the american way

chicken salad sandwich with cucumbers

ham and cheese skewers, carrot sticks

after all these japanese lunches, i thought shmantz would be excited to have an american bento. apparently not. now he thinks i'm mad at him and i'm punishing him with this american food. good thing my bento looks exactly the same. can you imagine what a fit he would've thrown if i had packed myself some japanese food?! *phew*

i used the leftover chicken from this week's donburi to make the chicken salad. i 4got to buy celery, so i only added kewpie and pepper to the chicken. sad salad. but the cucumber gave it a nice crunch. i think i should've turned the croissants on their sides for the picture so you could see how pretty it looked. hah! oh well, maybe next time. oh wait, no next time. you probably won't be seeing another sandwich again. if you do, i'll be sure to also post a picture of shmantz so you can see how sad he looks.

last day of summer

cucumber, ham and egg on somen

romaine lettuce, shrimp and veggie gyoza

summer is quickly coming to an end, so i figured i better get a somen bento in here fast! according to shmantz, summer ended a couple dayz ago. *boohoo* 

i packed the somen sauce in a separate container with a bunch of sliced green onions. i thought shmantz would enjoy dipping the somen traditionally. i wuz going to slice up the romaine leaves and add it to the somen, but i couldn't figure out where to put it. so i just stuck it under the gyoza. if the leaves were bigger, i could've had them sticking out of the bento and looking all fancy like those japanese pictures. i alwayz wondered how they closed their bento bako up with all sorts of food all up in the air. you know what i'm saying? sure you do. thx.

not something i would eat...

cucumber chicken donburi on rice with wasabi mayo dressing (not pictured) 

tamagoyaki, shumai, goma shio broccoli

i think one of the good things about making bento is that i can make things that shmantz likes instead of things we both like. this donburi recipe is from the donburi book. i packed the wasabi mayo dressing in a separate container so the cucumbers wouldn't get all soggy. i'm not a fan of wasabi, so i never made this recipe b4. however, shmantz loves wasabi, so i thought he would enjoy trying this donburi out. success!

mechakucha recipe for goma shio broccoli:

blanch broccoli. drain. sprinkle with goma shio.

i've received a question from one of my three readers: "what do you mean when you say 'blanch'?" i am no expert, so i don't know what it really means to blanch vegetables. but when i say it, this is what i mean:

bring a pot of water to a full boil 

(i'll usually throw some salt in the pot for flavoring)

throw in your vegetables

boil the vegetables until they are just cooked

do not overcook!

pour the vegetables into a mesh strainer

run under cold water until vegetables have cooled

the end

the miso experiment

kimchee and rice

miso pork, edamame

yay! the shmantz bento week is over! j/j. maybe he will try again soon. to make him feel better, i let him choose what kind of rice he wanted 2day. he chose plain rice with kimchee. delicious.

the miso pork is from mom's bento book. it wuz my first time cooking with miso, so i wuz a little nervous. i bought red miso instead of white miso. i figured the red would go well with the pork and beef recipes i have. i think white would go better with fish recipes. you know, kinda like wine. pfffft. i just made that up. maybe i should've called mom for advice. but i really enjoyed the pork! almost as good as dad's miso beer chicken. heehee.

all the japanese moms seem to skewer edamame instead of sending their kids off to skool with the pods, so i decided to try it out. plus, i got to make use of some new skewers. shmantz and i got these from shirokiya way back in april. i think it looks a lot nicer this way, ya?

yay for freezers

the nice thing about having tons of stuff stocked up in the freezer and pantry is that i don't have to buy lots of food every week. i only have to make four bento this week, so 2day's shopping list is pretty puny:

4oz pork

2 slices of ham from the deli

1 seedless cucumber

romaine lettuce

my fault

peeman chicken skewers

cylinder onigiri

the menu printout got cut off, so this bento is my fault. on the bright side, shmantz followed the menu correctly 2day! he even tried some fancy patterning with the onigiri. after taking the picture, he realized that there wuz lots of empty space. "i found some chopped up chard, so i sprinkled that around the onigiri." of course, that wuz the chard that wuz supposed to be used in the donburi on wednesday.

mechakucha recipe for the peeman chicken skewers:

cut some chicken and a nicely colored bell pepper into bite-size pieces. season with salt and whatever delicious spices you have around the house. i used italian herbs and pepper. brown in olive oil. remove from pan and cool. skewer.

me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! i can't believe this is all you packed for lunch! HAHAHAHAHAHA! weren't you hungry? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

shmantz: i came home from skool early.

me: HAHAHAHAHA!

