Feisty Bento #397: One Last "Real" Bento

 I couldn't get the light right or something... not sure why I am holding it in my hand.  Also, I'm amused that I'm wearing a sweater... it was pretty mild weather until mid-December! 

I took another picture once I got to work, even though it all got smushed, and I don't know why there's a napkin underneath.  Anyway,

Mini-pita-pocket egg salad sandwiches with baby carrots, extra egg salad topped with cilantro.  Yummy!

Happy bento!!!

posted on 1/1/10, backdated appropriately - the last 'real' bento for a very long, long while... it's like I knew, so I put in extra effort - three days in a row!

Feisty Bento #396: Leftovers of Leftovers

More of the same of yesterday's rice... and a hard boiled egg. 

Happy bento!

posted on 1/1/10, backdated appropriately - I can't believe this is what I ate on my birthday... how depressing!!!

Feisty Bento #395: Leftovers

This bento actually contains leftovers from this meal at Sripraphai in Williston Park.  Yup, it's been so long that I am able to link to the respective meal and review. 

Top left corner: shrimp ball
Bottom left corner: the remains of roasted duck salad
Right side: special house rice mixed up

It's been a long time, yes?

Happy bento!!!

posted on 1/1/10, backdated appropriately

Feisty Bento #394: Bronx Zoo Woo Bento

What is that!

It's a bento I made to take to the Bronx Zoo this past Sunday.  I took my nephews (along with their mother and my boyfriend - I was actually there to be on stroller duty, for the exhibits you can't bring a stroller into, I stood outside and kept watch on the crammed-full-of-stuff strollers) and we really lucked out, because out of the two days this weekend, clearly only one was suited for the ZOO!!!  (It poured on Saturday.) 

Hard boiled egg; carrot sticks; dressing
Hidden under the horrifying ;) cilantro is mini banh-mi pitas. 

Yep, I stuffed mini-pita-pockets, that I snipped open with scissors, with pate, cha lua, pickled carrots/daikon, a schmear of Vietnamese mayo, and ate them with bites of the cucumber and the cilantro pieces. 

That's a close up. 

Envy me, I'm food's MVP :)

(Although I will point out that the pita bread doesn't quite have as much oomph as a good, crisp baguette does.) 

*I brought a bento to the Zoo because the Mommy packed ham sandwiches for everyone, and I decided that I would be good and eat some of the food in my fridge.  Plus it saves a ton of money - though we did 'splurge' and get fries for everyone, and nachos for me, we still saved a ton from buying the crappy pizza at the zoo...

Feisty Bento #393: CSA Delicious

Holy deliciousness, Fatgirl!

Roasted some-sort-of-squash-from-CSA mixed with kielbasa, garlic & onion; bacon & roasted broccoli salad with awesome dressing

It was delicious.

Think outside the lunchbox!!!

Feisty Bento #392: Repeats

More of those weird noodle-cakes that I made... and sauteed bean sprouts

*I'm not dead, I'm just super busy with exams and all.  I still manage to pack a bento or two a week (saddd)... but posting is crazy difficult :T

Feisty Bento #391: Carnivore

Local/organic Romaine lettuce topped with local/organic cherry tomatoes that taste like candy, topped with the sirloin half of a porterhouse

I also packed two small containers - one with Italian dressing for the salad bit, and one with blue cheese for the steak, hehe. 

Yummm...

think outside the lunchbox~!

Feisty Bento #390: Weekend of FAIL

Yeah, that's my bento.  It's a standard secret of bento blogging that Jenn so kindly decided to share with the world last week that if your bento is ugly or less-than-amazingly-cute-and-colorful, just tilt it or the angle of the camera and voila, many problems disappear.  Well, no amount of tilting would help this - I almost slapped the lid on for the pic, because that would DEFINITELY help! - but eh.  It's still going to be bicolored and that's it. 

This was a weekend of FAIL... I made magic soup - well, no, I refuse to call it that in this instance because it wasn't that great, and magic soup is ALWAYS great - that just ... FAILed... mostly cuz I opted to use beef broth instead of chicken, and I realized beef broth and I don't get along when that's the base of the soup.  It's too strong for my palate (I know, shocking, when I salt things to high heaven and back) to drink as soup - for noodles, that's fine, and risotto, awesome, but as the broth I'm drinking straight... not so much. 

