Long Time, No Write....

I haven't written in a little while for a few reasons.

First, it has been way busy at work with getting ready for days off due to the holiday season.
Part of this business was due in part to meetings that required lunches...
Which means, I didn't bento as much this last week as normal.
I do have 2 bento pictures.

But to see them, you will have to go to:
Not Exactly Bento's New Site

That's right folks! I decided before too many people know my site that I would give it its own address: http://www.notexactlybento.com. Furthermore, I have the capabilities there to create static pages. So, I plan to have a page of links to the recipes I've been finding and using and much more. I'm excited about this.

So if you have been reading this blog or have it in a blog reader, please change your links. I hope to see you there!

Pack. Eat. Repeat. (Bento #48-51)

Whew! This has been a busy week at work. I haven't had a chance to do any posting because of it. Here are my lunches for this week.

Monday & Tuesday's lunches (Bento #48-49) were exactly the same. They included:
Mini hamburger patty, corn, cucumber, carrots, 1/2 an egg.



Wednesday's lunch (Bento #50) included:
Loose groundmeat spaghetti, cucumber, carrots

By Thursday, I was a little tired of the repetition, so a trip to Whole Foods found me some delicious cherries and blueberries! Thursday's lunch (Bento #51) includes:

Mini hamburger patty, corn cut from the cob, cucumber, carrot, cherries, blueberries

Hopefully, I'll have more variety and excitement next week. Even though there were alot of repeats this week, I didn't eat out. YAY! Most of these lunches were quick to put together. I always keep a few frozen, homemade hamburger patties in my freezer for when I don't have alot of time. I do the same thing with spaghetti. It certainly came in handy this week.

It's the small things....

that can be so frustrating sometimes. This was a busy weekend with family gatherings and Christmas shopping. Not much work done on the kitchen renovation front. However, I decided tonight not to ignore the kitchen completely. This kitchen redo has forced me to rethink how I'm using furniture and other items throughout the house. Furniture has been shifted and moved. I moved a small table I have next to the stove since I don't have a real spot to set things when I'm cooking. I also decided that I wanted a small shelf to hold commonly used spices.

Here's a quick pic. This shelf took me 40 minutes to figure out how to hang without destroying my wall with huge amounts of wrongly drilled holes! It was the first time I've ever hung a hidden mount shelf.

However, now that I've done the first one, I know what to do. And it's even level! I'm going to work with this little setup this week. If I like it, the shelf and the table are in line for repainting when the kitchen is finished being painted.

Slowly but surely, it is all coming together.

It's Cookie Time!

Tonight was the family get-together on my dad's side of the family. Many of us tend to make a little something to give to each other. This year, I made mini shortbread cookies for the families. Of course I kept a few for my bentos this week. Plus, my aunt gave me mini pecan pie muffins. YUM! Here is the recipe I used for these cookies, with a little less than a 1/2 cup of pecans mixed in. No jam obviously.

Please welcome The Feisty Foodie

There has been a new commenter on this blog lately, the owner of two fun blogs: All My Bento Are Belong to Me and The Feisty Foodie. If you'll notice, All My Bento Are Belong to Me is in the link list on the right hand side. It was one of the original links on this blog. How exciting to have her reading my blog. I've discovered over the last three months of having this blog exactly how addicting blogging can be!

So those of you visiting and reading this blog, be sure to check out All My Bento Are Belong to Me. Today, she has a scrumptious looking bento containing kickin' chicken that looks way wonderful!

They're Here!! & More

There is no lunch to post today. I'm going to a retirement party for a collegeau today and will most likely eat lunch out. I do have a bit of bento related news.

First if you look the right hand side of this blog, you'll notice all links are now bento-related. I've decided that this blog will be about bentos with a bit of my life and dogs interjected now and again. Any jewelry related items (which there have been little as of late) will go somewhere else.

Secondly, I must announce that THEY ARE HERE! The new cabinets I ordered from Home Depot that is. They are just simple wooden freestanding cabinets. I was so excited I snapped a picture of them still in the box.

I have three to put together. Since some of the sides seem to come preassembled, I'm thinking (hoping), it won't be too bad.

I'll show off pictures later of them assembled.

Why Pillows Really Go Flat...

