August 6th Bento Lunch

I decided to keep it simple today.

Sometimes when I get up in the morning I can't figure out what to put in the bento (like when you feel like you have nothing to wear. It's the same feeling). Other times I'll think I have it all planned out only to realize I've still got space left in the bento box after I'm done. Today, I had all kinds of great foods for the bentos, I probably could have filled another tier. It's nice when that happens.
In the left tier is coconut mango rice. The recipe is from Cooking Cute. I made the rice last night and then this morning I cut up the mango and mixed it in. I cut the recipe in half and omitted the sauce topping because I felt like it was sweet enough as is. This is yummy stuff!!

There are also some slices of chorizo sausage (BF's favorite. Too spicy for me) and some sesame fried bok choy with beet flowers on top. This was the last of the pretty beets and they don't have them at the store anymore *sigh*

On the right there is the standard broccoli, asparagus and snow peas along with raspberries and blueberries (broccoli and berries are two of the top ten healthiest foods, so it's good that we eat them every day!). I also made poached quince yesterday by following these instructions. Lastly, there is a small container of pomegranate seeds. I never got around to removing the seeds from the pomegranate last night and did I ever regret it this morning. Getting the pomgranate ready this morning actually took longer than preparing the entire rest of the bento!

I decided that between the sweet rice and the quince, this bento had enough sweet foods so I didn't include a dessert.

I think that if it weren't for my bento habit, I would never have found out so much about my tastes. For example, that I love quince and bison and that I don't like longans. Because I'm on this constant quest to make exciting lunches every day, I find I'm a lot more open to trying new foods. I'm more alert when I'm grocery shopping, rather than just picking up the same old stuff. This is a good thing!

July 30th Bento Lunch

I accidently drained the battery on BF's fancy camera, so the picture quality today isn't great since I used my little point & shoot.

Today deliciousness won out over pretty.
The main component of today's bento is rice paper rolls. They started out from a recipe in my Vietnamese cookbook, but by the end of it I had made so many substutions and changes that I think it is now an original recipe.

The rolls are filled with a layer of lettuce, followed by a few dots of hoisin sauce, strips of sausage, two egg sheet strips and topped with a layer of sweet potato matchsticks fried with canola oil and garlic. Yum! So this covered off a lot of the carbs and most of the protein for the bento.

I find it really tough to make rice paper rolls look pretty. Does anyone have any suggestions? This time I just put a few parsley leaves on them.

For added carbs, I cooked up some lotus root slices with red pepper. They're propped up against some lentil snacks that you can't see. The rest of the veggies are the standard asparagus, broccoli, sugar snaps and yellow zucchini. For fruit there is half of a clementine, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and some tiny choke cherries. I think these are super cute and they are crazy sour.

No dessert today because I sent BF into work with a batch of chocolate and vanilla cake balls. I will try to post pics/recipe later today.