tonkatsu filler

carrots, tonkatsu, asparagus

kimchee pork donburi on rice

i guess shmantz wanted lots of pork 2day. he didn't know what to fill up all the empty spaces with, so he just threw in the tonkatsu, which wuz supposed to be his dinner. what did he eat for dinner? a cliff bar x.x

he loved the kimchee pork donburi ^.^

uphill from here?

bacon wrapped shrimp, chard, tamagoyaki, spinach

upside down gyu yanagawa donburi on rice

so 2day's menu said:

bacon and chard donburi

tamagoyaki

bacon wrapped shrimp
spinach

shmantz's explanation:

i couldn't find the bacon, but i found this beef thing. and i put some chard under the shrimps.

shmantz really enjoyed the gyu yanagawa donburi, but prefers the gyudon. and lucky me, i got to eat the bacon when i got home. good thing i hid it in the clear glass jar.

raw egg bento

pasta salad, chard, broccoli croquette

beef and tomato mixed with panko and raw egg on rice

here is shmantz's first bento! i wuz very impressed with the presentation. do you like the use of the chard and green onions?

the pasta salad is just pasta, diced bell pepper and italian dressing to taste. i blanched the chard in salt water and squeezed out all the excess liquid. the broccoli croquette wuz another handy frozen filler on sale at shaw's.

now, here's where it gets interesting. the menu i left shmantz said "gyu yanagawa donburi". he called to ask which one, and i said, "the sliced beef with the egg swirled in. it's in the rectangular container." shmantz took this to mean, "the ground beef and tomato mix with panko and raw egg chunks. it's in the round container." so he ate the uncooked leftover filling that i used in the stuffed bell pepper. the verdict? "it wuz awesome!" good thing we use egg beaters so it's probably pasteurized. "even so, there's only like a 0.01% chance of getting salmonella. you can eat raw eggs," says shmantz.

you like beef?!

yakisoba

tamagoyaki, garlic spinach, crab rangoon

onigiri, carrot and asparagus beef rolls

here is what i packed b4 ditching shmantz. i had to use up the rest of the thinly sliced beef, so these bento are dedicated to sykopmsgrrl. i like beef!

the yakisoba is that maruchan 3-pack you can buy in the fridge section of the asian store. i added carrots, onions and beef. the tamagoyaki and spinach are the usual fillers, and i threw in some crab rangoon that were on sale at shaw's. shmantz said those were delicious.

for dinner, i packed some onigiri along with beef rolls. the beef roll recipe is from one of the bento books mom gave me. it wuz quite difficult cutting the carrots and asparagus into square-shaped sticks. good thing all the beef is gone so i don't have to make these again.

tiny list for a huge menu

funnily enuf, i only had to buy bacon, chard, asparagas and pork chops 2day. all the other items were defrosted from our freezer. "what?! you don't have bacon in your fridge?!" you ask? yes, tis sad times in the café.

you'll see lots of donburi bento this week since shmantz had many days where he needed lunch and dinner. donburi seems to fill him up more. maybe cuz i end up packing more rice. and ...

SURPRISE! shmantz packed all the bento himself this week. i made everything 2nite, and left him a mess of tupperware stacks and a menu for each day to figure everything out. we'll see how good he is at following directions. predictions, n-e-1?

fresh basil from the backyard!

beef and egg soboro on rice

caprese salad skewers, shumai with sauce in the carrot bottles

the soboro is from the donburi book. i 4got to pack a spoon with 2day's bento, but shmantz said he had no problems eating it. 

to make the beef tiny, i used a potato masher, and to make the egg tiny, i used my handy whisk. we love this whisk cuz it's easy to clean, and has silicone tips so it is safe to use with non-stick pans.

shmantz's carpool friend gave us a whole bunch of fresh basil from his backyard. they ate lunch 2gether 2day so shmantz really wanted me to use the basil in his bento. the caprese salad skewers were the best i could come up with on short notice. i used string cheese since we have no hard cheeses in the fridge. usually, i serve these skewers with a balsamic vinaigrette, but shmantz wuz not interested. don't they look like hamburgers?

the shumai is from trader joe's. they are pretty good tasting, and not so bad for you nutritionally. the carrot bottles hold the sauce that came in the shumai box. shmantz's friends were intrigued by how i got the sauce in the bottles. ah, the power of suction.

shoyu vs. teriyaki ... discuss!

rice with furikake and kimchee

shoyu chicken, garlic spinach tomato

shmantz requested more furikake and kimchee, so that is what he got. i tried to make a nice design, but it kinda looks blah.

here is my mechakucha shoyu chicken recipe:

8 chicken tenders (equivalent to 4 chicken breasts maybe?)

