Ending the week well

Thursday I had the day to myself along with Grace (my dog). I decided that it was more than time to get outside and play together. We both needed it.

I was going eat at a cafe somewhere, but realized that I had plenty of leftovers to work with, so I made a bento out of odds and ends I had in the fridge.

Here's my box:

Grains: I had cinnamon scented couscous.

Vegetables: I had steamed broccoli stem, and precooked edamame (Trader Joes). I added steamed lentils (Trader Joes) to that.

Proteins: I had the rest (finally) of the pork roast. It was delicious, but I was getting very sick of it!

Others: I cut up a pineapple Wednesday to put in the chicken salsa dish and had leftovers. I put those in as a "side dish/dessert".

I went to a Weight Watchers meeting, and then to the dog park. I ate my bento there, and had a few dogs roaming around me. Apparently, there were volunteers to help me out with my pork if needed. ;op

Today (friday) I made Sushi Bowls for dinner (see my Lifestyle blog for details) and with the leftover rice I made Broiled Onigiris:

Those are now in the freezer ready for a coming bento! I hadn't made those in a while, and they are goooood!

Happy Bento Everybody!

Thinking Ahead

Tonight my husband did his BBQ Chicken again. This time he used chicken breast that he cooked himself instead of using prepackaged chicken. He also doubled the recipe so that we could freeze leftovers.

We ate out due, and then vacuum sealed the leftovers in bento size portions ready to freeze!

Ready to go in the freezer! We label everything now. I've had a few times to trust my luck on "surprise tupperwares" so now I make sure I know what's in there!

I put on the label what it is, the number of Points and the date it was put in the freezer. That way I can be careful to rotate so that foods don't stay in the freezer too long.

So there, I have 5 days of "bento proteins" in the freezer ready to use. Since that recipe is so spicy, one of those bag is enough for both our bentos, served with a grain, and maybe some beans, it'll be perfect!

Happy Bento everybody!

To Each Our Own n Stuff!

Today I made two different bentos! I felt like having seafood in mine, and my husband isn't too crazy about it. He's from Missouri you know, so far from the sea, first time he saw it he couldn't believe how big a puddle it was... I'm joking!! ;op

Seriously, I wanted to make Onigiris to freeze, so I made myself a "Sushi Bowl" bento here's what it looked like:


I have a layer of "sushi rice" made with brown rice, over that I have red bell pepper and carrot mini sticks, 6 shrimp, and zucchini mini-slices.

I steamed the shrimp with salt and pepper and added some mirin to the steaming water. Can't wait to see if it changed the taste!

My husband has a completely different lunch:

He has leftover couscous that I mixed with a little oil and lemon juice, with that he has green salad.

In the other tier, he had left over chicken and salsa (I made more Monday and froze the leftovers), red bell pepper sticks and lentils in the middle, and cut strawberries on the left.

As I said I made Onigiri this morning. I made some "regular ones" and some "broiled ones". I love the broiled ones, but my husband doesn't really so...

Here they are:

I cooked my "broiled Onigiri" less before I put the soy sauce and "browned them" than I did the last time. They are a lot less crusty and dry. I'm thinking my husband will like these!

To see how to make Broiled Onigiri click HERE.

So that's my bento daily adventure! I've been meaning to make Oyakis for the longest time now, my husband LOVED them. Oh well, one thing at a time! I'll get to it!

Happy Bento Everybody!

Shaped Eggs Bento

Hello there!

I have too many eggs, so I went ahead yesterday and boiled a bunch of them. I used my egg molds to give them shapes but my eggs were a bit small for the molds. The shapes aren't as clear as they should be! Oh well.. still taste yummy! Fresh eggs!

Both boxes are put together exactly the same way. I made them in chain, adding each elements to each box at the same time.

Here's my box:

Top tier: I have a little heart shaped cup of lentil (left), mini-cucumber slices with my little duck skewers (love those!) to make them easier to grab, and a vegetable curry I had in the freezer.

Lower tier: I have 1 1/2 hard boiled egg, one bunny shaped, and one bear shaped (that one's only 1/2 egg, that's why it's kind of sunk in). With that I have 2 star shaped Onigiri, and red bell pepper pieces for color, and to fill the gaps.



