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Friday, April 29, 2011

Very, very tired

I owe you good folks two bentos today since I did not upload yesterday's bento. I also got my shipment of bento boxes that I got from a drawing at Bentofabulous a while back, so there is a picture of that also.

Yesterday's bento was as Paige's request. We had some little weenies from H-mart I believe that were frozen and hadn't been used yet because I foolishly didn't freeze them in portions. So, with her rice she has two octodogs and two crabs, both with peppercorn eyes. There is rice of course and hoisin sauce, also at her request. In the containers are watermelon balls (even small watermelons yield a lot of fruit!) and pickled vegetables. She said that she ate the whole thing, but since she washed out her own container we will never know for sure.


The next box is for today and it was thrown together at the last minute due to my incessant sleeping. I had some fried onigiri in the freezer from Trader Joe's along with a few vegetable croquettes. I sliced up some fried tofu, which she loves and cut off a strip to make it brown and white for contrast. Of course there is still melon left, so in it went along with some frozen peas.


And finally by new collection of boxes. She also sent me some very pretty teaspoons, but I didn't get them into the picture. Yesterdays lunch used the pink on and I can't wait to try the purple one! I think that the lock and lock would be great on sandwich days to bring extra stuff along to fill her up.


Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Fun Tamagoyaki

Today's bento is brought to you with some sadness. I young student that I go to class with died suddenly last night. I have decided to go to school anyway, but both her and her family are in my thoughts.

I used the egg white trick with the tamagoyaki but dyed the whites red for a contrast. I put them on a bed of lettuce and added some cross cut cucumbers and a grape tomato. Her rice is made with a roll form and sprinkled with black sesame and plum sesame seeds.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Tuesday Quickie

Okay, not so quick. It took me about 20 minutes to cook and cool this bento. There is fried rice made with carrots, zucchini (sshhh, don't tell, she ate is ALL), egg, soy sauce and mirin. In the other compartment was fried tofu (which she says she could eat like and ice cream cone), watermelon balls and sugar snap peas. The verdict came in this afternoon when she returned an empty box. Love it when healthy meets "I loved it Mom".

Monday, April 25, 2011

Good Holidays to All Who Celebrate!

Paige had vacation all last week, so there were no bentos to post. She mostly lived off of mac and cheese and canned spaghetti and tomato soup. These were the things that were easy for her to make while I was at school. Because of gas prices, Pippy will be biking to school from now on to save money. When I explained the situation to her she was more than accommodating. I have great kids and don't think that I am not thankful of that every day.
This week I will be featuring bento made out of things at hand. I did buy some cucumber and grape tomatoes, but otherwise these are all things that you would find in my refrigerator after not doing shopping for the week. Since Pete is getting paid biweekly now, we try to shop for two weeks outside of little necessities like milk and eggs.
Today I tried to make an attempt at Charaben, well, maybe that isn't the word since they aren't actually characters from anywhere. Her two rice balls were shaped by hand with salted water to keep them from sticking. One of them is a chick with eyes made from cucumber peel (I forgot who suggested this, but THANK YOU, and a beak made of carrots. The other is a little girl with bangs made of soy wrapper and the eyes and mouth made with the cucumber peel. There are also three meat patties, balled watermelon and a cucumber and carrot salad made with Ponzu dressing. On the side is a small container of bulldog sauce. I took a picture of the container because it is new. We got two of them from a local Japanese store called Ebisuya. I shouldn't have spent the money, but they were just too adorable for words.



Thursday, April 14, 2011

No Veggies, Bad Mommy

Today was made for a quick bento. This one took me all of five minutes to make. There are an assortment of lunch meats cut decoratively, two slices of whole grain bread with the crusts removed and some wedges of orange. I thought about putting some carrots in there but there wasn't any room. I also didn't put condiments because she tends to not eat them.
Another exam today, whoopee!

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

The Girl Likes Her Omelets

Today Paige and I decided on the rolled omelet for the protein. I filled it out with some potato salad I threw together this morning and pickled burdock root and an ominous sounding pink pickle that was referred too simply as "vegetable pickle", but hey, it is pink! Tomatoes are no longer on the menu. First because Paige doesn't really like them and second because they are over 4 dollars a pint. We can live without the pretty red unless I can afford red peppers which are pretty expensive too. I guess that this is turning into a budget bento blog too!

