September 5th Bento Lunch

It's funny because today's bento looks like I was being lazy, but really I put more effort into this one than I usually do.

I like to make yakiudon on Fridays because by Friday I'm starting to run short on bento ideas and produce, and it's kind of junky so I think it adds a bit of fun to BF's day too.
Last time I made fried noodles, I wasn't happy about how the lunch turned out as a whole. Two many of the foods were soy sauce based or fried, so overall, the lunch was too salty and one dimensional. This time I tried to correct that, and I think I did a good job. I spent quite a bit of time this morning mixing sauces and measuring out ingredients though.

For a salty, soy flavored dish, I made stewed konbu seaweed, on the right hand side of the bottom tier. This was one of those dishes that I thought I wouldn't enjoy since I don't care for fish flavours but I was proven wrong. It has a really mild flavour and the texture is really nice.

To prepare stewed konbu, you first rinse it off and let it soak in cold water until it softens up a little. I used 15 grams of seaweed and 3/4 cup of water and that made enough for three bento lunches. Once it's soft, add 2 tsp vinegar, 3 Tbsp soy sauce, 1 Tbsp mirin, 1 Tbsp sake and 1 Tbsp sugar and boil for 15 minutes. Remove the seaweed from the pot and cut into thin strips. Return it to the pot and boil for 3 more minutes. Drain.

Next, for the yakiudon, I made a light tasting sauce with ginger and lemon flavors. I mixed the following ingredients for the sauce:

• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/2 tsp grated ginger
• 1 1/2 Tbsp sugar
• 1 Tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp rice vinegar
• 1 Tbsp sake

I sauteed some shredded cabbage, grated carrot and chopped green onion in canola oil for about 3 minutes, and then threw in some shredded cooked chicken thigh meat and the sauce and sauteed a little more. Lastly, I added the cooked noodles and sauteed until the noodles were coated in sauce.

It turned out delicious. One pack of udon noodles completely filled the top tier of the bento.

For a little more protein, I fried two pork shu mai in a nonstick pan. I omitted the oil since there was already a fried dish.

For some bite, I made a dressing for the asparagus by mixing white miso, mustard, a little white vinegar, sugar, nanami togarashi (Japanese chili powder) and salt. I adapted a recipe from the book Bento Boxes, Japanese Meals on the Go to come up with this combination. After the asparagus was steamed, I put the dressing on it (sparingly). The sauce has some serious bite to it! It worked really well, a bland but flavorful piece of asaparagus with a really sharp sauce.

There are, of course, some steamed broccoli and sugar snaps. And for fruit there are strawberries, blueberries and honey tangerine.

I really feel that with this one, I did an excellent job of coming up with lots of different flavours that compliment each other and create a balanced meal. It's balanced in terms of flavour, in terms of ratio of simple carbs to complex carbs to protein, in terms of fried foods to fresh/stewed foods and in terms of getting all the necessary nutrients/food groups in a single meal. Despite it's modest appearance, I think this is one of my best bento lunches yet.

And next time that I use these recipes, I'll be sure to make the sauces in advance in order to save time!

May 6th Bento

mmmm....sootball onigiri!

I guess sootballs are characters from the Japanese cartoon, My Neighbor Totoro, but I've never seen it myself. I just think they make cute onigiris! I molded the rice by hand (I didn't have a big circle mold) and wrapped with nori. The eyes are havarti and nori. I filled the onigiri with lotus seed bean paste, but BF said they would have been better with a big piece of fish inside so now I know for next time.

I made beef and asparagus rolls, using the same recipe as last time, but I used shorter pieces of beef this time (about 2") to make a tighter roll. They were a bit tricky to make this small. I generally hold them together with toothpicks as they cook, so that they keep their shape. There are three pieces of asparagus for filling. I let the florette part of the asparagus stick out of the end to make a couple of prettier bites (near the top of the bento).

There are three gyoza (I steamed them today instead of frying), and some sesame fried bok choy filler at the top. On the bottom there are a couple of pieces of broccoli and some sugar snaps. I fried some plantain stars and cut some flowers out of carrot. There was a little bit of space left, and I thought the bento could use more green, so I included some cucumber slices.

For fruit there is a freaky little thing called a mangostein (I usually try to pick up anything that I haven't tried at the grocery store). It's the white bit in the bottom right. It tasted like a mango but was gooeier (is that a word?). I don't think I would repurchase. Then of course there are strawberries and blueberries, and lastly, a bite of strawberry fudge.

May 2nd Snack Bento

I've had a pretty stressful week, so I thought I would save some time this morning by just making a quick snack bento and going out for lunch, so I wasn't even planning to post today, but it actually turned out pretty cute so I figured I'd share it.

So it's not my most creative in terms of design/ingredients. Efficiency, healthiness and using up leftovers were my only concerns this morning.

There are three pork gyoza with dipping sauce and some asparagus tamagoyaki bites. I made more of the avocado salad (with a gooseberry on top) because I had half an avocado in my fridge that needed to be used up. There is steam asparagus, broccoli and snow peas. Under the asparagus are a couple of bites of the lamb from earlier in the week. For fruit I used the other half of yesterday's persimmon, and strawberries and blueberries.

I was halfway to work before I realized I forgot to put in any rice :P

As an aside, BF told me yesterday that he's lost 7lbs since we started having bento lunches instead of going out for lunch every day or skipping it, so that's a great thing! I can't think of anything more important than the health of myself and my loved ones, so I feel really good about contributing to that in a positive way.