soggy mess. Yuck.

Back from Silence!

Hey all of my now nonexistent readers. I am going to start posting again! First will be the sorry clean up of bentos that I've done this fall that I never posted. Not too many, sadly. Our set up right now is just not very conducive to bento-making. But I will persevere. My new goal is to try and have something to post once a week. At least that will keep my blog from looking like some kind of desert wasteland.

My little bbq sauce container believes in me! Look at that knowing smile on his tomato face. He's just thrilled to be filled with bbq sauce instead of ketchup.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

9/14/2010- Delights of Summer!

Our garden is bursting with tomatoes and everything right now. Crazy. I spent most of the weekend (it felt like) processing tomatoes to freezer can or making pesto to freeze. Of course, when HB came back from out of town and told me he wanted "that great pesto pasta you make...with the sungolds" how could I say no?

Contents of bento: In lower tier-Pesto mini penne (with almonds instead of pine nuts) with halved Sungold Cherry tomatoes, garnished with parsley. In upper tier- chips, homemade salsa with 4 different kinds of onions from the farmer's market, small plum, and some great mild sheeps-milk cheese (also from the farmer's market).

This bento really says "late summer" to me. Sure, you could make a bento just like this in January, but the plum and tomatoes would definitely be sub-standard.

HB's mum collects all kinds of things, including these little lidded plastic containers that fit perfectly in this bento box. Score! After my weekend of tomato processing, I still had (have) plenty of fruits but I was getting tired of peeling, seeding, cutting, and boiling boiling boiling. I was standing in the kitchen and thinking, "oh man, what else can I do with tomatoes???" And then it hit me: fresh salsa, duh. This came out so well I made more to go with the chili I made tonight for dinner. No picture on that, it's just going in a regular container, so I hardly think it counts as a "bento lunch." But regardless, I am excited to have some other way to eat tomatoes. I haven't gotten a rash from them yet, but the first frost is still a ways off. :D

9/4/2010- Leftovers Bento!

Even though I'm a working girl again, I don't have a whole lot of time for bento-ing. Or maybe it's just that our kitchen set up is not conducive to being creative. Anyways, excuses aside, I do have a bento or two to show you for September:
Leftovers in bento form! I think this was eggplant parmesan (from a restaurant) on the left and I know that the right was sauteed string beans with eggplant, onions, and balsamic vinegar. The garnish is a celery leaf.

This is in my glasslock box, which is so crucial for hot lunches. I'm very leery about microwaving plastic (as I've mentioned before). There are times, however, when I wish I had a more bowl-shaped glass container. Ah well, I will have to keep my eyes peeled. This is a good example of how to arrange leftovers in an attractive way. So always remember, you don't have to make special stuff for you bento. (This is a note to myself as much as anyone else!)

Sunday, August 22, 2010

8/12/2010- Sandwich Bento

I like sandwiches. They're easy to hold, I like bread, and they taste great at room temperature. But for some reason I don't often think of packing them in a bento. There are these great little buns you can find at the grocery store up here. They're like hamburger buns, but about the size of the palm of your hand...well, my hands are small, but you get the picture. Perfect for bento. Here you go!

Contents of Bento: carrot sticks; sandwich with pesto, cheese, and hummus on tiny bun; blueberries, tomato, lettuce, and leftover pasta salad. Side car with melon and a flower pick, and a peach. (Do I dare to eat a peach?........yes........)

It was great! I put all the lettuce on the sandwiches. By keeping the lettuce off (cheese goes next to the bread, with squishy stuff on the cheese) you can avoid terrible soggy bread, one of my least favorite things. And the place where I'm working is in a converted old mill building, so it's right by a river. I ate my lunch on a nice big rock down by the river. Very pleasant. :D

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

8/10/2010 a Bento for Back to Work- Mixed rice and Lentil

As some of you may or may not know, I am currently between libraries. I have a temporary gig (as of today) to bring in the benjamins, so I'll be packing bento lunch again on a regular basis! Hooray! Though, I'm pretty sure that by this point, I have no readers left... oh well, we obscure bento-bloggers must soldier on through anonymity.