When I created this blog, I chose the title since I knew my posts would not always be about bento. As is the case of this post. Ever wonder why your pillows go flat for no real reason? For example, you've just purchased new pillows in the last 3 months and already there seems to be a big groove in one of them. For me, I discovered why today:

Seems as though my dog Gabby has decided she likes this pillow. So that's where the groove in the illow is coming from! All that bed space, and she just HAS to lay ontop of my pillows. Silly dog.

Pork Tenderloin Tortillas (Bento #47)

Some of yesterday's tasty pork tenderloin became leftovers for today's bento. Amazing how something that was cooked specifically for this week's bentos could be a leftover...odd.

Anyhow, I took some of the pork tenderloin and cut it into small chunks, added some boiled corn kernels (cut from the cob), and topped with mozzarella cheese. It was all then rolled up into 3 pretty tortillas and baked. Here they are ready for baking.
Now, here they are in my bento not so pretty anymore. This bento could have used a bit more pre-planning. In other words, I should have wacked the ends off the tortillas before baking. Instead, I had to tear the ends off to fit inside the bento. Ah well, cook and learn ;)

Today's bento consists of:
Pork and corn tortillas
Grapes, blueberries, tangerine
Dessert is 2 peanut butter filled pretzel, 1 chocolate covered pretzel, and 1 chocolate covered dried cherry.

Roast Pork Tenderloin (Bento #46)

Take a look at this; it will absolutely make you salivate! This roast pork tenderloin recipe was so delicious an expletive escaped my lips every time I took a bite. It was uber-easy too. I highly recommend trying it. All you need is about 6 basic spices, an oven, and the tenderloin.
This vision of beauty became....


part of today's bento! Woohoo. This is gonna be tasty. This bento includes:
Roast pork tenderloin slices
Carrots & green beans, steamed lightly
Orange with blueberries
Chocolate covered pretzels

Faked BBQ Sausage (Bento #45)

Okay readers. I'm back! It's been about a week since my last post. It hasn't been a good bento week with continued kitchen revamp work and some overtime at my real job. So, here's everything that I want to report. Get ready, it's gonna be a long post! Plus, I'm not showing off the bento until the very end. Don't cheat! Don't scroll down to the end first. Stick around and ready my woeful adventures in kitchen cooking first!

First, Lunch Buckets asked how the kitchen renovation was coming along. My answer is: slowly, but surely. I have gotten myself back to a point where I can cook. I still have some painting and other work to be done. It's taking a bit longer than I expected, but I'm happy with the results so far. No complaints on the diy renovation end.

Here's a picture of one section of the kitchen basically done. The cabinets have been painted white; the doors, a sage green. The new cabinet hinges and pulls are a pretty oil rubbed bronze finish. Some cabinets are getting back their doors; some are not. Whatever you do, DON'T LOOK DOWN! The floors look bad as does the kitchen countertop. Those are the next phases of this renovation (read that as sometime next year).

With this kitchen update, I decided to update to a newer stove. It arrived Saturday. Wheee! It is a ceramic glass stove. Just when I was feeling fairly good about my cooking, I've gone and changed my stove. I'm back to not being able to boil an egg! ACK! We will persevere though.


One of the most exciting things to me about this new stove is the oven window. Look at that! You can see those ready-to-bake rolls browning! I couldn't see anything through the previous stove's window. I find this to be the best feature of this stove. Well, maybe not the BEST! But it definitely ranks in the top 3.

While cooking dinner, I realized I didn't want to just move a pot from one burner to another like I did with my previous coil stove. Okay, I'll move the pot to this little table I put next to the stove just for that purpose. Uh oh! What do I put that hot pot on? I don't want to burn the top of the table. A trivet. I need a trivet! Uh oh! I don't even OWN a trivet. What is a culinarily challenged gal to do? Out comes the mini cast iron skillet I normally use for decoration. This cast iron skillet once led a wonderful life. It was owned by my grandfather who used it to cook. The man was an awesome cook. Now it is owned by his granddaughter, who uses it as a trivet. Poor little skillet. It has come down a few notches in its culinary prowess.

