yesterday's bento

Top: greens miniera and rice

Bottom: radishes, teriyaki meatballs, sautéed cabbage, sautéed carrots

Top: Strawberries, radishes (they are the braised ones again - tucked in with the strawberries), goat cheese, carrots, and cabbage, meatballs, and marinara.

Bottom: Rice, avocado, greens miniera, and regular greens.

I have one more day of regular greens, which is about all I can take of them. I like the greens miniera better, which is a good thing since I have a ton left. I am all done with the strawberries, and to tell the truth, I am surprised they made it this long. I really like strawberries, and they usually start to go before this, anyway.

Top: strawberries, goat cheese, sautéed carrots, greens, and meatballs and cabbage and sauce
Bottom: braised radish, rice, and greens miniera

Lunch!

Top: strawberries, goat cheese, sautéed carrots, forgotten vegetable kinpira, pickle!, greens

Bottom: greens miniera, rice (under the greens)

Not pictured: two teriyaki meatballs that I forgot to fit into the top compartment (yes, there was room).


It was really really yummy.

Top Left: veggie stir-fry, carrot slices, and greens #1

Top Right: greens #2, kinpira, greens #3

Middle: salad with radishes, carrots, pot roast, and tomatoes

Bottom: cookie-brownie slices

A New Week

Tasty tasty greens. These are chard and radish greens cooked up with a bit of bacon grease, garlic, lemon juice and some random spices.

Top: Stir-fried vegies, carrot sticks, greens (these were made last week with collards, kale, and beet greens with soy sauce and hot pepper paste), and ceviche.

Bottom: radishes, cheese, strawberries, and the greens from the picture above this one.

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).

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).

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.

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.

So, I was incredibly rushed, both this morning and at lunch - I actually only wolfed down about half my bento before returning to work because that was enough to take the edge off. In any case, I didn't get a chance to take a picture. However, I used my natural lunch bento, which totals 580mls.

In the top tier, I had a cupcake tin with homemade pasta and marinara with a sprinkling of parmesan, greens, and a lamb chop with chèvre. In the bottom tier, I had leeks vinaigrette and some roasted acorn squash that I shaped into a nest and filled with two quail eggs and some carrot pieces. I figured that was the best way to protect the mojority of the squash, eggs, and carrots from getting the vinaigrette from the leeks on them.

Tuesday and Salad

I planned a completely different bento for today, but didn't have time to prep sufficiently. I wanted a relatively low-cal meal for lunch, so I went with salad and a few things from from the freezer.


Top Left: salad toppings - tomatoes, avocado, goat cheese

Top Right: teriyaki-pineapple meatballs, havarti cheese, lobster salad

Bottom: carrots and lettuce for my salad

Not pictured: salad dressing

Monday Lunchtime!

I knew I was going to be having kind of a long day and exercising quite a bit (4.25 miles running and half a mile at the pool), so I packed a big bento today. I ended up not finishing the inari and not eating the two Pocky sticks in the lid of my bento at lunchtime because I got full, even though I'd just finished my swim. I'll probably eat all that later, though. Anyway, here's my bento:

Top: two inari stuffed with rice/quinoa mixture and topped with a tsp or so of lobster salad, a quail egg, roasted acorn squash, and greens

Bottom Left: more lobster salad, and blanched leeks with some vinaigrette

Bottom Right: carrot flowers, paté, Cypress Grove truffle tremor, and pineapple

Fun on Friday Bento

I managed to make things a little cuter today with carrot flowers and my little quail egg in its acorn squash "nest." Thankfully, the flavor combination worked well and lunch was tasty. Carrot flowers separating the cornichons from the pineapple was a total must.

Top: green beans, steak, sesame greens, acorn squash, quail egg
Bottom: Cypress Grove Truffle Tremor, carrot flowers, paté, cornichons, and pineapple.
Not pictured: two choc. chip cookies that I stashed in the lid/chopsticks compartment.

Thursday's Lunch

I didn't do the best job on the photo, but since my camera ran out of batteries right after this, I didn't get to take a second photo. Anyway, it's mostly the same staples today. I was pressed for time, so it's not exactly a cute bento today.

Top: Inari, teriyaki-pineapple meatballs, sesame greens, and homemade spaghetti and marinara.

Bottom: Paté, Cypress Grove Truffle Tremor, cornichons, pineapple, steamed green beans, a little bit of carrot, and a quail egg.

Another Day Another Bento

I had time to make some inari this morning! I made them with a half quinoa, half genmai rice mixture. When I first made the rice/quinoa mixture it was fairly sticky, but that's faded. I think from now on I'll make it and then make onigiri or inari immediately to preserve the stickiness.

I also tried to make a molded quail egg, and I did get slight indentations for a chick face, but clearly I wasn't using hot enough eggs. It's a learning process, I guess.

Anyway, here's whats in the bento today:

Top: two inari, two teriyaki-pinepple meatballs, pineapple, and below the meatballs and pineapple is sesame greens.

Bottom: Paté, carrots, cornichons, Cypress Grove Truffle Tremor, steamed green beans, and the boiled quail egg.

Top: Spaghetti with Mushroom Marinara and parm/romano cheese, steamed green beans, sliced steak, and cole slaw

Bottom Left: carrot flowers, paté, Cypress Grove Truffle Tremor, cornichons

Bottom Right: a whole lotta pineapple

I had a slightly different lunch planned, but due to lack of time, I didn't get the inari made and then I forgot about my quail eggs.....better luck tomorrow.

Lunch Bento for 1/3/09

Top: salad with cheese; tomatoes, mushrooms, and asparagus (mushrooms and asparagus are under the tomatoes) in a separate compartment to keep the lettuce from wilting.

Bottom Left: roasted potato slices, peas sautéed with pancetta, delicata squash stuffed with ground beef/pork.

Bottom Right: pineapple, carrots, tomatoes, and paté

Not the most harmonious of lunches but it's tasty. I made some paté recently and decided to portion it out for use in my bentos. Alas, I didn't think to pack crackers today in my rush to get out the door.