Feisty Bento #389: Just call me blonde and get it over with

Left to right: grilled soy-garlic wings; sauteed bean sprouts; baby bok choi

Entirely comprised of leftovers from my nephew's birthday party on Saturday.  My sister made the wings so I don't really have a recipe, I think she marinated it in soy sauce, garlic powder or salt, maybe onion powder as well?  I don't know, but her hubby grilled them and they were good. 

SO.  Let's talk about The Beast (what I named my vehicle because of its hulking size and because it's funny to me and because of all the issues). 

And how I may just have to dye my hair blonde to match my intelligence...

I failed to mention yesterday, because I failed to see the significance, that I was parked on a steep hill on street over from my street. 

I live on a somewhat steep hill, and the street over is even steeper.  When you park on my hill, the front of your car is raised; when you park on the street over, the back of your car is raised.  I've noticed in the past that when you park on my hill, the gas gauge reads higher than it really is.  I rarely park on the street over, by luck, mostly, and being able to find a spot on my block or along my own street, in any case. 

Being that the gas reads higher on my hill, it reads lower on the other hill.  This means that the gas, being a liquid (it is, right? despite its name, it's not a gas, right? LOOK I NEVER SAID I KNEW ABOUT CARS AND THEIR INNER WORKINGS OR SCIENCE AND JUNK, ok?!), has shifted one way or the other.  Right. 

When I parked my car on this very steep hill last Friday, I made a note that I was low on gas - a little less than a quarter tank - and that I needed to get gas the next morning before class.  I planned to leave a bit earlier in order to do so, and I did.  I challenge any of you to tell me you would have chosen to pump gas at midnight, given the choice between then and early the next morning.  I was tired, it was cold, and there just didn't seem to be a good reason to put gas in the car at close to midnight, when I could easily do it the next morning. 

Ahem.

Do you see where this is going?

Apparently, the car being so drastically tilted, the bit of gas I still had left was pooling to the front, and not enough gas was reaching the engine to start the damn thing.  (I'm no engineer or design person, but wouldn't it make sense for the tube to be in the front & bottom of the gas tank?  Or at least at the front [to prevent sludge and sediment from rushing into the engine at every chance, bottom might not be a good idea] - I'm just saying.) 

Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce to you... easily one of my stupider moments.

I MAINTAIN THAT I DID NOT RUN OUT OF GAS... THERE WAS ENOUGH GAS FOR ME TO GO THE NEXT MORNING TO GET GAS.  It is just the whole hill thing screwed with everything!  I'm not that blonde yet! 

Sigh.

Of course, the tire is now going flat again, slightly more slowly, but still. 

Hi, my name is Yvo, and I am a car jinx.  If I have to choose one problem between the two, I would prefer the tire require pumping occasionally versus the engine not starting.  Thank you.

Also... now that one bit of stress is eased off my shoulders, I have more transportation woes.  My morning bus has decided to stop showing up on time.  That's going to be one angry letter I pen to the MTA later today.  Stay tuned.  I might post it. 

think outside the lunchbox~!

Feisty Bento #378: Not in a good mood

I survived school this past Saturday... 6 hours of torture, one with a maniacal sub (yes, we had a 'sub' on the first day of class) who asked us questions like, do we know who Galileo or Copernicus or SIR ISAAC NEWTON are... and do we know what calculus is... uh... anyway... 

The above is chicken tacos & elotes, minus the flour tortilla - not because I ran out, I still have! - but because I was feeling lazy.  I smashed the lid on top cuz I'm crazy like that. 

So, a bit about school.  My schedule right now is Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, 8pm-10pm, and Saturdays, 9am-3pm, in addition to working full time.  Last semester, I had the same schedule, minus Saturdays.  I took public transportation the entire way and it added like 4 hours to the commute.  Seriously.  I live a 10-15 minute drive away from school; via public transportation, it took an hour, hour and a half most nights to get home.  What the hell? 

