Bento #24 - BBQ Pork Sandwich

For a quick lunch this morning, I defrosted the other half other pork tenderloin, madea week or so ago. I then put it into a saucepan with a bit of BBQ sauce and made some shredded BBQ pork. Then, I tried to figure out what to do with it. As I was toasting my half of a mini bagel for breakfast, an idea came to me. I put some of the shredded pork on the bottom half of the bagel with cheese on top. A few minutes in the toaster oven and voila, a weird sandwich I don't know what to call.

Other items found in this bento include:
Steamed yam - Okay, we'll see how this works out for me. This is a new experience this time. I purchased some frozen yam patties at my local produce stand. I was told this was just straight yam. I think it is, but I steamed it for way to long. It ended up being a viscous (sp?) mass. Not too sweet though. I think I'm going to have to try this again and steam for less time.

Egg - Below the steamed yam is an odd looking thing to the reader. I've been reading Lunch in a Box and love the egg molds. But I try not to eat the yolk of eggs for cholesterol reasons. I eat EggBeaters instead. So in an attempt to combine Biggie's info on egg molds and quickie egg tamagoki (sp?), I cooked the Egg Beaters until cooked but still slightly moist and then pushed it all into the mold. You can't really tell I used the fish mold, but that's okay. The main goal is that it kept it all into a neat little package. I'll have to try this again soon.

Lastly, I have some salad to go with it all. Hopefully this all tastes okay together.

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.

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!

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.