3/11/2010- Bento Dinner and Bento-rama

I went on a glut of bento-making and made up 3 bentos all at once. This is because I made onigiri-appropriate rice (2 parts short-grain brown, 1 part white sushi rice) and I wanted to take advantage of that. Those will be posted as I eat them, but I also made up a bento-sort-of-dinner for HB. Sometimes he works late in the evenings, so I made a pretty, bento-inspired spread for him when he came home tired.

Contents of...bowl: Spanish Saffron/Lemon chickpeas, under white and brown mixed rices, decorated with carrot.

And yes, I did cut those carrot hearts by hand. I used a knife to cut an elongated heart shape out of a baby carrot, and then cut slices to make hearts. They actually don't look that bad from this distance. They looked a little anemic close up. I have included the quarter for a sense of scale. In case you were wondering, yes, this is an enormous HB-sized portion.

The Rest of dinner: Cucumber-radish salad (with white wine vinegar, shallots, marjoram, a little lemon juice, and honey and cranberry for sweetness), two tiny pieces (in a sauce-bowl) of BBQ chikn-wing-a-ling pizza.

Actually, I'm not too sure what all I put in the dressing on the cucumber salad. I felt a little like I made it in a trance. All's I know is that it's mostly vinegar and there's no oil in it. It was also super tasty. I thought it would be a nice spring-type salad. Though I suppose cucumbers aren't in season yet...whooops.

HB was very pleased (I believe "Oh wow!" was what he actually said). I've been struggling with wanting to make him ai-bento, but not being able to make them the way he eats (large portions of one thing, not tiny portions of lots of things--which is how I eat.) So this was a good compromise. And you know, it's just nice to do something nice for your HB once and a while.

3/6/2010- Leftovers (a little of this and that) and a Pretty Salad

I decided to pack a bento last night, since I wasn't going to get any school work done. The faux-gratin potatoes I made took waaaaaay too long. (Who knew slicing 10 lbs. of potatoes by hand would take a long time??)

Contents of Bento: Faux-gratin potatoes with a flower, pasta salad, 2 silicone heart cups on a bed of steamed broccoli, filled with black bean quesadilla filling. Gratuitous carrot letters. (I meant to highlight how cool the texture of the broccoli florets looked as a background, but it just looks self-aggrandizing.)

Tiny side car of salad with carrot garnish and cranberries. Don't it look purdy?

Everything was very tasty and the pasta salad was dry enough not to bleed over. However, there was a dressing disaster. I packed a little spice jar with some salad dressing and laid it down on its side on top of everything in my little bag. Biiiiiig mistake. Lots of leaking dressing everywhere. But I'm pleased to say that I washed my bag with hand soap and it seems to be no worse for the wear. So, make sure your dressings and sauces are packed in leak-proof containers: don't do what donny don't does!

Because the faux-gratin potatoes are so darn easy to make, I'm going to include the recipe here:

1 onion
3 cloves garlic
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1/4 c. baco-bits (which contain no actual bacon...just lots of food coloring, salt, and soy protein)
1/2 c. strong vegetable stock, or 1 bullion cube in 1/2 c. water
1 lg. container FAGE greek yogurt
1 bag of mixed shredded cheese
salt and pepper to taste

oh yeah, and 10 lbs. of potatoes, actually, only 5 lbs. (still a lot though!) thinly sliced. If you have a mandolin cutter, please use it and save yourself the hassle.

Mince onion and garlic and sautee in olive oil until nice and brown. De-glaze the pan with the bullion stock. We use this awesome stuff called Better than Bullion, which must have about 40% of your daily salt in each teaspoon, but MAN, is it tasty. Add in the baco-bits and cook. Add more liquid if it gets looking a little dry. Dump in the potatoes (I pre-cooked mine a little, but not enough, in the microwave). Add greek yogurt, salt and pepper to taste. Put a lid on it and let it sit over low heat while you preheat the oven to 350 (which you forgot to do before). Get out a nice, big casserole. Put a layer of cheese in the bottom, add a thick layer of potatoes, another layer of cheese, a layer of potatoes, and finish with cheese. If you have restraint, you'll have between 1/3 to 1/4 of the bag left. If not, throw away the empty bag.
Bake, covered, until the potatoes are done. Then remove the cover and bake until the cheese is browned and bubbling. Allow to cool slightly before eating so you don't burn the heck out of your mouth. This would also be great garnished with scallions or green onion.

So, it's definitely faux-gratin, since the yogurt tastes very yogurty. But it's quite addictive. I ate way too much of it last night, despite the fact that I got tired of waiting and the potatoes were not all the way cooked through. Usually I pre-cook potatoes (after they've been sliced) in the microwave to speed up the process, but I guess 5 lbs. of potatoes just take a long time to cook.

