Catching up again

School has been keeping me pretty busy, especially with work tacked on top. But I managed to make a few really cute Bento so far this week and have ideas for the rest of the week as well. School is going fantastic and I enjoy learning the different things we can do with touch to help each other become a more healed individual. I've made a lot of friends within my group and really look forward to watching them grow.

I cannot believe it's Feb already!!! What the heck?! Oh well more Bento themes for Valentines Day I suppose. Although it's probably one of my least favorite holidays. I made some "functional" Bento for Monday that included some delicious baby bok choy that I sauteed up. It was a meat free day. It's part of an idea I read about called Flexitarian. Meaning you replace meat in smaller portions with veggie protein for part of the week, but still eat meat too. It's something I am toying with in my head.

 

There is only one picture because Logician had originally intended to take and eat the Curry Chicken salad sammich I forgot in the car (he put it in the fridge when he got home) on the way to work on Sunday. He bought me some nummy sushi I nommed instead. As you can see this one is pretty functional and not excessively pretty. There isn't even any rice. I was that lazy.

More after the jump.

Catching Up

It has been a while since I posted. The holidays got the best of me and there was a lot of transition in my life. For the New Year I have a new career goal (Massage Therapy, School starts the 13th) and a new job. My schedule is going to be a nightmare so Bento-ing is going to require a lot of planning ahead and weekend work. Thankfully JustBento.com's Maki and AIBento.net / BentoCentral.com's Pikko have provided me lots of useful make ahead tips. I have to admit I feel extremely lucky being able to google the word Bento and find such amazing knowledge bases out there! I could never have gotten to where I am without the net!

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

12/14 and 12/15

I'm sure I should count the number of Bento that I make but I keep forgetting. I suppose it's not such a big deal yet. I spent a lot of time yesterday reading all of AIBento.com archives to get caught up and to see all the amazing things Pikko has done. It also occurred to me today that I had not yet posted yesterdays Bento. So here goes.

For 12/14 we had:

Logician:

And Mine:

Both consisted of Turkey Burgers with Siracha sauce (an amazing combination), snow peas, and cucumbers. He has his carrots, some radish, some celery, and blueberries. I have a tomato and some broccoli. I made him some onigiri with furikake mixed in and white rice with black sesame seeds for me. We both had Miso Soup as well but the Miso balls were in the fridge at picture time. I'm starting to hate my Bento for their sameness but I know it's because I have only the few boxes right now.

For tomorrow's lunch we have:

Logician:

And Mine:

They're pretty much the same as yesterday with a few exceptions. Today's meat is shrimp which Logician grilled up for dinner and saved me some for Bento. I also have fresh broccoli instead of frozen and he has no fruit in his box. I also tried my hand at making an artistic egg white roll which I suppose came out alright but is still quite oily from the olive oil I cooked it in. I tried a different orientation for the rice in order to try and change the look of these. Also I made sure we have our soy sauce for tomorrow as I missed it today.

Before closing up the boxes I decided my shrimp needed some Siracha and added a small bit to my egg and onion roll in the back corner. I also made myself two snack / late breakfast sides of kiwi and pineapple. I took a picture but really it's not needed.

I am trying to be more creative with the Bento but I just don't have a knack for it yet. I am hoping as time progresses they will get better. My main goal right now is to expand my recipes and to finally sit down this weekend and make up a furikake that does NOT have Nori in it. Here's hoping!

Hump day at last!

Another brief hiatus ended

So here's the scoop - I had all these cute adorable Bento planned for the week and Monday I got horribly ill and had to come home early from work. I ended up sleeping the day away and eating the last posted Bento on Tuesday. Tuesday night I played softball for something like 3.5 hours and came home too late and exhausted to Bento. I played catcher for the first time ever (which was awesome) but I am so sore that I ended up just skipping Bento last night.

This morning I threw together a sort of Bento that was really just a salad, but I added a new addition! Miso soup! I bought two adorable black rice/soup bowls with lids, and two traditional soup spoons for Logician and I to use. So I took 1.5 tsps of miso paste (with Dashi stock included) and added some spices and sesame seeds. It was a bit too much paste but it was delicious! Today you will see a miso ball included in both Bento.

So away with the food:

Logician's:

I am amazed that I was able to make onigiri, apparently all I needed to do was add water to my left over rice and steam it in the plastic container (horrible for my health, I know). So he has two oval onigiri with a snow pea pile to the top right. On top of that is his miso ball which has black pepper, soy sauce, furikake, and some red pepper added in. Clockwise from that are some radishes. They're very pretty but not as flavorful as the store bought ones. Next is today's protein content delivered by left over pot roast from the restaurant we went to tonight. As we continue around it finishes off with some sliced bell pepper and some blue berries in a malformed white paper mini cupcake wrapper. The rice is topped with a bit of mint to add some variety, and some sesame seeds. He has carrots in his bin on the bottom left and his bottle of soy sauce is in there as well. Lastly in the top bin he has a mixed green salad topped with some sunflower sprouts and a bottle of dill dressing.