This semester, because of my increased hours, I now have the use of a vehicle to transport me to and from school.  I don't need anything fancy, though I do have a gas-guzzling monster - I named it The Beast - except for one problem.  The vehicle was 'fine' - a little rattly at high speeds, but it worked, y'know - until the semester started.  All of a sudden, despite the fact that I put two new tires on it, the front driver's side tire goes flat almost immediately.  So everyday, directly prior to using it, I must pump the tire.  I foresee this being an issue: both for a time crunch and when it gets cold, you think I am going to want to stand there waiting for the stupid thing to fill? 

I seriously don't understand why this is happening.  I've been told the front axel is bent, but that shouldn't affect the tire being flat or not.  I don't understand, really.  It's been pissing me off, and I've been considering doing what I swore I wouldn't do when I got the vehicle: put money into fixing it a little bit so that it'll be a little less frustrating to drive.  But in that case, if I'm going to get part of it fixed anyway, I might as well also fix the window (driver's side doesn't close all the way, meaning when it rains, it rains on me, and when it's cold, it'll be FREEZING in the car), and fix the axel, too, right? 

Only... this costs a pretty penny, and Yvo doesn't have any more pretty pennies!  What with the recent spate of vet bills (I'm not complaining; I will pay to have her be healthy; when I adopted her, that was the promise I made to her and to myself: to always take care of her, to always love her and treat her the way she deserved to be treated, and to be the best pet owner I could possibly be; and to always find a place where she could live with me - if a possible living arrangement did not allow for her to live with me, that possible living arrangment no longer was a possibility, understand?), school expenses, living expenses, life being expensive... I just don't have the money to just throw into a vehicle that may or may not be used for much longer. 

Okay.  I'm sorry.  I'll stop.  This came out a lot grumpier than I intended it to - I meant only to ask if anyone wanted to fix my car for me! lol or knew what was wrong with it - or something along those lines - but seriously, I am about to flip out on someone at work.  Multiple someones.  I am seriously annoyed right now.  This is a place of work, I don't understand how two people can sit there and just converse all day and not do ANY work, and no one says shit to them.  It seriously is pissing me off right now and I have to leave my desk before I go over there and scream at them to SHUT THE F* UP.  Excuse me.  But if you really do have any suggestions or thoughts about the car situation, speak up.  Thanks.

Think outside the lunchbox!!! 

Feisty Bento #377: Repeat

I start school tomorrow.

My schedule forthcoming is such that I may be packing bento 6x a week (ideally; really I just mean that I will need lunch 6x a week). 

This really is the same bento as last time: chicken tacos, elotes.  The cilantro is chopped up, is the only difference, but still delicious (to me... I know some of you don't like it!). 

Think outside the lunchbox!

Feisty Bento #376: Homemade Mexican Bento

People often ask me what I think about - or maybe I just like to pretend everyone cares.  Anyway, ideas swirl around in my head, and I pluck at them sometimes, adding a notion, a lil twist of that, this, or the other... and every once in a while, one will feel ripe, I'll squeeze it a little, then harvest it and implement it.  And every once in a while of doing that, I stumble on something so great, that even I'm surprised, though I've been cultivating the idea for a while.

Honestly, this wasn't a long cultivated idea (I came up with it on Monday evening), but it worked so well with such minimal effort, I'm impressed.  And I am my harshest judge, so I was surprised. 

In the left box is chicken tacos - flour tortilla, a quickly cooked chicken thigh sliced up (seasoned with salt/pepper/red pepper flakes when I cooked it), topped with cotija cheese, a relish/salsa type thing, and tons of cilantro.  Cuz I love cilantro, it just brightens up everything I eat. 

In the right box is corn freshly cut from the cob, mixed with cotija cheese and cayenne pepper.  Yep.  Elotes! 

BF and I went to yet another ballgame on Sunday.  He wanted to get nachos from El Verano Taqueria, while I waited on another line for something else.  He also picked up elote (corn on the cob with cotija cheese and cayenne pepper), took a bite, liked it so much he told me "I want to keep eating!" and I told him he could eat the whole thing (it was meant to be shared with me, lol).  I was pretty surprised he liked it so much, actually, since I've seen him eat corn on the cob... maybe never?  He always cuts the kernels off the cob and eats it with a fork.  (It's a long story, but rest assured, there's a totally sane reason for this.)  Also because it's slightly spicy, and BF is really not into spicy food, nor 'fussy' foods, which corn covered in cheese/cayenne/mayo certainly would seem so to his palate.  Whatever.  He liked it. 

