Some Assembly Required

I've been intrigued for some time now by the concept of a rolled sandwich using tortillas or flat bread. Today for lunch, I tried one and enjoyed it so much that I decided to bring one for lunch tomorrow. I didn't preassemble my sandwich. So I brought all the ingredients in the Fit 'n Fresh box I purchased at the same time I purchased my Lock 'n Locks. This is it's maiden lunch voyage.

In the bottom tier we have all the stuff to make our sandwich: a rolled piece of Flat Out honey whole wheat bread, some deli smoked ham, a container of Harry & David's Champagne Honey mustard (yum!), carrots, cucumber, and baby spinach too. A small piece of Dove chocolate is included for dessert.

Now for the upper tier. That Fit 'n Fresh has two large sized upper trays that I was trying to figure out what to do with. This is going to be one awesome lunch, but boy did I use alot of muffin cups in this one! I need some regular size silicone muffin cups. I hate the thought of using so many in one lunch!

The upper tier includes steamed green beans, homemade applesauce with dried cranberries and golden raisins, pistachios, and a small amount of bbq chips. A word about the applesauce: This stuff is delicious and super easy! I got the recipe for cinammon applesauce from the October 2007 issue of Everyday Cooking. I added the raisins and cranberries myself. This stuff is tasty tasty. Try it if you're looking for something fun. I used 2 gala apples and it only took about 7 minutes in the microwave to cook the apples. Fun!

Dry but Edible Chicken

Last night, I tried to bake some chicken stuffed with cheese. This did not come out so well. Mainly, I don't think I put enough cheese, AND the chicken came out really dry. But it was still edible and tasty with the herb seasoning I had. I just need a bit more water to drink to offset the dry chicken.

Our side dishes for our dry little piece of chicken are a bit of leftover edamame and baked sweet potato with salt and pepper. I also have another box with carrots and cucumber and french dressing for dipping. I didn't take a picture of that since I pictured something very similar to that a few days ago.

The smaller box is this afternoon's snack bento: peanut butter, goldfish pretzel crackers, and pistachio nuts.

I was too tired to post this last night, so I am posting it this morning. I'll probably have another post tonight about tonight and tomorrow's bento. I have enough of this dry chicken to last me a couple of meals!

Spaghetti with a Little Yoga for Flavor

I had a long day today, starting with arriving at work at 5:30AM and ending the day with a workout at my new gym and getting home for about 8:30PM. It was a long day, but a pretty satisfying and productive one.

Before I get to tomorrow's bento, I want to talk a little more about my new gym. I really like the place (which I think I've mentioned in a previous post). After my last meeting of the day, I headed off to the gym. They have great classes there, and this week, I decided to try the Svaroopa yoga class after my workout. I'm so glad I did. I've never been to such a relaxing class! I tend to carry around alot of tension, being the type A personality that I am. This class was just lovely. And I swear I walked out feeling an inch taller. We did these wonderfully gentle stretching exercises. I felt so much straighter and taller afterwards. I just can't say how nice it was! If you want to know more about Svaroopa Yoga, I found this site had a nice explanation and link to an article. Remember if it looks good to you, to consult your physician before starting any type of exercise.

Now, on to tomorrow's bento.

You've seen much of this before. I almost didn't post it but figured that was keeping with my goals. So here are several repeats thrown together.

Since I came home so late, I grabbed a small pack of meatballs out of the fridge. The leftovers with a bit of spaghetti underneath are tomorrow's lunch along with watermelon, grapes, and a salad with cucumbers, carrots, baby spinach, baby romaine, and balsamic vinaigrette on the side. No snack bentos to share since I packed the same thing as yesterday, except with sunflower seeds instead of soynuts.

Link - and - Balance

Currently, I am reading The Insulin Resistance Diet. The beginning of the book explains Insulin Resistance in layman's terms and has been one of the better explanations I have seen to date. Then the authors, a doctor and a registered dietician, go on to explain their "diet" for Insulin Resistance. It's not a diet really. Actually in alot of ways, it is similar to how diabetics eat.

The concept is that to keep one's insulin from spiking, as it does when you have insulin resistance, one should link carbs with proteins in order to balance the carb intake. This will keep insulin in a level state.

So, I've tested the concept for the last two days and it does seem to work. Using the ratio in the book, I enjoyed a few carbs at dinner tonite, which make a nice leftover for tomorrow. I must say, I'm not feeling that typical drag-me-down-to-sleep feeling like I normally do. So, we'll see how this works for me. I'm going to try the concept out until I can get an appt with a nutritionist.

