| 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 640: Lunch for the Weird |
[Mar. 27th, 2009|09:55 pm] |
 Most of this lunch is pretty typical bento fare for me. chicken fried rice, steamed broccoli, edamame - all typical stuff. But there, imprisoned within its plastic wrapper, lurks a Ding Dong. Why a Ding Dong, when I have neat stuff like mochi and homemade banana bread and fresh strawberries? Well... I perform in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Normally I play Frank N. Furter, but we had an '80s Pop theme night and I played The Criminologist as Weird Al Yankovic. "Yo, Ding Dong, man. Ding Dong. Ding Dong, yo." I threw Ding Dongs to the audience at one point, but one somehow ended up in my lunch box.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 638: Revenge of the Purple Taters |
[Mar. 20th, 2009|08:28 pm] |
 This lunch starts out with a perfectly ordinary hot dog on a cafeteria roll bun and steamed broccoli. Hey, for me broccoli is normal, okay? But then I have some purple microwave potato chips. Potato chips made in the microwave from a purple creamer potato. There's no way you can claim that that's not awesome.
Oh, and then I have a piece of mochi, which is both ordinary and awesome. I wouldn't have them all the time if I didn't like 'em.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 637: Say cheesecake! |
[Mar. 17th, 2009|07:10 pm] |
 Today I have some more Greek chicken, rice, and steamed broccoli. The last time I bought chicken I made a big batch of the Greek stuff. I also have some blood orange segments - Kroger has them again this week for 50 cents each, yay! - and a slice of low-calorie cheesecake. Now, that last item may not sound so good, I know. Low-calorie foods tend to be hit or miss. But I got this recipe from my sister, who is not a foodie but was taken by how easy and good-tasting it is. I tried it myself and deemed it worthy to pass on to those discerning souls who visit my website.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 636: Lame and Lamer |
[Mar. 12th, 2009|11:30 pm] |
 I was going for the paintbox look with this lunch. It includes a pair of meatloaf cupcakes, which is simply meatloaf cooked in silicon cups instead of a loaf pan; baked purple potato, which is a purple potato that tastes like a white creamer tater; steamed broccoli, pink orange, and taiyaki.
When I saw that Kroger had some new food like lotus root and purple potatoes, I thought "Cool!" When I saw that they had no prices, I thought "Lame." When the produce clerk had no idea how much the purple potatoes were, I thought "Quite lame." When I went to the self-checkout and they were not in the system I thought "totally lame." When she shrugged and gave me two pounds for 79 cents I thought, "Cool!'
When I went back the next time and found out those potatoes are actually $2.99 a pound... LAME.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 634: Chicken & Cactus Curry |
[Mar. 6th, 2009|11:32 pm] |
 Last time I went to the farmer's market I picked up some cactus. That was actually the second time I'd tried to buy it, but the first time I found out the hard way that the pads hadn't been thoroughly de-needled. Them things have all sorts of hair-fine needles, and when I got home I had to get out some scotch tape to pull the last of them out of my poor fingers. But this time the pads were very well "shaved" - it looked like they'd used a vegetable peeler the size of a paint roller - so, judging them safe, I bought a few, determined to find out what cactus tastes like.
My answer: it's kinda like bell pepper. Not hot but - well it just has that flavor. But it's a succulent, so it has a different texture. And, as I found out when I steamed some of it, it generates slime like okra does. Blah, I am not a fan of slimy food. But I remember a coworker telling me about how his mother used to thicken soup with okra, so I thought that maybe it would do well in curry. You know, use the slime to thicken the sauce and use the sauce to mitigate the taste a bit. The result is the above chicken & cactus curry, which was quite good. Not good enough to make me want to buy cactus again, but it was a worthwhile experiment.
Then I have steamed broccoli and a blood orange. If I could find some blood orange seeds I'd try to plant a tree.
(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 621: Guard octodog |
[Jan. 13th, 2009|08:21 pm] |
 Lookit that hot dog octopus. He knows that steamed broccoli and baked Japanese sweet potato are good food, and he's getting all covetous. However, he doesn't seem too sure about the yaki onigiri, and he seems to be ignoring the roasted chestnuts and mochi.
By the way, the last time I went to the Buford Highway Farmer's Market I looked for Nishiki rice. I couldn't find any in bags smaller than 25 pounds, and as I had to take my groceries home by bus that wasn't an option, so I got a 5-pound bag of Sho-Chiku-Bai Sweet Rice from Koda Farms. Let me tell you, I'm not pleased with that brand. It is not just sticky, it is gluey. You can't make fried rice out of it because it refuses to mix with the other ingredients. The texture is... not pleasing to me. Washing it before cooking doesn't help. Hmm, maybe all this has something to do with the fact that second ingredient listed on the bag, right after short grain rice, is corn starch. At least onigiri and sushi made of it won't fall apart.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 614: Undead turkey |
[Dec. 15th, 2008|09:40 pm] |
 When I posted my last lunch I said I was done with the Thanksgiving leftovers. Well, I lied! Here I have turkey fried rice, which I highly recommend as a way to use up leftover bits & pieces of meat. It also varies the flavor a bit because of the soy sauce, which is not a small consideration, as leftover turkey can get pretty monotonous.