The next night, I was wandering through a supermarket, browsing, and I stumbled across cotija cheese.  I've been looking for this casually for ages, so when I saw a 12 ounce wedge for $3.59, I picked it up without thinking too much, grabbed corn on the cob, and discovered this place also had flour tortillas!  (It was an Asian market, and I generally only see the corn tortillas.)  So I picked those up as well, and realized I could and should make a [real] Mexican meal! 

The chicken tacos was just a random cobble of what I had on hand - I'd serendipitously cooked two chicken thighs the other day completely plainly, intending to do I-didn't-know-what-yet with, and here it was! 

Happy deliciousness.  The relish/salsa was a leftover mixture from a restaurant meal that I remade at home - meaning, I took what was there, and mixed it up with some other stuff, and came away with something even better.  Good stuff made better. 

An excellent lunch, yes?  I will be making this again for dinner, for myself & the boyfriend tonight.  :) 

Think outside the lunchbox!!!

PS I'm not a fan of Trader Joe's chocolate soy milk; it tastes extremely chalky, especially as you near the end, blegh.  And the corn I brought for lunch, I didn't use mayo, but it was still very good.  I'll use mayo next time - I only took it off the cob for ease of eating at work.  Mmm.  ;)

Feisty Bento #372, 373 & 374: Bento for Baseball

Breakfast of champions!  Another cupcake and a tall soy latte.  The cupcakes are for an upcoming post over on Feisty Foodie... you know I'm not that big into sweets! 

Potato salad & crispy wings, both from Ragtime, made my Wednesday bento. 

Wednesday night, we had a ballgame.  David Wright, bless him, is on the DL right now after being drilled in the head with a 94mph fastball *grimace* and here is where I go into a mini-baseball rant: I was really upset when this happened.  I know it was an accident, but just ... I was a ranting angry lunatic two weeks ago when another pitch (different team, different pitcher) almost hit him in the head but he managed to get out of the way just in time.  This time, he got hit, and he's got a concussion, I mean he looks like he'll be OK based on him being up and around the stadium already, but seriously, I was really, really upset that this happened.  I literally felt sick over it, and seeing the numerous replays made me want to throw up.  Just... horrifying.  A friend of mine was at the stadium when it happened, and she said that the entire stadium went dead silent as he fell to the ground and didn't even move.  Man, just writing this is bringing tears to my eyes.  I'm not crazy like "He is my boyfriend" and believe that, but I do feel a very soft spot for him, and this really just upset me.  I'm a big ol' softy, what can I say?  Anyways, my point was (aside from getting that off my chest), since he's not on the lineup and won't be playing for a while, I took a photograph much later in the game... it's Angel Pagan batting.  It was a horrible game.  But they decorated the field to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the 69 Mets, an Amazin' team to be sure. 

So I packed this bento to bring to the game, for BF.  I know! I finally got to pack him bento! but I didn't want to get too cutesy or crazy.  Duck fried rice with bacon on the left (more on that another time, really!), and a cupcake (yes still cupcakes).  And it was good.  Save some money at the game (I told you I'd eventually bento for baseball! - I really wanted to make something baseball themed, but didn't have time). 

And the next day, the rest of the duck fried rice for lunch.  Yummy!

Think outside the lunchbox!

Feisty Bento #371: What I Eat

Thursday night, I attended a lovely tasting at a restaurant that I will, of course, discuss later on Feisty Foodie.  They completely stuffed us silly, and you know how I hate wasting, so the leftovers were boxed up and taken home.  I insisted my dining companion take many of the dishes, knowing I'd be out and about the next few days (it was BF's birthday weekend), but I did wind up taking the fish (because she's allergic) and some other stuff.  Which became my lunch for Friday.  (I would have re-packed it more nicely, but I wound up unable to as I woke up late on Friday morning.)

Delicious fresh fish. 

The asparagus that we'd also eaten; I drizzled a little mayo on top just for fun and it was delicious ;)

Of course, I can't really count that as a bento.