Contents of bento: bottom section: delicious lentil goo, and mixed wild and brown rice with almonds, onions, and fresh herbs. Top section: green tomato with sungold in center, carrot sticks, green pepper pieces, a tiny apple, honeydew and 3 flower skewers of blueberries. The side car has very fancy hummus- plain hummus with parsley, chives, paprika, olive oil, and a chive flower.

Everything was delicious at room temperature, though I got a little sun eating my lunch outside. Even though I was in the shade...I guess I need to come up with some plan to prevent this. It's hard when it's 80-90 degrees out, though.

I really enjoy eating out of this blue sheep box. It's so brightly colored that it provides a nice automatic contrast to the food you're eating.


Sunday, July 11, 2010

Retro posted from 6/30/2010- Orzo salad for a car bento

On my way down to DC, I packed a bento lunch so I wouldn't have to eat fast food. I should have taken a picture of it, because it was lovely. This posting has my bento lunch that I packed for the ride up. Less pretty. In fact, pretty darn simple.
Contents of Bento: mini peppers, orzo salad with feta, tomato, olives, and chickpeas. That's it folks. Pretty straight forward.

A car bento is, however, a great way to eat delicious food and also to save your pennies. If you are in the business of penny saving, like I am, it's pretty crucial.


Retro posted from 6/27/2010- Small sandwiches and the toll of no sleep

As the conference went on, it became more of a test of our fortitude--in DC by 8am, getting on the metro by 10:30pm. And then hanging out with my folks until the wee hours of the night--then getting up and doing it again. So this was the last day that I made a bento for us and it's pretty low-key. It ended up being pretty delicious, though, so I'm not really complaining.
Contents of C-bento: strawberries and grapes, carrots, tomatoes, small sandwich with star-cut out. More small sandwiches, two olives, carrots. The bottom section has cabbage, mini pepper, and a hot-dog octopus! The little face did not survive, but that's ok. There's also a fishy of ketchup. The octopus is sitting in an octopus food cup which was from the SWAG. The tiny sandwiches have pub cheese and jalapeno in them. It was actually really delicious.

Contents of my bento: tomatoes, olives, tiny sandwiches with star cutout, and carrot sticks. The other side has cabbage and strawberries and grapes.

Like I said, the pub cheese and jalapeno was good. And the sandwiches were not soggy by lunch time. The pub cheese was from Trader Joe's, so I don't feel that badly about eating it. It's more cheese and less cheese-food-product. This bento also reminded me that though I don't often pack a sandwich bento, I probably should consider doing it more often. They are very tasty and if you pack your fillings carefully, they can stay nice (not soggy) until lunchtime.




Retro posted from 6/26/2010- Jambalaya and other adventures in Little Mama's kitchen

As I mentioned, one of my former colleagues (who was also in the same library science school program as I was) stayed with my folks and I while we went to the conference. So of course I offered to make her a bento too! Lucky me, she definitely appreciated them. She also eats meat, so I could pack things I don't pack for myself.

Packing a bento box in Little Mama's kitchen was an interesting adventure, since I didn't know what she had for bento foods, but I think we made out pretty well.

Contents of bento for my conference buddy, C: small oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies, two meatballs, 1 grape, jambalaya rice from Trader Joe's with carrot hearts. The other side has a cream-cheese stuffed mini pepper, more grapes, and a spanikopita. The bottom section has broccoli slaw, grape tomatoes, garbanzo beans, and a fishy of lemon juice. The side car has salsa for the meat balls.

Contents of my bento: broccoli slaw, tomatoes, a few errant grapes and carrots, two cream cheese stuffed mini peppers, and garbanzo beans in the corner. The other side has a spanikopita, more grapes, and jambalaya rice. The lid held some more of those little cookies.

Everything was great and we even had a chance to eat together. It is very nice to make a bento lunch for someone who appreciates it. I had to use little mama's bento box, but she said that was ok. Anyways, fun! And bento lunch!


