Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Feisty Bento #171: Happy Bento

Dinner last night.  Yummy.  Love those Taiwanese XO frozen dumplings.  They really come in handy in a pinch for flavor and something to eat.  My only gripe is how easily they freezer burn- they're frozen, why can't I keep them in there a month or more and not have the darn things turn dry/chewy on the edges?!  (These were mostly fine, and the last of that bag.)  Udon and some cabbage I whipped up.

Yummy!  What a lovely looking lunch, the first in a long while.  I actually cooked some things with my eye towards bento the next day.  I am finally beginning to accept that now that I'm living away from Mom again, I can't just open the fridge and expect boxes of prepared veggies to appear.  Sigh.  So here we go, back to bento... for real.

Top tier: 5 dark chocolate covered mini-pretzels (Trader Joe's, and yes, I also picked up some more chocolate covered, peanut butter filled pretzels as well); sauteed cabbage & carrots
Bottom tier: 3 seafood gyoza (last of my bag of Ajinomoto; I vastly prefer the chicken & pork gyoza); marinated squid banchan; curry salmon orzo

Napa cabbage in many forms has been seen in my bento in the past.  My mom used to make a big box on Sundays and I'd just pluck from it during the week.  Well, I'm going to have to start doing that myself instead.  I concocted this recipe myself, although looking through the past pictures, there are tons of ways to do this (garlic, onions, Shiitake mushrooms, whatever).  I just randomly picked this because it's what I had in my fridge.

Heat a pot that can hold all of the cabbage you're going to make, and then some (room for stirring).  Melt some butter and drizzle some olive oil in the bottom, then add cabbage.  Stir until it's somewhat wilted, try to distribute evenly, add shredded carrots (Trader Joe's again) and a dash of salt.  Stir until it's about as cooked as you like it (I like my cabbage very gently cooked), and voila, eat up.

Yum, I had some for dinner last night and still have enough for the rest of the week in veggies!

HAPPY BENTO!!!

6 comments:

  1. Your cabbage sounds good. I know it's of the wrong ethnic recipe, but how about some garlic, onions and caraway seeds? Oh how I could eat my weight in that!

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  2. *confused look* Not sure what you mean by "wrong ethnic"? I actually mentioned in my post about garlic and onions as an option - doctor it up anyway you'd like!

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  3. Oh - sorry for the confusion! My German neighborlady got me hooked on this. The caraway seeds remind me of sauerkraut and other German foods.
    Onions and garlic -- are probably universal!

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  4. awesome looking bento. your chocolate covered pb pretzels made me try some last week. i didn't think i'd like them. i was SOOOO wrong.

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  5. I'm going shopping tomorrow and chocolate covered peanut butter filled pretzels are on the list.

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  6. The creamy peanut butter with the salty crunch of the pretzel and the sweet chocolate- it combines all that is right in the world. Funny thing is, I only started thinking about them when I saw them in someone else's bento! I thought it was one of you guys but I guess it was someone else :)

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