Now that I have properly bemoaned the poor fate of the skillet (as I promised it I would), here is some really exciting news! The items in this post were prepared in part with the help of a new set of kitchen knives! Wheeee! I had a gift card to a local department store. I decided this gift card was destined to become something kitchen related. I looked through the store not seeing anything that caught my eye until I came to the knife area. "Eureka," I thought. I could use some more kitchen knives. My current collection consists of an odd assortment of paring and steak knives. One knife that is sort of longish but not real wide that looks like a paring knife on steroids with a pituitary problem. My other knife is a large chef's knife I suppose. None of them cut especially well, despite my attempts at sharpening them (I'm most likely doing something wrong). There sat two great looking knives by Calphalon that promise to be my best kichen friends. Folks, they slice, they dice, they mince. They pick up your food like a spatula and transfer it to the skillet. (Or so the packaging says). I love my new knives. Run out a buy yourself a pair today.

Now to the dinner that will become the bento of today's post. Not only did I work on the kicthen today, I also hauled off 2 car loads worth of stuff to a local charity. Clothes, furniture, and house goods went. I'm in a purge-this-house phase. It was a long day. By the time I thought of dinner, there wasn't much time to cook before I knew my body would collapse. Out came the turkey sausage. Sausage is my quick-cook meal when I don't have alot of time. I learned a recipe from my cousin Tammy, who I shared a rental place with when I first came out of college. She would take sausage, cut it into slices, fry it up quickly in the pan, add some bbq sauce at the end, and slap the whole thing between two pieces of bread. Very tasty.

Tonight, I decided I would cook sausage, but use my grill pan instead and not slice up the sausage. It turned out to sort of be a faked bbq sausage, with grill marks and everything without the mess of firing up the bbq pit!

Here are my links of sausage nicely grilled. Next step is to just brush on a bit of bbq sauce and cook a little more to heat up the sauce.

Then serve! Leftovers from this dinner became...

tomorrow's bento. In tomorrow's bento we have:

• Faked BBQ sausage with sweet potato chunks.
• A small navel orange, blueberries, boiled egg.
• The container has a bit of butter for the two pieces of bread (not shown) that will go with this bento.

Chili Roll-ups

YAY! I have a bento for tomorrow. The kitchen and living room are still in shambles as I continue work on repainting my kitchen. A cold front brought some coldish weather that is not real conducive to allowing paint to dry. The upcoming weekend forecasts calls for warmer, clearer weather. So hopefully, I will be able to finish the redo this weekend.

This means, I can't lay my hands on all my bento supplies at the moment, making for one orange-looking bento tomorrow. I sure wish I knew where my blue bento was buried right now! LOL!

Tomorrow's bento includes one of my favorite quick-fix lunches from my childhood: chili roll-ups. Mom would place leftover homemade chili in a tortilla with cheese and bake in the oven until the tortilla became a bit crisp. This gets the broiler involved. YUM!

This bento also contains a new food for me: persimmon. I've seen it included in alot of bento blogs lately. I found one at the fruit stand and decided to give it a whirl. It was quite yummy. Reminds me of cantaloupe in a way.

Tomorrow's lunch:
Chili roll-up
Persimmon, cucumber, and carrots
Container of french dressing for cucumber & carrots
Chocolate

Kitchen Chaos

The kitchen renovation has begun. Here is a small picture of what's going on. I've sanded all the upper cabinets and painted the inside of one green. The pantry has been sanded and painted (picture to come at later date). I've cut new shelves for the inside of the cabinets and have started priming and painting those as well.

The walls have been washed and readied for painting. I'm hoping I can get some painting time in tomorrow! Hopefully I can get 3/4 of the kitchen done. Then, I can get the kitchen back into some sort of order so that hopefully by Monday I can have real food again.

Since this blog is as much about eating healthy for myself as well as bentos, I've had to eat fast food 1x during this kitchen renovation so far. UGH! I can't believe how much I ate that stuff all the time. It's sandwiches for the rest of this renovation. Better than fast food, but will get boring fast!

Gobble Gobble!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm not sure how many bentos I may make before Monday. I have these next 4 days off from work (yay!) and plan on doing a small redo to my kitchen: a couple new cabinets, new paint, etc. I'll have pictures to share in the near future. I feel like a kitchen redo is definitely bento related!