Monday came and I was, once again, in a huge rush around the apartment trying to get out the door in time to catch the bus.  I'd planned a little smarter and had, the day before, done a little bit of grocery shopping at Ragtime, which is one of my favorite cute little Italian shops, but super expensive.  I bought a sandwich that I planned on taking half for lunch and - well, you'll see.

Since I had not much time, I stuffed half of the sandwich (the smaller/shorter end) into a sandwich bag and quickly threw some cantaloupe into a box to eat with it. 

The other half was dinner, with a bowl of my soup - I'm going to have to name this soup soon, even though the ingredients are constantly changing! - and a "healthy" dollop of sour cream on top :)

I can only call this a bento post if I show you a bento, and neither of these lunches really qualifies as bento, huh?  Well, before I get to this, I have to show you something.

I was walking through the park, smiling and in a great mood, when I saw this.  I did a double take, and had to turn around to take out my camera and catch a shot.

There is a pigeon sitting on that bench like this is completely normal.  The people sat next to it (well, one section over) and he didn't even move or flinch.  Wow.  I mean, look at him!  He's just chillin'!  I almost fell over from laughing so hard. 

There's this morning's breakfast: tall soy latte, a banana walnut cupcake with cream cheese frosting, and my BlackBerry - no, I didn't eat it, but I was busy corresponding on it.  Who says you can't have cupcakes for breakfast?  I'm an adult now and can eat whatever I want for breakfast, lunch and dinner!!!  :)

And finally, here's lunch: roasted red skinned & purple potatoes, and crispy wings (also courtesy of Ragtime). 

So that's what I've been up to the past few days.  What about you??? 

Think outside the lunchbox!!! 

Feisty Bento #370: Flushing Fun Run

Sometimes I take pictures of what I eat, as uninteresting as they might be, just to show y'all on my bento site.  Cuz I'm nice like that. 

On Monday morning, this was my breakfast; half of a bacon/egg/cheese on a bagel and half of a sausage/egg/cheese.  I wish it was some cute reason like BF & I split our breakfast sandwiches in the morning, but the truth is slightly more thrifty than that.  On Sunday, we'd woken up early so I could go to the doctor (oh, you didn't know?  My ankle is busted; x-rays and waiting to hear back how that went...), so we both got our usuals.  Only we each ate half - me because I didn't NEED to eat the whole one, and I wound up sticking them in the fridge and he forgot his half at my place, so I put it with mine for breakfast. 

Can you guess which half is my usual and which half is his usual???  :)

After that, we went to go catch a showing of Julie/Julia, and then had dinner, so... it was a pretty full day, no need to eat the rest of it. 

For lunch on Monday, I had two onigiri rice balls purchased from the local Japanese market - shrimp tempura and tuna mayo (their name).  Yummy and filling, for less than $2 each (I ate two just cuz I'm a piggy like that!). 

On Tuesday, I didn't bring lunch, because I left work early to get that x-ray I mentioned.  Hmm, I should call the doctor and see what's up.  Anyway, I wound up buying some food near the x-ray place...

Some of which became part of my Wednesday's bento - mai fun and a fried drumstick (so good! and crispy!).  Yum!

Here's an updated picture of the puppy we adopted in January.  Can you tell how much bigger he's gotten?  He's close to 40 lbs now.  He could probably knock me over if he's given enough of a running start... seriously.  And I'm not a small girl!  Yeah, you think he looks so cute and innocent in this picture, but he's Marley reincarnated (of Marley & Me fame).  He eats drywall and everything in sight!  Eesh! 

Here he is with Mommy... seriously, he's much heavier than I thought he'd be.  He's very muscular so his body weighs a ton!!!

In any case...

think outside the lunchbox!!!

Feisty Bento #351: Seeing Doubles?!?!

Yes, it is indeed more of the same, really just the rest of what I'd bought, and it is so delicious, so good, I can't even explain it.  Mmm.  It's kind of good I don't work in Midtown because I'd be at Woorijip all the time!!!  Wait, I already am, sort of (been too busy lately to go up there on my way home after work).  Hehehe.  Delicious. 

Gimbap
Zucchini pancakes (trying to come up with a way to make these myself... think I saw a recipe on Just Bento, actually!)
Spicy chicken

Ahhh.

Think outside the lunchbox!!!

