| Lunch Box 644: I'm not dead yet. |
[May. 8th, 2009|10:06 pm] |
 Wow, it's been a while since I've posted. This is due to 1) my vacation, which was my birthday present to myself, and 2) being overloaded in real life and not having much energy for cooking. I've been packing bento lunches, but they haven't been interesting enough to blog about. I'm working on some new stuff that ought to be worth posting, though.
Anyway! Here I have a boiled egg - wow, I'm starting right back in with the fancy cookin', ain't I? - simmered shiitake mushrooms, baked Japanese sweet potato, steamed broccoli, and a banana bread muffin. By the way, I made a dozen of these things and brought the other 10 in to the office. (Had to test one beforehand to make sure it wasn't poisonous. You know how it is.) It's gratifying when goodies disappear as fast as these did.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 582: Orange blossom |
[Sep. 15th, 2008|11:20 pm] |
 This lunch has futomaki stuffed with egg, cucumber, and crab sticks. It has steamed pole beans. It has a whole roma tomato given to me by my garden-having coworker Maria. (Garden-grown food is automatically cool. Don't even try to deny it!) There's some banana bread. And there's a clementine blossom, made simply by peeling a clementine and separating the segments except at one end. It's so easy, and on retrospect that seems an obvious way to prettily package clementines (or mikans, or tangerines), yet I haven't seen it elsewhere.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 578: The dark side of tofu |
[Jul. 18th, 2008|09:25 pm] |
 This lunch is almost an outtake. I present it here so you can learn from my misfortune.
The stir-fried teriyaki chicken and zucchini & onion stir-fry are both perfectly all right. However, the marinated, stir-fried tofu - which is below the soy sauce bottle - came out weird. My fridge occasionally has localized ice ages, and the block of tofu was frozen solid. I thawed and cooked it, but the freezing had made the texture strange and spongy. That wouldn't be a problem, except the sponginess allowed it to soak up way more of the teriyaki sauce than I had expected, making it a bit stronger-flavored than I like. So - don't let your tofu freeze, and if you do don't marinate it for very long.
On the other side I have mango and jackfruit, the flavors and textures of which differ more than the colors, and banana bread.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 577: No discretion |
[Jul. 14th, 2008|07:33 pm] |
 Today's lunch includes a pair of hot dog octopi that appear to be in the middle of an intense discussion, and some smoked salmon sushi with cucumber, which is to say I just strapped a thin slice of cucumber onto the top of the rice block with the fish. Then there's edamame, baked Japanese sweet potato, carrot & raisin salad, and banana bread.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 487: The sequel to dinner |
[Dec. 21st, 2007|07:39 pm] |
 What do you do when you want to have this and that and the other for dinner, but a whole serving of each would be too much and you don't want to stuff your fridge with leftover half-servings? Pack 'em for the next day's lunch, of course.
So, here I have many things, beginning with a vegan hot dog in a cafeteria roll-based bun. The bun is made with eggs and butter, so I'm worried that it and the lump of soy may reject each other by lunchtime. The little blue container has ketchup, because frankly these vegan dogs taste much better when you drown them in ketchup. Then there's some okonomiyaki, baked Japanese sweet potato, baked purple sweet potato, steamed broccoli, soba noodles, and banana bread.
I could top this for eclecticism, but I might have to just close my eyes and chuck things from my fridge into my bento box to do it.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 485: Miscellania |
[Dec. 19th, 2007|08:01 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | baked japanese sweet potato, baked purple sweet potato, banana bread, box, edamame, inari-zushi, sushi, thanksgiving aftermath gravy, unagi no kabayaki, unagi-zushi, yorkshire pudding | ] |
 Tired. Cold. Late. Not in the mood for cooking. Good thing I have lots of little plastic containers in my fridge for icky days like that. Their bounty included inari-zushi and the components for unagi-zushi. That's just some unagi no kabayaki stuck on top of a rice block, and I was guessing at the name, but when I Googled it I found that it does exist. How about that? For my next trick I shall reinvent the wheel.
More leftovers! I have a Yorkshire pudding with Thanksgiving aftermath gravy. I froze the gravy, and when I thawed it it tasted fine but had a sorta applesauce-like texture. There's a little each of baked Japanese sweet potato and baked purple sweet potato, a helping of shelled edamame, and finally some banana bread.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 451: The Temperature At Which Lunch Burns |
[Oct. 17th, 2007|08:21 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | apple, baked eggplant slices, banana bread, blueberries, box, coconut gel, fruit salad, kiwi fruit, pineapple, rice, salmon saka-mushi, tamarinds, zucchini & onion stir-fry | ] |
 I got home yesterday so not in the mood to do real cooking. Leftovers to the rescue! Here's some salmon saka-mushi over rice, zucchini & onion stir-fry, baked eggplant slices, banana bread, some tamarinds, and a fruit salad made with apple, kiwi fruit, pineapple, blueberries, and coconut gel. The only thing I had to cook was the rice, and I had that going while I cut up fruit and shelled tamarinds.
