Bento Blog!

Hey guys! Michelle and I spent a little time in the kitchen tonight packing our lunches for a big day of costuming tomorrow with Mike and Jenn. We decided to pack Bento lunches for ourselves so naturally we took pictures (which are dark and difficult to see) but I will post them anyway just because it has been so long since I've told you what Michelle and I are eating for lunch! Here are the pictures first: There you go! Now, as always, a brief description of exactly what we're looking at here. We are both using the same food, but we each packed our own lunches. The rice contains a soy apple mix that I improvised. I tried one onigiri mixed together entirely, and the other has the mixture in the center. Michelle garnished with apple, snap peas and a small piece of soy egg. I chose to cut out a quick stencil and make cinnamon faces on mine, along with tomato ears on the bottom and a jaunty snap pea hat on top. (My soy eggs ended up looking a little like rabbit ears which kind of gives you the impression of a panda and a rabbit with my onigiri.) As for the soy eggs, these are hard boiled then rolled in soy sauce. Michelle sliced hers to great artistic effect! I, as I said already, ended up making rabbit ears out of mine. Fortunately so. Initially, they kind of looked like a big ole soy egg hiney before the placement with the onigiri. Michelle's eggs ended up looking really good with the tomato and pea garnishes. I think she won the artsy award for this Bento. I would say that my panda and jaunty-hatted rabbit take the "kawaii" award. That would be Japanese for "cute". So, everybody wins. Was I going for cute? Well, not really. I wanted ultra-manly, but accidents happen when you're packing a bento. *shrug* Rounding out the main dishes, Michelle used the remainder of the soy-apples and more snap peas and tomatoes. I also used the veggies, but I threw in some light rye crackers, which are buried under some colby-jack cheese and a short skewer of turkey pepperoni. We both have some rice crackers that Michelle picked up this week in Chicago, and we both have a couple of caramels from the same place as well. You can't see it very well in the picture, but I have added a small piece of dark chocolate with sea salt. If you haven't tried salted chocolate, I HIGHLY recommend it. Think chocolate covered pretzel. It's a great combination. World Market sells it, but I know it has to be around elsewhere. So there you go; Another bento blog! I hope this makes you hungry, because I'm ready to go back in the kitchen and just eat it all right now! Talk to you soon! -J

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

Michelle's Bento for Tomorrow...

Hey again all! I wanted to post Michelle's lunch tomorrow because it turned out really nice! We were both quite happy with the result. Here's a picture:

Ok, this is a good one. On the top left is a really nice little assortment! A few Hapi brand Mixed Party crackers, and three Parmesan cheese crisps we made. Just grated cheese on a cookie sheet in little circles with a little oregano tossed on top. The definition is a little tough to pick out, but they're round, just take my word for it. I got to sample one and they're quite tasty!

On the bottom, you'll see some mixed nuts. These are Kroger brand, because we forgot to pick up the ones at Walmart. Did you really need to know that? Maybe not, but now you do know in any case, and knowing is half the battle!

On the right is some vanilla yogurt with strawberry preserves blended in, and some honey over the top. Michelle is a huge fan of yogurt as you may have already been able to deduce from past Bento posts. We couldn't think of anything to top it with this time. Any suggestions for next time?

I saved the middle left tier for last. The pièce de résistance! Here we have a pair of hand rolled rice balls, edged in toasted sesame seed, and seasoned with a nice rice vinegar and soy sauce dressing. On top, an arrangement of avocado wedges, Alaskan smoked salmon, and a garnish of fresh ginger. I think this is our most complex entree to date, and let me tell you, the house smells wonderful! Smoked salmon, ginger and Parmesan cheese is wafting throughout the place and it is glorious! :)

Once again, I will not be eating a lunch that I think will be delicious! Maybe Michelle will pop in to tell us how it was in the comment section! Till next time!

-J

Another Bento Lunch

Hello all, and welcome to another edition of "What's Michelle Eating for Lunch Tomorrow"

We just finished a fairly easy, yet tasty looking lunch and I thought, "Hey, this looks like a good one for all of my fans! Observe:

Alright, now the usual rundown! On the left is the main compartment, which contains four pieces of Cream Cheese Roll from Kroger's. Imitation crab, cream cheese and avocado wrapped in rice and seaweed. Also with the cream cheese roll is a small bottle of soy sauce and a little pickled ginger. Above it is Balsamic Sesame Chicken. Chicken breast, marinated in Balsamic vinegar and soy sauce, rolled in sesame seeds and fried with cooking spray to brown the seeds. The chicken is garnished with a small sprig of mint.

On the top right, is another three bean salad like the last one we made, except it contains white kidney, dark kidney, and black beans. Again, with a fat free Italian dressing, and also garnished with mint.

Under that is Michelle's favorite yogurt, inspired by Gina's yummy yogurt recipe on thedailyplate.com. It's plain yogurt with honey. We ran out of the usual cranberries, so they aren't in there. There's a swizzle of honey on top, and again with the mint! Gee whiz! Actually, I might explain that the mint has been in the fridge for a couple of weeks and if we don't use it, it's going to be all wilty and brown, so, I'm using all I can.

The bottom right is the small lid space, which normally would hold some mixed nuts or something, but this time, we picked up some mixed rice crackers from Kroger and used them instead. A pleasant and colorful snack. Except the seaweed ones. They're just a little strange. :)

There you go! Another interesting and tasty looking lunch from Michelle's Bento Box. Fortunately, this time, there is chicken and bean salad left over, so I may get to have some!

Till next time! Thanks for reading!

-J