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 7th Bento

Last night BF made a yummy sauce with tomatoes, chicken thigh pieces, zucchini, asparagus and who knows what else, and there were leftovers! So today I did a donburi style bento lunch.

The bottom is the sauce BF made, some more miso steamed spinach and some egg scrambled with chives. I know I had spinach and egg with my last donburi bento so I should have tried something new, but it was so yummy that I couldn't help but do it again. Everything is over a bed of rice.

On the top we have a few spanikopitas, some cabbage/cranberry/walnut salad, plum pieces, a couple of snow peas, carrot sticks, berries and a pieces of lemonade flavoured fudge.

It was a good bento, but it turns out I'm not a huge fan of tomato sauce at room temperature, so I'm not sure if I would do it again.

Spanikopita Recipe

Today at the grocery store they had organic whole wheat phyllo pastry which I had never seen before. Then I remembered the bag of spinach in my fridge getting close to its expiration date, so I decided it was a good day to make spanikopita. It turned out so delicious! They're fluffy, crispy and cheesy with lots of flavour.

A couple of quick notes about the recipe: These are really yummy at room temperature but be careful not to put them near anything moist (like fruit) in the bento or they'll get soggy. The most efficient way I've found to make these is to set up a production line sort of set up. I make eight or nine at a time which is way faster than making them one at a time.

Recipe: Spanikopita

Ingredients:

• 1 9 oz bag of spinach (255g)
• 1 cup cooked rice
• 1 cup crumbled feta cheese
• 1/4 cup fresh parsley (or 1 tsp dried)
• 1/4 cup fresh dill (or 1 tsp dried)
• 1 shallot (or small onion), diced
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp olive oil
• Pinch of nutmeg
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 1 16 oz package of phyllo pastry (453g)

Ensure phyllo pastry is completely thawed. The best way to do this is to leave overnight in the refrigerator.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Fry shallot in olive oil until translucent.

Steam spinach until wilted. Squeeze out all of the liquid and chop finely.

Combine spinach, rice, feta, parsley, dill, shallot, egg and lemon juice and mix well to make the filling.

Cut phyllo into strips about 1 1/2" wide (the spanikopita should be small to fit snugly in a bento). Brush with butter. Spoon about half a tablespoon of spinach filling onto one of the ends and fold as shown in the picture below.
Once folded, brush again with butter and sprinkle with a little nutmeg. The finished result:
You can fit quite a few of them on a cookie sheet!
Bake for 17 - 20 minutes until outside is crispy and starting to turn brown. Recipe makes about 60.

You can freeze these before they're cooked and then bake them in the morning when you make bento, or you can freeze them after baking and take them out of the freezer the night before to thaw.

May 1st Bento

I feel like the individual components of today's bento were all excellent, but somehow, it just didn't come together. Well, here it is:

The main components are slices of stuffed turkey roll (premade from the butcher), lotus seed paste filled onigiri, home made spanikopita (under the ducks), and a small container of eggplant braised in a sweet miso sauce.

I had half a sweet potato I wanted to use up, so I shaped some into flowers and made a couple of turtles (with nori). The ducks are fried plantain. There is some edamame hiding in the top left corner, and the regular broccoli, asparagus and snow peas.

Fruit is persimmons, strawberries and blueberries, dessert is a truffle.