It seems that this two-tier box is the one I always use when I pack fruit salad. I guess the two parts are most efficient at keeping the fruit and its juices from mixing with the rest of the lunch, and vice versa.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 450: No, that's not pizza |
[Oct. 16th, 2007|08:56 pm] |
 Today's lunch is sponsored by Things In My Fridge I Needed To Cook. Namely some baby octopi, which became octopus fritters, and an eggplant, which I transformed by arcane techniques known only to alchemists into baked eggplant slices. Oh, and there's also edamame and banana bread.
As you can see, this time I cooked a bigger, black eggplant. I think I prefer the skinny purple ones at the Asian market. I like the flavor more. The blue container contains okonomiyaki sauce, which goes well with octopus fritters.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 448: A Hamper of Lunch |
[Oct. 12th, 2007|08:41 pm] |
 I have an ongoing project to reclaim my off-brand Tupperware and free up some freezer space. So, here's a Friday Festival o' Leftovers: a pork pie, Spam musubi, obimake enoki, edamame, banana bread, and purple imo-yokan. All good, all leftovers, half from the freezer. By the way, I found out that imo-yokan can be frozen and thawed without harm to the texture. That's a very good thing for me, considering how much I make at one time and how small my servings are.
If anyone recognizes the source of today's title, I will be impressed.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 447: Best served cold |
[Oct. 11th, 2007|08:23 pm] |
 Not too long ago I was getting something out of my freezer when a container of squid slid out and hit me on the foot. Who knew that frozen squid landing point-first could feel like a javelin? Well, I have a lovely bruise to prove it. As soon as I stopped cussing I vowed to take revenge for this unprovoked attack by grilling and eating the kamikaze squid. Hence the teriyaki squid on rice. The edamame, obimake enoki, and banana bread are not part of my revenge, unless I decide to pelt the squid with them before consuming it. And I just might.
Oh - this meal is also best served cold because it's a bad idea to microwave squid. It turns to plastic.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 446: Using stuff up |
[Oct. 10th, 2007|07:17 pm] |
 Yakiudon is one of those great dishes that you can make to use up stuff in the fridge. If it sounds like it'll go well, just throw it in the pan! So here's some crab stick & vegetable yakiudon made with shrimp noodles. Then I have grilled tofu, baked Japanese sweet potato, and banana bread.
Um. Not much else to say about this except that it tastes good. Nice weather we're having, isn't it? Provided you're not in the middle of a drought like we are. Never mind.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 444: Health food, I guess |
[Oct. 9th, 2007|08:32 am] |
 Last week my doctor told me that I'm borderline anemic. Ho hum, what else is new? But watery blood means low stamina, which leads to poor DDR scores, and I can't be havin' with that. So, I'm trying to iron out my diet a little. We'll see how long that lasts, considering that the best food for iron, according to her, is liver. After last week's disastrous attempt at cooking shad roe, which most emphatically did not end up in one of my bento boxes, I've had enough of viscera for the foreseeable future.
So! Here we have salmon saka-mushi, which is salmon and mushrooms and carrots and things baked in tinfoil to keep the juices in. Under that and off to the side are cubes of grilled tofu. Up above I have ohitashi, made without soy sauce (soy sauce in spinach is another thing I can't be havin' with) but with a container of mayonnaise on the side (because I can definitely be havin' spinach with that). And there's also some baked purple sweet potato and banana bread.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 441: Egg & not egg |
[Oct. 1st, 2007|07:47 pm] |
 This weekend was a total cooking blitz time. I started with oyakodon, which I made once before and was not too thrilled with the swampy results. Well, a friend smuggled me another recipe, and that turned out really well, with just enough liquid to season the rice without swamping it. I've updated the recipe on my site, naturally. Also, for the first time I cooked baked eggplant slices. Since I'd never made eggplant before (successfully - my one previous attempt was so lame I don't count it) I was flying blind, with no idea of how it was supposed to taste. Well, it tastes good. I also have some steamed sugar snap peas, the cooking method of which is ordinary for me, but I'd never tried sugar snap peas. They're nice and crunchy. And finally, for dessert I have banana bread and a mochi.
The cooking blitz continues with tomorrow's lunch!