A  1/2c shoyu

A  1/4c sugar

A  1tbs sake

A  1 garlic clove smashed

A  1/2tsp grated ginger

green onions

combine A into a small sauce pan. once all the sugar has dissolved, add in the chicken. simmer until the chicken is cooked through. using your cooking hashi, shred the chicken. continue to simmer a couple more minutes until all the shredded pieces have absorbed the sauce and turned a nice light brown color. strain out the sauce before serving and sprinkle with green onions. you can serve the rest of the sauce on the side if you want. shmantz did not want. makes 4 servings. shmantz said i should make more than just 2 servings so we can eat it this weekend too.

my mechakucha recipe for the garlic spinach tomato is similar to the sesame spinach. just use olive oil instead of sesame oil, add in two diced puchi tomato and 1 large clove of garlic (crushed), and donuts add the sesame seeds. by adding the tomato, the recipe stretched to 2 servings. i tried stuffing as much of the tomatoes into shmantz's bento as possible, but ended up having 4 pieces in mine's. not a fan. even with all the garlicy goodness, i still hate tomatoes. 

oh, so shmantz and i had a discussion on what the difference is between shoyu chicken and teriyaki chicken. we came to the conclusion that shoyu chicken has sake, less sugar and no sesame seeds. haha. they definitely taste different. also, since there is less sugar in shoyu chicken, i noticed that the sauce is a little thinner. and, we usually grill teriyaki chicken to give it that nice glazed/grilled look, but alwayz simmer teriyaki chicken (usually in the slow cooker). what do you guyz think?

yay orange!

katsuo furikake onigiri, stuffed bell pepper

sweet potato, mushroom-chicken donburi

shmantz picked out this katsuo furikake when we were at mitsuwa (thx syko!). he said the onigiri were too big so it wuz hard to eat. i told him to use his hands next time, but he insisted that he haz to eat everything with his hashi.

same goes for the bell pepper. i told him he wuz supposed to just pick it up with his hands and eat it, but he explained to me that he balanced it on his hashi and wuz able to eat it just fine. -.-; here is my mechakucha recipe for the bell pepper:

1 bell pepper

A  1/4lb ground beef

A  1tsp rosemary

A  1tsp thyme

A  1/4tsp celery seed

A  salt and pepper to taste

4 puchi tomato

1/4c (guesstimate) panko

1 egg

shredded monterey jack cheese

cut the bell pepper in half, all the way through the stem. sadly, i had to chop the stem off so the pepper would fit in the bento box. however, it looks really nice if you serve it with the stem still on. clean out all the membranes and seeds. set aside. in a small frying pan, cook A until the beef is done. i like to squish the beef around in my hands before frying it so it doesn't get that brains-like nasty look. drain the beef and dump into a mixing bowl. dice the tomato and mix into the beef. add panko until the mixture looks like you think it should. mix in beaten egg to act as a binder. pack the mixture into the bell pepper. press down the mixture as you pack so you can fit lots of meat in. sprinkle shredded cheese on top. place in the toaster oven at 320° for 7 minutes, or until the cheese is all bubbly and starts to brown.

the sweet potatoes were just pan-fried in a bit of butter until they were soft. shmantz wuz not a fan of the skin still being on, but appreciated the extra fiber. i told him to just peel the skin off next time, but i guess that is hard to do when you can only touch your food with your hashi. 

the mushroom-chicken donburi used up the rest of last week's mushrooms and the baby won bok stems. very delicious recipe!!! the recipe is from the donburi book, but it tasted more chinese than japanese. i decided not to put it on top of the rice, cuz i thought shmantz would have an easier time eating it with the onigiri instead. bad assumption.

tribute to tasty's bbq

rice, kimchee, sesame spinach

kalbi steak, jap chae

2day's bento is for all you koreans (andrew). shmantz wuz so excited when he saw i wuz making "tasty's" for lunch! this is supposed to mimic the meat, rice and four sides that they do. as you can see, my 4th side dish = fail, so there is a big open spot in the middle. the kimchee is store-bought. the shire doesn't sell watercress, so i had to use spinach instead. shmantz said it almost tasted like the tasty's watercress, but didn't have enuf salt. here is my mekachuka recipe:

heat 1tbs sesame oil on medium high heat. add three huge handfuls of spinach. throw in some salt. cook until spinach is just wilted (about 2 minutes). don't overcook! using a mesh colander, squeeze all the liquid out of the spinach. sprinkle with sesame seeds before serving. makes one serving. if you want to mix it up a bit, add some crushed garlic. yum!