Then, I attempted to make stir fried udon (picture will come in a few weeks on Feisty Foodie - since I used a ton of CSA veggies for it), which tasted good - sort of, some of the veggies I added didn't quite go right, but I expected that - and was totally ugly. 

Of course the final FAIL was the above - not the bean sprouts, which I make all the time (well, I kind of overcooked part of it, but whateverrr, stop nitpicking!) - but the rice cakes. 

For those unfamiliar, Taiwanese (or are they Shanghainese?) rice cakes are basically rice noodles, except instead of rolling them thin and slicing them into broad white noodles, they've been rolled and then cut into coin-shaped/sized slices.  (Correct me if I'm wrong, because I could be, but that's what it looks and tastes like to me.)  They're like Korean dduk (I think...) but sliced instead of left in fat tubes. 

Anyway, it tastes mostly fine, though it turned out horrendously ugly because of the dark soy sauce I was using.  Whatever. 

That's today's bento, to cap off a weekend of FAIL.  Tonight, I plan on making something I won't mess up just to make myself feel better.  (Watch me mess it up anyway.)  I eat my failures, because I'm cheap/broke/poor and I really hate wasting.  Which means expect to see this again in a few days' time. 

Think outside the lunchbox!!!

Feisty Lunch

It looks like I took this photo at night, but I assure you, it was something like 7:30 in the morning.  Yep, that's how dark it was this morning.  It's so difficult to wake up in the morning when it's dark out and chilly - my building hasn't yet turned on the heat, and I don't really blame them, since the temperature is at that point where it's a delicate yo-yo; it might be 40 tonight but tomorrow it will be 70.  As a shareholder with an actual vested interest in our bottom line financially, I don't want the heat on if it's going to make my apartment unbearably hot on days that are unseasonably warm! 

In any case, I know I just said yesterday that I wouldn't have bento this week - and I don't! - but that first pic is my lunch for today.  An awesome Greek salad from my local diner ... so, last night, I had barely any time between work and class, and I needed to eat (long story but I basically forgot to eat lunch...), and in a fit of inspiration, decided to utilize Tower Diner's online ordering system to its utmost potential by placing an order before I left work at 5:30 to be picked up at 6:45.  This all worked out great and I had dinner in my grubby lil hands easily, but I took it a step further by ordering the above salad for the specific purpose of bringing it for lunch today.  Even better!!!  Perfect.  I've had their Greek salad before - in fact, easily a dozen times this year alone (BF really likes this diner so we go there pretty often) - and really really like how they do it, except for two things: they use very fishy anchovies so I always request it without the anchovies, and they use olives with pits, which means I eat one or two and then leave the rest out.  (When I make Greek salad, I use pitted olives!)  Otherwise, they have a great version here.  Yum! 

I also just really wanted an excuse to post these pics of Keywee. 

The bestest boyfriend in the entire whole world did me the greatest favor the other night.  I'm a ball of stress lately (not to be confused with a stress ball; if you try to squeeze me, my latent violent tendencies might rear up and poke out and b*tchslap you...), with having no time, and very little time to spend with my absolute darling puppy (okay, she's 7 and a half, but still will always be my puppy), and just... feeling guilty... well, I had no time to take her to get groomed because I was either at work or school during their business hours.  So my boyfriend picked Keywee up at 11pm on Monday... took her to her 2pm appointment on Tuesday... and dropped her back off at 11pm on Tuesday. 

Yes.  Yes, he did.  Yet another reason why I love this man.  Yes indeed. 

And can I tell you?  24 hours without her and I missed her more than I thought possible.  Missed her climbing into my lap while I studied, her trying to convince me that I only need one hand to study and that I should use my free hand to pet her; missed her following me around as I went from room to room looking for something, or just following me around in general.  Missed her snuggling right into my belly when I lay down to sleep, missed her climbing up my chest when I'm half-lying down watching TV.  Missed her. 

Now she's back where she belongs, with me, in my arms, and I can't even enjoy her that much because it's been rush, rush, rush, everywhere, all the time.  Ugh.  I realized, however, that she is my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE photography subject in the world.  Even though she wiggles and sometimes won't stay still for my non-flash photography.  Even though she's not something I photograph then immediately consume in deliciousness.  Even though sometimes she just doesn't want to photograph. 

She is my absolute favorite. 

Baby I love you, and I'm sorry I waited so long to groom you and made you all uncomfortable.  You smell delicious and look wonderful, and Mommy will always, always love you best out of anything in the world.  Always. 

