Salmon Salad Bento (#19)

I am really excited about a new recipe I found. It incorporates salmon and a veggie that I didn't even know was a veggie...fennel. To my surprise one of the markets in town actually had fennel. It sort of a cross between licorice (REAL licorice), celery, and a cabbage-like texture. If you haven't tried cooking with it, I highly recommend it! Here is a picture to give you an idea of what it looks like:



FYI, the wispy green stuff is called a frond, and is good for garnishing and flavor. The stalks can be used to flavor broths, and are too "woody" to eat. The bulb of the plant is that part that is eaten. The recipe can be found online here. I wasn't too thrilled at the work involved to prepare the oranges...and the wastage of most of it. I'm sure sliced oranges or canned mandarin oranges would work just as well and cut down on the prep time.

Here are some more pictures related to my salmon salad bento with fennel, orange, and mint!

Fresco Bento (#18)

I have literally been running around the past two weeks like a headless chicken! This is the first day that I actually have a moment to post a picture.

I have to say that the frozen spaghetti nests were a hit. Granted, its basically chilled pasta, but it still looks nice when it thaws...not to soggy not too dry. I also have been using them as a pseudo ice pack. Hands down my favorite part about them is that I can just pull it out of the freezer and stick it in my lunch box. I'm curious to see if using a green pesto sauce would work as well.

You'll notice in this bento that I have actually included a shape! I made some really yummy rye/wheat bread earlier in the week. I still haven't figured out a way to make the crust turn out softer. My teddy bear cookie cutter was the perfect size for the bread slice with minimum wastage, so I just kept the remaining crusts for breadcrumbs. Other than that, its just a turkey sammie with provolone cheese and spinach. I don't eat sandwiches much because I'm not a fan of deli meat. However, I did find some nitrate-free meat in the grocery store the other day! And it was basically the same price as the other nitrate-laden brands. I was very happy with my purchase. :)

I managed to get lucky with some out-of-season oranges. I love fruit, but don't often purchase it in the winter...its just so difficult to find something that tastes good. I just wish I had picked up some more from the same batch! Too bad you can't sample fruit before you purchase it!

Happy Weekend to everyone! I'll trying to post the rest of my creations soon.

Snow Day!

School is closed do to a severe winter storm...which means no class or work for me today. I have tracked down the recipe for bento-sized chicken pot pies...and I'll do my best to make it as clear as possible! The dough recipe is one of my favorites.

"Crust"
I usually just put the ingredients in a bread machine and hit the dough cycle. But it can also be made by hand ahead of time. I'm sure other "crust" ideas would work as well.

1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 tsp salt
1 package active dry yeast (~2 1/4 tsp)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup warm water
1 egg
3 1/2 cups flour

To make by hand:
-Heat milk in a saucepan on the stove until it starts to bubble on the edges. Add the butter, sugar, and salt.
-Dissolve yeast in warm water and let set for 10 minutes.
-Combine yeast mixture, milk mixture, and egg.
-Add flour and knead for about eight minutes.
-Place dough in an oiled bowel, cover with a damp dishcloth, and let rise for one hour.

"Filling"
The best info I got from my roommate concerning the filling is that she added ingredients till she liked how it looked. I know that I would love carrots in mine. So feel free to add items or leave them out depending on what you like...

1 cup cooked chicken (or leftover meat that you may have), cut into cubes or pieces
1 cup peas
1 cup corn
Salt/Pepper to taste

"Sauce"
I'm sure there are multiple ways to make a sauce for the pie filling. I've personally used a cream of soup in the past when making similar recipes. But here is my roommates idea to get you started.

1/3 cup melted butter
1/3 cup flour
1 3/4 cup chicken broth
2/3 cup milk

-Combine butter and flour in a saucepan on the stove.
-Add broth and milk.
-Stir until the mixture becomes thick.

"Assembly Instructions"

-Pinch off a piece of dough and roll it into a circle. Make it big enough so that when placed in a greased muffin cup, some dough hangs out over the edge.
-Add the desired amount of filling, being careful not to fill it too full.
-Spoon some sauce over the filling.
-Roll out another circle of dough and place it on top.
-Pinch the edges of the circles together, then roll the edge in and pinch around it again.
-Repeat until you fill up the muffin pan...or you run out of dough (trust me...it can happen!)

-Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 20 minutes, or until the pies are a healthy golden brown.

Enjoy! Hope that this is helpful.