Feisty Bento #350: Woorijip Goodies!

Gimbap (four pieces, stacked up), spicy chicken, and 'zucchini pancakes' from Woorijip. 

Here's another angle because I didn't think you could see the pancakes well enough.  Except you can't see them that well at this angle, either, lol.

BTW -- I already cooked with my new toy, and the first step was 'render bacon' and while delicious, totally bento-worthy, it didn't make it into bento, because I ate it all.  Hahaha.  Well, also because I had this stuff from Woorijip, so I wanted to finish that and it was enough for bento so that was that, and what I made stayed as dinner, delicious dinner.  :)  You'll find out what soon enough...

Think outside the lunchbox!!!

Feisty Bento #347: Utter Delight

Pickle spears along the top of the box; a few marinated artichoke hearts along the left side of the box; and then the rest is once again, not pretty but definitely delicious garlic scape tossed chicken & potatoes

Mmm, more deliciousness.

The weather has been raining and not raining and raining and just very odd here in NYC.  We're reaching record highs of rainfall and there's still 8 days left in June!  Summer weather has appeared very briefly, very fleetingly, and I'm not sure when it'll actually feel like summer - the only summery part of the weather lately is the humidity, which kills me.  I really detest humidity.  I detest walking a block and my face suddenly shiny as all get out.  It's even worse when it's not really hot - you step outside and you're like "I might need a sweater" so you take one and shove it in your giant tote and then walk a block and suddenly you're hot and sweaty and confused.  What gives?!  It's like... it's not HOT, just that it's warm enough that with the humidity, any sort of quick walking (which is nearly the only kind of walking in which I engage - I'm a New Yorker, after all!) will raise your body temp faster than you thought, and you will just be uncomfortable and crazy and just annoyed.

Humidity makes for a very grumpy Yvo.

Think outside the lunchbox!!!

Feisty Bento #346: Looks Aren't Everything

I know it ain't pretty, but looks aren't everything.  Didn't your momma teach you that!  ;)

Half of an orange bell pepper (which was 99c/lb. for some reason, unheard of ridiculously cheap!!!  Now why did I only buy 3?) stuffed with potato/chicken tossed with garlic scape pesto; potatoes, chicken, chopped up bell pepper tossed with garlic scape pesto and a small spoonful of mayo to make it a little creamy.

The funny thing is, it tastes like mashed potatoes mixed in with everything.  I've never been good at telling what kind of potatoes are good for what, so I had red bliss potatoes - which I thought were good for salads but maybe not since I usually mash them? LOL - peeled and cubed them, then boiled them, and when I added it to the bowl with the chicken and began tossing, they started crumbling a bit.  Some of the bigger cubes stayed whole, but I'm not hating, I won't lie, it was delicious anyway.  (I read a recipe once for mashed potatoes that had mayo in it; while I don't personally go that route, I could see it working, especially now, after eating this.)  So good.  SO GOOD.

Recipe for garlic scape pesto coming soon (mine is slightly different from the ones making the rounds mostly because I am a cheap bastard)!  It's easy and delicious.  Well, easy if you're not using a hand blender's cup attachment, which wants to keep jamming so you have to keep opening it and spooning things around to make it mix, dammit.  Ahem.  Not that I would know.  Riiight. 

Think outside the lunchbox!!!

Feisty Bento #299: Oh my, a recipe

That, my dear friends, was last night's dinner.  (No bento yesterday because Wednesdays are gym days; didn't have class so no dinner bento!  Tomorrow is Friday which is another gym day, no bento tomorrow!) 

So, I'm actually going to post the recipe here, because I don't have any more pictures of it beyond that, and it turned out much better than I'd really expected.  I mean, I didn't expect it to turn out yucky, just that I wasn't expecting much for the first time out.  I had a bunch of chicken thighs in the fridge defrosted and needed to use them, and I was bored of everything I've ever made in the past, Google'd up some recipes and decided upon one called "Spanish Style Chicken Stew" and promptly ignored most of the recipe.  (Even though I had all the ingredients on hand, I just didn't feel like a stew, oddly enough.) 

