2-8-2011 Pasta, Fake Meatballs, Sandwiches

A hearty set of lunch for myself today. I started the day with some more snow shoveling. We got about 4 inches between tonight and this afternoon. That's actually *nothing* compared with what we have had in the past. Ah, growing up in Virginia gives you such a different perspective on snow. For example, we shoveled the 4 inches, instead of busting out the snow blower. That's how you know it's not a big deal.

Anyways, I digress.
Contents of bento: pasta, fake meatball, celery leaves for garnish on the smaller bottom tier, clementine, dried cranberries, more fake meatballs, celery sticks and a dried peach under the meatballs to fill the space. Sauce in a side car.

A close-up of this part:


I actually ended up putting the sauce into my smallest side car. The container pictured was way too big, in my opinion.

This lunch is in my awesome and cute elph box that I got when I graduated from my master's program. However, it's pretty tiny and when it's packed more loosely like this, not really enough lunch. At least not during winter when there's lots of snow shoveling to do.

I decided a second, snack-sort of bento was in order.

Contents of bento: Three tiny sandwiches, garnished with celery leaf and flower pick. The sandwich fillings are (from top down) peanut butter and homemade grape jelly, provolone with dried apricots, and local Nantucket creamery cheese with olive hummus. They are sitting in little paper cups with sea life on them that I got from my contest SWAG.

Those paper cups are seriously awesome. They keep things dry because they are plastic coated. They're also very cute: you can almost see the one in the elph box. It has penguins on it :D

Everything was delicious. Packing the sauce in a separate container and dipping, rather than just keeping everything in one dish was a great way to ensure the pasta stayed al dente. I also didn't feel the need to heat anything up. Very efficient.

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.

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!