Feisty Bento #332: Late Bento

*tap tap* Hello... is anyone still here?  *bows head in shame* My deepest and sincerest apologies for just abandoning y'all like that... it wasn't my intention.  As you know, I've been having issues with trying to post bento (which I was posting on a day-to-day basis; Feisty Foodie is on a 2 week delay, which makes it a lot easier to keep up).  I had planned on posting the above bento the night of the day I'd made it, but I was busy packing for a road trip to Pittsburgh.  We were gone that Thursday & Friday, and when we got back on Sunday, it was too late for me to grocery shop or cook or do anything for the week's bentos ahead of me.  Then, as you know, I have class Mon-Wed and don't get home until 11:30pm or so.  Yeah, seriously!  So instead of somehow magically making lunch and requiring no sleep, I wound up buying lunch (and I am gaining weight from it already, yes I am, this damn slow metabolism even when I exercise, arghhh).  That was my entire last week.

This week promises to have no bento either, since yesterday was mother's day, which means most of it was spent not-at-home.  But this is also the last week of classes (and one final next week) so very, very soon, my time will return to being mine all mine and the food, the cooking that promises to ensue will be amazing and awesome and all mine.  Hehe :)

So, the above bento/salad was from the Wednesday before it all went haywire (and I am posting it with that date, as such).  It's basically the same thing I ate all week (and kind of miss now) - Romaine lettuce, spinach, green onions, sugar snap peas, mushrooms, red bell peppers, and a miso tofu dressing that I've yet to tweak. 

Think outside the lunchbox everyone... and have a great week!  I should return shortly with some nommy bento!!!

Feisty Bento #331: Vegan Bento?

What's that?  My largest Lock&Lock container (actually, it's not Lock&Lock, but L&L style)... because I put another salad in there.  Mmm, this weather just makes me want salads - super hot.  Spring has sprung, baby!!! 

Again: spinach, Romaine lettuce, celery, shredded carrots, red bell peppers, sliced button mushrooms, green onions, and sugar snap peas. 

What's new?

The dressing! 

I'm calling it miso-tofu dressing for now.  It still needs a slight tweak or two before I can reveal the recipe, but it's super easy to make, and very tasty (even tastier once I get that tweaked a bit).  I know it's ugly, but I don't have a food processor, so it was hand blended - with a spoon.  And it was freaking tasty! 

Think outside the lunchbox!!!

PS This might even qualify as a vegan lunch, though I'm not entirely sure about the dressing because I don't know what's vegan and what's not really.  Ooh.  Vegan?!

Feisty Bento #329 & 330: Colorful

Bright, colorful, vibrant; doesn't that just scream spring?

I used an extra large takeout container because it's all veggies and they're kind of voluminous, so. 

Spinach, Romaine lettuce, shredded carrots, celery, red bell peppers, sugar snap peas, sliced button mushrooms, green onions. 

I used light ranch dressing later and shook it all up, and mm it was DELICIOUS.  Fantastic textures and flavors.  Great lunch on a hot day.

For dinner, some maple glazed salmon broken up on the side, because I planned on using that to mix with the Romaine lettuce, red bell peppers, shredded carrots and green onions... the salmon being the 'dressing' of sorts.

Think outside the lunchbox!

Feisty Bento #328: Back... sort of

Mmm!  Meat!  Miso marinated thinly sliced rib eye, rice, and corn (frozen, it'll defrost in time to eat it). 

So about those technical difficulties, I'm still having them but have resolved nearly all the major issues for now.  The biggest problem now is just that unless I wake up at the butt-crack of dawn, I probably won't be able to post pics of the day's bento until that night.  But that isn't such a big problem, right? 

Right? 

Think outside the lunchbox!!!

Technical Difficulties

We are currently experiencing technical difficulties...

I have photos of the most recent bento, but due to some changes around me, I am unable to post them... grrr. I hope to have this problem resolved shortly and thank you for your patience!

(This is what happens when you use three different computers concurrently and something goes wrong with one of them and just, ugh, well, yeah. Things are changing again. Boo.)

Think outside the lunchbox!!!

Feisty Bento #327: Return to Meat

This is dinner bento.  I am so grumpy right now, I won't explain why there's no lunch bento.  Grrr. 

Top tier: rice with tamago furikake and some parsley just for color
Bottom tier: three slices of rib eye marinated in soy sauce, garlic, sesame oil, sauteed really quickly with some onions that I caramelized after I cooked the steak; frozen corn niblets

The corn will be defrosted by the time I eat this and will be plump and juicy, no cooking time necessary :)

Think outside the lunchbox! 

PS It feels good to be back to blogging after a week off, but I'm swamped at work so this will have to do.  Sorry!

Feisty Bento #326: Microwave Me

Gasp!  I am actually planning on microwaving my lunch today! 

Spinach smashed potatoes; eggplant parm (leftovers from a diner meal, pretty good but I have no point of comparison)

Not sure if you realize this, but I rarely (never), if ever (seriously, never) microwave my lunch.  (There's one mention there - the most recent one - that I actually microwaved the lunch, in a plastic takeout container... and that's it.  I'm not even sure you'd count that as bento.)  So this is kind of a huge deal for me - I plan on microwaving this.  And I'm sure it will be delicious.

