August 4th Bento Lunch

Messy bento!
I tried a couple of new things today. The first was an attempt to duplicate the gorgeous onigiri that Lyvvie from Obento Baby made back in May. To make the onigiri I first soaked 2 Tbsp of forbidden rice (black rice) for about an hour in order to pull out some of the colour so that it didn't completely overpower the white rice. I put it in the rice cooker with enough white rice to make 1 cup and then formed the onigiri as usual, using bonito flakes and soy sauce as a filling and sprinkling with white sesame seeds. I do like the way they turned out, but the colours didn't turn out as bright as Lyvvies!

The second new thing I tried was the rolled omelette in the top left corner. Instead of doing a rolled omelette in layers, this time I made one thick layer and then laid a sheet of nori on top (I need to get a tamagoyaki pan!!!). I then rolled the omelette using a sushi mat and sliced it to get the spiral pieces in the bento. I'm really pleased with how this turned out. Next time I might try using a larger pan and a thinner omelette to see how that looks. For some reason I absolutely love rolled foods in bento lunches. I always get really excited when I find or think of a new roll I can make.

For protein there are some leftover pork bites from last night's supper, covered with a few parsley leaves. For veggies there are asparagus, broccoli, sugar snaps, zuchinni slices and raw red pepper strips.

For fruit there are a couple of slices of yellow tomato, a few chunks of a fruit called a cactus pear (it actually comes from a cactus! The peel is spiny and can irritate your skin), a lychee and some berries. I included the last of the chocolate banana cupcakes for dessert.

June 9th Bento

I found all kinds of new things at the grocery store this week, so I got to try some new foods in today's bento. And I learned a new way to cook - with banana leaves! They only had about six at the store. They're about two and a half feet long and about a foot wide, dark green and shiny. So today we had lemper!
Lemper is an Indonesian food that consists of coconut rice in banana leaves. Here's how I made it:

The night before, cook up some short grain white rice using two thirds coconut milk and one third water. Fried up some ground chicken with a pinch or two of curry powder and some chives, and when it's cooked, splash on a little lemon juice. Cut 5 inch squares of banana leaf and put 1 Tbsp rice in a rough sort of rectangle in the middle of the banana leaf and 1 Tbsp of the chicken mixture on top of that. Fold up the sides and tie with a small strip of banana leaf, and they're ready to go in the fridge. In the morning when making the bento, steam the lemper packets for 15 minutes (this is the longest time I've ever spent cooking anything for a bento by a long shot, but it was so worth it), remove from the steamer and let them cool for a bit before placing them in the bento. I stacked up two in mine.

This was without a doubt the best rice I've ever had in a bento. It was so moist and flavorful, just heavenly. And making them was fun. There's something about wrapping rice in leaves that feels really simple and wholesome. I have more banana leaf cooked foods planned for this week (we went back today and bought two more), so stay tuned!

Because of the small amount of rice, I packed in a whole bunch of sweet potato flowers (boiled with a little butter and cinnamon on them) for additional carbs. And because of the small amount of chicken, I packed two of the mini quiches BF made yesterday, and a couple of bites of cheddar for additional protein. There was some empty space so I threw in a couple leek dumplings.

For vegetables we have the usual broccoli, asparagus, sugar snaps and yellow zucchini. I found some new fruits though! In the bottom corner there is a fresh lychee. I had never tried these before. They have delicious flavour with a bizarre juicy-membrane like consistency. Sorry, that's best way I can think to describe it. Appetizing, right?

There are a couple of cherries next to that (they're down to $4.99 a pound so I've been eating a lot of these), and above that there red and white raspberries. I didn't even know white raspberries existed. Turns out they taste just like red ones, but I like the colour that they add to the bento. There are some blueberries and strawberries, and to finish it off, a cupcake from the batch this weekend.

