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!

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.