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!

May 8th Bento

Last night I was all set to make exciting sushi. I bought a frozen eel filet and was going to make unagi sushi because it's BF's favorite. It was going to have the unagi wrapped on the outside (because I haven't tried to do that yet) and avocado on the inside and it was going to be really pretty.

I cooked the unagi according to the directions on the package and when it came out of the oven, I brought BF into the kitchen to try a bite (I don't like the taste of fish). According to him it was pretty bad. Unsalvageable even. So we had to toss it.

He assures me that it just tasted like a low grade of meat, and had nothing to do with my cooking skills (this was the first time I've ever tried to cook fish). He's so sweet.

Yeah, so we had plain old avocado sushi for bento today :)
As you can see, my lettuce wall building skills are improving a little. I tried using kale this time because it's firmer (although not as delicious as whatever lettuce I was using before).

There is some avocado sushi, some pork bites underneath that, three home made gyoza (there's a bottle of dipping sauce hiding under them), slices of lotus root cooked in vinegar and water (finally, I made a bento where you can see the pretty holes in it!), and asparagus. Fillers are the standard broccoli and sugar snaps.

For fruit there are a couple of cherry tomatoes, a hidden gooseberry, slices of apricot, strawberries and blueberries. Dessert is some kind of truffle (I bought a mixed box and now I can't remember what any of them are!)

May 5th Bento

Today's bento was nothing special. I wasn't feeling good yesterday so I went to bed super early. I woke up this morning with no plan and nothing prepared. So this is an on-the-fly bento

On the bottom we have a large onigiri, half of a flower shaped egg, steamed asparagus and brocoli, steamed miso spinach, sesame fried carrots and some bites of marinated lamb.

The top is two mini onigiris, a couple of sugar snaps, kiwi flowers, orange slices, strawberries, gooseberries, blueberries and a strawberry shaped chocolate.

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.