My husband has the exact same box except that his skewers are vegetables instead of ducks, and his whole boiled egg is a little car instead of a bunny!

I don't think I ever really explained how to use the egg molds, or did I? I can't remember, and I can't find it! So here it is!

Here's the egg molds I use:


Those things are two sided, so there's the same shape on both side and they have little "clamps" on the side to secure them shut.

1- You hard boil the eggs like you would for anything else.

2- When the eggs are done, You break the shell all around and QUICKLY pass them under cold water. You don't want to cool the egg, just loosen up the shell.

3- You peel the eggs while still hot and put them in the mold. That's the sucky part really, but if you use a cold spoon to loosen the shell it helps.

4- Close the mold (make sure to clamp it shut), and put in the fridge for 10-15 minutes (until cool).

5- Carefully un-mold the eggs, and either serve (or put in a box), or color by soaking in water and food coloring for 10-15 minutes).

Et Voila! Shaped eggs!

The smaller ones I usually use whole, the heart shaped one and the star shaped ones make great shape for "halved eggs". You just slice the egg in two, and present it yolk-up. That would make awfully cute deviled eggs!

That's it for today folks! Keep the Cutsy curse alive!

Happy Bento Everybody!

Late Start Bento and Guac madness!

Today I had a late start due to not sleeping well. I didn't have time to make a bento for my husband, since he left just after I finally got up. The poor guy is in a crunch at work, if he ever needed good food... Oh well.

I did take the time to make myself a box. I've been reeving up my eating well and moving routine, and I'm enjoying myself a lot doing it.

Here's my box today:

Starting at the top, clockwise, I have steamed lentils (from Trader Joes), canned chickpeas and red kidney beans that I cooked in a non-stick skillet with salsa*.

In the next tier I have pieces of red bell pepper with a container of guacamole.

Finally, I have my now usual steamed veggies with salt, pepper, and cilantro.

I haven't had lunch yet, so I don't know how filling it will be, I shall report about it eventually!

*I had left overs that didn't fit in my box and added better n egg with the bean salsa mix and cooked that. YUMMY breakfast!

Yesterday we stopped by Trader Joes and I bought some more guacamole. Here's the brand I buy:

I absolutely love that guacamole. It's made with avocado (imagine that!) and jalapeno puree, white vinegar, jalapeno (huh? again?), dehydrated onion, salt, and granulated garlic. That's it! No ingredients that I can't pronounce of find in a normal dictionary!

So, I love that guacamole, but my problem is that it's in 2 containers of 8 oz each. Too much for me and my husband to eat at once, or even fast. My solution is to open those containers, and repack in smaller ones. I can then thrown them in the freezer, and thaw out just what I need!

Here's my containers (out of a 2 pack package):

Each container is enough for 2 bentos and a little snack (or 3 bento!). Funny thing is I didn't realize I still had left over from my last Guacamole expedition, so we'll be eating a lot of guac. this summer! Hehehehe

Happy bento everyone!

My Mini-Burgers

Ok, yesterday I wanted to make mini black bean burgers. So I looked up recipes, but nothing looked like what I wanted. So I started making up stuff.

I didn't want to put in bread crumbs, because they don't fit in my food plan, so somebody suggested to use cornmeal instead. Here's what I did:

Black Bean Mini-Burgers

Ingredients
1 can of black bean, rinsed drained
1/2 carrots grated (very mushy, but that's ok)
1 small shallot, minced
1/4 cup red bell pepper minced,
1 whole egg lightly beaten
4 tsp (more or less) fine cornmeal
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp coriander
1/4 Indian red chili powder
Pinch garam masala
Salt, pepper

I mashed the beans with a fork, it makes a coarser texture than processing it. Then I added all the ingredients and mixed until combined. The mixture was pretty wet, but I managed to make 18 tiny patties that I put on a rimmed baking sheet (I covered it with aluminum foil and used cooking spray, less cleaning).

I pre-heated the broiler, sprayed garlic olive oil on the patties and then put them about 4-5 inch under the broiler for 3 minutes. Then I took them out, flipped them gently (use a flat spatula to keep half the patties from staying on the sheet) and cooked them another 3 minutes.

