Update soon!

This is just to let you guys know I'm still alive! I have been faithfully documenting my bentos and just haven't had the time to blog about them. I think I'll have some time this weekend so look out for an onslaught of bento pictures. Maybe I'll just do a pictoral post...that would be easy!

First documented CSA box!

A while ago I debated getting a CSA, community-supported agriculture, box. You pay for a "share" in the local farm and in return you get a box full of the farm's freshed organic produce once a week. I decided to go with the Full Belly Farm CSA, which is located in Guinda, CA. It's $17 per week and you pay for a month at a time. I opted to go for a delivery every two weeks to see how it would be before I jumped into a box every week. I didn't document my first box because I got it the day before I left for Colorado and it was quite hectic. This past week I got my second official delivery and I was super excited.

Here is what was in my box this week:


Asparagus
Salad mix
Spinach
Dill
Artichokes
Radishes
Strawberries

I decided to make a roasted vegetable medley to go with a market-prepared rotisserie chicken (organic and free-range) and supplemented my box with some produce from Nugget market. It ended up being baby red potatoes, carrots, broccoli, asparagus, brussel sprouts, onion, and zucchini.

I searched the internet and decided on a recipe by Michael Chiarello that was adapted by the What Did You Eat blog. According to him, the secret to restaurant-quality roasted vegetables is that you have to parboil them first, brown them in skillet, and then roast them for 20 minutes in a 400 degree oven. Easy entertaining my ass!

I went for it anyway.

Some of the selection assembled

Ready to brown after parboiling

End result after roasting

I think it went pretty well, but the brussel sprouts were not cooked. I think I will stick to 101 cookbook's method of cooking brussel sprouts from now on...

Bento roundup

The rest of this week wasn't very exciting lunch-wise as I had to bring my lunch to the field every day and Nick ate out a lot. On the 7th I just had a regular turkey and gouda sandwich in my laptop lunchbox with carrots, a mango jelly, and goldfish with mushroom chocolate cookies.


The next day I switched it up with leftovers from dinner (with stuff from our CSA box that will go in the post after this one) with a mixed greens salad with ranch, rotisserie chicken breast, and roasted vegetables. I knew I needed some carbs so I added three small flower peanut butter sandwiches. I also included a small container of maggi sauce for my chicken.


I also packed a small dessert bento with a part of a chocolate walnut cookie, mushroom chocolate cookies, gingersnap granola, and a lychee gummy. Unfortunately I forgot to bring it on my way out the door to catch the bus so I didn't even get to enjoy it.


Nick had a side bento that had carrots and ranch, part of a chocolate walnut cookie, two gummies, granola, and ranch puffs. The exciting part for him was the fresh strawberries we got in our CSA box! He was very surprised!


Friday's lunch was super unexciting so I didn't even bother to take a picture of it. Here's to more sandwiches next week!

Manic Monday...and Tuesday

I forgot to pack lunch for Monday until about 11pm Sunday night. I was pretty uninspired because I was tired, but I managed to crank something out anyway. We only had leftovers for one person, so Nick took the high road and got the sandwich and gave me the leftover thit ga kho gung and Vietnamese-style stir fried broccoli with rice.


I cut his sandwich into heart shapes to switch it up. They're filled with mayo, mustard, butter lettuce, honey turkey, and sliced gouda. In his side bento I packed fromage blanc with crackers, yellow carrots with ranch, a big homemade (by Nick) chocolate walnut cookie, and goldfishes, chocolate mushrooms, and a mango jelly.


My side bento had a lot of the same things (hence being uninspired). Yellow carrots with rance, a smaller chocolate walnut cookie, a mango jelly, and goldfish. The new things are ginger snap granola and two gummies (one lychee and one apple) I ate way too much of my hot lunch and barely touched any of my side bento. Sad.


Today Nick got to bring a hot lunch in his glasslock box. I was on the ball last night! He had rice, the thit ga kho gung, and some leftover dantze minced pork noodle from the local Taiwanese noodle restaurant. In his side bento he had a chicken noodle salad (from the same restaurant) and chile-spiced edamame. in his dessert bento (isn't he a lucky guy?) I packed half a chocolate walnut cookie, ginger snap granola, ranch puffs, and two gummies.


My lunch consisted of a bigger portion of the noodle salad because I knew I was going to be hot in the field. In my side bento I had the spiced edamame, Dantze noodle, a fourth of a cookie, granola, goldfish, and chocolate mushrooms.


Tomorrow I'll have another sandwich. Ahh, the "perks" of field season... I'll try to update more often so I don't have to load 10 pictures in every post!

Time to play catch up

Hey everyone (all 5 of you, and that's being hopeful), sorry about the lack of posts since the end of April. I have been faithfully documenting my bentos photographically so I suppose now is the time to let you know about them!


On the 23rd we just had regular side bentos. Nick's blue happy balloon bento box has in the top tier cabaret crackers, breakfast cheese, a laughing cow cheese, three chocolate wafer cookies, and some suger snap peas. In the bottom tier there are some more sugar snap peas, colored goldfish crackers, sliced carrots, ranch dressing in the small container, and a matcha chocolate.


