So let me bore you for a moment with my New Year's Resolutions and I shall give you the Bento's I have not yet posted.
I resolve for 2010:
1) To reduce the amount of garbage and food waste I produce by Bentoing more, and buying less packaged food items when possible.
2) To recycle more
3) To use public transportation as often as possible and rely on cars less
4) To try to get below 210 lbs before my birthday in July (with school, work, and Bento this should be easier)
5) To travel out of Florida for some sort of actual vacation
6) To try to save some money!!!
7) To get my Herb garden up and running AND to take care of all the plants
8) To try and take a Japanese language course by the end of the year
9) To explore more cuisines
10) To be thankful every day for what I have instead of upset over what I don't.
And now that you're bored - The Bento
Alright so I went back through my pictures and it looks like I missed posting about three sets of Bento.
The first was from 12/22 which I made using some of my pork chops that were broken down into Bento size portions to be cooked before being packed.
Logicians:
Mine:
These were made in a bit of a hurry with my then dwindling Bento supplies (veggies mostly). There is some water sauted broccoli, bell pepper dices, green olives for me, cucumbers, and snow peas. Also included were some miso soup balls. Mine was too big and made two cups of soup!
The next missing set is from 12/28 - there was a large gap due to the Christmas Holiday and only having a short week. We drove 5.5 hours to visit Logician's family so we left on 12/23 and didn't get home until 12/27. It was a fun trip and we came home with left overs that went into our lunches:
Logician's:
And Mine:
The meat portion of our Bento were comprised of left overs from one of our favorite local Japanese restaurants. I had the Katsu Chicken and Logician had Terriyaki Chicken. Both were delicious and made wonderful Bento. I made some onigiri using my super amazing molds and finished off both boxes with snow peas, miso balls, sauce bottles, and a bit of diced bell pepper. The bottom boxes include some yummy baked sweet potato fries that Logician's mom made, cucumbers for us both and some tomato for me!
The last set is Bento for today. I woke in the evenings now and will be going to school during the day. This provides me with a strange but unique opportunity. I can burden myself with more things to carry and take two Bento a day (lunch at school, dinner at work) or I can spend all the money I'm making a buy food either at school (they have their own awesome Vegetarian cafe) or at work (where they make deliciously fresh Sushi, Sandwhiches, Chicken, Salmon, and all sorts of other tasties). I am going to find out if there is a locker available because I will probably try to double Bento. I will probably take one full Penguin box set and a second of the larger box for Lunch and then take my red two tier set for dinner. We will see.
For today's Bento I was running low on supplies (haven't even considered shopping since New Years, we've been cleaning [read destroying] the house and it is just now starting to come back together [Logician has been working his tail off] ) so I made due with what I could find. I used some of the pre-portioned steak (which I have two Bento servings left of) and the last of the snow peas. I will have to do shopping tomorrow.
Logician's:
Both of our boxes contain some Yuba (fried soy bean curd) wrappers with some seasoned rice in them. I have been staring down the package ever since we first went to the local Asian Market. I finally ate some at one of our Chinese Buffets and decided it was time to make them on my own. I have no idea how to cook them and despite the fact ALL the ingredients were in English and French the instructions were in Japanese and I couldn't read them. So I made them up (basically put some soy on them and let sit while the rice and edamame cooked). I then water sauteed the remaining decent snow peas. I put some edamame in both of our boxes, and gave myself quite a bit more as I couldn't remember how much he liked them! I then made a scrambled egg to act as a divider for his edamame and some kimichi. I made a egg white scramble for me and used it as a bed for my sauce bottles.
Mine:
I am quite happy to report that I found a way of filling the sauce bottles to the brim. I lose a bit of shoyu sauce in the process but to me it's worth it!
I am looking forward to adding more diverse and seasonal veggies to my Bento (now that I am working at an organic and local grocer) and trying out some new fish and meats in my boxes. I am tempted to make Salted Salmon using Maki @ JustBento.com's recipe but I am frightened that the taste will be overly fishy. Something I can't really get myself to like. It's a shame too because Salmon is so good for you.
I am also going to try and find time to take part in the livejournal BentoChallenge and post some information (such as recipe modifications and articles) on BentoCentral.com. But more than likely all these lovely big ideas I have will go out the window for that 10 minutes more of sleep.
Logician found my digital camera, so hopefully the Bento next week will come out in better detail!
Happy year of the Tiger!
Great resolutions! Cool bento - you're really keeping with it. I guess it helps that you can basically use any foods while following similar formats.
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