the kalbi flavored steak is from the hongwanji cookbook, volume 2. the jap chae is from this site. i made a half recipe. it wuz very tasty ^.^ i was able to use the mushrooms, baby bok choy (instead of spinach) and carrots that i bought last week. i only used the bok choy leaves. the stalks are coming 2morrow!

what can you do with string cheese?

sweet and sour meatballs, onigiri

spinach and cheese quiche, tomato and cheese skewers, maple-roasted sweet potatoes

so it turns out that i'm not very good at taking pictures. sorrie ryan, i do not have sexy lighting. *tear*

however, shmantz enjoyed his bento 2day. he requested only furikake onigiri next time. so much for trying to be artistic. the meatball recipe is quite easy. i placed a single layer of meatballs into an 8x8 baking pan and added enuf water to just cover the bottom of the pan. i covered the pan with aluminum foil and put it in the toaster oven at 320° for 20 minutes (until it cooked through). in a sauce pan, i combined equal parts of pomegranate jelly and sweet chili sauce, and simmered the cooked meatballs in it for 15 minutes.

the maple-syrup sweet potatoes is from the food network. i did my best to cut down the recipe since i only used half of a small sweet potato instead of 2.5lbs. there is no rating on the website, so i asked shmantz to rate it.

me: on a scale of 1-5 stars, what would you rate the sweet potatoes?

shmantz: awesome.

me: o.O

for the tomato and cheese skewers, i wuz trying to think of something creative i could do with the string cheese. i cut one stick of string cheese into 8 long pieces. i tied 6 into knots and used those for the skewers, and diced up the rest to throw into the quiche. i'm not really impressed with the string cheese knots. if you have a creative suggestion on how to use string cheese, pleez share!

the quiche is quite easy. dice up four leaves of baby spinach. add spinach and diced string cheese to one beaten egg. add salt to taste. mix well. pour into a cupcake pan and bake in the toaster oven at 320° for 10 minutes, or until the egg is set. if you are not using all the cupcake slots in the pan, make sure to pour enuf water into each slot to cover the bottom of the pan (so you don't burn your pan). as you can see, i overcooked my quiche so it asploded. luckily, shmantz thought that wuz how it's supposed to look, and ate it happily.

bonus picture: bbq skewers!!! (the recipe made 26 skewers.)

shoppingu!

shmantz needs five lunches this week, but by using leftover ingredients from last week, the shopping list wuzn't too bad:

12oz baby spinach

1 small sweet potato

1 orange bell pepper

1lb ground beef

1/2lb chicken breast

1 small sirloin tip steak

1 bottle sweet chili sauce

1 jar pomegranate jelly

leftover ingredients:

puchi tomato, baby bok choy, mushrooms, long rice noodles

things in stock:

furikake, string cheese, maple syrup, kimchee, takuwan, broccoli, eggs, shumai, olive oil, mirin, sake, shoyu, green onions

i ended up buying 3lbs of steak. shmantz set aside how much he wanted for his bento, and made the rest into bbq skewers for the beach party we went to 2day.

bbq skewers recipe:

2.5-3lbs sirloin tip steak

1 cup shoyu

1 cup sugar

3 cloves garlic (smashed)

1/2 tsp ginger (grated)

1/2 tbs crushed red pepper

sesame seeds

green onions

bamboo skewers

in a sauce pan, combine the shoyu, sugar, garlic, ginger and crushed red pepper. heat and stir continuously until the sugar has dissolved. pour the sauce into a big marinade tupperware, and place in fridge to cool. slice the steak, against the grain, into 1/4in strips, and skewer. (by slicing against the grain, it makes it very easy to bite the meat off the skewer.) sprinkle the meat skewers with sesame seeds, and place into the marinade tupperware. toss to coat. marinate in the fridge for 1-4 hours. if possible, bring to room temperature before grilling. grill skewers for 2 minutes on each side, and sprinkle with green onions before serving. sorrie, we 4got to take pickchas.

using up what's left

mushroom kamameshi, teriyaki pork

jyaga ninjin, baby bok choy, veggie gyoza, gyoza sauce

the kamameshi is leftover from tuesday. the pork is half of the country style ribs package. i cut some pieces into medallions on tuesday, and froze them for 2day's use. the teriyaki is shmantz's recipe. equal parts shoyu and sugar with ginger and garlic. i marinated the pork and some leftover mushrooms for 30 minutes, patted them dry, then pan fried it. i sprinkled on the sesame seeds at the end so they wouldn't burn during frying.

the jyaga ninjin wuz kinda like nishime long rice. i don't know what i wuz doing, but shmantz said it wuz delicious. i used the small potato in this recipe, and what wuz left of the carrot. the baby bok choy wuz lightly salted and blanched, and the veggie gyoza wuz fried in sesame oil to give it a nice taste.

