Inarizushi

My alarm didn't go off, again. I didn't wake until 7:00 am and Paige had to leave in just a few minutes so I didn't have time to take a picture of the actual bento. I did put some more together though for some photos.

Last night I simmered the tofu skins in chicken broth (I had no dashi) soy, mirin and saki. I found the skins in the freezer from last year, and the rest I had left over from the year before. They were stuffed with fresh sushi rice that my husband kindly started when he got up in the morning. We just rinse it and set it up the night before so it is just a matter of plugging it in and flipping the switch. Still, I am grateful that he remembers in the morning fog.
I also made a variation of one of the Just Bento recipes. Thinly sliced cucumbers with shaved carrots that had some lemon rind, juice and sea salt. The other side was also from the cookbook and was some green beans that I have for dinner that were lightly steamed then tossed with a touch of light miso and butter.

This is going to be a trying time for us as we are having money problems like so many others. Buying things specifically for bento is not going to be happening very often as I try to conform our dinner foods into something different for her bento.

Asparagus!

Today I am trying a little something different. We do have a nice large compartment filled with a vegetable stir fry made with carrots, red bell pepper, snow peas and purple cauliflower but I also made these asparagus rolled with very thinly sliced pork. Around that there are strawberries and raspberries that are almost to the not so good stage, but they do have one more use in them.

Back to Basics

Okay, maybe not exactly basic, but there are carrots in one of them again! The first bento is made up of pot stickers, carrot sticks, snow peas, fresh pineapple and those shrimp and chicken Chinese dumplings.
The second one is a sandwich since she is going to the beach today with her school. Peanut butter and jelly (as per her request), snow peas and grape tomatoes and homemade sweet potato chips and there are pea shoots to stabilize the sandwich.
Almost forgot to mention, the picnic bento went over well and Paige said that there wasn't enough food. Only some rice left over.

Picnic Bento and Two More Days

Okay, lots of bento going on today. It isn't that I have not had the time, I have just been lazy. I am going to post the picnic bento first because I am pretty proud of it. I used a two tier tiffin which is supposed to be one lunch, but this should feed three, maybe four kids.

On the bottom is the deeper tin, so half is filled with rice divided with lettuce with apple rabbits and a checkerboard apple, two donut peaches and tangelo segments. On the top I made a rolled omelet, a pork bun, some cheese sandwich triangles and a cup with fresh pineapple in it. All of the fruit came from Wilson's Farm which I would highly suggest anyone in Massachusetts to check out. Beautiful fresh produce everywhere, plus plants. There are also take out packages of mustard (for the cheese sandwiches) and soy for the rice. I am posting the pictures, but keep scrolling down as I have two more bentos to show you all.
It is also important to note that Paige helped a lot putting this together, even getting up 45 minutes earlier.

The next one was yesterday's. It isn't really very special, but I did give some frozen, cooked shrimp a try which she actually ate! Go team! It is very difficult to get seafood in her. She also had half a plum, fresh pineapple (again from Wilson's, but the pineapple was obviously not local here in Boston), some grape tomatoes (also from Wilson's) which she did not eat, no surprise, and her rice. (more below this one too)

This one was done the other day. I switched out the rice for some French couscous that we got at Hannaford's bulk bins, made with vegetable stock and some dried cranberries. For the rest, I rubbed some soy into a little bit of chicken and fried that up, she has a cup with cucumbers (not local) and grape tomatoes (Wilson's). She also had some nice raspberries which I am not sure are local because it is a little early in the season.

This is Paige in her sister's Naruto jacket, the first piece of cosplay she ever got. Paige is thrilled that it was cool enough to wear it for her field trip today to the Franklin Zoo. I took pictures because she actually let me, which is a miracle.

Fresh Pineapple!

Today is more potstickers, just another bentos worth now left in my freezer. With that she has purple cauliflower from Wilson's Farm and fresh pineapple purchased there too, though since I live in New England it certainly wasn't grown there. I was going to squish some raspberries in there, but they are just too fragile and the box was pretty full.

Two Days Posting

I didn't get a chance to post yesterday's bento, so here it is along with today's. Yesterday we had fried rice. I normally toss a scrambled egg into the rice at the end of cooking, but lately I have mostly cooked the scrambled egg before tossing it in. She seems to like it better that way and it really doesn't take any extra work. We were a little low on extras, so she has a large strawberry, a couple of apple bunnies and a cup of apple and flax seed granola. The strawberry was a standard one from a grocery, but the pink lady was organic and fairly local. The granola was organic.

