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.

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.