Retro posted from 6/25/2010-Leftovers and the ALA Annual Conference

As some of you may know, I'm a librarian. And this year I was able to make it to our ceremonial spawning grounds (so to speak) the ALA Annual Conference. It was great! I got to stay with my folks, hang out with one of my former colleagues, and see/learn/hear some amazing stuff. Of course, since I wanted to do the experience on the cheap, I brought a bento for some of the days. So that means for you, my darling, low-numbered public, that there are more bento pictures! And use of some of the awesome SWAG I got in the bento contest.
Contents of bento: Leftover eggplant parm with rigatoni. Two cut out cheese people in the top left--one of the advantages of being at little mama's house is the ready availability of american cheese for deco. Bottom tier: broccoli slaw with tomato, two dolmas, one kalamata olive, and a fishy of lemon juice. The top of this bento (which is from the contest) holds a little whole grain cookie, chocolate covered pomegranate seeds, and a salt and pepper packet I got from Scandinavian Airlines many years ago. They have hilarious messages on them:

Salt:
The color of snow
The taste of tears
The enormity of oceans

and Pepper:
Pepper has been called
"the gift of the East",
though "gift" means
poison in Swedish,
don't let that put you off.

The little cheese people were because this trip (1-week long) was the longest that HB and I have been apart since we've been married. I think we fared ok, though I was very glad to have him around again when I got back home.

I ate this on the top floor of the Washington Convention Center, sitting against a wall. It was very edible at that point, but the cheese people had gotten a little melty during the day. Oh well, I knew what they looked like when I made it, so it's not too big of a deal.

The white box, which shall be known as the white box, has, to the best of my measurements, 280ml in the top and 205ml in the bottom. There's also a little room in the lid, though none of my chopsticks are small enough to fit in the holders in the lid. I brought my ELPH chopstick set which was great instead.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

6/15/2010- Dinner Bento

Another swag bento :D

This one requires some input from my darling reading public (which I have just found out might be slightly larger than I had thought! Woo!)

This image is without flash.

This image is with flash.

Which do you prefer?

Contents of bento: Salad with pretty cut outs of cucumber and mozzarella cheese, burrito filling and spanish rice with pepper jack cheese and tortilla cut-out stars, tortilla strips with melted cheese and a King Strawberry obscuring a piece of pineapple.

You can tell the strawberry is a king because of the crown. And also his HUGE size. Seriously, a monster berry.

This is packed in a new box, a blue French Sheep box. The top says something in French that I can't remember at the moment. The top holds 380ml and the bottom 290ml for a whopping total of 670ml. This is pretty big for me. So I made sure to put salad in the bottom section. This box comes with nice little chopsticks that fit in the lid and is just a nice set. I like it!

The lunch was pretty good too.

6/15/2010- Breakfast Bento!

The first bento from swag! Also, new background...

This is a 480ml box that I will now call "Putifresh Trees." They're not really trees--they're bunches of grapes. But they look like trees to me. Meh.

Contents of bento: Fruits! canteloupe slices cut with flower cutters, strawberry, pineapple (in a paper cup); awesome tomato-headed sauce container filled with BBQ, a silicon baking cup with granola, leftover Red Potato Pizza* cut into pieces.

You can see the quarter for scale, perhaps. This box is pretty tall, but fits the sauce bottle perfectly. Something you may not know is that I don't eat ketchup. I had to refill too many little bottles of it when I worked in food service, so it really turned me off to it. But I do like BBQ sauce and I will put it on most things potato (NOT mashed, however). It is delicious on the red potato pizza.

A good bento, everything was tasty at room temperature. It is hard to eat granola with chopsticks, however.

*Red Potato Pizza is a particular specialty of NE CT where I now live. It is made with white sauce, red potato slices, cheddar cheese, and topped with either bacon or broccoli or both (mine here has just broccoli). It is really quite good, especially with BBQ. :D

SWAG!

Ok, so we live in CT now, and I was bound and determined to make some bento with my new swag so that I could post something in celebration of winning the contest. But our temporary kitchen is not really conducive to bento-ing. I will need to think about my plan of attack for it....

I began by laying out everything I got in the awesome box of great stuff:
Despite the bizarrely "artfully" alignment of the picture (I'm not exactly sure what I was thinking...I think I was just trying to get everything in the image....) Behold, my SWAG!--lots of boxes, picks, shapers, baran, all kinds of amazing stuffs.