For today I made Paige her rice as per usual, but heated up a little teriyaki to pour on the top. She has three teriyaki meatballs from Trader Joe's, some really pretty different colored cauliflower, strawberries and raspberries all from Wilson's farm, all organically grown.

It Has Been a While

I haven't posted in a while because my bentos have been pretty lackluster. Mostly she has been eating potstickers as I endeavor to get rid of all the bits of bento stuff still in my freezer. Recently though, she told me that she loves, loves, loves fresh mozzarella with basil, so when I was at Trader Joe's I picked some up as a treat for her.
Today she has her rice, some dumplings (shrimp and pork)**edit** Actually the dumplings are Chicken Shu Mai from Trader Joe's, slices of red bell pepper, mozzarella with basil chiffon and a half of a plum that we also got at Trader Joe's. I put it in this one level container to hold all the dumplings as there were not enough left for two bentos. It also gives me a little head room. she also has a bottle of homemade teriyaki sauce for dipping and putting on her rice.
This is the first time I tried steaming something with the rice in the cooker and they came out perfect. Not bad for a 20 dollar machine.

Caterpillars and Social Commentary

First the good news, Osama is no longer a threat. I can't say that I am happy he is dead. That is the easy way out in my opinion, and will also anger his followers. I can say that I am happy he is gone, and I hope that means we will get out of the Middle East sometimes soon.


In other news, this week is another "make do" week. We still haven't found decent tenants for the apartment, so we have to find a way to afford the mortgage for another month. That plus the carpet hasn't been put in yet. On that vein, I will try to make the old standbys at least a little interesting.

Today I made a caterpillar out of round onigiri and cucumber skins for the eyes and spots. I also sprinkled on some white sesame seeds, but that is hard to see on the camera. I thought it would make it look a little fuzzy, like a real caterpillar. For the stuff that goes with the rice, we have the teriyaki meatballs, sugar snap peas and one of those frozen blueberry muffins that I thought we finished up. The whole thing took about 20 minutes, and that included the my making homemade teriyaki sauce for her rice and meatballs. My husband starts the rice for me as soon as he gets up, so it was all ready for me to go to work. Sadly, I don't have a lot of fillers in the house right now, I will have to do an inventory to see if I can find some, but this should stay in place okay.

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.

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.

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.

Running Behind Again

I had a rough plan for this bento, but didn't work it out until I woke up half and hour late at 5:30. Suffice it to say, there is only one cooked from scratch dish. I also reheated some meatballs from a bag we got at Costco a while back, sliced up some apple (I love pink ladies as they don't brown very fast) and some frozen vegetables. I must apologize in advance for the crappy picture quality, I only took one picture because of time constraints.

The Best Laid Plans

Last night I had this plan for bento this morning that didn't come out the way I had hoped. Today is a seafood day, but I didn't plan on enough food to fill up the rest of the boxes. I also made one for Catherine, so there wasn't a lot of noodles either. Today we have shrimp sauteed in a little garlic and lemon, crab-stick salad, mangoes and edamame. The udon noodles are tossed with a little ponzu and mirin. One of these were going to be mine, but I decided instead to leave it for the eldest so she will have something to eat in school.
If you are thinking about doing bento, or have already started you may want to look at this auction: Bento4Japan. 100% of the proceeds (everything but shipping) goes to a charity in Japan to help them through this terrible time. I just got the auctions I won and couldn't be happier.

Also, take a look at one of the others I got:

Friday and Monday Bentos

I forgot to post Friday's bento, so here it is today. I thawed out the ground beef soboro and laid that on top of the rice. On the side is some uncooked baby spinach (which she likes), grape tomatoes (that she doesn't like) and broccoli and grapes which she likes well enough. It was very simple and took me about 10 minutes or less to put it together minus the cooling time.

Darned blogger wanted to make this text centered. Well I showed them with my HTML Fu. This next one is today's lunch. Again, this is pretty speedy. She has rice which is separated by green leaf lettuce, a tamagoyaki made with soy and mirin, snow peas and grapes. I expect an empty box if she is given enough time to actually eat.

A little rant about her cafeteria. She has eaten lunch there exactly twice all year. I paid for one meal and Pippy said that she put one on credit during my break because she didn't want to be bothered to make a lunch. Now they are saying that I owe them 6 dollars. This has been happening for the last three years and I can't seem to get them to believe that they are making a mistake. I am having the same problem with the library. She owes money on a book she never took out. They say she took it out when she was five, but I would have known and she refused to take out a book at that age. I love computers and all, but I have issue with the folks who like to mess them up.

