| Lunch Box 648: Let Me Eat Cake |
[May. 28th, 2009|07:21 pm] |
 It's been a while since I made salmon saka-mushi. It still is, as I didn't have salmon, but the tilapia I substituted tastes just fine. Basically, this is fish and mushrooms and spring onions and carrots and snow peas, all steamed together in a tinfoil package until they're nice and juicy. Up above it I have avocado maki and, joy of joys, baked purple sweet potato. However, the market only had these skinny little things. "They're taking the babies!" I thought when I saw them. But I still got a few because I've been suffering from purple potato withdrawal.
On the other side I have a mandarin orange, strawberries, a few cherries, and a dried persimmon, which is more or less a persimmon that's been raisined, but instead of wrinkling up it is squashed into a flat ring. And I have a slice of pound cake made from a recipe my sister gave me. It's awesome, and easy to make if you have an electric mixer. If, like me, you don't, your arm will get a workout.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| My chips can beat up Lay's chips |
[Feb. 27th, 2009|10:33 pm] |
 Today's lunch, which looks terrible because of my lack of photography skillz, starts with obimake enoki,  AKA mushrooms wrapped in bacon. Ah, bacon - even when not dipped in chocolate it's still awesome. I have steamed broccoli, which is not awesome but I consider to be quite good. Baked purple sweet potato, and it's an undeniable fact that purple food is its own justification. Mochi, which is quietly excellent, and finally microwave lotus chips. That's like potato chips, but made with lotus root in the microwave. I made them with a microwave potato chip maker, seen at left, and I double-dog dare you to tell me that that's not awesomeness defined.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 631: More fun with chocolate |
[Feb. 24th, 2009|09:08 pm] |
 I have another glorious hodgepodge for lunch. Here you see the evidence of a walk through my fridge, or perhaps I should describe it as a drunkard's walk: okonomiyaki, yakisoba, steamed broccoli, baked purple sweet potato, grape tomatoes, mochi, and chocolate soybean clusters.
That last item is an aftershock from last week's chocolate covered bacon. When I ran out of bacon I had some melted chocolate left over, and the heck I'm going to wash that down the sink! So I poured in some of the dry roasted soybeans that I keep around as munchies, and lo and behold, a new treat was born.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 622: Sebastian for lunch |
[Jan. 14th, 2009|09:27 pm] |
 I loves me some snow crab. It's very rare - as in never - that I and up with any left over, but somehow I saved two claws for lunch. They look lovely, don't they? The only problem with putting them in a bento box is that you can't exactly pick them up daintily with a pair of chopsticks. You have to break into 'em. And when it comes to crab, I have the table manners of Henry the 8th. So, it's a good thing I eat in my office, where there are no witnesses.
I also have yaki onigiri, some steamed broccoli, and some baked purple sweet potato. On the other side are chunks of breadfruit, strawberries, persimmon, and kumquats. Kumquats, for those not in the know, are like grape-sized oranges, and you et them whole, rind and all. They are also very funny-sounding, which makes them worth buying right there.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 619: More sweetfish |
[Jan. 8th, 2009|10:05 pm] |
 Pretty good lunch today, I'd say - beef & vegetable curry, baked purple sweet potato, a Yorkshire pudding, edamame, persimmon, mango, and taiyaki. I like how pretty the taiyaki turned out this time. It takes some practice, getting them to cook right when you're working on an electric stove. Unless someone has invented a glass taiyaki-ki, you can't see what you're doing.
Sorry about the lack of cleverness with today's post, but there's been a sad event in my family and I'm not feeling too chatty at the moment. Don't worry about me, I'll be fine, I just have to take some time and get over it. In the meantime - tell your family members you love them while there's still time.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 617: Fish for dessert |
[Dec. 24th, 2008|01:45 pm] |
 For once I have a pretty thoroughly Japanese bento. The main part is yakiudon made with beef & vegetables and a bit light on the noodles. I have baked purple sweet potato because it finally warmed up enough for me to get to the farmer's market. (Weather plays a big role in your shopping when you have to take the bus.) And, finall, for dessert I have taiyaki, which is a fish-shaped treat made out of waffle-like batter and stuffed with anko, AKA sweet red bean paste.
(When I post taiyaki people always ask about how I make them, so I'll answer ahead of time: with a taiyaki mold and this easy recipe. They make great party treats, I've found.)
