| Lunch Box 624: Spheres Themselves |
[Jan. 26th, 2009|09:01 pm] |
 Happy Chinese New Year! I didn't realize it until it was too late, so I don't have a single thing appropriate for the occasion in my lunch. Oh well. I do have homemade takoyaki, baked purple sweet potato balls, steamed snow peas, strawberries, and kumquats. Even if it's not very seasonal, it's still pretty hardcore, I'd say.
(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 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 543: Kahunmi |
[Apr. 18th, 2008|08:32 pm] |
 Spring is here! In Japan one of the Springtime events is hanami, a flower-watching party, when people picnic under cherry trees in bloom. They eat, among other things, sakura-mochi, which are pink rice cakes filled with sweet red bean paste. Well, down here in Georgia we don't have many cherry trees. What we do have is dogwoods, and they're blooming right now. And so are lots of other varieties of trees, releasing a lovely saffron mist which tints everything yellow, including our lungs. So, I've made sakura-mochi for a new tradition I'm starting right now: kahunmi, the pollen-watching festival. Sit under the dogwoods, gaze at their flowers, and take your Claritin.
What I'll be eating as my lungs fill with microgametophytes includes takoyaki; beef & broccoli stir-fry; steamed squash, carrots, and purple potatoes with lots of butter; and sakura mochi (Easiest version). This is a new recipe for sakura mochi, my fourth, and the easiest one so far. I basically adapted the dough from my kushi dango recipe, since it's so easy to handle and shape, and found that I could whip out a batch very quickly and easily. Why haven't I been doing this all along?
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 521: Angry young lunch |
[Feb. 29th, 2008|07:33 pm] |
 I made this lunch when I was very angry. The bus I take from my office simply didn't come, so I had to wait for the next one, lengthening my commute from 2 hours to 3 hours. And it was bloody cold and windy. Needless to say, when I got home I was in no mood to cook. I heated up a can of chunky vegetable soup for dinner and threw some leftovers into the box for my lunch. At times like this, leftovers can save you from peanut butter and jelly.
So, here's what I had sitting in my fridge: takoyaki, French bread pizza, a boiled egg, zucchini & onion stir-fry, grapes, and pink orange. Actually, I did boil the eggs then, but it was right alongside the soup, so it's not like I put any effort into it. It looks like I hacked up the egg in my rage, but really I just didn't use a sharp enough knife.
I'm much better now.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 517: Lunch under the weather |
[Feb. 25th, 2008|08:36 pm] |
 For the past several weeks I've been sick off and on, which explains the infrequent lunch posts - when I'm ill I am not in the mood for fancy cooking, and PBJ sandwiches and tomato soup are not interesting enough to be worth posting. But the discovery that pseudoephrine (AKA classic Sudafed) is still on the market has made a huge difference in my recent quality of life. So, I'm back, and if my writing seems a little goofy, well, blame the pseudoephrine for that too.
So! Here's some stir-fried vegetables, takoyaki, baked Japanese sweet potato, and curried lotus slices. The potato is mainly hiding under the takoyaki, but you can see a little bit in the center. This lunch is nothing too fancy, but it's a step up from peanut butter.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 499: An Infestation of Cute |
[Jan. 16th, 2008|07:59 pm] |
 I just got the DDR Disney Channel mix, so not much cooking went on last night. Just as well, as my fridge is full of weekend cookin'. So, here be some Spam musubi, takoyaki, steamed broccoli, a few slices of carrot, and (storebought) oatmeal cookie.
I did not cut the carrot into those little flower shapes. I'm sure I would remember if I did. I suspect an infestation of mites got into my lunch and nibbled the carrots into those shapes. I'd better wash the broccoli more thoroughly in the future.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 497: Soba is spooky |
[Jan. 14th, 2008|08:19 pm] |
 Yakisoba is a dense food, which means I can pack it in a smaller bento box, like this Nightmare Before Christmas box. So, here is some vegetable yakisoba, persimmon, and pink orange, with a side of takoyaki, and salad Pretz hidden under the lid. The closed container has yakisoba sauce.