One of Pippy's Favorites

I have learned that the Korean barbecue was not her favorite. She ate some and said she liked it, but there was a lot left behind and she doesn't like to hurt my feelings. Yesterday's meal was gobbled up, and the curry with rice balls that I didn't post also was eaten completely. So, that is the progress report on what I can get Pippy to eat.
Today is very simple. I took out Just Bento's "hamburgers" that I made a while ago from the cookbook and doused them in some barbecue sauce. I think put a line of the sauce on the rice because she loves that combo. I also stirfried some beansprouts with snow peas and stuffed some tomatoes, which will not get eaten, in between along with a "baby" cucumber cut in a rolling bias.
Everyone who doesn't know yet, the bento community has an auction going on at ebay called Bento4Japan.
I also won some bento from Bento Fabulous which is a fun site to get ideas from, plus- I got a purple panda box!! The other two are also very nice, but...purple...panda... the cute!

I also made the background cloth. Because I couldn't find double sided cloth, I put two sections together and sewed them together. It is a little bulky, but it does the job when I don't have a bento bag to go with the box.

Monday Morning

Last week I hardly made any bentos at all as I was pretty sick. I was mostly really, incredibly tired. Pippy, rather than taking the money for lunch at school decided to bring nothing. She ended up using her money for lunch.
Today, I tried to make it a little decorative, but also tasty. I made a little salad with watermelon radish, daikon and carrot with a simple rice wine and sugar dressing. I also used some of the frozen crab sticks with chopped celery for a crab salad. She claims to hate celery, but I have never seen her try it, so we will see how that goes over. I made a ham "flower" but it didn't come out as nice as I wanted. Maybe I used too big of a slice. Also, are some pretty looking strawberries. Pippy loves strawberries no matter what the season, but I am more picky than that.  She also had rice, but said she was getting a little tired of rice with soy sauce and asked for dumpling sauce instead, and more of it.  At least it is colorful!

Pantry Clean Out # 2

This week I have decided to clean out the freezer and refrigerator of all the bits and pieces we have that are perfect for bentos. I may dig into a box of pork curry buns, but other than that, everything will be made from things that are already open.
Todays bento contains the last three meatballs from the freezer stash tossed with the last of the bottled teriyaki sauce and sitting on lettuce from the other week's produce box. I also used produce from that box for the watermelon radish and carrot salad that is spiked with a little rice vinegar and mirin. We have really been bad about our produce, so on the side is brocoflower tossed with a little curry powder and butter.

Not Ready For This Week

I have a huge exam that I have been spending every waking hour studying for tomorrow. As a result of that and the stress of losing a tenant I haven't been sleeping. This is not a good mix. Basically, this is my excuse for completely phoning it in this morning. I do intend to use up the bulk of my freezer stash and refridgerator stash this week though. I have bits of different things here and there and it is time to finish them up.
Today I thawed a pig in a blanket, cooked some frozen glazed sweet potatoes, fried up some potstickers (which will be seen a bit) and made a purple cabbage salad. With this she had rice and soy sauce as she likes it.

Called It In Today

This was a planned lazy day. I am so exhausted by Friday that I just can't think of anything to do. Still, it came out pretty nice without a tremendous amount of trying. There are two dinosaur cucumber sandwiches filled with baby cucumbers and a mayo and paprika mixture. I colored the outside of the bread a little with food safe markers to try to get some of the detail out. I am not sure I succeeded. All around them are "trees and shrubs" that are carrot sticks and cucumber sliced on a rotating bias. In one of the cups is some Smart Food popcorn which she loves (and yes, I realize it is not better than chips) and some frozen mango in the other container.

This picture was taken in my laundry room where we do get a little natural light. Besides the blah background, I like the way the picture turned out. Very crisp and pretty. I also used the Lock and Lock container which is my go to for sandwiches.

Soboro!

Last night I made a delicious turkey soboro for today's bento. This morning I cooked the carrots as the Just Bento cookbook did, except I cut the carrots into hearts rather than thin sticks. I was dubious about the eggs because when you "over cook" scrambled eggs they tend to exude liquid, but it worked out fine. I also used the Just Bento recipe, a dash of salt and a little sugar. The green beans were called soboro in the book, but were easily made as they were simply chopped up and simmered in salted water. All of this was layered with rice that I had in the freezer. I do wish I had a slightly smaller one tier bento, as I had to nearly double the serving for the turkey and used two eggs instead of one. Pippy self regulates pretty well though, so I will either get a lot back or she will share with her friends. I sliced up some kiwi for her in the container that came with the ecolunchbox.