A Few Summer Bentos

Dill pickle potato salad, broccoli salad with toasted sunflower seeds, a little roll of turkey pastrami, golden tomatoes, Queen Anne and dark cherries, and a chocolate truffle. I loved this lunch!



This was Jan's bento on the same day; different only on having Pocky in the lid, and more meat.



These bentos featured spinach quiche, and rhubarb crisp. Yumbly yum.

And finally here is the little deer who stared into my eyes for the longest time yesterday; we met on the dog walk, as she was about to make a suicide run across a busy street.


Deer are so weird. I don't much care for them because they eat everyone's plants and flowers, but they have a certain mysterious quality: that animal mystery.

Summer Delights! Rhubarb Riot NQBR

Not Quite Bento Related:



The rhubarb has been incredible this summer; it tastes like heaven. Today I made a rhubarb custard cake, very easy and super tasty:



Rhubarb Custard Cake

1 package yellow cake mix
4 cups fresh rhubarb chopped in small pieces
1 pint whipping cream
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 tsp cinnamon

350 oven. Prepare the cake as package directs except also add vanilla. and pour into greased 13x9 pan. Sprinkle rhubarb on top of batter. Mix sugar and cinnamon, pour on top of rhubarb. Finally, pour the cream over all.

Bake for 55-60 minutes. Let cool and then refrigerate. This cool puddingy cake will disappear out of the pan! We put whipped cream on top because it wasn't fattening enough yet har har.

I had dinner with my next door neighbors on their deck, and we had fun complaining about our university (she works there too). Good times! while her little grandson 6 months old scooted around in his wheelie-bob and scared my dogs. Gabe and Rufus could just about take the baby, but they were unnerved when the baby became a babyscooter.

Now they are recovering from the shock to their nerves:

TGIF Bento

This was a nummy bento lunch. On top: tabouli salad made with kamut, a whole grain I adore; sugar snap peas and carrot stars; lower level, 'crab' leg surimi with key limes to squeeze over and horseradish sauce for dipping, plus (in wrap) the last of the rhubarb crisp.

Kamut has a nutty flavor and a great snap. And it is very satisfying; you just don't get hungry again for quite awhile.

Usually I eat lunch at my desk with the door open and just let students/colleagues wander in if they want to chat; but while eating this bento I said "Can you come back later??! I'm just eating my lunch."

Hasty Bentos for Those who Sleep Too Long

I had a business dinner last night and since I lack social skills, these tire me out. So I slept way too long this morning and these bentos were thrown together at warp speed.

Jan's Mr. Bento above has baby carrots and little pickled sweet peppers stuffed with cream cheese, black bean jambalaya leftover from dinner 2 nights ago and brown rice on the side; Ak-Mak crackers and BabyBel cheese;, rhubarb crisp.

My (ta-daaa!) new bento called "Healing of Nature" has onigiri with soybeans in a radicchio cup, sugar snap peas, and a hard-boiled egg that was so hard to peel it's lucky I didn't shoot its brains out in the process. You always get That Egg when you're trying to hurry.

Anyway, Healing of nature, commence! I am more than ready.

Mr. Bento is Half Greek!

Jan is having (from left): keftedes or Greek meatballs with mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, and a green onion 'lily'; tzatziki (yogurt with cucumber and garlic), bread and butter with a root beer candy hiding, and mandarin oranges with blackberries. OPA!

I am having:


Lower: brown rice with keftede meatball, snow peas, soy bunny; upper: vanilla yogurt and rhubarb crisp. I'll bring some baby carrots to round this out in the vegetable department. The rhubarb is the last of the frozen from my garden last summer, a weird season where it kept on sprouting sweet young rhubarb all summer long. Usually it's shot by July but this was picked in September!