On to tomorrow's bento:

First tier - Homemade mini hamburger (1 1/2) with ketchup packet and psuedo-mac 'n cheese. I call this psuedo b/c I didn't have any milk on hand. So it's made with a little margarine, shredded cheese, elbow macaroni, and ground pepper.

Second tier - Carrots & seedless cucumber with creamy french dressing for dipping. (YUM!)

Morning Snack: Granola with yogurt (blue container). Green container has about a tablespoon of soynuts to help balance out the granola/yogurt.

Afternoon Snack: Crackers & cheese.

Back to Bentos

This week has been a busy one at work. I had a day and a half of bentos as mentioned in my last post. After that, I had to eat out for work purposes (made sure to choose salads with light dressings, and such) and had light meals at home. No bentos to post until tonight.

This is leftovers from tonight's dinner. These are packed in two 380ml Lock 'n Lock containers. After consulting the Lunch in a Box website, I discovered a 600 ml box is what I'm supposed to use for lunch, according to the chart provided there. The ones I've been using have been a bit over 800ml. I'm going to keep those for when I have salads and such to bring, since they have more room.

In the meantime, I purchased two more Lock 'n Locks of the 380ml size. I'm using these as a makeshift 2-tier bento system. The combined ml of these boxes brings me close enough to the correct ml.

On to the food.....

In the "first tier" we have chicken basted with a fat free lime basil salad dressing by Maple Grove Farms of Vermont. It is tasty, but should have been marinated a bit longer. Probably could have used a little more black pepper too. But all in all, quite good. I used chicken thighs since they came out moister/more tender. I always seem to over cook chicken breasts. They come out dry and blech. To the left of the chicken is a sweet potato baked plain with a little margarine spray, salt, and black pepper added. I'm not one for too much added to a sweet potato. They are sweet enough to my taste buds without adding cinnamon and sugar.

The "second tier" includes a nice salad. This past week, I discovered baby lettuces. How tasty! This salad consists of baby romaine and spinach with baby carrots and seedless cucumber. The container has balsamic vingaigrette by the same brand that made the lime basil salad dressing. Tasty, tasty. I'm looking forward to lunch tomorrow. Have to do some more cooking tomorrow so that I have some lunch for work this week!

I can't believe...

I forgot to post the snacks. Eesh!

Morning Snack:

Granola with a container of yogurt, watermelon and pistachios.

Afternoon Snack:

PB and pretzels, apple slices, 2 sesame seed candies, half a stick of cheese, and a container of soynuts.

All packed with one of my new bento belts! Fun!

Lovely Leftovers

Whew! After this weekend, I have bentos for the
next day and a half of meals. Wheee. Leftovers are great. So here goes.

Bento #1:
Leftover chicken from lunch with a friend.
Leftover boiled Dungeness crabmeat (yum!) from family get together.
Steamed green beans made to go with the bento. Carrots, grapes, and a bit of chocolate in the aluminum foil. The little blue cup holds dressing for the carrots.

Bento #2:

Leftoever boiled Dungeness crabmeat.

Stirfried noodles with greenbeans and carrots made to go with this bento.

Watermelon.

I added a small packet of aluminum foil with a bit of chocolate after I added the picture.

There is a third bento that looks just like this with boiled shrimp substituted for the crabmeat.

The next day and a half are going to be YUMMY!

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

It's a beautiful day today. Slightly windy, clear skies, comfortable temperature of 83 degrees. And the post lady came today with my order from Sugar Charms containing my new bento supplies! Yeah! I can't believe they are here already. I've never ordered from this place before and they included a free mini onigiri mold as a gift. Wheeeee!

You can see what all I purchased to the left. Several little side dish containers, 2 bento belts, 4 cute condiment cups, 2 mayo spreaders, and a few sauce bottles. I purchased the 2 triangular rice molds and that smaller rectagular mold is the free one that makes 3 little cylindrical onigiris. Wheee, I can't wait to put this stuff to use!

A New Recipe

As I think about this blog and what I'm going to write about, I realize it is highly possible this blog will be as much about my trying to learn to cook as it will be about trying to prepare a bento-style lunch.

I work at a library where I get to see alot of the new books that come through before they go out to the general public. I love looking at cookbooks. However, I don't use them much. For one, I don't know how to cook so well and many cookbooks don't give the level of instruction I need to complete a recipe. Secondly, I don't like recipes with loads of ingredients. Cooking makes me nervous. I'm always worried if I'm going to "get it right." In fact, I lay out all my ingredients beforehand in little containers to make sure I have everything I need. I have a small kitchen with limited counterspace. I don't have room to lay out all those ingredients. Finally, I don't have alot of time to cook. So, I need things that taste decent but are simple enough to prepare.

