All in Good Food

Hi everyone, well it’s back to work time. After being off for three months it’s good to get back although while I was off I was not idle. I caught up on a lot of my sewing/quilting and had loads of fun.

Well since today’s shift is a short one, only 4 hours I kept my bento very simple. I also cheated a bit and purchased a Lunchable that was created for field trips. This one included bread, turkey, cheese and mayo packet to make a sandwich as well as an apple sauce cup, small bag of cookies, small bottle of water with a Kool Aid Singles packet. I thought they were very nice with the sandwich and drink included but I did modify it. I took the whole thing apart and just kept the sandwich and drink part.

The sandwich is turkey and cheese and I added lettuce and it came with a packet of light mayonnaise which is hiding under the sandwich. I will put the mayo on when break time comes. Also in the kit there is this mini bottle of water, so cute, and a Kool Aid Singles packet but I decided to make some peach tea instead. I added some trail mix and a fruit snack pouch, which I will probably eat on my ride home.

Yeah I know it’s not as balanced as I would like but I’m trying to get back into the “bento” swing of things. I haven’t made bentos on a regular basis while I was off. So stay tuned for more to come.

Hope everyone has a wonderful day.

Till the next bento.

Itadaki masu

Rice with shredded carrots, mini turkey burgers, tamagoyaki, grapes.

So until my next bento, Itadaki masu!

Sometimes I feel you have to go back to the beginning to regain what you feel you lost. Lately my friend rice has not been coming out right and I could not figure out why. Then I realized to began to suffer the fatal flaw that happens to some cooks and that is complacency. Most of the time when I cook I don’t measure I cook by taste but there are times when measuring is needed and/or required to get the taste right every time. So what I had been doing was not measuring when I cooked my rice I would just eyeball the amount of rice and the water that went into my rice cooker. Well this past week I went back to my old ways and measured out my rice and my water and the result was my perfect fried rice.

Being a free spirit when cooking is good at times but when it comes to basics keep it by the book so to speak.

Here is my bento from Friday. Fried rice, sautéed broccoli with cheese sauce, and turkey patties. Can’t get more basic than that.

This was lunch from Friday. Although it was very tasty I over cooked the egg noodles. I don’t seem to have a lot of progress with egg noodles. It’s always a hit or miss thing for me. Sometimes they come out perfect then others they are soggy and taste like paste. Oh well I’ll keep trying at it.

Ok let’s begin with the bottom part because that has the meal where as the top part has dessert/snack. The bottom part has salisbury steak that has been chopped into smaller pieces, the egg noodles mentioned above with brown gravy and sautéed broccoli.

Now the top part is filled with a bunch of grapes and a Rice Krispies Treats® that I cut in half and spread peanut butter on it. I then cut it in small bights. I think peanut butter on Rice Krispies Treats® is my now obsession but I will try Nutella next.

So until my next bento, Itadaki masu!

Now I am always up for a good giveaway and this one is a great one for any of my fellow bentoist out there. As I was going through the list of blogs I follow I came across the new post from Emily at Bentobloggy. She is having a giveaway of a wonderful bento set from AllThingsForSale.com. When she talked about the selection being great and the prices being very reasonable she wasn’t kidding. I went over there to check them out myself and have already made a mental list of things I want to buy. It is nice that they are here in the states and that your items don’t take forever to get to you. I have already bookmarked them myself under my bento accessories.

So if you are interested in entering this give away head over to Bentobloggy and while you are there check out her bentos I think you’ll like them.

I had to work yesterday and the weather was not the greatest here in Michigan. No we don’t have any snow yet but it was cold so I wanted a bento that was very filling. I meant to post this bento when I got home from work yesterday but was just too tired. I’ve been living in Michigan all my life but the cold air still wipes me out.

This was yesterday’s lunch and I must say it was very delicious and filling. It is made up of 3 small yaki onigiri. I think I love yaki onigiri better than regular onigiri but I have been experimenting with different flavors so maybe I can come up with some that I can make my go to flavors. Growing up I always put salt, pepper and a lot of butter on my rice so plain non-seasoned rice or rice only season with salt does not appeal to me. I know that may seem like a very American attitude but I do try foods from all over and then adapt them to my own palate. I feel food is not stagnate it is ever changing and that should be ok. We should always remember traditional recipes or ways of cooking but we also have to remember that people’s tastes are diverse and should be respected. Ok I just ran off on a tangent I do apologize.

Now back to the bento. I also had french cut green beans that were cooked in soy sauce. I first placed them in the microwave with a little soy sauce poured over them then I grilled them on my griddle with a small amount of butter. I was hoping I could come close to the taste I get when I sauté my broccoli but didn’t work this time. Next time I’ll try it in a skillet. I included a bunch of red grapes and that is what is in the top part of the bento.

In the bottom part I have tamagoyaki made with dill and cheese. I am going to have to invest in a real tamagoyaki pan. Right now I make it on my griddle and it seems to come out fine but to be honest I have never eaten one made with an authentic pan in the traditional way. So a tamagoyaki pan goes on my wish list. Lastly I added cut up salisbury steak left over from dinner the night before and there we are.

So until my next bento, Itadaki masu!

Here is another simple bento I had for my lunch yesterday. I took a steak filet and sliced it into thin slices and then I cut the slices into bit sized pieces and grilled them on my griddle. I cooked the egg noodles in brown gravy that was left over from the Salisbury steak we had for dinner Thursday night. I just added a little water and added the noodles and let them cook till they were soft. I then topped it with two small pieces of bacon that had been wrapped around the steak filet that I cooked along side of the steak. I also had butter sauté broccoli. I love my broccoli this way because I love the roasted taste.