But what is really crazy is when you realize that it pretty much DOUBLES the amount of bento things I own. I mean. Really. Double. So, storage is kind of an issue, but it's ok. I put out all of my other stuff into the array, so the awesomeness of my bento collection can be seen...

the only thing missing from this image is my metal tiffin box for HB. Somehow it got left on a chair. But you can see that I now have quite the array of bento supplies!

As I make lunches with them, I will post the sizes of the new boxes. I'm a little intimidated by the yellow onigiri bento--I think I might be able to pack a sandwich in it without too much trouble. :D I'm not sure how to keep it closed; the top section doesn't fit all that tightly onto the bottom....:shrug: I guess I need to play with it.

Retro-posting from our last week in VA

This was a bento I made at S&A's house our last week in VA. Tasty, nondescript, but a bento picture!
Contents of bento: fried rice with decor, sliced strawberry, and mini-babybel cheese.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Retro-posted from 5/27/2010- Peanut curry and rice

A really simple bento:

Contents of bento: peanut curry with all kinds of vegetables (none of which are visible), basil, rice (mixed white and brown) and some steamed carrots cut-out with the veggie cutters I also got in celebration of being done with my Masters.

The carrots were steamed and then had a little soy sauce put on them. Really simple. The whole thing went in the microwave. Not too bad. Not very fancy, but that's ok.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Retro-posted from 5/25/2010- onigiri and okazu

Heh, I know the title for this posting is a little silly..."rice balls and stuff" might be one translation. Anyways, just a simple bento for lunch.

Contents of bento: onigiri (I think these had Indian Garlic Pickle in them), lettuce, okazu with vegetables and quorn in some kind of thick, sweet, soy sauce, carrots, sweet simmered black beans, and frozen cherries (which defrosted by lunchtime).

I think the lettuce was there to add some color.

Retro-posted from 5/22/2010- a Bento Picnic!

HB and I decided to have a picnic and I thought to bring my new bento box (and a box for HB) since I had just packed it. We ended up sharing the contents of both boxes. Together with a blanket and a big container of homemade mint iced tea, it was a great lunch. A good way to celebrate a lovely warm day.

This is my inaugural bento for the ELPH box!
Contents of Bento:
lid: cashews and a piece of chocolate fudge. Top tier: okazu with vegetables and quorn pieces in a sweet soy type sauce, sweet black beans (simmered with brown sugar and soy sauce), lettuce, carrot cutouts. Bottom tier: mixed white and brown short grain rices and SUPER CUTE CARROT ELEPHANT! Look! He has a heart coming out of his widdle trunk.

Here is a detail of my awesome charben attempt:
Can you tell I'm just so pleased with myself?

Here is HB's box, which is very plain looking. We shared the decor from the Elph box set.
Contents of bento: Carrots, hummus with red pepper, and onigiri on a bed of lettuce. The onigiri are stuffed some with Branston Pickle (mmmmm, I got addicted to this stuff when I lived in England) and some with Indian Garlic Pickle. For some reason, American food is not really served with relishes or pickles or things like in other countries. I mean, we have ketchup (ugh) or a dill spear, but it's really a different kettle of fish. Stuff like Branston Pickle or Indian pickles (I also like mango pickle) take time to prepare and are just jam-packed with flavor. They both made fairly decent onigiri filling, obviously not very Japanese-tasting, though.

We also had another side car
with more cashews and chocolate fudge. I think we also had a little bowl with some fresh (overripe) mango goo in it.

All in all, a great picnic, with lots of tasty, tasty foods.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Back from Silence!

So, yes, this blog has been VERY quiet for a little while. Mostly because HB and I were in the process of moving 100s of miles away. We are now settled (or as settled as we're going to be for a little while...) and I've got some posting to catch up on!

Here is my darling ELPH box that I got as a present for myself when I finished my Masters degree. Yay for tiny elephants!

And here's what it looks like all spread outs:


And with the lids on:


It came with a tiny fork and I also got some cute ELPH chopsticks in a keen little case to go with:

In case you can't tell, the lid says: "Wow, there are so many mushrooms" which is hilarious and cute.

For CB who likes scale...
ELPH box and quarter

and

ELPH box with ruler. As you can see, it's pretty little. I think it's around 450 ml for both sections.