Here's what I did~

A bit of olive oil in the bottom of a heavy bottomed skillet.  Two small onions diced in the bottom of the pan, along with 3 cloves of garlic minced up.  Once that was going for a little bit and softened, not browned, I added one sliced chorizo link (I'm sorry I don't know if it was Mexican or Spanish chorizo, I'm pretty sure it's this kind as I did buy the pack at Murray's Cheese a few months ago and froze what I didn't use last time), taking care not to burn or overcook that, since last time they came out a bit dry for my tastes.

At this point, I added a lot of red pepper flakes because I wanted some heat to my dish, then covered the whole thing in a thick layer of paprika (it smelled sweet after I did this, so that may answer the question as to whether my paprika is sweet, smoked, or what). 

This entire time, I was chopping up 5 boneless/skinless chicken thighs.  After I'd added those to the pan, I added another generous layer of paprika, kosher salt & freshly ground black pepper, and then let it start browning.  I stirred it all up in the pot a bit to evenly coat it with the seasonings, mmm smell that?  That's what "delicious" smells like on the stove. 

After the chicken was mostly cooked through, I added a box of frozen chopped broccoli and half a lb. bag of frozen carrot coins.  Mostly to get rid of them and also because the colors were pretty; had I been thinking more clearly, I'd have added some of the fresh celery I have in my crisper.  I wasn't thinking clearly enough though so this is what you get. 

The recipe I found also added a can of tomatoes, a can of beans, and some potatoes, so you can totally do that (it also included an oven step, which I wasn't interested in performing).  Perhaps next time I'll follow the recipe more closely, but I was pleased with the results - it was spiked with heat, a bit of sweetness from the veggies, and very meaty.  But loaded with veggies and packed with flavor!  Love it! 

I chose to serve it above with a toasted, buttered English muffin and an intense dollop of sour cream (with parsley flakes for color) on top to temper the heat.  The heat seems to get worse the more days it is since I made it - I may need to go buy another container of sour cream to finish this off, eeps.  It was absolutely delicious with the sour cream mixed in, a bit of a sour tang, but creamy, coating each piece of chicken... yummm!!!

Enjoy~!

And today's bento:

Left cup: yu choy (some may say broccoli rabe?), cut up to fit (stems AND leaves are in there, I don't waste)
Right cup: two Ajinomoto pork&chicken gyoza, with gyoza sauce in the little bear cup
Jar: Spanish style chicken "stew"

The gyoza sauce leaked out of the bear.  Ah well, it stayed in the container at least.  Mmm... delicious.

Happy bento!  As tomorrow is another gym day, don't expect a bento from me... which means #300 will be on Monday!  Gasp!  300 already?!

Feisty Bentos #297 & 298: My long weekend

I spent the entirety of my long weekend essentially cooking and cleaning.  Wow, I didn't realize how that sounded until writing that just now.  It wasn't that bad.  I mean, I can't say I love cleaning, but I'm getting used to the concept that to achieve the super pleased feeling I receive when my tub is sparkling white and clean - x100 when my entire apartment is clean (which has never happene, to be completely honest) - well, to achieve that, I have two options: hire a cleaning lady (not going to happen; it's not that it's too expensive, but rather I don't like the idea of a stranger in my home touching my stuff) or actually clean.  Obviously... the latter will have to suffice.  Hahahaha. 

 

This was my dinner Sunday night.  Some leftover veggies serving as my "noodles" underneath a beautiful piece of salmon teriyaki.  After a cholesterol test, I was told I need to consume more Omega-3s to raise my good cholesterol - overall, my cholesterol is fine, but my good cholesterol is low, blah blah blah, which I don't see the need to raise them in that case.  Both my total number and my ratio is within healthy range -- if I raise my good cholesterol, won't that also just raise my overall cholesterol?  Seriously?  Whatever, I like salmon anyway and have been eating too much meat lately. 

To that end... I was at the doctor and he told me I gained a lot of weight in the past year, and need to lose it.  And fast.  I'm not getting younger and any excess weight is just not good at this critical point in my life, yadda yadda.  Freakin' a.  I'm a fatty once again.  How did this happen!?