Finally I flipped them again and cooked them about 1 minute. Don't overcook them cause they'll get dry. Keep an eye on them!

It was delicious for dinner, and I'm sure it'll be even better today!

Next time I'll do 20 patties so that they are a little bit smaller. They'll fit better in the bentos!

Here's what they look like (top right corner):



Happy Bento everyone!

Bento and Onigiri

Today I stayed home. I have people working in here and I need to keep an eye on dog and cat, not to mention my stuff! I still made a bento for myself. Also, since I was getting bored, I decided to try something new: Broiled Onigiri. They are made, broiled, cooled and in the freezer!

Here's my bento today:

I had left over vegetarian "chili". I made that up yesterday thinking that it would keep us from hitting the restaurant (I work Tuesday evening). Good thing I did cause I ended up working later than I had planned and everything went crazy from there.

In the lower tier I have a simple salad made of lettuce, shredded carrots, minced celery and cilantro.

In the top tier, I have my vegetarian chili, and steamed broccoli (with salt pepper and garam masala).

I like steamed broccoli, it taste great and it's easy and quick to do!

My husband has basically the same thing: vegetarian chili, steamed broccoli, extra lentils (he likes to mix them with the broccoli), his trusty carrots (last pack!), and celery sticks (to beat the munchies!).

As I said, I got bored today and decided to try to make Broiled Onigiri. I got the idea in Let's Cook Japanese Food, by Amy Kaneko. Here they are coming out of the oven:

They are very easy to make really! Here's what I did:

Broiled Onigiri

1- I made short grain brown rice in the rice cooker. Just rice and water, as recommended in the manual of my cooker.

2- I put the rice is a glass bowl, and I added a little rice vinegar to it (not in the direction, but I felt like it). In another bowl I put water and salt and mixed to disolve the salt.

3- Making sure my hands were wet with salted water, I made the rice balls with molds that I bought at Ichiban Kan. You could very easily shape them by hands (it's just less cutsy shapes). As I took them out of the molds, I patted each rice ball very gently with my salty wet hands to give them extra saltiness.

4- I put the rice balls on a rimmed baking sheet that I had covered with aluminum foil (don't like cleaning much) and sprayed lightly with cooking spray. I broiled the Onigiri about 5 inch from the heat until very lightly brown (about 2-3 minutes), then I turned them, and did the same thing with the other side.

5- Then I brushed soy sauce on the top of the Onigiri and broiled them some more until well browned (but not burned!). I did the same with the other side.

6- After done, I put the Onigiri in a large pasta bowl and covered with a wet paper towel to cool, about 20-30 minutes.

7- I put them back on a baking sheet, with plastic wrap to cut down on cleaning, and put the whole thing in the freezer for 15 minutes.

8- Finally I wrapped each Onigiri individually and put them in a ziploc bag in the freezer. I used Biggie's trick of using a straw to suck out the air of the Ziploc bag, it works just fine!

Here they are ready to eat:


The original recipe was with white rice, but it didn't fit with my food plan. These were yummy (what? OF COURSE I tasted it, what are you thinking?) and hopefully will freeze very well.

So there, that's my Bento adventure of the day! I hope you had as much fun as I did!

Happy Bento everyone!

The Cutsy Curse!

Yesterday I made sushi again, and it was good! I made extra rice to make rice balls. I'm still learning how to really prepare the rice well, it turned a little more mushy this time. I'll get it right!

I decided to go the cutsy way. I made 4 bigger triangle ones (cause my husband like those) and the rest I made smaller ones. I have heart shape, bear shape, and star shape. Here's the first plate of them cooling:

Here's the second plate with all cutsy ones:

So today in my bento I used some rice balls, of course, and I played around with whatever I had in my fridge. Here's what my bento looked like:

So, in the bottom tier, I had 3 cutsy rice balls (one of each shape) over lettuce.

In the top tier, I made a roll with a low carb tortilla, canadian bacon, and mashed avocado with a little lime juice. I cut it, kind of like a sushi roll, and used my new cutsy picks I got at Sanko (a freaking fortune!). I added sliced cucumber and red bell pepper pieces.