Well, with the current goal of "let's stop eating out and start making food and packing bentos," I've decided to start looking for new recipes. One gets tired of spaghetti and baked chicken after awhile. So, the yesterday at the library I browsed the cooking section looking for cookbooks that interested me. My requirements were simple but not always easily found. First, I needed a book that a picture for every recipe. This isn't always very easy to come by. For instance, I own a copy of "The Joy of Cooking." I never use it. No pictures means no use by me. I can't envision what something is going to look like, and I can't imagine what it might taste like by the ingredients list. However, I can come much closer with a picture.

Secondly, I looked for books where the recipes seemed manageable for me. This means ingredients that, even if I've never used them before, I've heard of before. Manageable ingredient lists are a plus too.

Finally, I looked for things that had food that looked like something I'd actually eat. People that know me call me a picky eater. To that I say: if I was a truly that picky of an eater, I'd be alot thinner. In actuality, I think I'm a plain eater. By this I mean, I like simple food, sort of "meat and potatos" in my tastes. I even know what this comes from. As a kid I had many food allergies, and I just never developed a taste for alot of things.

One of the books I checked out from the libary was Kylie Kwong's Simple Chinese Cooking. This is one beautiful book. Each two page spread is like this: the left hand side is the recipe; the right hand side is a beautiful, full-color picture of the dish. YUM! There was a tantalizing picture of a Cashew Chicken stir-fry that I decided I needed to try. It came out beautifully and is included in tomorrow's bento below.

This bento includes:
Cashew Chicken stir-fry with garlic and cucumbers. (Don't worry, that chicken is browned and fully cooked. I'm having trouble taking pictures of my bentos!)

Edamame - Another new experience for me tonight. I've never had this before and it was suggested to me by a friend to try. Not bad. I'm still deciding how to make it a little better.

Carrrots, grapes and watermelon round out the box. I'm thinking the cashew chicken will be yummy cold as well as warm!

The final of the first posts...

I want to apologize for ye few readers of this new blog. These posts aren't formatted well. I'm having some learning curve issues here. Hopefully, we can straighten them out as we go along!

Now, on to today's lunch bento. Today's snack bento was the same as yesterday.

Lunch bento contained mashed potatos with skins and a mini hamburger patty cut in half. This wasn't aesthetics as much as trying to fit everything into this tiny container! Carrots with dipping dressing and grapes as the sides.

But as I think about it, I can share tomorrow's snack bentos with you.

Morning snack: Granola with a container of yogurt to go with. Pistachio nuts and watermelon too.

Afternoon snack:

Triscuits with cucumber and mozzarella cheese slices.

A note about this snack...if you're a cooking enabled you'll probably giggle.

I purchased an inexpensive mandolin V-slicer to help me cut veggies for my bento adventures. Why an inexpensive one you ask? Besides the obvious money reasons, Cooks Illustrated says they aren't bad, and I trust them implicitly. So, off to the kitchen outlet store and a new mandoline slicer now calls my home, home. It looks alot like this one at Amazon:

So, I tried it out with an apple the other day. EESH! Such thin thin thin slices. Nothing I did seemed to work. I thought it defective. Figured it was cheap plastic and was a waste of money. Sooooo disappointing. Tonight, when preparing the cucumbers, I thought, "Let me try again." So, out comes the mandolin. I try again. Pitiful little slices. So, I look at the thing. I see those two screws on the brain and the mechanical part of my brain says, "Maybe the blade is screwed in too tight. It sort of looks depressed a bit in the middle." Off I go to the toolbox, pull out my trusty screwdriver and try to loosen the screws. Only one problem, that durned interchangeable part keeps popping out as I try to hold the thing. So I look at that interchangeable part. I look at the little hooks that hold it in place. Hmmm, I see that those hooks are offset on one side, and if I just FLIP THE PART OVER it gives it more depth. Voila, perfect cucumber slices! Maybe I should have called this blog "Adventures of the Cooking Impaired." LOL!

"Don't Forget Me," Said the Chocolate

Bentos for 9/11/07

Today started the concept of the snack bento for me. Here's where you'll have to read a bit about health.