I also have some steamed broccoli, and persimmon & coconut. The latter is actually strings of coconut packaged in really thick syrup. It works as a sweetener, I guess, but by itself it's a little too much. Maybe I'll try using it in a glaze or something.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 613: Thanksgiving's over |
[Dec. 11th, 2008|09:02 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | apple, box, fruit salad, light-fried plantain chips, meatloaf, orange, persimmon, pink orange, plantain, pomegranate, steamed broccoli | ] |
 Enough with the turkey! Being a single person with a half a leftover turkey is not a bad situation at all if you like turkey - which I do - but by the time I've gnawed it to the bone I'm quite happy to move on to something else - in this case, good old-fashioned meatloaf slathered with ketchup. It may look weird and gray in this picture, but, trust me, the deficiency is in my photography skills rather than my cooking.
With it I have some very crisp steamed broccoli, light-fried plantains; and a fruit salad made with apple, pink orange, pomegranate, and persimmon. It's like a mini-Thanksgiving feast, but without turkey!
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 608: Stuff I like to eat |
[Nov. 24th, 2008|10:01 pm] |
 On a cold day curry tastes especially delicious. It's not even hot curry; I only make the mild stuff. Still, it's great cold-weather comfort food for me. So today I have some chicken & vegetable curry, naan, steamed broccoli, golden raisins, and craisins. Looks like I have a whole bento box full of comfort food, actually. Perfect for those stressful days at work. And, believe me, today has been one of those.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 605: Meatcupcakes |
[Nov. 19th, 2008|08:18 pm] |
 Why have I never made mealoaf cupcakes with silicone cupcake cups before? Besides not having any silicone cups, that is? They are the perfect way to make little bento-able protein packages. These ones have ketchup "frosting," of course. For trivia's sake, the recipe I used, which is on my site, makes an even dozen meatcakes.
I also have the usual: steamed broccoli, baked Japanese sweet potato, and rice, plus carrot & raisin salad made with golden raisins. While making these I accidentally opened a cup of plain yogurt instead of vanilla, which meant that I have some leftover plain yogurt to use up, and the only recipe I know that uses plain yogurt is naan, so I guess I'm obligated to make some flatbread in the very near future.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 604: Soy 'n' dumplings |
[Nov. 14th, 2008|11:15 pm] |
 Now this is a proper bento box! I have chicken & vegetable stir-fry, rice with ume koume, steamed broccoli, and kushi dango. The last item is basically balls of steamed rice dough on a skewer and covered in a thick, sweet sauce made with soy sauce. That may not sound too appealing to you - it didn't to me, at least - but it's actually quite good.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 603: Hot dog dragon |
[Nov. 13th, 2008|08:35 pm] |
 Sometimes a hot dog octopus isn't enough. Sometimes I just have to take a fruit knife to a hot dog and see what happens. This time around my mutant hot dog turned out something like a Chinese dragon, or maybe a sunburnt eel wearing a skirt. Um. Anyway, whatever it is, it's cavorting around in a field of inari-zushi, steamed broccoli, and baked Japanese sweet potato, protecting the golden raisins and pomegranate seeds.
(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 590: Red pickles |
[Oct. 1st, 2008|11:15 pm] |
 This is a confused lunch. It doesn't know if it is decent healthy American or Japanese food, or American or Japanese junk food.
Here I have some okonomiyaki, made on a day when I didn't have much in the way of toppings and fillings - so, what the heck, I cut up some turkey bacon and mixed it in. Result: good! (The little container is filled with okonomiyaki sauce, of course.) Then there's the everpresent steamed broccoli and some simmered shiitake mushrooms that think they look classy. And next to the Kool-Aid pickles they actually do. Finally, I have apple slices and almond jelly for dessert.
If you pack almond jelly in your bento lunch, don't expect to be able to eat it with chopsticks. That way lies madness, not to mention humor if anyone sees you. Pack a little fork or toothpick or something you can skewer those slippery bits with.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 589: Sushi fantasia |
[Sep. 30th, 2008|11:45 pm] |
 Sometimes I luck out leftover-wise. I had a bunch of odds and ends plus a batch of rice. A few leftover shrimp, one lonely simmered shiitake mushroom, some omelet, a few shreds of smoked salmon, the tail end of a cucumber... What can I do with that stuff? Well, I can always stick it on top of rice... wait a minute, I'll season the rice, cut the miscellania up, arrange it all snazzy, call it chirashi-zushi, and nobody will know that I was cleaning out my fridge!
You won't tell anybody, will you? Shh.
And I've also got steamed broccoli, apple, and mochi. It's a safe bet that on any given day I will have at least two of those three items in my fridge.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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