My bento that day had in the top tier sugar snap peas, carrots, some garlic chicken pasta salad, and ranch dressing. In the bottom tier there are chocolate wafer cookies, a laughing cow cheese, colored goldfish crackers, and some grapes.

The next day I left for Colorado to visit Lyndsay so I packed an airplane bento for myself and a side bento for Nick. I used my spiffy new lunch kit that has a main container, two side containers, an ice pack, and the cute blue flower insulated carrying case. Inside I had a salad made with carrots and spring greens (from our very first CSA box!), some homemade balsamic vinaigrette in the little sauce pig, a mango jelly, grapes, crackers and cheese, and colored goldfish.

For Nick I used my new yellow monkey box. The cover is hilarious. I used it because it's deeper than my other boxes which was perfect for the amount of salad I wanted to give him. His vinaigrette is in a cute blue whale. Apparently his coworkers thought this was way too much, haha. He also had grapes, an apple pastry, a passionfruit truffle, a lychee gummy, and a matcha chocolate.


Since I was having a great time in Colorado, no bentos were made until I got back and went to work on May 1. Nick went out to eat for lunch. Since I knew I was going to be out in the field, I opted to use my laptop lunch box in my orange carrying case with an ice pack. I made two wraps with red chile tortillas, honey-roasted turkey, butter lettuce, and Bellwether Farms fromage blanc. They were alot better than I expected considering they were in the fridge overnight. Alongside that I had organic yellow carrots, ranch dressing, grapes, a mango jelly, and crackers with cheese. The crackers are from Fort Collins, CO but they might be available in Whole Foods markets.


My new coworkers were very intrigued by my lunch which made me excited. It was also cool to see what they brought for lunch. One guy, Ben, brought half of a red cabbage and proceeded to eat it like an apple. Interesting! He also offered me some of his packaged baked tofu.

Yesterday (Friday) I made a bento for each of us. Nick's bento has some gio, yellow carrot sticks and ranch dressing, colored goldfish, a mango jelly, and these funny little mushroom-shaped chocolate cookies. I thought they were so cute that I had to have them.


I had a laptop lunch again since I was out in the field in the morning. I have a feeling this will continue for a while. I had a sandwich of butter lettuce, honey turkey, fromage blanc and mayo. On the side there were yellow carrots, gio, and a snack mix of colored goldfish, mushroom chocolate cookies, and ranch-flavored corn puffs.


I hope I will be on track from now on with posting my bentos like I was before I went on a whirlwind plane tour of the United States!

Some April bentos

I just came back from my trip and I got back into bento mode by making a lunch for me for my first day of work in my laptop lunch box. Nick also got a side bento so that his coworkers know that I'm back and still in top bento form! Haha...so I am a little rusty.

I decided I didn't want to make a sandwich so I whipped out our musubi maker and followed these instructions posted on the Serious Eats blog written by Kathy who writes her own blog that I already follow. So in my lunch we have: two spam musubi cut in half, some golden-crusted brussel sprouts, breakfast cheese and a laughing cow cheese with crackers, grapes, and a mango jelly.


I was excited because it was my first full lunch in the laptop lunch box, and I also got to show it off to my new coworkers who were very intrigued by the concept. I ended up finishing everything but one spam musubi and the laughing cow cheese.


Nick got one spam musubi, garlic chicken noodle salad from Nugget, and grapes in a pig-shaped silicone cup. Simple and clean. It came back empty so I guess he liked it!

Today I packed a side bento for myself, since I had leftovers and Nick was going out to lunch with his coworkers. I had a lunch time lab meeting, and it turned out to be a great way to let them see my bento. I am excited because they are excited about it! It was especially colorful today, too.


I had sugar snap peas with some ranch dressing (in the container), grapes, a matcha chocolate, three chocolate wafers, and some colored goldfish crackers. It was delicious! I ate everything in that side bento, and a majority of my leftovers. I guess since I am doing more physical work at this new job, my appetite has gone way up. Now it is time to pack tomorrow's lunch!

A pair of airplane bentos

This past week I jetted off to the east coast to visit Duke University as a prospective grad school. There are no direct flights there so the prospect of no food for over 6 hours was an unhappy one. So, who to step in but my trusty laptop lunch box?

Flight to Durham:


I amassed a lot of food for this bento. We have roast chicken, fresh boiled corn off the cob, green bean goma ae, two mango jellies (frozen as ice packs), a boiled egg, one sliced Japanese cucumber, pistachios, flavored seaweed, a cookie, and a chocolate. Not pictured is a salmon onigiri and some honey wheat rolls. I ate almost everything but the green bean goma ae (I decided I didn't like the flavor) and the onigiri (too full by the time I got to it).

Flight back from Durham:
This one was harder because I had to make do with what I could get my hands on during the last day of the visit. I ended up grabbing a crudite pack from UNC's student store (yes i visited Duke's rival) and included my leftovers from the barbecue we attended.


Here we have celery, carrots, and broccoli, ranch dressing, Carolina barbecue pork (spicy and vinegar-y), one hush puppy hidden under the ranch dressing, a mango jelly, and a chocolate. Not pictured are the cookies and seaweed I had stashed from last time. This one just kept me from not starving until my connection in Vegas where I had a taco and chips and salsa. I don't think it's too bad for having been scrounged from unknown supplies.