In the meantime, I had to share this picture of my backyard last night. My dog Toby is frozen in shock by all the leaves. It is amazing how I have no trees in my yard, yet have a yard full of leaves! A storm came through last night bringing lots of wind and some crisp, cold weather for Thanksgiving day! It feels WONDERFUL out there.

Everyone have a great turkey day! I'll "see" you in the new week with more bentos.

This post brought to you buy...Butternut Squash (Bento #43)

Now, doesn't this look just yummy?

Before you ask, the yellowy orange stuff is not sweet potato. It is butternut squash. You might wonder what made me pick up a squash. First, I've never eaten any type of squash before this moment. In the interest of trying new foods, squash has been on my "Foods to Try" list, albeit on the low end. Then, Pioneer Woman posted a new recipe in her recent Thanksgiving dish series: butternut squash puree. Now, I'm not one for food the consistency of yogurt or pudding; so, puree isn't my thing. However, Pioneer Woman made butternut squash sound so tantalizing (and the romance story was hilarious) that I decided to move it to the top of the list when I found it at the produce stand yesterday.

I brought my one lovely yet smallish butternut squash home, sat myself down, and searched Recipezaar for something good to eat. I decided to look for a recipe where you would roast the squash in the oven. I thought this might be a good way to start. I found a recipe that looked absolutely tasty and tried out Herb-Roasted Butternut Squash and Sausages. This was the perfect dish to try out the squash. The squash seemed to take on a little of the sausage's flavor, but I could still taste the sweetness of this new food. I highly recommend the recipe!

I decided while I was at it I'd try a new green bean recipe too. Steamed green beans are getting a bit old lately. I have them alot in my bentos. I tried a recipe where after steaming you toss the green beans in a mixture of heated sesame oil, soy sauce, and sesame seeds. The verdict is still out on this for me. I'm not sure how much my taste buds like the soy sauce/sesame oil mixture. It seems a bit strong in flavor to me.

Tomorrow's bento includes:
Roasted sausage & butternut squash
Sesame seed green beans (recipe here)
Fish-shaped boiled egg
Pocky & Hello Panda treats for dessert

Anyone Reading Out There?

I started this blog after Kim suggested it as a way to keep motivated with bento. Past attempts to stop eating out so much and live a healthier food lifestyle weren't successful. I joke with Kim often that she is the only person reading this blog.

Imagine my surprise when someone other than Kim posted to my blog: another blogger, Lunch Bucket Bento.

Lunch Buckets, thanks for making my day recently when you posted to me. So if anyone else is out there and reading, go check out Lunch Bucket Bento's blog. It's got some good stuff there.

More Pomegranate with a Little Steak Mixed In (Bento #42)

I'm so excited about this post and its accompanying bento, I'm nearly giddy! Tonight for dinner, I decided to try out the Pomegranate and Pine Nut Pilaf Recipe I found while searching for things to do with the original pomegranate I had purchased. I used the last of that pomegranate for the chicken recipe in the last post. However, this pilaf recipe called to my taste buds and required the purchase of another pomegranate. So here was tonight's supper:



The leftovers have become tomorrow's bento. Not only do I have one smokin' rice pilaf (that stuff is TASTY!!), but this bento also came out really well I think. Wheee! I think I'm finally getting the hang of this somewhat.

Tomorrow's bento includes:
Leftover sirloin steak with pomegranate pilaf
Steamed carrots and green beans
1/2 a hard boiled egg
1/2 a blueberry muffin

The blueberry muffin and the hard boiled egg I cut in half to fit into the bento. What did I do with the other half you ask? Well, the muffin I was forced to eat. The egg went to two very grateful dogs that live in my house and clean my kitchen floors.

I hope this post made you hungry!! It certainly made me hungry again. I think I need a blueberry muffin.

More Pomegranate Chicken (Bento #41)

Wow! This is my 50th post and my 41st bento. I'm so pleased that I've stuck with this for a whole 2 months. YAY!

Today's lunch is the last of the pomegranate chicken I cooked night before last. Lunch includes:
Pomegranate chicken, sweet potato, and boiled egg
Cucumber, carrots with dressing for dipping
Golden raisins
Various bits of chocolate.