The miso is an awesome idea because you boil a mug full of water and dump it into the bowl, add the cover and let see for a few minutes. Then stir and enjoy. I got the idea (as mentioned before) from JustBento.com

Mine:

I have the same salad in my bin on the top left, but I added my radishes there and have two bottles of dressing. I am something of a sauce-a-holic. In my bottom bin I have some kiwi with mint and my miso ball. My miso ball contains black and red pepper, soy, and sliced green onion. My main compartment has rice on the side topped with mint and sesame seeds, a bit of egg, and my two soy sauce bottles. From top to bottom I have the rest of my hard boiled egg, which I tried to make a face on, some snow peas, the rest of the radish, some celery, and my portion of the potroast. I am very muchly looking forward to tomorrow's lunch.

I am unhappy with the way my eggs cooperate in my Bento and am interested in trying some hard boiled quali eggs as I believe they will be more useful in the charuben (if I don't misread Aibento.net it means "cute Bento"). I am still desperately waiting for Chrismaversery when I get my boxes.

Speaking of AiBento.net, Pikko (the author) actually responded to a comment I left her today regarding the dango recipe in The Manga Cookbook. I am excited to see if she finds a good recipe as they could be tasty. I still have the recipe from JustBento.com to check out. I will probably try it this weekend.

Yay for Friday.

Books, Cute, and More

What a weekend! It's been wonderful restful despite the fact my body is still trying to get sick. My favorite Bento Blogger (Pikko - Aibento.net) wrote a review last week for The Mange Cookbook. I was glad to read the review as I had been waffling back and forth about getting it. After reading her review we went on an epic quest to find it Friday night and got the last copy from one of the local book chains. I read it, compiled a list of ingredients to purchase the next day and got to work.

My first recipe to try was Dango (sweet dumplings) and I have to say that I either don't have authentic enough ingredients or the measurements are all wrong! The first batch was a bit like watery paste so I scrapped it and made a second one. They came out in dumpling form but are not very tasty. I gave up and resigned myself to trying to come up with a mochi recipe online. I found one on justbento.com (another of my favorite sites) and had relatively wonderful success first time around. There are a few changes I will make next time but you can see my bright pink mochi featured in today's Bento.

I also went through my scrapbooking items and found two punches (stars and flowers) that are now reassigned to Bento duty. I cut out some nori shapes for Logician's boxes and used some of them in today's Bento as well. I bought some cupcake holders but they don't seem sturdy enough. I shall have to shell out for the silicone ones sometime I believe. So here are the Bento:

Logicians:

He has some nice carrots from the farmers market in the small bin on the bottom left. Above that is a mix of celery and diced bellpepper, topped with a grape Korean candy. For the main dish he has three triangle onigiri complete with mixed in Furikake, nori strips on the bottom and nori stars for decoration. I used the strips I punched the stars out of to make the bottoms. He then has some snow peas, celery, and radish to garnish the box. The meat is one of two thin steaks that I marinated in terriyaki and soy sauce for about ten minutes before cooking quickly. In his little cup he has some nice fresh blue berries and my bright pink mochi.

Here's a close up of his onigiri, because I am so proud of them!

I used the method in The Mange Cookbook to finally get them more triangular. They're not perfect but he's really excited. I also tucked in two of the sauce bottles.

Mine:

The quality of the picture is a bit bad but here it is! I have some tomatoes in my small bin on the bottom left, the same bellpepper and celery mix and an apple candy in the top bin. I have two small onigiri, an adorable hard boiled egg (made with tips from The Manga Cookbooks), some snow peas, celery sticks, and the steak. I paired my mochi with some kiwi since that is how I like it on my frozen yogurt. I don't have my rice but I got us some traditional (but plastic) rice bowls with lids, so I may take extra with me.

Here's the little egg because he's so cute!

He has two sesame seed eyes and a carrot beak. I left him whole but when I eat it tomorrow I will take the yolk out.

We also bought some miso soup paste, pickled ginger, and some Bonito flakes for Logician. I have a slight disadvantage in Bento as I do not like Nori, Bonito, or most fishy flavored items. But finding ways around it is sort of fun. The miso paste comes with the dashi stock mixed in so we'll see how that goes. I am looking forward to trying one of the instant miso ball soups (made using an idea from justbento.com).

As you can see there is a wealth of information online to help get into this habit! Once I have tried some more of the recipes in my new cookbook I'll let you know what I decide about it overall!

Another week down.