Bento Blog! Michelle's Lunch for Tomorrow!

You know, every time I post a bento, I think, "Man, this is the best one yet!" We can't possibly out-do ourselves can we? Always I think, no way, and every time it seems we find the strength, courage, and strange dishes to pull it off! Without further ado, I present Michelle's Bento lunch for September 22nd, 2008:

See what I mean? Wouldn't you love to tuck into something this awesome? Let's begin our tour!

First, we have the main dish. Top and Center. This is a bulgar salad with tomato, blanched broccoli florets, chopped parsley, shredded carrot, garbanzo beans and Italian dressing. We garnished the tier with parsley. It turned out very good. I know because I ended up stirring it all together and may or may not have stolen a taste! We bought fresh parsley and ended up with way more than was required by our cooking, and so you're going to see sprigs of if everywhere as garnish. :)

On the right, you will see Michelle's favorite yogurt. Plain yogurt mixed with strawberry preserves, which a touch of honey on the top, as well as another piece of parsley. I think the parsley looks great on all of the various things, don't you?

On the left, another common building block of Michelle's lunches, a quarter cup of mixed nuts!

In the center, it a little something I whipped up with some extra garbanzos from the bulgar salad. This is a homemade hummus containing the beans, a little salt, olive oil and a toasted garlic clove, as well as, you guessed it, chopped parsley! In the tier with the hummus are broken pieces of Wasa brand whole grain crackers.

Finally, in the bottom tier, we have a pair of unique little muffins that Michelle found a recipe for online. These are Indian influenced pumpkin muffins, containing cooked pumpkin (as you might've guessed) and garam masala, which is a spice blend containing many different things. I've linked to the wikipedia entry, which has some good information about it. We were quite amazed to find it among the spices at Wal-Mart. New to us! :) Between the muffins are a few Concord grapes and another tiny bit of parsley. We still have WAY too much parsley left. Might have to start eating it for breakfast or something.

This bento turned out to be a big one. You might notice that we had to borrow a container from Michelle's yellow bento set to finish packing it up. She is concerned about being able to finish everything, but her photography class starts tomorrow and dinner might end up being late, so it's good to be prepared with extra lunch! :)

I hope we have enticed you with another delectable tour of flavor and style! Buon Appetito Michelle!! Let us know how everything tastes!

-Jon