Ahem. 

Also, those photos were indeed taken directly after the salad photo.  Still so dark, right?  Ugh. 

Think outside the lunchbox!

Feisty Radio Silence...

I am tired, my darling readers.  I am so, so very tired.  By that, I don't mean I'm tired of talking about my life (HAH!) or my food (double HAH!).  I just mean, I need sleep and I need an extra, oh, I'll take an extra 3 hours in each day.  See?  I'm not greedy.  I'll take just 3 more hours in a day, during which I could cook, clean up what I've cooked, study,...

This past weekend marks the first weekend, like, in I can't even tell you how long, that I didn't cook a single thing.  Leftovers made dinner on Friday night while studying for my exam on Saturday.  Saturday was mostly spent in school, then finally finally (would you tolerate seeing your girlfriend, whom you'd already been seeing only about once a week, even less than that? when you live in the same damn city and even the same damn borough?!) seeing the boyfriend for a bit, and Sunday was spent in Brooklyn at the 3rd Avenue Festival, part of the time at Robicelli's judging their sandwich contest (it turns out, I'm REALLY good at judging! Who'd have thought?!).  I had little time to breathe, let alone stand in my kitchen and whip up stuff to eat, even if it was only for the rest of the week.  (Well, I did manage to stand in my kitchen for an hour on Saturday, cleaning, so that was good.  Even so, I'm not done yet, there's still stuff to clean, ughhh!  When this happens, I sometimes put an embargo on my kitchen, ie, "No cooking until it's fully clean!" which really, really sucks for me, and I believe I'm about to do so once again.  My kitchen is filthy.) 

I've mentioned my school schedule before, and it's not that I'm complaining - I registered for my own classes, created my own schedule, and decided I could handle it.  And I can.  I know I can handle it.  It's the having-no-time-for-anything-else-but-school-and-schoolwork/studying that is killing me (I'm taking an English class and another writing-intensive class, and yet another class in one of the subjects that are very difficult for me).  I've never been that great with time management, but usually have had enough of it that it didn't matter if I lost a little sleep here and there.  Now, because I'm not budgeting my minutes wisely, things are slipping through the cracks and I hate that feeling.  It isn't pleasant.  I feel guilty for turning down plans to study, then staying home and not studying; I feel guilty for not bringing my lunch and spending too much money on it and then... the inevitable weight gain *frowns at waist* - I am going to have to start going to the gym again, but that takes time that I don't have,... I feel guilty for not spending enough time with my dog!  I feel guilty for everything right now, and you can joke all you want about good ol' Catholic guilt - but I didn't grow up experiencing guilt.  I was one of those people who rarely felt guilty even when she did something wrong.  (MOCK ALL YOU WANT BUT IT'S TRUE!)  Bah. 

And of course, have I mentioned that, with the wonderful help of Jenn at Not Exactly Bento, feistyfoodie.com was launched?!  I recently passed 3 years as The Feisty Foodie (I food blogged intermittently for about a year, year and a half before that, but under a different name) and celebrated by launching the site finally after I'd said in January that I would do it this year!  Whoops!  It's pretty much operational and so purty, just a lil backend work needs to be done (so if you play around with it, let me know if there are any issues you come across, please!).  So go look and tell me if you like what you see :)

So you see how my time is all squished up and just... yeah.  I'm sorry I don't have a bento today, and because I didn't cook all weekend, I probably won't have one for a while :(

But you know, here are some pictures of my lunch on Saturday, between classes.  You'll see these pictures again when I post a product review I'm working on over at Feisty Foodie!  Almond butter and cherry butter on whole grain bread!  Pretty good, a new twist on the classic PB&J, yes? 

It just looks like I won't be bento'ing for a few days more, and I know it's been a while, but I wanted to keep you all posted that I am not neglecting here, I just am barely able to eat between studying/working/schooling.  I am still here!  I am still trying to balance my time!  Anyone has any really good tips or suggestions on how to do this... I am ALL ears! 

In any case, perhaps especially because I can't... think outside the lunchbox!!! 

PS The reason Feisty Foodie is able to keep on with posts while I'm super busy is... whenever I have free time, I write posts and schedule them for the future.  Some of the posts going up are written nearly 2 months in advance (thus having ice cream posts when it's barely 50 outside...)!  Thankfully, before the latest blitz, I managed to schedule posts through almost all of October... phew!