My inaugural bento meal in this box will be the next post. Woo!





Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Bento Contest = I am a lucky duck!

Good news, everybody!

In the midst of all of the tornado of turmoil in our lives (we're moving out of our house, uhm, today--but I'm working this week until Saturday and we're not driving out of town until the 1st of June). So yes, incredibly crazy. Who knew we could have accumulated so much stuff in 5 years.

BUT! The good news is this!

I am the proud winner of Bento Zen's contest in honor of Gamene's new apartment. So much swag-- I can't wait to make bentos with all the swag!

Check me out, guys: http://bentozen.wordpress.com/2010/05/23/shikai-maki-bento/
and is was a random thing, so I was especially lucky--one out of 100. :D

I am also a contestant on An American in Bento's theme contest!
You can vote until May 30---so feel free to do so.

Look forward to a glut of bento postings soon...I promise! I've been taking pictures...I just haven't had time to post.

Friday, May 7, 2010

5/7/2010- Fresh Noodles and Salad leftovers Bento

Yesterday was HB and my 4th anniversary. Yay! We had a lovely set of meals: lunch at Chez Trinh, dinner at Francesco's. Mmmmmm nothing says marital bliss like gluttony. Anyways, I packed my leftovers from lunch in HB's tiffin. It was perfect for the salad/stuff combination that I always get at Chez Trinh.

Contents of Bento: Rice Noodles with Fried Tofu and delicious sauce. With extra cucumber, chopped basil, green onions, carrot hearts, and two fishes with my recreated delicious sauce for the salad. The other container has chopped romaine and red leaf lettuces, and a few carrot hearts.

The fishes have soy, rice vinegar, and a little fish sauce. It was not nearly as good as the delicious sauce the original dish had, but I had to bring a little extra. On the ride home from the restaurant, the little clamshell container they had given me with the leftovers leaked in the plastic bag it was in. There was still some sauce, but not as much as previously. :(

This is a great way to do leftovers--take some home, then fill it out to a full meal with whatever you have at home. I had no bean sprouts, but lots of cucumber and lettuce. And even a little bit of fresh basil. It worked out great.

Anyways, I just dumped the container with stuff on top of the salad and tried not to shove it into my mouth as fast as possible, like I usually do when I eat this dish. It's just so good...mmmm delicious Vietnamese food. I actually put a freezer pack into my cooler bag with the tiffin. I was worried about the lettuces getting wilty. Everything was delicious!

Look for a Francesco's bento later this week, perhaps.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

5/5/2010- A rather traditional bento

Last night I was up kind of late working on updates for HB. But, I stayed up even later because I needed to cook something to take for lunch. We had dinner out after my late night at work because I was hungry then. Anyways, I digress...

Fortunately, there was enough stuff around that I made a pretty awesome lunch, even without having a particularly stellar plan for it.

Contents of Bento: Trader Joe's Yaki Onigiri with takuan slices in between, two fishes of soy sauce and rice vin, cucumber sticks, and okazu made with sesame oil, onion, carrot, celery, frozen spinach, and quorn--the sauce is a little soy, a little hoisan, a lot of miso, and a little sweet mustard and hot sauce.

For decoration, I have some striped cucumber ends and carrot hearts. Like I've said in previous posts: I just love those little carrot hearts. They make everything look better and more decorated.

I just sort of whipped up the okazu and then had to wait for it to cool. I know this doesn't look like a whole lot of food in the box, but it was really filling. Quorn fills you up comparable to chicken (if my memory serves correctly) so it's actually more calories than it looks like.

Everything was DELICIOUS at room temperature. So good, in fact, I may recreate the okazu for dinner tonight. When I made it last night, I just made enough for my bento. I also love those yaki onigiri. They've been languishing in my freezer for a while, but it was a great way to get some grain into this bento. My only problem with them is that they're really hard for me to pick up with my little lunch chopsticks. They get kind of slippery and they're pretty dense (heavy for their size). Too bad my mouth isn't big enough to eat them each in one go.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

4/28/2010- Lemony Spanish Chickpeas

Once again, the lemony Spanish chickpeas recipe makes an appearance. This time I actually consulted the recipe, from Moosewood Restaurant Celebrates, and it came out pretty good. The first time I made it, I cooked them for almost 3 hours at really low heat after caramelizing the onions really thoroughly. I have not had the chance to repeat that process, but the quicker-cooking version I made for this dish came out very tasty. It's basically a saffron and garlic-flavored tomato sauce with chickpeas and lemon juice. I like it because it satisfies my never ending craving for tomato sauces, but it's not Italianate. A little something different. If you would like to know how to make lemony Spanish chickpeas, you'll have to buy the book or check it out at your local library.