Pomegranate Chicken & Psuedo Sushi (Bento #40)

Tonight's cooking brings more experimentation and fun! As you already know, dear reader, the word this week is pomegranate. The pomegranate I purchased and seeded this week was too much fruit for just me. Tonight, I decided to take the remaining seeds and try out the sauce from a recipe called Pomegranate & Balsamic Glazed Cornish Hen, found at http://www.recipezaar.com/.

I juiced the pomegranate seeds by hand through a cheesecloth (fun!). Since I didn't have any balsamic vinegar on hand, I used a light balsamic vinaigrette salad dressing. This worked out well in my opinion. The sauce had a nice sweet flavor from the pomegranate, but I wasn't overwhelmed by the balsamic taste (which is why I don't often use balsamic salad dressing). The only thing I was unable to accomplish was to get the sauce to thicken and become syrupy. I think the reason for this is I didn't use enough honey; I ran out. All in all though, it made a wonderful sauce to baste the chicken breasts with and made for a very tasty dinner.

For tomorrow's bento, I also decided to try my hand at making a psuedo-sushi roll. I cooked some sushi rice and spread it out on a tumeric colored Sushi Party! soy wrapper. The rice was then sprinkled lightly with sea salt and liberally with toasted sesame seeds. Thinnish slices of carrots, cucumber, and radishes were added to the middle and then it was rolled up. I don't own a sushi mat, so I used my silicone baking mat to help me get the roll into shape. However, I think a bamboo mat might be necessary to get the thing to stay together. I didn't cut the wrap into sushi rolls because I could tell it would fall apart.

Here's a quick picture of what the inside of the sushi roll looks like. I cut one end to get a good picture. Then, I had to eat the portion I cut off. It is quite tasty indeed!



Tomorrow's bento includes:
Psuedo-sushi roll containing cucumber, carrots, & radishes
Wavy cucumber slices with french dressing in container for dipping
Pomegranate & Balsamic baked chicken breasts with wavy chip steamed sweet potatos
Pocky and chocolate "burger candy"

BTW, can you tell I purchased a wavy vegetable cutter. So much fun!


I included a picture of my lunch all wrapped up and ready to go. I'm excited because I now have matching bento/belt sets. Wheeeee!

Chicken Soup - Sort Of (Bento #39)

Tonight, I made some chicken soup. Since I'm not much on something with alot of broth, I used very little broth and let the noodles and veggies suck up most of the juice. So this is chicken soup - sort of.

Tomorrow's bento includes:
Pseudo chicken soup
Cornbread muffin
Pomegranate seeds, black bean & sweet potatos, and hard boiled egg.
Pocky & Hello Panda pillows for dessert

The Word is Pomegranate (Bento #38)

When I started this bento adventure 2 months ago, I made myselfa promise. That in order to keep this from getting boring quick with my limited culinary palette, I would either find a new food to eat or a new recipe to eat at least 2x per month. November has started out as a great month for this. Last week was black beans and discovering I liked them.

Tonight at the grocery store, I found pomegranates. I've never eaten one before; however, I've seen them mentioned recently on the Adventures in Bentomaking blog (see link to left). After finding a great Youtube video that shows how to easily peel a pomegranate, I peeled and tried my first one today. This is a deliciously tangy and sweet fruit. I can't believe I've missed out on it for so long.

Tomorrow's bento includes:
2 mini hamburgers with steamed carrots & green beans
Cucumber slices, tangerine, and pomegranate seeds.
The stop of the bento box has ketchup packets for the hamburger and 4 Pocky for dessert!
(I had to take out the Hello Panda treats. It was too much for the top of the box!

Lots to Report (Bentos #36 & #37)

Whew! I have lots to report today for bento enthusiasts. I have been a bit underweather (again!) with a cold/asthma problems. So, not much bento making this weekend. I'm feeling better now and have some great bentos to share. These are for tomorrow (lunch & dinner).

First, I know these bentos are a bit orange/brown in color. But that's just the way things worked out.

Contents of Bento #36:
Pineapple Chicken over steamed sweet potatoes
Sweet potato/black bean "burritos" using soy wrappers (Thank you Brosti!)
Steamed carrots & green beans
Boiled egg

The pineapple chicken and burritos are new recipes from www.recipezaar.com. They are absolutly delicious recipes!! Here are links in the event you want to try one:
Pineapple Chicken
Sweet Potato & Black Bean Burritos

This is one ugly bento. But I ran out of things I wanted to put in it. So there is lots of space and nothing really all that beautiful. But it will be tasty and edible. That's all I'm looking for at the moment.

