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!

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.

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 No and Bento Yes

The bento below I made with leftover chicken I had cooked for a panini sandwich. Which came out wonderfully btw. However, this bento never ended up seeing the inside of my lunch bag. As I mentioned a few days ago, a friend of mine and I went to P.F. Chang's for lunch over the weekend, and I came home with leftovers. After my lunch at P.F. Chang's, I had a major case of CRASH! My body needed sleep. I could tell I had eaten something that was setting off the insulin problem, but couldn't figure out what. I'd eaten carefully at Chang's, didn't overeat, and was carefuly on the portions of carbs. That night, I had a small portion of the noodles below with some chicken. I felt that same crashing feeling. I realized it must be these noodles. They were tasty enough, but were sort of thick and floury tasting to me. I think they simply overwhelmed my system. I'm sorry to say I ended up disposing of them.

So the rest of the bento was recycled into a new bento that I enjoyed immensely on Monday. This bento consisted of leftover fried rice (which I was fine with), leftover chicken from a panini sandwich I had made (yummy tasting), cucumber, carrots, and a jello cup.

Chicken with Carrots & Green Beans (#22)

Bento for 10/14/07:
Sauteed chicken pieces with steamed carrots and green beans.

Chicken with Carrots & Green Beans
Originally uploaded by bluefrogj

Okay, I am working on a new format for posts. Future posts will list the bento with picture first. Below that, I will list anything I have to say beyond the bento. And today's post will have some info for you, my dear but few readers.

First, the title of this post has a number after it. I've decided to keep a tally of the number of bentos I make. This particular one is #22.

The bento above is actually leftovers from the dinner below.

This was a yummy dinner. The only thing is that I'm still having a little trouble getting my paninis right. But it has been a fun process. Instead of making a sandwich for the bento, I just place the leftover cutup chicken in the bento.

Today, I met a friend at the gym. Afterwards, we had lunch at P. F. Chang's. I have noodles and fried rice leftover. You'll shall see these as a side item in bentos over the next few days.

Finally, I got a note from the post office that the package I've been waiting for has arrived from Japan. Wheeee! I purchased a few bento supplies online, as well as my first ever true bento box. I'm not sure how much I will use it, but I was ready to have 1 bento box that was from Japan.

That's all for now. More to come later I'm sure :)

A New "Dish"

A friend of mine lives near a unique restaurant that serves delicious panini sandwiches. I tried to make something similar at home. It wasn't a true grilled panini sandwich by any means, but was tasty just the same.

My sandwich includes honey whole wheat bread, provolone cheese, champagne honey mustard, hydroponic lettuce, cucumber, carrots, and chicken with lime-basil marinade. Served with two pineapple slices.

My next goal is to figure out how to make one fit into my bento box!

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!

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!

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!

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!

Bento #2

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