Here's a diagonal shot too because I liked how the banana leaf looked in this one:

What We Do With All The Leftovers

BF and I think it's really important to eat a healthy varied diet with all kinds of different fruits and veggies. Every Sunday we stock up on produce for our bento lunches and every week we use most of it up.

But, come the next Sunday before the grocery trip, there's always at least a few leftover fruit and vegetables kicking around, and they're not really fresh enough at this point to use in the following week's bentos.

So we cook them all up for Sunday breakfast!

BF puts on the kettle for green tea and coffee and briefly sautes all of the leftover vegetables. He mixes them with five beaten eggs, a little milk and some spices (salt, pepper and basil today) and bakes the mixture at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes.

While that's baking, I make a batch of crepes (I use the recipe from the Company's Coming series brunch cookbook, it's really easy) and I cook up any leftover fruits in a pot on the stove with about 1/4 cup of water and a couple tablespoons of sugar. Once they're cooked a bit, I remove the pot from the heat and stir in a mixture of cornstarch and water to thicken it up.

Once everything's ready, we take our crustless quiche, berry crepes and hot drinks out in to the living room, turn on a movie and have a lazy morning.

BF found my mini muffin pan this morning, so he made some mini quiches at the same time for bento. Yay!

In the four months that I've been making bento lunches for BF and I, everything about the way we eat has changed in a really positive way. We eat almost entirely fresh, homemade foods and have all but eliminated processed foods from our diet.

Our attitudes and tastes have changed as well. Our standards have gone up as far as what we are willing to put in our bodies. Where as before I used to love a big bowl of pasta with a heavy cream sauce and maybe some cheese or meat, now I'm shocked at the portion sizes of complex carbs (pasta, bread, white potatoes, etc) that are considered typical and find myself looking at these types of meals and wanting to fill up on vegetables instead. Rather than feeling like I'm missing out by not eating heavy foods, I feel like I'm missing out when I don't get enough fresh fruits and vegetables.

I still enjoy a bite or two of fried or fatty foods, but my tolerance for eating large quantities of them has gone way down. For example, I might eat a breaded and fried chicken strip, but I can't imagine eating six, which is a 'normal' portion size. I would want a side of veggies instead. For a lot of processed foods, I find them so salty now that I can barely eat a bite. I didn't mean to cut so much salt out of my diet as an intentional choice, it was just a result of eating more fresh foods, so now I'm much more sensitive to it.

It actually surprises me the extent to which my tastes have changed because of how heavy my diet used to be in fried/fatty/carb heavy/processed foods. I think if someone had told me I would actually prefer vegetables to french fries six months ago, I wouldn't have believed it.

So, add that to the list of reasons why I love bento! And why you should start eating bento lunches if you don't already.

May 20th Bento

BF said he thought today's bento was 'particularly tasty' so I consider that a success.

There was some leftover stuffed porkloin (it was a huge cut of meat) from yesterday's bento, so we had repeats today. To add a little more protein to the bento, I made a rolled omelette with three eggs, chives, chicken broth and a little soy sauce and sugar and included a few slices in each bento.

In the top right we have soba noodles. I was really surprised at how yummy these were, I thought they would be plain. Buried underneath them is a small container of dipping broth (a sharp, salty combination of chicken broth, soy sauce and mirin). I couldn't figure out how to twirl them around chopsticks to make a nest, so instead I just laid them in the silicone muffin cup by hand. It only took a couple of seconds.

For veggies there is a mixture of corn and red pepper (leftover from fajitas last night ), asparagus, broccoli, sugar snaps and fried plantain butterflies. I learned a new way to cut carrots yesterday, so I included a few of those to practice my cutting skills.

There are blueberries, strawberries and persimmon bites for fruit. Dessert is some homemade baklava. I made a batch last week and froze it.

BF was taking the pictures this morning and he's more creative than me when it comes to that stuff, so here's another shot of the bento. Ooh, angles! Fancy!

Oh yeah, and there's a coconut onigiri star and a few slices of gouda cheese hidden under some of the stuff in there. Secret bento foods :)