In my husband's bento I put 1 triangular rice ball, 1 oyaki, a little container of guacamole, cucumber and red bell pepper sticks and a ham wrap that I cut in big pieces so it would fit in the box. I held his rolls with my sea critters picks.


So that's today's bentos. I'm in a cutsy attack, so I'll be thinking up tomorrow's fare today! I frozen a bunch of rice balls, so that's one easy quick thing to throw in. I'm running out of oyakis though. Oops.

Happy Bento!

Oyaki n stuff Bento!

Last night my husband had something going on in San Rafael, so he went down there straight from work. I was on my own until late and decided to experiment.

On justbento.com, I had seen a recipe for Oyaki and thought it might be very interesting to try, so I did! The only different thing I did was to use canola oil instead of sesame oil.

For filling I used leftover ground beef (extra lean) that my husband had made the previous night for tacos. I put that inside the Oyakis, and sprinkled some cilantro over the meat. Other than that, I followed the recipe and the results were Great!



Last night I steamed broccoli in my microwave mini-steamer. I also soaked bulgur in boiling chicken broth, adding salt pepper and ground coriander (and a little hot pepper powder I think). Finally, I made a fruit salad using a mango, fresh strawberries and a plum. I was on a roll really.

So today I was teaching, so I had to prepare 2 bentos: one for me, and one for my husband. Actually I prepared 3 bentos because I knew that lunch happens late at the school I was at and that we had a "snack" with the students so I decided to prepare a "snack" bento also.

In my small red bento (the one on top) you can see my fruit salad in the lower tier (top right container). Beside it you can see the upper tier with a little container filled with yogurt (mixed with a little honey, and there's also raisins (I had way too many raisins, but I shared so it was all good).

In my "lunch bento" you can see, in the smaller lower tier on the left, the two Oyaki (I picked the smallest two) with the steamed broccoli and the bulgur in the divided section. On the right, in the larger upper tier, there's a salad (greens, red bell pepper, cucumber and cilantro) and a little sauce bottle filled with fat free balsamic dressing.

I find that my "lunch bento" bento to fit be very well with my "way of eating" because the smaller lower tier is just big enough to put the grains, proteins and cooked vegetables. The bigger upper tier is perfect for raw veggies and salads which are filling and very low calories.

Here's my husband's bento.

Basically it's the same thing. His Oyakis are much bigger than mine, he also has more grains than I did, more fruits and more broccoli. You see, he's not overy crazy about salad. I still snuck some in there with a little bottle filled with italian dressing.

I love to be able to carry the dressing in little bottles, the salad remains fresh and crispy! We were both very happy and satisfied with our lunch. The Oyakis turned out to be very good. I tried to eat one cold (since I try to have food that don't need to be heated in my bentos) but it wasn't very good. So they DO need to be heated.

I think that I'm going to start making bentos for myself on non-work days. I just love it!

I've almost got myself gifted a new bento... I sent the image of it to my husband many times, and I think I might just be spoiled. I'll report when I know for a fact that I'm getting it. ;op

Happy Bento everyone!!

Thinking ahead!

Yesterday and today, I stayed home, so I didn't need to pack lunch.

I'm still thinking Bento though. Yesterday my husband ordered "Bento Boxes: Japanese Meals on the Go" I'll get it tomorrow, I can't wait to play with it!

Today I was home, so I decided to experiment. I tried to make mini-frittatas two different way:

1- using a metal mini-muffin pan straight in the oven, with cooking spray.

2- Using a flexible silicone mini-muffin pan sitting in water, also with cooking spray.

(These are the mini-frittatas I made in the silicone mini-muffin pan, don't they look cute?)

#2 proved to be MUCH MORE effective. They came right out... My metal pan is still soaking.

(You can see the mini-frittata that got stuck in the metal pan in the background)

I cooled the mini frittatas, and then put them in the fridge to make sure they were totally cold. Then I wrapped them individually in saran wrap and put them in a zip bag. That way they don't stick together, I can take them out one at a time.

Sooo I've got plenty of mini-frittatas ready to jump into a Bento box when needed!

It's ridiculous how much fun I'm having with this!