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.

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

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 #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.

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

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

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.

Rolled Tortilla Sandwich with Sweet Potatoes

Yesterday, I saw a nutritionist familiar with working with women and insulin resistance. She reviewed with me the diabetic exchange list and gave me a meal plan.

So, today's lunch is packed with this in mind. My biggest problem with this lunch is the 1/2 cup of sweet potatoes. This isn't quite enough variety for my liking. So next time it's a 1/4 cup sweet potatoes with a bit of fruit to complete the 1 starch portion of the meal. All in all, it won't be a bad lunch.

So here's my lunch for today:
1 rolled sandwich with whole wheat tortilla, roasted turkey, and a piece of provolone cheese.
Small bottle of Organic Zesty Italian dressing, 1 square of chocolate
Sweet potatos and a "salad" of carrot shreds and sliced cucumber.


I'm showing my snack picture today due to the cute picks. I've seen lots of bento websites that have food on picks and I think "how cute." After the appointment yesterday, I went to a nearby craft store and looked in the cake decorating department where I found these great picks. So yesterday's snack that I didn't have the chance to eat was rearranged out of its food cup and onton food picks. At first I thought I would feel silly, a 30-year-old woman with food on plastic toothpicks. LOL! Now I'm looking forward to make snack. It looks like so much 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!

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!