Yakisoba is good winter comfort food. It's one of those dishes you can whomp up quickly using whatever you have in the fridge. As long as you have the noodles, you're in business. (And if you don't, leave 'em out and call it a stir-fry.)
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 494: Candy Box |
[Jan. 9th, 2008|08:38 pm] |
 I was thinking of a box of chocolates when I packed this lunch. You know, the assortments that have all kinds of chocolates all packaged nice and neat together? This lunch is kinda like that. Minus the chocolate.
So, here I have... grilled cheese sandwich, tsukune meatballs, shelled edamame, baked purple sweet potato, baked Japanese sweet potato, baked sweet potato, takoyaki, and persimmon slices. How's that for variety? Three kinds of sweet potato in one box. The world may not be ready. Also, the grilled cheese sandwich is made with no-knead bread, which is very bubbly, so the cheese seeps into the bread, becoming one with it rather than just forming a layer that glues two discrete slices together. This makes for some wonderful grilled cheese action, lemme tell you.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 492: All sorts of things |
[Jan. 7th, 2008|10:31 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | apple, baked purple sweet potato, box, carrots, fried potato skins, fruit salad, persimmon, pink orange, raisins, steamed snow peas, takoyaki, tempura, tsukune | ] |
 I started out filling this lunch box with whatever came to hand: tsukune, tempura, takoyaki, and fried potato skins. ("This lunch has been sponsored by the letter T.") That made for a lot of golden browns. On the other side, I'll admit I was going for color, with steamed snow peas, baked purple sweet potato, carrot, and a fruit salad made with apple, persimmon, raisins, and pink orange.
I have no idea why the carrot is shaped like sakura flowers. We all know that that kind of frou-frou business is not my style. I suspect sinister forces are at work.
And for something completely different, ( a disturbing sweet potato. )
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 468: Happy belated Halloween |
[Nov. 15th, 2007|07:08 pm] |
 I got a new bento box! Normally I eschew cartoon boxes, but for The Nightmare Before Christmas I make an exception. It's just the right combination of cute and freaky.
Inside this box I have takoyaki, the recipe for which I have updated because I finally think I know what I'm doing. The dark spots on the outside aren't burns, but the red cabbage I made these with. Then I have three ohitashi buried in a sea of steamed multicolored carrots. In a separate container (which came with a different bento set) I have some naan, the recipe for which I have also updated now that I know what naan is supposed to be like. And there's a half moon rice cake - basically, Korean daifuku - and a baby banana. Finally, under the lid I've stashed some salad Pretz.
As you can probably tell from the takoyaki, this box is small for an adult. One might even call it teeny-weeny, hence the extras I've packed on the outside. It's likely just right for a smaller kid,though. A smaller kid would also make use of the special Nightmare mini-fork that goes under the lid when said space is not being used for Pretz.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 467: Cheese! It's what's for dinner! |
[Nov. 14th, 2007|06:59 pm] |
 Have I mentioned that I'm not in love with the flavor of cauliflower? So I looked around for something that would counterbalance the bitter taste, and I ended up settling on the old classic, cheese. I found an easy recipe for that, and made it, and behold my steamed purple cauliflower with cheese sauce! As a bonus, some of the purple diffuses out of the cauliflower and turns the cheese a pretty rosy color.
And I have takoyaki, the recipe for which I will update very soon now as I've refined it quite a bit. I'm actually getting the hang of making these things. And I have spaghetti squash decorated with baby octopus tentacles (oh, the odd things I find hidden in my fridge), dragon fruit, and chocolate covered fruit bits that leapt into my cart while I was shopping in Trader Joe's.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 440: Out Of The Freezer It Came |
[Sep. 28th, 2007|07:39 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | apple, blueberries, box, broccoli stem stars, coconut gel, crab rangoon gyoza, crab rangoons, fruit salad, pineapple, satoimo noodles, shrimp, takoyaki | ] |
 It's Friday, which for a lot of us means a leftovers lunch and a slightly-less-cluttered fridge. That's the case here, although the leftoveriness is less because of a leftovers purge and more because I just got DDR Supernova 2. No time to cook fancy meals, busy arrow-stomping!