Monday, April 11, 2011

Put On a Happy Face

The apartment drama lives on. I was upstairs painting walls for a few hours after studying my buns off for two "midterms" at school. Catherine and I painted three rooms and half a bath. The orange room still needs more paint to cover it. Orange, really? Two coats of primer and two coats of paint. Yeah, it is unlikely that they will be getting much of a deposit back.

So, today it is study, study, study and hopefully finishing up the bulk of the painting so we can get the carpet folks in to take measurements and give us an estimate. A really sweet family looked at it today, but the mother didn't seem impressed because of the lack of closets. They tried to bargain on the price, but the price is already a bargain. I think that it may be a cultural thing because we rent at a very low price. And they wanted heat included, LOL, at that price? Nope, isn't happening.

Anyway, here is her bento for today. She has teriyaki meatballs, baby carrots split, some stir fried black beans and a sweet salad with cucumbers and radish. She wanted melon, but didn't put it away last night. The onigiri have been colored up a bit with different sesame seeds and a little furikaki, but I don't think she will like it. Whoops. The purple just looked so nice! I also peeled some circles out of two radishes. I am not quite ready for making mushrooms, but they still look pretty.


Friday, April 8, 2011

Two Days of Bentos

Because yesterday was a Thursday, which meant that I had very little morning time to post the bento, and by the time I get home on Tuesdays and Thursdays I just want to pass out, I am posting Thursday's bento today. As an extra surprise, Paige made two bentos of her own today for her and a friend so I could sleep in. She also took pictures!

The bento I made her yesterday was very simple (see above). Her protein was a rolled omelette with the nice white layer. I forget which marvelous lady on twitter showed me this technique, but I love it. I have posted the attribution on another entry though. Also there were raw snowpeas (which she loves) and strawberries. I dressed up her rice with some plum sesame seeds.

Paige took a more decorative approach. Her carrots were cut into hearts and my frugal sweetie used the outside of the cut outs also. Last night we made some fried tofu to put in there on which she put some kind of sauce that I had in the refrigerator and sesame seeds. She included a strawberry and a slice of orange. Paige also made some nori cut outs for her friends rice but she doesn't like nori so it isn't on hers. Both containers of rice had sesame seeds on them.



Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Too Busy!

Somehow, in the next couple of weeks we have to wash and paint all the walls, find time to have someone come in and re-carpet, find a good time for the appliance repair guy, study for two major exams, write a couple of papers, go to a school meeting for Paige, go to my appointment with Karen and then get my mammogram. I hardly have time for this entry. Things are crazy, and I just hope that we can get the place painted this weekend. Pete still hasn't called the carpet people. Ahhhh! These are the days I wish I did crack, LOL.

Yesterdays bento was not put up due to a long school day. She had teriyaki meatballs from Trader Joe's, a purple cabbage with green onion "pickle" and curried cauliflower. The cauliflower was actually this pretty orange, but it doesn't come through on the picture.
Today's bento may not be eaten today as Paige is staying home. There are Shu Maui dumplings, also from Trader Joe's nestled in some green leaf lettuce with was locally sourced through my produce people, Boston Organics, "baby" carrots from the grocery and a couple of strawberries that my daughter bought which are organic, but due to me being in New England, they were definitely shipped in. Oh how I miss the really good strawberries, small and so sweet. Oh, and there is a bottle of a tangy soy sauce for the dumplings and the rice.


Monday, April 4, 2011

Soup Day

Today Paige is going to school with a thermos of hot tomato soup along with her bento box. In the box there is no protein, which I try to avoid, but sometimes things happen. In her little take along container are goldfish crackers and around that are apples, a couple decorative so the lunch wouldn't seem too plain and red grapes.
We are currently in the throes of trying to find new tenants for upstairs. With my husband working and me going to school or studying all the time, it is very hard to fit in cleaning up the mess the old tenants left behind. I guess that relates to bento because I really don't have a lot of time or energy to be thinking of new things to do.

Friday, April 1, 2011

Nachos!

Okay, today's meal is not exactly nutritious, but I was running out of ideas and food. I am hoping to do a bento food run this weekend in between studying and showing the apartment and prepping the apartment for paint and arranging to have a flooring person and an appliance repair guy to come in. Fun! I did make a run in the sleet to the store this morning, but I hadn't planned any bentos, and quite honestly, the store didn't have anything I would normally use except for a few things like broccoli and tofu.
I guess this is all self explanatory. I used the ecolunchbox for this one because it is deep. A few of the chips got crushed anyway, but it should be fine.