again, this wuz enuf food for lunch and dinner. shmantz had issues eating the rice with his "slippery hashi". he came home with almost all the rice, one medallion, one gyoza and half the jyaga ninjin. next time, i think i'll make onigiri so it's easier to eat. or pack him a ramen spoon. who got the small ones? maybe you should send those to shmantz! the plastic ones, not the hello kitty ones...

experimenting with dashi

gyudon

tamagoyaki, tomato broccoli bake, shrimp, teriyaki sauce

the gyudon recipe is from the donburi book i bought at epcot. it wuz my first time cooking with dashi, which wuz a successful experiment. aunty momo gave me these small packets of dashi mix (8g) with no instructions. i just assumed each packet makes 2 cups. it wuz a good guess cuz shmantz really liked the gyudon. the shire doesn't sell shirataki, so i used long rice noodles instead. they come in 6oz packages with three bundles. i cooked two of the bundles, but only used one and a half bundles for the gyudon (i set aside half a bundle for tomorrow's recipe). the last bundle is for next week's obento. can you guess what i'm going to make?

the tamagoyaki is just plain egg with a pinch of salt. we're not fans of adding dashi or sugar to that. i just cooked the shrimp in lemon and salt. nothing fancy.

the tomato broccoli bake came from the ajinomoto site (see my obento resources link). just toss the tomatoes and broccoli in salt, put it in a baking cup, drizzle over kewpie mayo, sprinkle on some cheese, and pop it in the toaster oven for 5 minutes. the ajinomoto site is amazing! on the right side of the bento page, there is something called an "obento simulation book". you should be able to identify it since it is in katakana, but they also have an english title over it just in case. whenever i read it, i hear dad saying it in japanese and it makes me laugh. the simulation book is fun to play with, and gives you a variety of bento to make. but the most useful thing i found is that the site gives you a new menu everyday (in picture form) of what to put in your bento. and if you click on the picture, it'll take you to the recipe. there are a ton of sample bento to look at too! papa ni, kizzu ni. heehee.

first day of skool!

mushroom kamameshi wrapped in egg

beachcomber spareribs, baby bok choy, carrots

so, the egg hobo bindles wuz something i saw on a japanese tv show. much harder to make than the lady made it look! i used my small frying pan to make the egg wrapper. the thinner it is, the easier it is to wrap! i 4got to add salt, so i just hoped eating it with the spareribs would be saucy enuf. 

you cannot see it, but the inside of the bindle is homemade kamameshi! just combine 2tbs shoyu, 1tbs sake and 1/2tbs mirin to make the sauce. add that to two cups of rice in the rice cooker with the proper amount of water, and then just add whatever you want. i added 6oz of mushrooms and half of the large carrot diced up into teensy pieces. i didn't add salt cuz i thought the shoyu would be salty enuf. amazingly, it ended up tasting exactly like the kamameshi brand i like, except that it wuz not salty enuf. so i suggest you add salt. i used 1tbs of rice to make tiny onigiri, put that in the middle of the egg, gathered up the edges as if sealing gyoza, and tied it with a blanched green onion cut in half lengthwise. 

the spareribs recipe is in the hongwanji cookbook, volume 1. i made it in the toaster oven, which only took half the normal time to cook. as you can see, i wuz not prepared, so they turned a little koge. *oops* the baby bok choy and carrots were just blanched with a teensy bit of salt.

it turns out this wuz a lot of food. shmantz wuz able to eat this for lunch and dinner! that turned out well since he stayed at skool til 8:30pm.  plus, i think his bentobako is bigger than our double-decker ones.

okaimono!

this week, i only had to make three bento. yay for labor day and the skool serving lunch on friday! funny thing about labor day. we went to eat at this restaurant, and they had a sign that said if you were going into labor soon (if you were pregnant), they would give you a free dinner on labor day.

so, here's my shopping list for this week:

6oz mushrooms (enoki, shimeiji, shiitake)

1 large carrot

two bunches baby bok choy

1 pkg puchi tomato

1 small yukon gold potato

1 small onion

6 country style ribs (no bone)

0.25lbs thinly sliced beef

1 pkg long rice noodles

i have a bunch of items in stock, so i'll just assume all of you have those in stock too. here is a semi-complete list of other things i used this week since i can't remember all the ingredients: shoyu, sake, mirin, dashi, sesame oil, garlic, ginger, green onions, cheese, kewpie mayo, rice, gyoza, gyoza sauce, eggs, shrimp, broccoli, etc.