Probably because of my cooking... and experimenting... and all that... in the past year.  Fark.  Anyway, here's yesterday's lunch.  SkippyMom was talking about sandwiches and I got a craving, so here is roast beef and mozzarella with roasted red peppers, a dab of mayo, on garlic & olive oil ciabatta from Trader Joe's.  (Just the bread is from TJ's!... oh, and the roasted red peppers.)  Along with a side of Caesar salad to help fill me up and keep me full.  Yum.

Today's lunch bento:
Top tier: Spanish chorizo chicken stew, sort of (recipe to come on Feisty Foodie); another piece of salmon teriyaki
Bottom tier: Not sure the English name, but on my receipt it said "yu choy" - steamed quickly and dab of "oyster sauce"

Tonight's dinner bento - a cut up Harry & David Royal Riviera pear and an old orange peeled quickly.  I think the orange might prevent the pear from browning too much, but I don't really care if it does or doesn't, as long as it tastes good :)  See?  Fresh fruit!  (And I'm going to eat another piece of salmon teriyaki when I get home, for protein, to restore my muscles after tonight's work out.)

That is a shot of the inside of my right elbow.  I have never had this happen to me before but I'm told it's quite common when people have their blood drawn.  It actually hurts, too.  And I look like a crackhead -- it doesn't help that I have eczema and tend to be an itchy kind of girl, and my left elbow has been on and off rashes - speckly rashes that have caused more than one friend to jokingly speculate that I've been shooting up, grrr - although thankfully it is currently off rash, and fine.  Oh well.  That bruise was twice as dark yesterday.  It's about 4" long and 1" wide.  Sick, right? 

Happy bento!!!  How was yourweekend?

Feisty Bento #296: Repetition

Wow, I'm getting closer and closer to 300... what should I do for 300?  Any ideas, suggestions, recommendations?  :)

Top: sauteed Shanghai baby bok choi; bean sprouts; sesame maple glazed chicken & carrots
Bottom: sliced up Harry & David Royal Riviera pear

Yum, yum!  So... thoughts on #300???

Happy bento!!!

Feisty Bentos #294 & 295: Egg foo young... I think?

Ooh, another doozy of a post!

First, I totally missed National Carrot Day!  Thankfully, someone (from the Carrot Commission?) emailed me to let me know and also sent along this little video to celebrate.  Check it out, it's really cute!

There's also a $2 coupon if you go to Yes to Carrots!  You do have to install that coupon printer thing that a lot of websites (including Hershey's... yes, I know this from experience, haha) use now, unfortunately I only have a printer at work and I can't install that... boo :( 

Oh, and how is this related to bento?  Um, duh?  Who has NEVER used carrots in their bento?!  :)  It's such a common bento food!  We should all praise the carrot!  Hahahahaha.  (I did not get paid for this post, I just find this really funny and cute!)

Moving right along, we've got some interesting things today! 

So, if anyone's been reading my bento blog lately, you'll have noticed I've been eating a lot of bean sprouts.  That's cuz they're cheap (59c a lb.) and super easy to prepare - I make a big container of it and then take from it throughout the week.  This is probably Week 3 of such a preparation making it into bento.

Unfortunately, because I haven't been eating dinner at home, I haven't been eating bean sprouts at night, so they've been going bad and I've been kind of getting bored of them.  This will probably be the last I eat of them (maybe?) for a while.  So I was trying to come up with variations or ways to use them to make them something different, something I won't mind eating or rather that doesn't taste like the same gently sauteed bean sprouts! 

Therefore, I came up with this... and later realized it might be similar to egg foo young (a dish I've never eaten but I think is like this?).  Basically, I put some bean sprouts in the bottom of a small skillet and when they were nice and hot, I poured 2 beaten eggs over the top.  I covered it and when it was mostly set, I flipped it once to fully cook the top and voila!  What you see above, with some hoisin sauce squirted on top.  Quite tasty if you ask me ;)

... and perfect for bento.

You might remember today is my "running instead of eating a big lunch" day... well, I get really hungry after I run.  The top is slices of a Harry & David Royal Riviera pear (I bought 10 lbs. at $2.79/lb, whee! - gave a bunch to my mom & sister), to be eaten before hitting the gym.  The bottom is one dumpling and another egg-foo-young-ish thing, cut into quarters and stacked, with a bit of hoisin sauce over the top, to be eaten after the gym.  Yum! 

