Dinner last night, along with two rice bowls of miso soup & mushrooms. Just a chicken leg/thigh, bone in, that I tossed into the oven with some salt, pepper, and sauce...
Same as yesterday, in a different order...
Top tier: curried orzo (still not the last!), sauteed button mushrooms, sauteed cabbage
Bottom tier: 5 dark chocolate covered pretzels; BBQ chicken
Yumm! HAPPY BENTO and have a great weekend everyone!!!
Look!!! I actually bothered with a halfway decent bento that isn't just 2 items in each box.
So I think I figured it out. It's a vicious cycle. Go to sleep late, wake up groggy and don't bother with making a decent bento, feel worse throughout the day knowing lunch is pretty crappy... So today I'm actually feeling good, so I think that's really why. Fascinating!
Top tier: sauteed button mushrooms; sauteed Napa cabbage; BBQ chicken thighs Bottom tier: 6 dark chocolate covered pretzels from Trader Joe's; marinated squid banchan; and almost the last of the curried salmon orzo
The dark chocolate covered pretzels are good, but not quite as good as the peanut butter filled chocolate covered pretzels. I like the pb ones because they're sweet and salty and creamy, ALL AT THE SAME TIME. I love salty snacks, I'm not into sweets that much, so this is perfect for me. I love those...
And yes, the curreid salmon orzo is almost all gone, thankfully. It's a good way to add some carbs to my bento, but I am getting a bit bored of it. Will whip up something else tonight. I wanted to make carbonara last night, actually, but then I felt a bit lazy and instead made just the chicken. Oh, and sauteed the mushrooms in a bit of olive oil. And... (ok I guess I wasn't THAT lazy) I made:
My dinner last night - miso soup with mushrooms. Damn tasty if you ask me. Really easy to make, too- just a couple of scoops of miso from the container, a sprinkling of hon-dashi granules, and 3 sliced up button mushrooms. Very yummy.
HAPPY BENTO!!! I can't wait for lunch!!!
Edited (7/29/08): Entering this into Bento Pet's competition!
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!!!
Super boring bento. Had a fabulous weekend being taken care of by the BF, he booked a hotel and off we went to Ocean City, MD! It was tons of fun and so relaxing, I'm sad to be back and really exhausted. Thus the boring bento: I slapped some leftover into a box and called it bento. Does this count?
Curry salmon orzo, container of yogurt partially for the orzo and partially for dessert (with honey, not shown)
Happy bento!!!
I forgot to post yesterday's lunch, so here it is: half sandwich from my fave sandwich place, a container of curried salmon orzo (a semi-failed experiment; semi-failed because sitting in the fridge has mellowed it out enough that it actually tastes good, but initially, not so much), and a small container of yogurt to encourage the mellowing flavor.
Today's lunch was more of the same, although different proportions (larger, unfortunately for my waistline), and since my sandwich box wasn't washed (I went to a PR event last night, and when I got home after 4 glasses of wine, wasn't inclined to wash it right away), I didn't exactly pack it the same way. Here's a picture, taken in the cafeteria:
Another giant half sandwich, some more orzo and a container of yogurt (the curry mellowed a LOT by now, so I wound up eating the yogurt as dessert with some honey). You can see the bottom half of my Camelbak BPA-free bottle, courtesy of my firm - they're distributing them to everyone (24 or 32 oz. sizes available) to encourage people to stop buying bottled water. Doing our part to go green... (while still printing out tons of emails that don't need to get printed!!! Nice.) We also buy carbon credits to offset the paper printing, but... yeah.
Anyway, I hope each and every one of you has a safe, happy and relaxing Memorial Day weekend!!!
Happy bento~!
Yum, another easy-peasy bento.
from left: takuan (pickled daikon), 5 pieces gimbap, and more Woorijip spicy chicken
Oh no, will I actually have to plan for tomorrow's bento? Stay tuned to find out... ;)
HAPPY BENTO!!!
Top tier: 5 pieces gimbap; a few pieces of "Woorijip spicy chicken"
Bottom tier: baby carrots (dressing to be obtained from cafeteria); spicy squid and little fishy banchans
I am exhausted and managed to slap together a bento this morning. I am so happy that I did!
Happy bento!