This will probably be my last post for the year because I'll be off until the Monday after New Year's so happy holidays, y'all!
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 600: Vegetarian octopus |
[Nov. 3rd, 2008|09:42 pm] |
 Happy day-before-voting-day! To those in the US who have not yet voted, I wish you luck in the lines tomorrow. I voted via absentee ballot, which requested it before news got around about how out-of-control the lines would be. Talk about lucking out.
Not that that has anything to do with my lunch, which starts with a hot dog octopus and some omurice. It's a regular hot dog, not a tofu substitute; the thing itself appears to be a vegetarian, the way it's all over that steamed broccoli. Then there's sauteed mushrooms, baked purple sweet potato, and baked white sweet potato. This is, thankfully, the last of a lot of leftovers. Which means that I'm going to have to cook tonight.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 599: Powers of Two |
[Oct. 31st, 2008|07:17 pm] |
 It's been a while since I've made iridori, which is basically Japanese chicken & vegetable stew. This time I varied the recipe by substituting lotus roots for bamboo shoots. It didn't change the flavor much, but it added some texture variety, plus it just looks neat. On the other side I have rice balls, baked purple sweet potato, baked white sweet potato, steamed broccoli, and sauteed mushrooms.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 597: Broiled goodness |
[Oct. 23rd, 2008|09:40 pm] |
 You may think you see broiled steak here. You may think so, but actually that's My Mom's Pork Chops, with beef substituted for pork. In other words, I've never broiled steak before, didn't have a recipe on hand, and I figured there are worse things I could do than adapt a recipe I already use. Guess what - it turned out goood. Nice 'n tender. This is served over rice, with the mushrooms chopped up a little and mixed in. Did I mention that this tastes good? And on the other side I have baked purple sweet potato and steamed snow peas.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 596: One Order of Disorder |
[Oct. 20th, 2008|07:42 pm] |
 It was clean-out-the-fridge day, but then every day is clean-out-the-fridge day. I just have to decide which part to clean out. Some of you know what I'm talking about.
Anyhow, here's some maki sushi, baked purple sweet potato, simmered shiitake mushrooms, spinach, orange segments, golden kiwi, and craisins. I tried to make it look kinda jumbled and funky, but now I see that it has my usual semi-pathological, art-college-grad set of patterns and rhythms. Sometimes I think my lunches would come out that way if I put on a blindfold and threw stuff across the room in the general direction of my lunch box. But - hey, look at the sweet potato. Some odd colors there, huh? Parts of it were purple, and parts were whitish. Usually they have some shading on the inside, but it's rarely this pronounced.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 595: Candy-box Bento |
[Oct. 17th, 2008|09:45 pm] |
 Normally when I pack a lunch I make patterns with the food. No real reason why except that I like pretty, symmetrical designs. This time I decided to avoid that, and instead pack it so it looked as chaotic as possible without being a true mess. The maki sushi, steamed sugar snap peas, baked Japanese sweet potato, baked purple sweet potato, simmered shiitake mushrooms, and mochi are integrated to make a delicious little mosh pit.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 592: Stir-fry |
[Oct. 6th, 2008|08:52 pm] |
 What do you do when you are making my mom's pork chops and you find you have one more pork chop than will fit on the baking sheet? Simple - make pork & vegetable stir-fry the next day. This batch of stir-fry has shiitake, carrot, lotus root, onion, zucchini, broccoli, and maybe a few other things I'm forgetting right now. I basically wandered through my fridge until I had enough stuff to cook up.
On the other side I have baked purple sweet potato, a strawberry, and a mochi.
By the way, this past weekend I went to my sister's house and introduced her & her family to yakiudon and melon pan. Both were a hit, the former more with the adults and the latter especially with her kids.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 587: Meatloaf in a shell |
[Sep. 24th, 2008|09:27 pm] |
 Today's lunch includes meatloaf gyoza with ketchup, baked purple sweet potato, edamame, and strawberries
Yeah, meatloaf gyoza! I had all the stuff to make meatloaf, but I needed to use up some gyoza wrappers, so I mixed up everything but the breadcrumbs - don't need that filler when I have the gyoza wrappers - and made a batch of gyoza. They came out really well, too, especially when dunked in ketchup. Oh, I used a dumpling press to get those cute ruffled edges.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 586: Hemicircles |
[Sep. 23rd, 2008|08:16 pm] |
 This box is a collection of miscellania, yet its variety balances it out, I think. I have crab rangoon gyoza, edamame, steamed broccoli, baked purple sweet potato, omelet, and strawberries. It looks like a festival of leftovers, but surprisingly it isn't. Go figure.