And here's dinner, to be eaten before class tonight!  Top left cup is more slices of a Harry & David Royal Riviera pear (these are sooo good), the right cup is three dumplings (yes I smushed them in!), and the jar part holds udon mixed with Japanese curry.  From my freezer stash... mmm, I am excited.  It looks so delicious... I bet it will be!!!  Ahhhhhhh! 

Happy bento~!!!  (The weather here is gorgeous and it is working its magic to cheer me up...)

Feisty Bento #293: Num Yummy

It's the same as yesterday's dinner.  And it was delicious.  I'm feeling a bit under the weather emotionally, so I'll leave it at that.  (Put it this way: yesterday I cried tears of joy; today I simply cried.) 

Ciao, happy bento~!

Feisty Bentos #291 & 292: Goodness me

I have cried tears of laughter today.

This is the love of my life kissing our (new) puppy.  The puppy came to live with us on January 11.  Proud Daddy adores this puppy and I swear to you, shows him more affection than I get (not to say he isn't loving to me, not at all, just that he really lays it on with this puppy).  Happy family (although my older dog - who turns 7 in April, though no one believes me when I say that - does not like Sammy quite yet). 

However, last night, apparently after I'd left them to their devices, my darling boyfriend decided to lay down on the couch with Sammy and a movie popped into the DVD player, snuggled into a blanket.

***WARNING*** this is not for the squeamish nor those who came here strictly for food.  If you don't want to know, skip down to the text past the next photo.  ***WARNING***

At some point, my boyfriend got up to use the bathroom or some such thing, and left Sammy on the couch with his blanket.  Sammy is still pretty uncertain of himself, so he was unlikely to jump down off the couch or anything. 

My boyfriend returned to the blanket and Sammy, and snuggled into the blanket, wrapping it around himself, the last step being tucking his hands into the blanket.  Throughout this process, Sammy farted a few times inaudibly, but the smell was very evident and my boyfriend thought, "What the heck did he eat?!" because... it was gross.

As he tucked his hands into the blanket, his hand slipped right into a big warm pile of... you know what.  He jumped up and realized it was all down his leg as well; poor Sammy had apparently felt sick, crawled into the folds of the blanket, and just... let go. 

My poor boyfriend related this story to me earlier today while I was eating lunch.  I laughed so loud that people were looking at me funny; big, fat tears of hysteria rolled down my cheeks.

If it had happened to me, he'd have falled over and laughed the same, so I don't feel too bad about it.  :)

Do you know who this is?  That's Garth Ennis, writer of some really, really great comics.  Specifically the one I'm currently obsessing over "The Boys" which I highly recommend to anyone who likes scathingly sarcastic jokes and does not like superheroes that much.  <3 that.

I normally refuse to take photographs of people dressed up at Comic Con (it's a long story why; it also ties into why I won't dress up, not because I don't want to, but because if someone asked to take my photograph, I would have to say NO), but I thought this guy was part of the Con and promoting the panel I was about to attend with the creators of Robot Chicken.  He (she?) was not.  Yes, someone put together that costume themselves for the sole purpose of attending this panel and having Seth Green tell him that his costume was really cool.  (It was a really cool costume, but... still.)

I did manage to take a couple of photographs of the panel, but they were all slightly blurry.  This photo of the projector screen upon which the panel was also being broadcast (the panel was sitting directly to the right of the screen) came out much better.  That's Seth Green on the end, and Breckin Meyer next to him.  They were really, truly hysterical.  It made me wish I paid more attention to TV showtimes so I could actually watch Robot Chicken with some regularity.  (Oops, it was on last night, wasn't it?  Doh!)

And today's lunch bento! 

Top tier: sauteed Shanghai bok choi; sauteed bean sprouts (I made a huge new container of this, don't worry)
Bottom tier: a stray stuffed grape leaf that I just wanted to use up; corn niblets; sesame maple glazed chicken with carrot coins (recipe to come on Feisty Foodie)

Dinner is more of the same, but compacted for ease of travel.

Sauteed Shanghai bok choi; sauteed bean sprouts; sesame maple glazed chicken with carrot coins

As always, happy bento~!!!