Quick Bento (#17)

This bento is just a quick put together of things that I had on hand and need to use up. The little chicken pot pie thing was a creation of my roommate. She basically combined chicken, peas, corn, and a homemade sauce to make the filling. A home made bread roll recipe was also used for the "crust," and the pies were baked in muffin tins. I'll track down the exact recipe sometime this week to share. I microwaved the pie before I ate it, so I'm not so sure how it would taste chilled.

I also am experimenting with frozen portions of spaghetti. This is one of Biggie's speed bento tips discussed on her website. I am pretty impressed with the visual results so far...and look forward to seeing how they taste!

Piggie Bento (#13)

I went garage sale shopping over the weekend, and found something that would be perfect for bentos. They are ice cream sandwich molds in the shape of a cow and a pig. I couldn't help but see the potential in them, so I now have my first cute accessory for my bento lunches!





Here is today's lunch:

• Piggies sandwiches (homemade Sally Lunn bread, turkey, provolone)

• Spinch/Romaine salad, with carrots, cauliflower, celery, olives

• Cottage cheese with dill and garnish

I was very pleased with how today's bento turned out. The ice cream sandwich molds worked perfectly for sandwiches, and I can't wait to see if they can mold onigiri as well. Basically I lined the box with lettuce, propped the sandwiches on carrots, and put the rest of the salad stuff on the right. It was looking a bit too "white" at first, so I put the cottage cheese in a red dish, and moved one of the sandwiches over to the middle of the box.

Bento #6

Well today's bento makes me nervous. It has an awesome cheese calzone in it...but its sort of cold. Its been in the refrigerator, and Art Guy requested that I packed one in the box today. My protest is that I didn't know how well it would taste since he won't really have a way to heat it up. But he insisted it would be ok, so here it is! I was trying to mimic the ones my mum made at home, and of course started remembering the little twists she gave to the recipe halfway into it. I made little notes to self for next time, and will give it another try in the near future.

I salvaged the remaining cucumber & avocado in the kitchen and made a california roll. I packed the extras into another container again because that seemed to be a popular idea from the last time I did it. They say practice makes perfect...but today's batch didn't want to roll well at all. No matter what I did, the sheet wouldn't roll straight. Hopefully the taste will outweigh its looks.

Time-Crunch Bento (#5)

Three-cheese tortellini, plain onigiri, chicken sandwich, string cheese.
Not Pictured: Container of pasta sauce, banana

Today's bento was purely functional. I was called into work early, so I just pulled it together with stuff I had in the fridge and boiled some pasta while preping the box. Today was one of those days I wished I had a box with dividers. Pasta doesn't want to stay put very well!

My favorite pizza cookbook arrived in the mail yesterday...That means more fun in my kitchen this weekend!

Sandwich Bento (#4)

Leftovers and sandwiches adorn today's bento. I hung out with my best friend yesterday: cleaned house, got pedicures, went grocery shopping, and showed her the latest nonsense I've been into (sushi making of course :P).

We found some crabsticks while running around town, which prompted a session of "roll-play" in my kitchen that evening (ahahaha). I discovered that it was much easier to roll the sheet when there was a firm ingredient in it. We also gave hand building of sushi a try, but didn't have much success. Too much rice was made, resulting in the leftovers in the bento today. Not sure how well the refrigerated sushi will hold up, but here's to experimentation!

I made buns for sandwiches as well yesterday. We have a bread machine and I'd like to try to use it more often. The problem is that we don't have a good way to slice the bread. So I figured I could make dough in it and make rolls and buns for sandwiches and such for now. I used a recipe with wheat flour, so I can't quite tell if I over browned them in the oven or not. Nevertheless, they made a yummy looking chicken sandwich!

In my attempt to be creative, I ended up arranging some carrot curls, cheese, and smoked sausage on toothpick "skewers." Here is a close up:

Rainy Day Bake-Off

Didn't have a need to make a bento yesterday (Mother's Day) or today. Art Guy did make a Mexican Dinner for me last night though. It was fajitas, frijoles y arroz, and horcata.




A thunderstorm rolled in unexpectedly last night, and today has been mostly overcast with some drizzling rain here and there. I don't work till this evening so I decided to make something that incorporated the bushel of apples I acquired last week. The result: Little Apple Pizza's or Pies (or whatever you wish to call them!) I designed them to be bento-sized, so you could make them bigger if you want. It's a cute, sweet little something that could fit in your lunch box, so enjoy!