So until my next bento, Itadaki masu!

This was the simple bento I had for lunch yesterday.

Here are a few bentos I managed to take a picture of after my computer crashed. Just thought I’d share them with you.


Bento #18

Bento #19

Ok now it’s time for lunch. Again I kept it simple. I decided to try out the bamboo steamer I purchased from j-list and it worked out perfect. As you can see I made matching bentos for my daughter and I. These bentos were as purchased from j-list. They are not expensive and not as sturdy as my others but they work.

Now for the contents of the bentos. Both bentos are exactly the same. The main part contains steamed broccoli and steamed onigiri wrapped with chicken. I had rice left over from this morning so I made more onigiri but I wanted something different so I wrapped them in thin slices of chicken and steamed them, then I brushed on a little soy sauce.

The second compartment contains a wedge of laughing cow cheese, red and white grapes and homemade wheat crackers. No I have not found a recipe for making homemade wheat crackers yet but I was able to do the next best thing in a pinch. I had some whole wheat flatbread wraps in my fridge. Using my medium size square cutter I cut out squares from it. I placed them on my griddle with no oil or butter just dry and let them toast until crisp. Then I brushed on a little butter lightly salted them and there you go.

This lunch was very filling and tasted wonderful.

So until the next bento, Itadaki masu!

Hi everyone I thought I would change things up a bit and do another breakfast bento. As we all know breakfast is the most important meal of the day so I wanted to share this one with you. As you all know I like to keep thing very simple in my bentos and this one is no exception. For this one I pulled out one of my sandwich boxes as I did with my breakfast bento before. I feel you don’t need a lot for breakfast just the right foods will do. I like to have high protein foods in my breakfast to help wake up my brain. So here we go.

This bento consists of simple grilled chicken that has been lightly seasoned with pepper and seasoning salt, red grapes, trail mix and mini yaki onigiri (my way).

You may be asking what I mean by yaki onigiri my way. Well I took my rice and mixed in a little butter (the way I have eaten since I was a kid), a little soy sauce and pepper. Then I micro scramble two eggs and mixed it in. Then I shaped them with my cookie cutters (these are the only cutters I have in my bento stash), place them on the griddle. I fried them on the top flipped them and fried the bottom. Then I brushed on a little soy sauce and flipped them again then brushed on a little soy sauce on the other side. Let it grill for about 1 minute then removed them.

These yaki onigiri are bite size and I love them. They are the perfect size for my smaller bentos. I also have larger cutters that I use for my larger bentos.

This bento was a great pick me up this morning.

So until my next bento, Itadaki masu!

While I was on my short break from blogging I did continue to make bentos on a daily basis. Some worth photographing and sharing and some that were not. Here is one of those I thought was worth sharing. The bento box I used for this one is one of my favorites. It is in the shape of a fan and I was lucky to find it for next to nothing on eBay an few years ago. I’ve been dying to use it and this time I had my chance.

Ok I have been out of the bento loop to a few weeks but I am now back with my entry for the j-Cation Virtual Bento Box Battle with my Maneki Neko or Beckoning Cat. I have to admit this was a definite challenge for me because I usually don’t do character bentos. I think I needed to accomplish this one to get myself back on track.

This bento is filled with tamagoyaki with nori, mini turkey burgers seasoned with a packet of vegetable dip mix, sautéed broccoli and apple cinnamon flower tarts with craisins. The cat consists of plain white rice for the body, red bell peppers for inside the ear, collar, mouth and on the paw. I used nori on the paw and for the inner eye and fried egg for the outer eye. Angel hair spaghetti was used for the whiskers and a pink edible flower petal for the nose. The collar is decorated with sour cream dot flowers.

From my reading the Maneki Neko are sometimes shown holding a gold coin called a koban which was used during the Edo period in Japan. The koban is supposed to be worth one ryō but because as in any society early monitary units could very. The one I made although not gold has the value of two million ryō as depicted in the kanji written on it. The coin was made of a tortilla cut into an oval. Then I wrote the kanji (千万両) or two million on it using food coloring and a tooth pick which reads . I have to admit that is came out better than expected. I did use Google translator to make sure what the kanji said.

Well there you go. I hope to have another bento posted soon.

Until next time Itadaki masu!

Ok call me crazy but last week I was craving oatmeal raisin walnut cookies and banana nut bread at the same time. So I decided to combine the two into one recipe. For this recipe I went to my tried and true Oatmeal Cookie Jiffy Mix. As you may know from my other oatmeal cookie recipe this mix lends itself to a variety of experimental cookies. You will get roughly 18-20 cookies out of this recipe.

Ingredients:

1 box Oatmeal Cookie Jiffy Mix
1 egg
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 very ripe medium banana mashed to a baby food consistency
1/4 cup chopped walnuts (can increase if desired)

Directions

Empty box of mix into large bowl, add egg, butter, mashed banana, and chopped nuts and mix well.

Let mix stand for 10 minutes to stiffen.

Drop 1 teaspoon of mix on cookie sheet about an inch apart for expansion.

Bake at 380° for 10-12 minutes. (experiment with your oven) Normally I would cook them at 350° but I increased the temperature due to the added moisture of the banana.

Remove from oven and place on cooling rack (if you can stand to let them cool).

There you go, you are done. Enjoy. Next time I will be trying out the recipe with an oatmeal cookie recipe recommended to me by another blogger. This does not mean that I won’t continue to keep my Jiffy Mixes in my pantry. I am rebuilding my recipe book because I won’t always be in a place where the mix is readily available to me.

So until next post Itadaki masu!