Plus, it's my last bento before the enforced Meat Hiatus is lifted. 

Tomorrow is Good Friday.  The New York Stock Exchange is closed, thus, so is my firm.  I took off work all of next week, so no bentos, but Feisty Foodie will continue to be updated (so check there if you're so inclined!).  Spring break!  I can't wait, I really need to relax.

Yes, I am off to Vegas for the weekend, but then I'll be back in what I hope will be SUNNY SUNNY NYC!  Maybe.  We'll see.  Hehe.

Think outside the lunchbox and have a fantastic week~!!!

No bento, but a tracker

No bento today; it's a gym day, and there's no class today!  Spring break has officially started... no class until the 20th!  Yay!  One more bento for the week (tomorrow), then I'm off to Vegas, and I took off all of next week, so no bentos!  Posts will be up on Feisty Foodie of a very certain kind... so check in if you'd like!

So close to eating meat again!  :)

Also, I thought I'd share this, because I think it's kind of cool.

Cool, right?  I'll be posting this periodically so y'all can see what I've been doing.  Keep me motivated!

Think outside the lunchbox~!!!

Feisty Bento #325: Ho hum

Today's lunch, more of the same: green bean salad, spinach smashed potatoes, mini quiches (two stacked on top of each other).  Ho hum.

I'm hungry.  :)

Think outside the lunchbox!!!

Feisty Bento #323 & 324: Nomminess

I think this will be my lunch bento.  I'm not sure yet.  It's kind of interchangeable.  But I made this one first this morning, so I'm showing it first. 

Spaghetti with marinara (same one used here - it is so good! I would have added cheese but I decided it wouldn't be too good by the time I eat it).  I'd frozen small bundles of spaghetti so this morning I just microwaved it then mixed it with the jarred sauce, yummy.  Oh, and fresh basil leaves top it - they're straight from the plant on my windowsill which, yes, is still going strong!

Green bean salad.  So remember a while back, I talked about this Italian deli I like?  And how they have green bean salad, then I showed it to you in a few bentos - this one, this one, this one, but mostly, this one?  So I had a big bag of green beans yesterday and didn't want to make them the way I always do (blanched and plain, or mixed with mayo for salad, or um, sauteed with a bit of ground pork and soy sauce) so I decided to sort of recreate that.  Only I didn't feel like going to the store for Italian dressing (which is what I'm pretty sure they use to marinate the green beans in), so I used what I had: olive oil and Petrossian raspberry red wine vinegar.  Thinly sliced onions (I didn't have any red onions, though I'd prefer to use those), thinly sliced red bell peppers, and blanched green beans, tossed together with salt & pepper... yummy!  (I marinated them overnight.)

Green bean salad again.

And that messy looking blob?  Really delicious, I assure you.  It's round two of spinach smashed potatoes.  Except this time I was going for way more spinach than potatoes (I don't think I quite hit that mark), and I steamed the spinach a little on top of the potatoes for a minute or two before mashing them all together, because last time I had issues waiting for the spinach to wilt so I could mash.  I added a lot of butter and a bit of heavy cream, so it still isn't super healthy for you, but it's delicious.  (Salt, pepper as well.)  I'm discovering that eating a vegetarian diet makes avoiding carbs really, really hard.  So, oh well, this is what I have.  At least it tastes good.

For those wondering, I didn't eat meat this weekend. 

Think outside the lunchbox!  :)

Feisty Bento #322: Turkey Sandwich

So, here's the story.  I ordered two Veggie Delight sandwiches from Subway the other day because I had a coupon.  I was busy BB'ing while he was making the sandwiches, and just said yes to everything except hot peppers.  Right?  Right. 

This morning, I slapped together this bento in a rush, containing half of one of the sandwiches - I'd eaten the first one already - and some edamame. 

Then, I took the last remaining half and took a bite of it.  Normally, I don't look at this kind of food much while I eat it - I mean, especially given that it's in the morning and I usually take a bite of whatever, then rush around the apartment while I chew/swallow.  But today, since the bento took me literally 5 minutes IF THAT to pack, I was standing in the kitchen eating, when I looked down at the sandwich.  It looked funny. 

It looked like there was meat in it.

Oddly enough, it didn't TASTE like there was meat in it; it tasted much the same as the sandwich I'd eaten two nights ago with no meat in it.  I just looked down and something didn't look right so I pulled it open, first bite still in my mouth, and discovered there was turkey in there.  Slices laid neatly in a row.  I immediately began spitting out the bite in my mouth and picked out all of the turkey in there.  What the hell?!  Seriously?! 

I found it most interesting that having turkey in the sandwich hadn't made it taste any better; why will I ever bother getting another turkey sandwich from Subway?  (Not that I eat there all that often anyway, but you know, this just furthers that opinion.) 

Anyway, so when lunchtime rolled around, I opened up the box, ate all the edamame, and then threw away the sandwich because I didn't want to pick through it to take out the turkey.  I got a slice of pizza instead. 

So there you have it.  Thank goodness I looked down and thank goodness I didn't swallow.  I didn't swallow so it doesn't count. 

Sigh.

Think outside the lunchbox!!!