Little Apple Somethings (Adapted from My First Cookbook by Rena Coyle)

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
10 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
3 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup cold water

2 apples
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon sugar
dash or two of lemon juice

1. Place flour and butter in a mixing bowl. Blend the butter into the flour using a pastry cutter, fork & knife, your fingers, or any method that seems to work for you. http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cookbook:Pastry_Blender

2. Add the sugar and salt to the flour mixture and mix well. Slowly at the cold water and mix till the dough starts to hold together. Transfer the dough to a clean, floured surface.

3. Knead the dough for 5 minutes by pressing the dough away from you, fold the top of it back towards you, turn the dough a quarter turn to your right or left, and repeat. If the dough starts to stick, sprinkle some more flour on the surface and on your hands.

4. Divide the dough in half and roll it out till the dough is about a 1/4 inch thick. Cut out circles with a cookie cutter or a cup (mine are 3 inches in diameter), and transfer to a cookie sheet.

5. Using an apple corer, remove the core and slice the apples. Keep the slices about 1/4 inch thick. Divide the individual slices into thirds, cutting at an angle. Place the apples, sugar, cinnamon, and lemon juice in a bowl and stir till the apples are evenly coated.

6. Arrange the apple pieces on the dough circles (about 4 pieces per circle), and place the cookie sheets in a 375 degree oven for 12-15 minutes. When the bottoms turn golden brown, they are done.

7. Remove from pan, cool, and eat!

Note: I rarely every follow a recipe exactly...I usually use it as a guide and go from there. So if you don't like alot of cinnamon or prefer more sugar on the apples, feel free to change the amounts. I usually just sprinkle it till I like how it looks. I also do most of my baking on stoneware because its less likely to overbrown and it cooks more evenly. Feel free to experiment and be creative!

Salad Bento (#2)

So I sorta cheated today. I slept through my alarm, got up in time to get dressed and dash to work, and the thought of making food for myself didn't even occur to me. In short, I decided to put dinner in my box and have it count for today.

Art Guy did the arranging of the box for me...he insisted that he help with dinner prep. I found six immaculate heads of Romaine lettuce at Sam's the other day for ~$5.00. My eyes nearly popped out when I discovered it. Art Guy found frozen heat-and-eat buffalo-style chicken strips at wally-world that he insisted we try. They were a bit too spicy for my tastes, but he like them okay. Broccoli, cucumber triangles (another of his ideas), cheese, peas and a little leftover onigiri completes the box.

Bento #1

I finally did it. I created a blog about food (aka succumbed to the trend of creating a bento blog). I hope to make this a place to compile and share my creations and cool ideas that I find along the way. I'm terrible with cameras, but I have vowed to make an attempt at including pictures with my posts (however awful they may be), and do what I can to become a better photographer. (LOL...I can dream, can't I?)



So today we have bento #1, the first official bento for this blog. I will admit that the creation of this bento was a bit of an ordeal, being that it was going to be photographed and displayed to the entire online community.In all seriousness, I did lose a bit of sleep trying to plan it out in my head. (I'll get over it eventually >.>) Today's creation is a "Sushi Bento." It consists of veggie sushi, chicken stuffed bun, and a onigiri with carrot & sesame furikake. I had been wanting to make sushi for about a year or so, but was unable to track down the necessary ingredients until recently. We need more culture in the Pandhandle of Texas! I will probally be sticking to vegetables in the sushi for now until a.) I get better at making it, or b.) I move somewhere that has better access to fresh fish. Putting sushi in a bento probably won't be a norm unless due to the prep time required for it. I got up extra early today though so Art Guy would have special bento for lunch. I made the chicken buns the day before completely from scratch, dough and all. I'm gonna look into adapting the recipe for bread machine use, cause I can't see myself having enough time to babysit bread dough all day long on regular basis. I wanted to decorate it a bit, and being the girl that I am, I want to make everything cute and pretty. But this is Art Guy's bento, and not mine. So I thought I could still make veggie flowers as long as they weren't too girly. Here's my attempt at more "manly" flowers:



Not to bad, eh?

Sadly, I don't own a "real" bento box yet. I use a Lock&Lock plastic box, which is nice because it seals well and the lid easily clips on and off. Apparently there is a Lock&Lock box with removable dividers, but our wal-mart doesn't seem to carry those. More info on Lock&Lock here: www.heritagemint.com