Feisty Bento #310: I think I poisoned myself

Lemon dill salmon, roasted broccoli, grape tomatoes

Think outside the lunchbox!

PS I have made many sandwiches with hummus as a spread... someone doesn't read my blog carefully ;)

Feisty Bento #309: Yum

Simply delicious. 

Toasted whole grain bread spread with luscious lemon hummus (their name, not mine!) and a slab of fried tofu;
cheesy red pepper and corn relish;
roasted broccoli

Mmm... I really do want to make more of that roasted broccoli, it was unbelievably delicious.  YUM. 

As always, think outside the lunchbox!  ;)

PS The other half of the sandwich was crammed on top and smushed down after the photo was taken.  The box lid has space and I didn't feel like eating it at that moment.

Feisty Bentos #307 & 308: Outside the Luncbox

Crap, I forgot to slip a cherry tomato next to the salmon on top, even though I was totally looking at the container and thinking the red would be nice contrast.  Doh!  I often forget to put one or two small things...

Top tier: lemon dill salmon (recipe post goes up on Friday on Feisty Foodie)
Bottom tier: edamame fried rice; cheesy corn & pepper relish; roasted broccoli

If you like broccoli at all (or if you hate it because it's mushy and farty), I urge you to try that recipe.  WOW.  I ate a whole head of that for lunch yesterday.  Mmm.  Go.  Make.  Eat.  ENJOY.  (Sucky thing is, I don't have a baking sheet large enough for two normal heads of broccoli, had to do it in two batches, annoying!  I smell a shopping trip...)

And for dinner, I worked hard to make sure I didn't have all of the same things again.  Seriously?  Doesn't that look like I'm eating a very whie chicken cutlet?  I assure you I am not.  It is awesome.  I can't wait to eat this. 

Top tier: fried tofu slice on whole grain bread with mayo (I was going to use hummus but I wanted to try the fried tofu in all its glory first)
Bottom tier: roasted broccoli; chocolate covered peanut butter filled pretzels; lightly salted nuts

Damn, that looks fine.  I want to eat that so badly right now!  (Just a few more hours.)  I'm not sure if the tofu is good yet - the way I made it, I couldn't try a small piece to taste, so I don't know if I'll be posting a recipe anytime soon, it may need tweaks.  It smelled fabulous though so I may be posting that shortly... we'll see, I suppose!  Super easy and healthy and I am really gunning for it to be DELICIOUS.  (And yes, it's different from my previous fried tofu recipe... which would also make a delicious addition to the bento lunch, yes?)

Happy bento~!!!

PS I came up with a GREAT new blog name for a bento blog while talking about my dinner bento with a friend.  I said "I have a fried tofu sandwich for dinner" and she said "That sounds like lunch" to which I responded "Sandwiches are anytime food!  I have them for breakfast, lunch AND dinner!  Think outside the lunchbox!" 

Think outside the lunchbox.  That's going to be my new sign-off line instead of happy bento (which is getting a bit too UP for me - even this Valley Girl has her limits!); what do you think?  It's also a great blog name if anyone wants to take it, hehe. 

Always think outside the lunchbox!  :)

Feisty Bento #306: How do vegetarians deal with anemia?

Top tier: cabbage; green beans; broccoli rabe
Bottom tier: black bean tortilla wraps - recipe will be posted tomorrow on Feisty Foodie!

I'm such an idiot... I've been rolling these up and then squishing them into the box because I couldn't figure out why the method I saw Rachael, Giada, whoever using... didn't work for me.  This morning, I logged into my Google Reader and briefly skimmed the other bento blogs that I read and found this post from Mer, read someone's comment, and realized... because I WAS DOING IT WRONG.

For some reason, I thought it was "fold sides, fold bottom up then fold top down voila."  No dearies, it's fold bottom up, THEN tuck the sides over that, then roll.  DUH.  I'll have to try that... next time I make these.  D'oh!  Hopefully my wraps won't be so darn ugly then! 

---not completely food related and some of you might find this gross---

So, I am encountering the first issue with this meatless thing.  I don't want anyone to worry about me - I am, in general, a fairly healthy kind of gal - I mean, I don't experience many issues (not more than your average person), nor do I have any big known issues currently.  Nothing that isn't being dealt with anyway.  But here's a little quirk: I've always been borderline anemic, and as I gained weight (from back when I was severely underweight to now), the doctor stopped mentioning that little bit in our checkups.  I do occasionally thirst for iron aka a big steak, usually after a lot of blood loss for whatever reason (you can take that as you will).  I've dealt with my near-anemia also by eating quite a lot of red meat over the years, encouraged by my parents who knew this.  Okay.

Growing up, I've tended to have occasional nosebleeds, random, no-reason (I wasn't hit in the face with anything, I didn't pick my nose and scratch myself) nosebleeds.  Eventually, it became clear that this happened often after I'd sat in the sun for a while, but beyond that, we never figured out a medical reason.  This slowed down a lot as I got older, although last year, when we were in the rainforest in Argentina, I got a bad one while waiting in line for the boat ride that takes you through the waterfall (the sun was pounding down on us).  And this morning, while showering, my nose began gushing and gushing - a worse nosebleed than I've had in a while - and I lost quite a bit of blood. 

Anyway, the point is, I'm used to this, and how I dealt with that is really to eat a big steak.  Iron out, iron in, makes sense, right?