2/26/2010- Pizza Bento for Friday again

HB and I just spent a very long weekend away for my birthday. We stayed at the Vendue Inn in Charleston on the day and had a really fancy, delicious dinner at S.N.O.B. (Slightly North of Broad) which was in walking distance from our hotel. A really, really awesome trip. We also got to see AJ and US. I had never been to their home before, but it was a real treat. Yay trip! Yay birthday! Boo being home (by comparison)! and Boo School!

Friday before we left I packed another pizza-for-Friday bento.

Contents of Bento: 2 mini pizzas from Trader Joe's, plain penne as a barrier (Natural Baran!) between the pizza and the broccoli, 2 lady apples, lemon-headed septopus with carrot legs and smile, black sesame seeds for eyes. The side car is some delicious marinara sauce for the pizza, pasta, and broccoli.

The rare lemon-headed septopus is in the Octopode family, but naturally only has 7 legs rather than 8. It is shy, preferring coral reefs to the ocean floor, and has a special penchant for broccoli. Be sure to check your broccoli at the store in case there is an immature septopus hiding in the florets.

Since the penne is a natural baran, I'm also linking this to Hapa Bento's B.O.M.B. contest for March. The penne did a good job of keeping the moist broccoli off of the pizza. Everything else was delicious--I heated the sauce a little bit for max-tastiness.

2/25/2010- Star of Wonder, Star of Curry

I'm back on the "pretty" bento band-wagon. Last night my housemate made delicious potato and collards curry, which I decided to pack in a new-to-this-blog container. It's a weird little rectangular container that's about 700ml. As you can tell from this picture, it's not filled up to the top by any stretch of the imagination.

Contents of Bento: Potato and Collards Curry (under rice), brown rice, curried sweet potato fries, carrot sticks, steamed broccoli, around garlic pickle garnished with a takuan star. Not pictured, 2 tiny lady apples.

This container is actually the first bento container I ever used. I stuffed it (and myself) with way too many onigiri. A good lesson to learn for bento packing: don't take a bento box that is too big, because you will fill it, and you will end up eating too much. To my mind it's always safer to take a much smaller box and bring something extra. Since I'm a clean-plate-club lifetime member, this is a good technique for me.

The curry was great. I nuked the whole container for about a minute and then enjoyed delicious and beautiful brown rice and curry. I do so love a hot lunch...

I usually pack a more varied assortment of things for lunch, but I think I may start to do this when I take my one-dish kind of lunches. It's more satisfying and attractive than just stuff in containers.

2/24/2010- Leftover Sushi

I know it's been a long time since there's been a new posting. Things have been very, very hectic at our house recently. Fortunately, things should be calming down a little bit this weekend.

The other night HB and I decided to get take-out sushi from the grocery. Of course some of it had to find its way into my bento for lunch.

Contents of Bento: Seaweed salad, darling little lady apple, soysauce packet, inari sushi, and some vegetable maki rolls made with brown rice. The four around the outside have a little dab of wasabi on them.

I'm not sure if this counts as a "pretty" bento, but I figured that some posting is better than none. The inari sushi looked nice and full and pretty in the container they were sold in, but when I flipped them over, I saw that they had all been woefully under-filled with rice. I'm not sure what that's about. The nice thing about a sushi bento is that I can eat it at room temperature and it doesn't feel weird or unsatisfying. I'm kind of picky about lunch foods-- I much prefer a hot lunch to a cold one.

I've been eating lady apples like crazy. HB found a HUGE box of them at work and brought them home. They have a crisp, creamy sort of flesh and an almost floral-apple flavor. They also fit into bento boxes of all sizes because they're so tiny, which is, of course, a selling point all its own.

2-11-2010- Simple Bento with Onigiri, Apple, and Soup

Things have been a little hectic chez nous this month. I am posting this particularly plain bento to illustrate that, yes, I do take non-cute containers. And that also sometimes my lunches are really boring. This is jazzed up a few notches from boring, but that's just to fit in with my New Year's Resolution.

Contents of Bento: Yaki Onigiri garnished with takuan stars, umeshiso paste, and wasabi. Three apple rabbits and one checkered apple. The ugmo red-topped container is filled with delicious, homemade vegetable soup.

I had never made checkered apples before, so I thought I would give it a try. I soaked it and the apple bunnies in OJ and water. They all came out OK, but I'm not going to win any contests with my knife skills. The onigiri were hard to photograph. I probably should have arranged them differently so that their decor would be highlighted. Oh well, they were mostly decorated for added flavor.

