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.