OBVIOUSLY, I cannot do that right now, so I have to ask: any vegetarians out there who deal with anemia or the need for iron without resorting to supplements and/or meat subtitutes?  (I am avoiding those unless or until it becomes unavoidable that I need those nutrients.)  I have been feeling a teeny bit lightheaded/faint and hungrier tody than usual, so I need to know...  What do you guys usually do when this happens?  Any solid recommendations?  (First person to say, "Go back to eating meat," gets a fist in the face :) oh, and I've been feeling a lot more violent today than usual.  Interested in causing bloodshed instead of being the one to shed blood.) 

---end of possibly gross information---

Well, HAPPY BENTO~!!!  No bento tomorrow, I'll be at the gym, so have a great, gorgeous weekend!!!

Feisty Bento #305: Veggies for me

Top tier: Steamed yu choy/broccoli rabe; boiled Napa cabbage, both with sesame seeds on top for contrast, lightly salted
Bottom tier: blanched green beans and grape tomatoes mixed with a daub of mayo, masago, and hot sauce

The bottom tier is actually basically spicy masago dip mixed with grape tomatoes and blanched green beans.  A sort of green bean salad with some interesting ingredients to bring a new dimension to it - I haven't made or eaten this before but thought it sounded good so here it is.  If you don't want to use masago or can't find it, you can just use mayo & hot sauce of your choice, or really any number of things to change up the taste of plain blanched green beans! 

So, today, while discussing a recent Happy Meal toy with a friend (neither of us has the toy nor gone to McDonald's in a while for health and weight reasons), I mused to her that once the 5k run she's training for currently has passed, we can go and have Happy Meals to get the toy she wants, and then I added, "It's probably less than 500 calories, right?"

Immediately after I said that, of course I got the urge to look up how many calories is in the standard Happy Meal.  BEAR IN MIND I GREW UP BEFORE HAPPY MEALS HAD CHOICES besides "hamburger, cheeseburger, or chicken nuggets" - so these numbers are for the sides including the small soda and small fries ONLY.  I don't care that I can cut out 50 calories by eating apple slices instead of fries or getting water or milk.  Because to me, that isn't a Happy Meal, and negates the whole point of going to McDonald's (fries).  Come on now. 

A hamburger Happy Meal, containing a dinky little hamburger, small fries (which barely gets your tongue started on that taste for their fries... mmm), and a small Sprite (I don't know why it doesn't use Coke as the standard, but I'm pretty sure Sprite and Coke have the same number of calories per serving) contains 590 calories. 

A chicken McNugget Happy Meal, containing 4 piece Chicken McNuggets, small fries and a small Sprite contains 520 calories. 

You can bring it down to 390 if you get apple juice and apple slices with chicken nuggets, but seriously?! 

The lunch above that I've packed, which surely will leave me way fuller than eating a hamburger Happy Meal, can't be more than I don't know, 300 calories?  (I'm going light on the numbers because the vegetables were all cooked with basically water or chicken broth, low sodium/low fat, the most calories are coming from the mayo - light, which was half a tablespoon or so and can't be more than what, 40 calories? - I did a compare of calories in light mayo vs. mustard a while back and mustard was like 5 calories per serving and mayo was 35 or 40 - not enough to make me switch to mustard when I prefer mayo, although I will grant you that mustard has a lot more flavor - and veggies in general are light in calories.  No idea how much is in the masago, though a quick Google search shows it isn't heavy calorically but cholesterol-wise, not so light.  So it really shouldn't be that many calories.  I should probably start measuring my food to get a better grasp though, yeah?)  Anyway, my point is, I'm fairly outraged and horrified that Happy Meals are so calorie-packed.  I know "Extra Value Meals" (in quotes because I don't believe there's ANY extra value there) are even worse, but this just really boggles my mind how such tiny food can hide within them so many darn calories. 

Okay, I think I'm done ranting now :)

Happy bento~!!!

PS This is not fully vegetarian, but simply meatless.  Yes, there's masago (fish roe) in there.

Feisty Bento #304: Meatless Update

Top tier: cabbage; steamed yu choy/broccoli rabe, both with a touch of salt
Bottom tier: black bean tacos (recipe to come)

Phew.  So yesterday, in my neck of the woods, it snowed oh, about a foot, somewhere between 8 and 14 inches, depending on where you were exactly.  (By my sister's, which is a 20 minute drive from me: 14".  By me, about a foot or so.  By my office, hmm, hard to tell.)  Thankfully, this meant they cancelled classes and I didn't have to go to class, so no dinner bento, just a lunch bento.

The problem with that is just that if I've packed my lunch, willpower is almost easy to have.  But faced with my fridge and a grumbly stomach, I very much wanted to reach into the freezer and grab some frozen dumplings (all of which are pork or the like) for dinner.

I didn't. 

But still!  It was there, that desire to "be bad" and eat meat.  The weekend wasn't that bad, even though I stayed home most of the time, I just focused on other things like cooking and cleaning.  And homework.  Because yes, I have a lot of that.  Ugh. 

Anyway, it'd have been pretty pathetic if I caved after just 3 days, right?  Considering I barely ate meat the week before without thinking much of it at all. 

I'll be updating with what I ate my first week out meatless, with photos and stuff, but for now, you are left with the above ;)

Happy bento!!!

Feisty Bento #303: Yumms Vegetarian

Top tier: grape tomatoes; black bean tacos (recipe coming)
Bottom tier: blanched green beans with a touch of salt

I am running behind on everything... sorry!  It was delicious though :)

Happy bento~!!!