Contents of this bento:

Tamale with melted mozzarella cheese

Steamed carrots & green beans

2 soy wrapped burritos: sweet potato & black bean

Chocoalte candy

One last thing to share: a bento bag I purchased from a woman on a Delphi Forum. Whoohoo! This thing is awesome. Not only is it stylish, but it holds everything very compactly and nothing shifts around. I have all my bento boxes in there: morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack. I also have room to add in utensils.

Bento #35

After the gym last night, I knew I was too tired to come home and cook. I stopped at Izzo's Illegal Burrito to get a quesadilla. Of course, it was too much. Half of it makes today's lunch leftovers.

Today's lunch includes:
Quesadilla, steamed carrots, boiled egg, raisins, sesame seed wafer, and hello panda cookies.

Cashew Chicken II (Bento #34)

One of my earliest posts in this blog was the Kylie Kwong's cash chicken recipe. I've been craving that dish, so I decided to make it again for this week's bentos. It came out MUCH better this time around. I learned a few lessons the last go around and I very much like how this one came out.

Tomorrow's bento includes:
Cashew chicken with cucumbers
Carrots with dressing & lady apple
Sesame seed bars & 3 Hello Panda treats.

Bento #33: Chicken & Black Bean Rice

Sometimes, lucky accidents happen. That's the term I'm using for tonight's dinner which turns into tomorrow's bento leftovers.

In my quest to eat healthier and try new things, I purchased some black beans at the Asian food store. While searching for recipes, I found a few that mentioned mixing the black beans with jasmine rice. Here's what I did.

First, I boiled the black beans for about 2 hours, periodically adding water to ensure they were covered at all times. I also stirred them alot ot make sure nothing stuck to the pot. They cooked up very nicely. My only complaint is that I should have thrown in some onion or garlic with them to give them some flavor. The salt I threw in the pot didn't do much for them.

Then, I cooked some jasmine rice. Once done, I thre it into a large skillet with a bit of melted margarine to sort-of-but-not-really stir fry the rice. I added in the black beans and then some toasted black sesame seeds. I also added a garlic black pepper seasoning blend. All in all it was tasty enough, but needed more seasoning.

This is included into tomorrow's bento with balsamic vinaigrette chicken, mashed sweet potatoes, sliced cucumber, and sesame seed candy.

Jambalaya Recipe

Kim suggested I share my mother's Jamabalaya recipe. So here it is...

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups of rice
2 cups of water
1/2 lb of sausage, chicken, or pork
1 onion, diced
1/2 bell pepper, dice this too
1 teaspoon of table salt
sprinkle of Tony Chacere's seasoning
Drizzle of kitchen bouquet (very light just for color)

Instructions:
In a large sauce pan, brown meat, onion, and bell pepper.
Once brown, drain grease ingredients and return to sauce pan.
Add to the pan 1 1/4 cups of rice and 2 cups of water.
Bring to a boil.
When it comes to a boil, add remaining seasonings.
Let water boil almost completely down.
When water is just about gone, lower heat to simmer and cover.
Cook on a low heat for 45 minutes. At 30 minutes, uncover and stir the rice very gentle. Recover and check it in 15 minutes.

Note: On a gas stove you can lower heat and cover on the same burner. On an electric stove, change burners when lowering heat or your rice will scorch.

Bento #32

Tomorrow's lunch is tasty too! I decided to make one of my favorite comfort foods tonight: jambalaya. YUM!

Tomorrow's bento includes:
Chicken & sausage jambalaya (thank you mom for your recipe)
Steamed carrots
Hard-boiled egg, mini cornbread muffins, cubed cucumber
Almond pocky & sesame seed candy for a dessert!

It is all packed in my one and only true bento box. A clickety click one that I adore. I'm not overly fond of the pink color, but I love my bento box!

