May 21st Bento

Every morning so far this week, I would get close to finishing the bentos, and then look at the clock only to find that I was twenty minutes behind schedule. I couldn't figure out why my bentos were taking so long.

Then this morning, I realized one of my alarms was turned off (I need two to wake up on time) and I actually was sleeping in every morning and not realizing it.

So, I really rushed through today's bento because I woke up so late. It was yummy but not pretty.
I had a sort of greek theme going today, with fried marinated lamb pieces, spanakopita (top left), a little tub of tabouli (premade), tomatoes and cucumbers, baklava for dessert.

But because I was up so late, I didn't really do the theme it justice. I just threw in a lot of random fruits and vegetables. There are fiddleheads (we bought a tonne of these, I'm not sure how I'm ever going to use them up), broccoli, sugar snaps, yellow zucchini and asparagus. If I had planned it better, I probably would have made falafel and some kind of rice dish.

There's a boiled quail egg, a couple of red bean filled onigiris, and then for fruit there are some tangerine slices, blackberries, gooseberries, strawberries and blueberries.

This was one of those mornings where I was really grateful to have a well stocked freezer. It took about five minutes to steam the veggies and fry the lamb, another two to cut the fruit and three and half minutes for the quail egg. The rest was already waiting for me in the freezer.

Where I'm trying to lose weight right now, skipping making bento is not an option. I can't get anything close to this healthy, fresh and filling in the restaurants near my work, so no matter how tired I am, I make sure that it gets done. And it's definitely worth it. Today I wore a pair of pants that I haven't fit into since last March, and they're great pants so I'm pretty stoked about it!