Contents of Bento: mixed short grain brown and white rice (2 parts white to 1 part brown) topped with a takuan sun. Festive! Spanish lemony chickpeas garnished with an asparagus spear.

So, a pretty plain bento, sun deco aside. But I wanted something I could nuke at work, and this seemed to work really well. Of course, the takuan stained the rice yellow, but that's ok.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

4/24/2010- Tiny Pesto Bowties

I love the tiny pastas that Barilla sells. They were on sale at the grocery so I had to get some. They are absolutely perfect in bento boxes. They also cook really quickly.

Contents of Bento: Tiny bowties with pesto and capers, small breads, tomato bruschetta under the two cheese hearts, frozen cherries, carrot sticks. Two cheese people, who are clearly in love.

This is my lame attempt at charben. But I think it's kind of sweet. I tried something new with the bruschetta. I filled up the silicon cup, and then laid and tucked this plastic lacy sheet over and around it. (The plastic was from part of a wrapper around really fancy Brazilian bon-bons--don't ask.) I was hoping that the surface tension of the bruschetta would keep it neat and tidy. For the most part it worked! Hooray!

The people cut-outs were from tiny cookie cutters that I've had for a while. The heart cut-outs (of cheese and carrot) were free handed. I'm actually getting pretty good at those carrot hearts. They're really not that hard to do.

Monday, April 19, 2010

4/19/2010-Japanese Leftovers

Again, no traditional bento here. And looking at the picture of the contents, it looks very-not-bento. But anyways...

HB and I had Japanese food last night with our friend S. We went to Hyashi, a local place near where I work. HB decided that we should go out to eat since I had finished the draft of my final exit portfolio. (My degree program has an exit portfolio, instead of a thesis. It's a fairly comparable amount of work.)

Wrapped in furoshiki- I am hiding my Styrofoam takeout container with Japanese leftovers. My tiny chopsticks are stuck in the knot, hiding under it is a small container of soy sauce.

Here's how I arranged the leftovers. Veggie yakisoba, edamame, and sushi: spinach, oshinko, cucumber, ume-cucumber, inari. Very tasty and satisfying. I was too tired last night to arrange this in one of my bentos, but I think it looks pretty tidy and nice in this take-out box.

Everything was great at by lunchtime. This one went in the fridge at work, since it was just in a take-out container and not in my insulated lunch bag.

I've been thinking about what to get as a treat for finishing up my degree...any suggestions? They have some awfully cute bentos over at Japanistic: like this one with a tiny elephant on it or this one with tiny elephants in love. In case you didn't know, I'm kind of into tiny elephants...
Regardless, I think my next bento will be a double-decker, elongated style. I think being able to pack different shapes of bentos is an important part of being into bento. :D

4/13/2010- Salad Bento

Not a bento in the traditional sense, with a divided box, but in lots of little containers. I had a really rich dinner the night before (which I don't remember what it was....) usually I'm not a "big salad" for lunch kind of gal. Anyways, it was the perfect amount of food on this day.

Contents of Containers: Salad w/ carrot (duh), small jar of sunflower seeds, small container of cut mushroom, cheese slices and toasted french rounds. All of the lids to the 4 containers are stacked by size in the background.

I kept the sunflower seeds and mushrooms separated out for an important reason. Mushrooms tend to get slimy when they're too damp, and the sunflower seeds were salted, which would have leached water out of the lettuce and carrots. By keeping them separated, everything was lovely by lunchtime.

4/2/2010- My Famous Fake-BBQ-Chicken-Wingaling Pizza

Ah! My blog reading public--if any of you are left out there....