Bento #31

Today's lunch was delicious! I'm getting the hang of this bento thing I think ;)
For today's lunch, I tried something I've never made before: pizza crescent rolls. I made these using the garlic buttern Pillsbury crescent rolls found near the biscuits in the grocery store. It was the only kind of crescent roll available. I was worried the taste would be too strong because the rolls smelled heavily like garlic when I took them out of the can. However, they tasted just fine.

In this bento, we have:
Two pizza crescent rolls. The rolls were stuffed with pepperoni slices and mozzarella cheese.
A lady apple & fish-shaped hard boiled egg.
Raw carrots & cucumber. Grapes too!

No Ghosts Here (Bento #30)

I currently visit a forum all about bentos. The women their make really cute bentos for their kids. I thought to myself, "It would be cool to have a Halloween bento tomorrow." Unfortunately, there was nothing to be found in the house to make such a bento. So, I have "regular" food for tomorrow.

Tomorrow's bento includes:
BBQ ribs with bones cut out to fit box
Pasta with green beans, carrots,a nd peas
Cucumber with french dressing
Pears & raisins
Chocolate (yum!)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!!

Two Bentos for 1 Post (#28 & #29)

Since I go to the gym tomorrow, I have two bentos to share. One for lunch & one for dinner.

Bento #28:
Bake pork chop with honey dijon dressing for flavoring
Pineapple
Mini cornbread muffins (container has pat of margarine for muffins)

Bento (#29)
Hamburger with ketchup packet
Sweet potatoes
Tops of 2 mini muffins
Steamed carrots & green beans
Fruit salad: peaches, grapes, pineapple, plum, & pear

Hello Again! (Bento #27)

I was sick last week and only made one bento.

It consisted of spaghetti, carrots with dressing, grape & pineapple skewers, and a piece of dove chocolate.

Happy Cabinets

Weekends aren't much of a bento-fest for me. I don't make bentos to eat on the weekends normally. However, I do tend to prepare things for my weekday bentos over the weekend. I had a great bento prep weekend so thought I'd share.

The first thing I did this weekend is start a large purge in my house. I've have too much "stuff" that is just useless. Much of it I have been given over the years by people who were trying to help me out when I first moved into my home. Now that I'm more established, I don't use many of these things anymore. This weekend, I packed 5 boxes and 9 garbage bags of "stuff" to bring to charity. And there is still more to go through.

One big purge was a kitchen cabinet where I keep various cooking and food storage paraphernalia. Here is a great pic of my cabinet now organized and ready for use! Notice the lovely Lock 'n Lock's on the lower right hand side. Don't they look so happy together?


Next came the freezer purge. Since starting bento, I've been keeping a very neat refrigerator section but the freezer hadn't been cleaned out in I don't remember when. So, I cleaned house and went to my local grocery store that had a huge meat sale this weekend (lots of buy one, get one free deals!). Now, I have a happy freezer as well as a happy cabinet. :)
In this happy freezer you will see lots of sealed and bagged meats ready to be defrosted and included in a bento. Whoo hoo, I'm so ready for this week! I love a neat freezer!

The last thing I have to share is a quick bagel panini (love that new pan!) I made with some of the chicken purchased this weekend. The chicken breasts were baked for 20 minutes on a preheated 350 degree oven. Before baking, each chicken breast was rubbed with 1 teaspoon of Colavita extra virgin olive oil and sprinkled with salt and a garlic/black pepper seasoning blend. The sandwich is one mini bagel, slices of baked chicken breast, and a piece of muenster cheese with a mix of dijon mustard / mayo for taste. YUM!

Bento #26: Chicken & a New Bento Box

Lunch for 10/19/07:

Today, I used the new Clickety Clack bento box that I purchased. I originially purchased the set for some of the items in the set, not really for this bento box. It is a little too pink for me, but loads of fun use an actual bento box!


Today's bento includes:
Baked chicken with lime/basil dressing marinade
Sweet potatoes
Raw cucumber and carrots with dressing.
Grapes with ocean animals pick
2 Chocolate Pocky & 2 sesame candies for dessert

Bento #25: More Pork Tenderloin

Lunch for 10/18/07:
The rest of the shredded BBQ pork tenderloin
Sweet potatoes, small container of cucumber
Steamed carrot chips & green beans
Dressing for cucumbers
Chocolate graham crackers