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 437: The flavor purple |
[Sep. 24th, 2007|07:54 pm] |
 Another weekend, another trip to 99 Ranch Market, another grocery bag full of strange and wonderful foods to cook up. I went nuts in the kitchen afterwards, and this lunch is only the first installment.
To begin with, here are some stir-fried vegetables. Carrots, sugar peas, scallion, broccoli, and zucchini from my garden. Nothing too odd there. But they're resting on a bed of lavender satoimo noodles. Satoimo is also known as taro, which is also known as "those weird hairy little roots." I saw a package of light purple noodles, and how could I possibly resist? They taste nice, a little firmer and more slippery than wheat noodles.
Now that my supply is replenished I can once again serve my signature baked purple sweet potato. Yes! I added a boiled egg after realizing that this lunch was short in the protein department, and finished off with a few small slices of banana bread.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 423: Octopalooza |
[Aug. 21st, 2007|08:25 pm] |
 I was having too much fun packing this lunch. First came the naked omurice - I ran out of eggs before I ran out of omurice filling, so I'm using it as regular fried rice - topped with octopus tentacles. The last time I made octopus fritters I clipped off all the cute curly tentacles, and here they are. Aren't they pretty? I plan to show this lunch around the office just to see people squirm.
But wait, there's more octopus! I have takoyaki (octopus dumplings) and octopus fritters, with a little container of okonomiyaki sauce for both of those. Then there's steamed pole beans, banana bread, and craisins.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 421: Octopus & Garden |
[Aug. 17th, 2007|09:35 pm] |
 Every so often I am overtaken by the urge to get hardcore. Such an urge overtook me last evening, and before I knew what had happened I'd taken out the baby octopi I had conveniently defrosted, put up a certain recipe, and let nature take its course. The result: tasty octopus fritters! If that doesn't appeal to you, I suspect that you have never met an octopus fritter in person.
With this I have hash browns - I was in quite the fryin' mood yesterday - steamed broccoli, edamame, and banana bread. Mmm - is it lunchtime yet?
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 416: Enclosure |
[Aug. 9th, 2007|09:03 pm] |
 It reached 100 degrees in Atlanta yesterday, and it was smoggy and humid. My commute is 2 hours long each way, bus-train-bus, and about an hour of that is spent waiting out in the heat for my next connection. I'm not always in the mood for cooking after that! So, here's a cheater lunch assembled out of what I could pull right out of my fridge and freezer: crab & cucumber sushi, takoyaki, steamed broccoli, and banana bread.
Atlanta summers suck.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 415: Mutant eggs |
[Aug. 8th, 2007|08:17 pm] |
 This meal's Mad Scientist Creation is simmered quail eggs in a nest of steamed broccoli. Well, the broccoli is ordinary; it's the quail eggs that are kind of weird. I had some left over from when I made oden, and canned quail eggs are... not a spectacular taste sensation. So what could I do to improve them? I had some leftover teriyaki sauce in the fridge, so I simmered the eggs in that. The result was quite nice! I'd try it with regular eggs, except it'd take plenty of teriyaki for one of those.
I also have simmered shiitake mushrooms - simmered in with the eggs, as a matter of fact - rice with umeboshi, and banana bread. That's the heel of a loaf, and it is dark brown as opposed to black. Ah, the wonderful lighting in my kitchen!
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 414: Dice |
[Aug. 7th, 2007|08:36 pm] |
 I haven't made okonomiyaki in a little while, so here we go with some crab & mushroom okonomiyaki, colored purple because I used red cabbage, and okonomiyaki sauce in the little container. There's some steamed broccoli and marinated, stir-fried tofu packed nice and cozy together. Above that are chunks of baked boniato, which was a bit dry so some of the chunks split apart. Finally, more banana bread. Have I mentioned that banana bread is delicious?
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 413: Recycling is good. |
[Aug. 6th, 2007|09:27 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | apple, banana bread, blueberries, box, craisins, edamame, fruit salad, hunter's stew, oden, orange, second stew | ] |
 The main item in today's lunch is a strange hybrid of oden and hunter's stew. The last time I made oden I used light soy sauce, which is much saltier than the regular stuff. It wasn't so bad when I was eating the chunky stuff, but the broth itself - whew, salty! So, when I finished the solid bits I thinned out the broth to half strength with water and threw in a bunch of veggies and stuff - potatoes, quail eggs, squash, cabbage, carrots, shiitake, seafood medley - and basically made a second stew. It turned out good.
I have the some of my usual staples: edamame and a fruit salad made with apple, orange, craisins, and blueberries. And I also have banana bread, which I baked for the first time ever this weekend and it turned out just perfect. I was really impressed with how easy and delicious it is. I love it when new dishes turn out so well!
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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