As some of you may know, I've been finishing up a master's degree this spring, which has left me with very little time for bento-ing. Homelife has been REALLY busy/strange as well, which all combines for no blog postings.

The end, however, is in sight! I'm posting the meager samples for April.

A bento featuring my famous BBQ fake chikin-wing-a-ling pizza:
Contents of bento: pizza pieces, baran, strawberries, mixed salad. (The little jar has salad dressing in it).

Unfortunately, I think this one would have been better refrigerated. The strawberries and salad were a little worse for the wear by lunchtime. I also should have used the lift-out trays; the pizza was a little damp from the strawberries. OH WELL, it's still delicious.

Here is my recipe for the pizza:

Make pizza dough (or buy preprepared--I won't look)
Flatten on pan
Top with BBQ sauce
Cheddar cheese
Chopped onions
Fake chikin-wing-a-lings *see note

Bake until awesome and done at 400°F. Allow to cool before you eat or you will burn off all the skin on the roof of your mouth...like I do every time.

*Ok, so I have LOVED the Morningstar Farms BBQ chikin wing-a-ling buffalo wing things for many years, but I recently learned that most low-fat soy products are processed using HEXANE which is a terrible thing. You're ok with organic soy, or with Quorn products (which are mycoprotein, not soy). Boo-Hiss!
In the next couple of weeks, I will be experimenting with other, non-neurotoxin-containing fake chikin products to see if I can come up with a tenable solution for what to use for the "fake chikin" part of BBQ fake chikin wing-a-ling pizza.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

3/17/2010- More Chickpeas and Asparagus for Spring

We've been eating asparagus right now. It's in season and just so lovely and green-tasting. My favorite way to do it is in a baking dish in a relatively hot oven (400-425°), drizzled with a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar, or with a little sesame oil and soy sauce. Deeeeelicious.

Contents of Bento: Spanish lemony chickpeas, with mixed rices underneath; asparagus broiled in the oven with sesame oil and soy sauce; a new cucumber radish shallot salad; blood orange sections and a lady apple.

I was pleased with the little carrot heart decor- also hand cut, like the bento dinner I did a few days ago. I showed this box to HB for his opinion and he said, "how are you going to get the lid on?" Well, I had arrayed the orange pieces and the asparagus this way for artistic flair. A lot of the bento blogs I read use this technique for pictures. But to answer his question, I tucked the ends of the asparagus around, put the lady apple on its side at one end and the orange sections in the other. I suppose I could have taken a picture with it that way, but it just seemed a little more aesthetic to photograph it like this.

3/16/2010- Orange Bento

This bento was so overwhelmingly orange, I just had to put a little piece of broccoli in it to give it some green.

Contents of Bento: winter squash, cooked in the oven, mixed with a little molasses and salt; mixed white and brown rices; those Spanish lemon chickpeas. Carrot and broccoli decor over everything.

I'm really pleased with how the carrot flowers came out, don't they look great! Also a quarter for scale. This is by far my smallest box, holds only 407ml and is really shallow. But it's glass, which means the whole thing can go in the microwave, and when it's packed full like this, is a surprising amount of food. This is the last bento from the bento-rama of a few days ago.

3/14/2010- Onigiri and Cucumber- also playing with scale

So here are some attempts to measure or provide a scale for my bentos. You'll see why I used the quarter. The only ruler I have is a metal one and the flash caught it something fierce. The leaflet tight box is about 7" on the longest side.



Here's a picture next to a quarter:


And finally just a close-up shot of the box. Without scale it could be really huge, but it's definitely not. The leaflet tight box is the largest box I have. It holds 500ml and has the largest footprint.
Contents of Bento: Frozen sour cherries, 2 small pieces of BBQ chikn wing-a-ling pizza with flying carrot garnish, awesome cucumber radish and shallot salad, onigiri (made with 2:1 brown to white rices) some are filled with umeshiso paste, decorated with red bell pepper and carrot flowers.

I actually ate this on a Sunday. I had it in the fridge and it was the quickest lunch available, but also very tasty. The onigiri had gotten a little hard by this point, which was a shame, but considering that they had been made several days earlier and just languished in the fridge, it was not surprising. Since this didn't get transported anywhere, everything stayed put.