Eight years ago, I was diagnosed with insulin resistance. Mainly, this means my body has problems processing sugar. It's not diabetes but can lead into it later in life. It also comes with other issues. My case isn't severe, quite the good thing. But nonetheless, some preventive maintenance is necessary. I haven't been as good at this as I need to. This new bento phase is part of it. I'm working at making it not a phase but a permanent lifestyle change :)



Why do I bring this up? Well, any good nutritionist talking to someone with insulin resistance is going to tell them basically what you tell a diabetic: eat several small meals throughout the day. The diet isn't as strict for a diabetic though as far as foods to eat. One big thing is to try to eat things high in protein. Enter the snack bento. I'm supposed to have a small "snack" mid-morning and mid-afternoon.


This snack bento included granola and a cheese stick for morning and pb/pretzels with pistachios for afternoon. The little orange container contains 1 stick of Kit Kat.


The lunch bento...

Baked ribs with bbq sauce, mac & cheese, grapes, watermelon, and pistachios.

Cooking Experiments

Okay, this one is fancier because I decided to try a couple of new things.

Meat: plain old baked pork chop with a bit of bbq sauce.

Sides:

Oven roasted corn. This was quite tasty! Simply place frozen corn on the cob in a piece of aluminum foil with a pat of margarine/butter, salt, and pepper. Bake. Voila! Taste sensation.

1/2 a mini apple pie. This was another experiment of a recipe I found online. The inspiration came from another person's blog. I can't find the inspiration again, otherwise I'd link. If I find it I will. The recipe came from somewhere else. I'm not sharing because I thought the pie filling too sweet. Next time, I'll cut down on the amount of sugar called for. If that works, I'll post the recipe and link.

Grapes and pistachios included too. You're going to see alot of those for awhile. 1. because I have them on hand for the moment. 2. because they are quick foods I can think of that are small and seem to be quite bento capable.

Bento #2

Chicken quesadilla with grapes, carrots, and a little french dressing in the container for the carrots.

The First Bento

My new bento obsession came at an opportune time. First, I was laid up at home with a cold and bored out of my skull. I'm not a person who relaxes well feeling I must always be doing something. Second, I'd been giving serious thought to rejoining some type of gym for the whole do-your-health-good thing. Finally, I'm just sick and tired of eating out all the time.







Now, any type of meal is tough to do when one doesn't know how to cook. For anyone who stumbles across this blog and thinks, "Hey, I can't cook either! How did you learn?," I don't have any tips to share. I'm still learning. I some great cookbooks here. But I've found it really hard to find a good basic cookbook for the cookbook challenged. Until I got the book pictured right from PBS. This is the book that has the boiled egg recipe I mentioned in my first post.





So, now I can bento to my little hearts desire. All the bento sites I've read talk about the bento boxes used and containers they have. I don't have all that (remember, we're only 2 weeks old here). Besides, I'm not sure if I want all different bento boxes. I want to be able to microwave and so many seem incapable of that. So, Lock & Lock is what I use. Be careful those out there who are reading this and think, "hmmmm, i might try lock & lock." They can be an obsession in and of themselves.





On to the first ever bento...(don't laugh)!







Okay, let me say right now, aesthetics will probably never be my strong suit. My goal here is to pack lunches that are more interesting and a wee bit healthier than the normal fast food fare I partake of. Whenever, I try to arrange things it takes me 3 times as long. Just like my website took 8 years to complete. Not because I didn't know what I was doing...but because I couldn't decide on a design! LOL!

So, in the bento....Spaghetti and meatballs (meatball recipe from above referenced book). Peaches in an aluminum foil cup, salad, croutons, and dressing in the little blue bottle.

And so it begins...

I've resisted blogging for some time now. Not because I don't like it. But because I didn't think I had the time. But lately, I've been making the time to do things I want to do.

So what's the blog about? Well....

I have a hobby I love. I make jewelry. I was even published once in BeadStyle Magazine. But not even that hobby was enough to make me start blogging.

Then, nearly 2 weeks ago (time flies) I was reading a blog by a jewelry artist I admire. And there was a picture of her son's lunch, and she described it as a bento. How cute I thought! I'd eat that! So, off I went in search of what exactly a bento was.

And what to my wondering eyes appeared? But a completely interesting way to pack lunch and make it fun. See, I can't cook. This is a running joke in my family. I look up the recipe (yes, there is one!) on how to boil an egg each time I need to. I'm always worried I'm going to mess it up. I spend alot of time and money, yikes!, on take out/fast food. We won't discuss in this post the health consequences of that...

But these bentos are just little portions of food, lots of variety, cute, and not intimidating if I don't try for the whole arranging/artistic aspect.

And so began an new obsession and this blog with some judicious prodding from a great friend of mine.

This first post will be broken up into several entries. I have some bento pictures to share. Maybe one day, I'll have some jewelry to share when I stop thinking of bentos!