Fortunately, on days like this my freezer comes to the rescue. I have crab rangoon gyoza and takoyaki that I cooked quite some time ago and froze against future need. I have shrimp over satoimo noodles - OK, I did cook the shrimp, but I couldn't resist putting the orange & white on top of those lavender noodles. Then there's steamed broccoli stem stars and a fruit salad made with apple, pineapple, blueberries, and coconut gel. The coconut gel was an impulse buy the last time I was at 99 Ranch. My policy is that every time I shop there I buy something I've never tried before, and when I spied the coconut gel & pineapple in a small jar I had to give it a try.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 428: Golden Brown |
[Sep. 6th, 2007|07:49 pm] |
 Ahh, leftovers. Leftover rice, leftover shrimp, leftover shiitake, leftover everything. Put it together right and people wouldn't know it's stone soup unless you advertise it. So, here's some chirashi-zushi, takoyaki with mayonnaise, edamame, and a fruit salad made with grapes, palm seeds, and craisins. Finally, I have Nutter Butter cookies, and even those are leftovers. I brought them back from Dragon Con.
For me, Nutter Butters are the official cookie of giving blood. I used to give blood every time the Red Cross came by my office building, and then sit at the table munching Nutter Butters and drinking fruit juice. But then the Red Cross decided that I have Mad Cow Disease and stopped taking my blood. The blood drive at Dragon Con was by another organization... one that always flunks me because my iron level is low by 0.1%. My blood isn't good enough for anybody any more. But they did give me a T-shirt and some cookies for trying.
(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 418: The oXtXhXeXrX white meat |
[Aug. 13th, 2007|07:24 pm] |
 The fuzzy-looking substance in the lower left of this lunch is not just rice, but pearl meatballs - steamed, rice-covered meatballs - made with chicken. Technically pearl meatballs should be made with pork, and I've substituted beef. I'd planned to use beef this time as well, but then I found out that what I'd defrosted was actually ground chicken. Oh well! So I made the meatballs, and the meat mix was a bit softer than usual, so the meatballs ended up kind of flattened and weird instead of nice round balls. But, what they heck, they taste great!
And I have light-fried plantain chips, the colors of which I quite like, and the taste ain't bad either. And takoyaki and edamame out of my freezer, bulla out of my fridge, and rice crackers outta my cupboard.
(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 411: Freezer food |
[Aug. 2nd, 2007|10:31 am] |
 Most of this lunch is stuff I pulled out of the freezer. I wasn't really being lazy; my dinner was simply not composed of bento-able items. I could either grab saved-up stuff or cook a second meal that evening. Forget that, labor-saving measures win! So, here I have homemade takoyaki with mayonnaise (in the blue container), edamame, baked sweet potato, and almond cake.
The sweet potato is the one leftover from my dinner. I baked a really long, thin, twisty spud, and had half for dinner. I almost wish I'd photographed it before cooking it, it looked so weird.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 398: Domino |
[Jul. 13th, 2007|07:43 pm] |
 Last night I made some more takoyaki. I varied the recipe and worked on my technique a bit, and I things are improving. I'll keep tweaking the recipe until I'm satisfied with it, then update what's on my site. (The recipe currently posted works fine, but there's room for improvement.) The takoyaki pictured here have little black bits visible because I made them with red cabbage - that's what was in my fridge - and the leaves are so dark they look black. The blue container contains mayonnaise, my usual takoyaki condiment.
Then there's ohitashi, which this time I made without soy sauce because I like spinach better with mayo. And there are slices of baked sweet potato, and strawberries, and peanut mochi.
Nyom nyom.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 394: Hardcore leftovers |
[Jul. 6th, 2007|09:36 pm] |
 Friday means leftovers! And, whew, did I ever generate enough of those this week. You know the situation is critical when you tell yourself "no more cooking this week!" (And then you go ahead and cook a little something anyway 'cause you find something that just needs to be cooked.)
Anyhow! Here's some yakisoba bordered by a fish fillet (the fish is kind of hard to see; it's between the yakisoba and everything else), homemade takoyaki (that I made in a big batch, froze against future need, and have been eating a few at a time ever since), steamed green beans, light-fried plantain chips, and chocolate dipped strawberries.
Does dipping strawberries in chocolate qualify as cooking?
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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