I do like me some purple potatoes.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 559: Chicken noodle curry |
[May. 23rd, 2008|08:28 pm] |
 Once again I have some yakisoba curry, which is exactly what it sounds like. I didn't want it to slop over into the other items in the box, so I used less water than I would normally, resulting in a thicker sauce that won't splash around. The curry has chicken, carrots, onion, broccoli, and shrimp noodles. Which technically makes it non-yakisoba, but that's splitting hairs and I'm not going to post a whole new recipe just for a noodle change.
And then there's baked purple sweet potato, which is practically crowding the edamame, out of the box, some takoyaki (with takoyaki sauce in the blue container), and a taro mochi.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 555: Line up! |
[May. 14th, 2008|07:48 pm] |
 This is one seriously orderly lunch. I don't know how that happens, as I'm a clutter queen. Oh well, I know that after being carried around on my two-hour bus-train-bus commute it'll look like the inside of a three-year-old's toy box.
Anyhow, left-to-right, there's smoked salmon sushi, tamago sushi, baked purple sweet potato, steamed long beans, shelled edamame, longans, and a piece of taro mochi.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 554: Secondary colors |
[May. 13th, 2008|07:35 pm] |
 I've hardly made any sushi in, what, a year? Now all of a sudden I decide I want lots of it. So, here's some smoked salmon sushi and hantako sushi, the latter of which is my fancy way of saying I strapped half a baby octopus to a rice block. I mainly do that because the tentacles curl up so pretty and spirally, I want to find a way to display them. Then there's some baked purple sweet potato arranged in a way that I thought was artistic, but now looks kind of corny to me. Finally, some zucchini & onion stir-fry and carrot & raisin salad.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 552: Bits and Bobs |
[May. 9th, 2008|09:57 pm] |
 Another end of the week, another catch-all lunch!
On the top left I have some omurice. There's two layers, and if you look between the pieces you can see the ketchup I sandwiched in there oh so cleverly. Going counterclockwise, there's simmered shiitake mushrooms, homemade takoyaki, baked purple sweet potato, some Lotte cookies, and steamed breadfruit.
Have you ever made takoyaki? Once you get the hang of it, it's easy and kind of fun, and if the idea of eating octopus bugs you, you can substitute shrimp. I experimented with this batch by adding a teaspoon of baking powder to the batter. The result was lighter & puffier takoyaki.
I don't know what kind of cookies they are. The brand is Lotte, and they're little hamburger-shaped cookies with a bit of chocolate inside. On the outside of them are little images, including a character that makes me think of a Sanrio-ized Charlie Brown. I've done some Web research and come up with nothing. Gee, wish I'd saved the package. Edit: Those are Kancho cookies. Thanks to those who replied and E-mailed me to set me straight!
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 548: Dueling octopi |
[Apr. 25th, 2008|09:08 pm] |
 Today I have a colorful melange of... colorful stuff. In no particular order: hot dog octopi, baked purple sweet potato, baked sweet potato, zucchini & onion stir-fry, simmered shiitake mushrooms, some Kool-Aid pickles, and grapefruit and coconut gel. The Kool-Aid pickles were made with grape Kool-Aid, which tastes good but makes for dark, icky-looking pickles. Next time I'll use cherry.
Today's my 40th birthday. Yay me. I suppose I should have packed a cupcake or something. Ah well, I'll probably get a cupcake on my way home for dinner tonight.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 544: No time to cook |
[Apr. 21st, 2008|08:43 pm] |
 I spent most of this weekend with my family celebrating the fact that I've managed to survive 40 years. (Almost, anyway. As of this coming Friday.) By the time I got home I had no time to cook stuff, and, wouldn't you know it, I was out of leftovers! So here's what I threw together: a turkey-bacon BLT on French bread, baked purple sweet potato, some pickles, some baby carrots, and a sakura mochi (easiest version).
I promise I will cook tonight. I have a fridge bursting with neat stuff from the Farmer's Market - one of my b-day presents - so I'll be doing some intense - nay, hardcore - cooking this week.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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