2-10-2010- Prettiest Bento I will Ever Eat

Maybe. At the very least, certainly it displays garnishing talents that are beyond my ken. HB and I went out for Thai food on Tuesday night at ThaiPot (it's my long day at work) and I brought my bento box in and filled it at the table. Maybe a little weird, but who cares? It's so beautiful!

Contents of bento- Pad Thai Jae with carrot, beet, and daikon beautiful garnish; fried corn cake; two tiny vegetarian spring rolls; lime slice; sour cherries and blueberries in a red silicon cup with carrot pieces underneath to raise it up a bit.

In addition to being beautiful, everything was very tasty. The corn cake and spring rolls were a little damp, but they were still pretty good. I love the little spring rolls they serve; they're about the length of my thumb--perfect for bento. I also took a little packet of soy sauce with me to eat with the fried foods. The sour cherries and blueberries were from home. They're frozen here, but they defrost really nicely by lunchtime.

I'm also going to submit this for hapa bento's B.O.M.B. challenge-- the red of the beet strings and the sour cherries counts. I suppose.

2/9/2010- another BOMB bento- with dumplings

Here's another entry for Hapa Bento's B.O.M.B. contest

This is one of those "lessee what's in the fridge/freezer" bentos...

Contents of Bento: Chocolate cake with red sour cherry in a red silicon cup; ruby red grapefruit sections; two fishes with soy and rice vinegar with red caps; Trader Joe's cucumber wonton dumpling things, garnished with takuan and umeshiso paste; auber-age fried tofu hearts (see, don't they look like hearts?); one yaki onigiri with takuan star; awesome Korean fried seaweed in a red silicon cup.

I was tempted to say that the umeshiso paste counts as red, but it really is more purple. I really wish I had some steamed broccoli to put in this bento. Even though the seaweed is technically green, it's not the brilliant, brightly-colored green that gives good contrast.

This is the first time that I've tried the Trader Joe's Cucumber Wonton Rolls. I think they're the perfect size for bento. They're ok, stuffed with tofu, tiny bits of cucumber, and rice. The package suggested boiling them, but I followed the microwave instructions. They were a little bit dry. All in all though, not bad. Especially with takuan and umeshiso paste and soy sauce/rice vin.

The auber-age was kinda disappointing, fluffy, oily, and flavorless. I have used it in stir-fry and salads before, I think that's a better use of it.

I would also like to point out that I am excited to have FIVE DIFFERENT cooking methods in this box! Woo! Steamed wontons, fried seaweed and tofu, fresh carrots and grapefruit, pickled takuan and umeshiso paste, and baked yaki onigiri and chocolate cake. :D

You (all 2 of you who read my blog...) may also notice that this is again the famed Totoro Bento Box. I was really jamming on the Leaflet Tight box for a while, but lately I've just been feeling like the good ol' Totoro one is the one I want to use. I can see why people collect millions of bento boxes. I have been thinking that I would like one that is brightly colored like little mama's red box. I love the design on the lid of the Totoro box, but the light green color seems to always look washed out on my pictures. I am also worried because my "official" Studio Ghibli stickers on the bottom are getting worn. :( I should have picked them off and put them someplace safe. Oh well.

2/8/2010- B.O.M.B- A Red Bento

Hapa Bento is running her Bento of the Month contest again (Best Of the Month Bento). This month's theme is RED and here is my entry!

Contents of Bento: Himalayan red rice with red sour cherry, Thai red curry with vegetables and red pepper.

The red curry is more orangey- colored than red, but that's ok, it still counts. I tried to make the curry portion look nicely arranged (as part of my new year's resolution for prettier bentos) but I'm not sure how successful I was. It's hard to make mixed vegetable curry look pretty. As you can see, it has carrots, red pepper, green beans, broccoli, also mushrooms, onions, cauliflower, and edamame. I was feeling in desperate need for vegetables!

2/3/2010- Assorted Curries Bento

More Curry! This was stuff that was sitting in the freezer. The rice is fresh though...

Contents of Bento: Potato and pea curry, carrots, kala chana masala with takuan star, broccoli-red onion-red bell pepper stirfry with green Thai curry. In side car: basmati rice, takuan star stuck to lettuce circle (for contrast!).

The star on the rice is "glued" down with a little dab of yogurt (which is what was handy.) I hope it doesn't taste too weird with the takuan. The stir-fry is also fresh made. I always steam the broccoli in the microwave and just throw it in in the last minute. I never can cook broccoli in a sautee without it getting kinda washed out and terrible looking.