Top: beet and greens noodles, carrots, and teriyaki meatballs
Bottom: three tuna-salad stuffed ongiri (heart and star have prosciutto on top), broccoli, more carrots, celery, prosciutto, and celery kinpira

I was really stuck for variety today. I need to figure out more to do with my produce because I feel like I'm in a rut making mostly the same things every week. And I feel like I've got too many carbs (mostly noodles and rice today).

New Box!

A new Clickety Click box from my local bento store. I was actually looking for big egg molds, but they were out.....and they had cute boxes. And so I got this one and a collapsible one that I'm sure I'll use in the coming weeks.



So I made a huge onigiri in the top (stuffed with tuna and miso) and added some nori to aid consumption, since my big onigiri usually fall apart:



And then I filled the bottom with roasted veggies, two kinds of kinpira, and pickles:
tasty tasty

thrown together bento

I tried planning, but I came up a little bit short today. I hadn't planned to need to include carrot sticks, celery, and cornichons, but I had more room than I'd planned and didn't want to pull out the panfried noodles when I already had a nice fat onigiri in the mix.

So on top: hot cilantro sauce, teriyaki meatballs, plain onigiri, celery, carrots, cornichons.

On bottom: roasted veggies, goat cheese, celery kinpira à la JustBento, and broccoli stem kinpira à la JustBento.

Maki has really really good kinpira recipes. If you haven't tried them, do. Especially her recipe for broccoli stems. I left out the red pepper since I wasn't feeling it last night when I made the kinpira, but it turned out just fine regardless (actually, it was kind of like crack - I tried it just to see how it came out and miraculously, over half of my broccoli stem kinpira disappeared).

soup

Soup today, followed by an unexpected delivery of treats leftover from a faculty reception, so no bento......that makes yesterday's my last for the week since tomorrow is a scheduled free lunch.

Bolognese

Top: Mini Farfalle with bolognese and parmesan, pickles, and broccoli and bean salad.

Bottom: more of the baked apples, and a sliced carrot.

I'm looking forward to this bento because A) it has bolognese in it and B) it has my new salad in it. Hopefully I'll be trying some of maki's kinpira recipes from Just Bento tomorrow, since I have celery and broccoli stems.

Baked Apples

Obviously, I love me some baked apples. Of course, I probably should come up with something else to do with the apples I get in my CSA box, but I like my baked apples.

On the bottom is more of the panfried noodles with beets, greens, and carrots, some grilled flap or skirt steak that found its way out of the depths of the johbisai in my freezer (it needs some marinade or sauce or something, I discovered), and some broccoli salad.

Actually, the broccoli salad is a hybrid between broccoli salad and kidney bean salad. Traditionally (or at least in my family), broccoli salad has broccoli, raisins, red onion, bacon (or in this case prosciutto bits) and then a mayo-red wine vinegar dressing. Kidney bean salad has a similar dressing but has kidney beans, celery, cheese, and I think red onions. Not sure. It's funny, I actually had the kidney bean salad recipe out this morning, but the one I can remember is the broccoli salad. Anyway, I took my favorite parts of both and made a single salad. Broccoli, celery, kidney beans, raisins, and prosciutto bits with the dressing. Mine actually subs a large part of the red wine vinegar with champagne vinegar, but I think it was a minor mistake. The champagne vinegar is not as subtle as the red wine vinegar - I wouldn't expect to say that, but there you have it.

New noodles bento

Left: two meatballs, peas, goat cheese, and baked apples
Middle: Satay flavored noodles with beets, carrots, and greens
Right: Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies

I made peas, meatballs, cookies, and the noodles this weekend. The cookies are a recipe I got from my mom, and the noodles were a variation on a panfried noodle theme. The meatballs were my regular ones.

Not sure how tasty the noodles will be, but I'm hoping they're good. Really, the only thing that could ruin them is the beet presence. I'm not much of a beet fan, but I'm trying to figure out few ways to prep them that I like or can at least tolerate.

Falling off the wagon again

Yep. I fell off the bento wagon again. But I did make some very tasty scrambled eggs.

I started with a little butter....


Then I cracked two eggs into the pan....

I got them nice and solidly cooked so I'd have a good base when I flipped them....

And when they were done, I sort of flopped sliding them onto my plate...

But in the end, not much can't be fixed with the right garnish...

Bento Again

Top Left: teriyaki meatballs and greens version 2

Top Right: two inari with pickles

Middle: salad with lettuce, peas, tomatoes, broccoli, and carrots (and dressing that I added)

Bottom: celery sliced to fit in the top case of my box

So a return to bento-ing today. The goal is to finish the stuff I have in my fridge. So far I'm doing ok since this was the last of greens version 2. I don't have anymore meatballs, either, but I'm sad about that since that means I need to get more ground pork and ground beef. I've decided to refrain from diving into my stock of tuna this week, since I've had tuna two weeks in a row. This leaves a bit of prosciutto and some frozen salmon for animal protein, and beans and eggs for veggie protein. oh, and milk. I do have plenty of milk. I'm sure I'll drink it all, though. If there's one thing that I can devour, it's milk.

I haven't bentoed for the last few days, mostly because I've been home at mealtimes and it didn't make sense to make a bento to me.

I'll be back to my normal bento schedule tomorrow. :)