Mr. Bento Monday MashUp

Today's Mr. Bento (again just one, for Jan, since I am still stuck in my technology workshop which provides sad little lunches for all the inmates I mean participants)is a bit of a mashup.

It included an omelet with bacon, toasted blueberry bagel with foil-wrapped cream cheese, a lovely satsuma with a lime wedge to squeeze over, and sushi rice rolls with shrimp, ginger ribbon, soy bottle, and slices of bitter melon.

Bitter melon is new to me; we visited our 'oriental grocery' on Saturday and as soon as the proprietor learned that Jan is diabetic, she insisted that we learn about bitter melon. She prepared some for us, she showed us her lunch salad which included it, she gave us two for free, and she even wrote down a recipe for a nice bitter melon salad to try at home. She was so kind and lovely and generous to us -- it was like an angelic visitation.

In case you are not yet jiggy with bitter melon, here's what they look like: space alien cucumbers.

Inside is a spongy center with large black seeds - very pretty to look at.

The spongy part and all seeds are scraped out, then you cut small cross sections and do whatever you like but no cooking! That destroys the benefits. I included some raw pieces with Jan's sushi rolls and hope they aren't too intense all alone. We made a salad Saturday night according to the grocer's recipe and it was dynamite.

Good start to the week of Bento adventure!

TGIF All-Japanese Bento

Last night I went to bed with no ideas about today's Mr. Bento; I'm not sure why. And I overslept this morning, which left very little time to prepare anything. In a mad rush I grabbed things out of the pantry and fridge, and this was the result: cold sesame udon with cucumber chunks on top, garlic shrimp with red pepper, miso soup with snow pea and mushroom, ginger cookies and a truffle (OK the dessert was not so Japanese).

The seal of approval was definitely given to the shrimp and the udon. I was glad to have found a cold sesame noodle recipe that I like; there seem to be many ways of making this sauce and nothing so far has matched that one transcendent cold-sesame experience I had in Sausalito way back when...

How many times do we go in search of that Holy Grail, the 'best ever' dish we had once upon a time? And sometimes the atmosphere or the occasion was such a big part of it - so the dish itself is forever a fugitive or a ghost, slipping away even as we reach to recreate it. Sausalito makes everything taste better! Especially if you have just come from hiking in the redwoods. And on that particular afternoon, the sun was slanting over the beach making everyone golden. But those noodles now, they really were divine...

Mr. Bento's International Incident

Today's Mr. Bento lunch was international to an almost alarming degree. Last night I made sushi rice rolls with sesame seeds on top, using a gizmo that crushes rice into roll shapes. Nifty! Much better than wearing sticky rice mittens the way I did last time. So this was the Japan element, along with Mr. Bento himself of course.

To that I added some shrimp and a tiny bottle of soy sauce with a bunny shaped head from "Mama's Assist".

I can tell you that Mama needs assist in getting soy sauce into that little bottle opening; a teensy funnel was provided but I recommend you have a full cup of coffee and put on your glasses before trying this at home.

Also in today's lunch: Minnesota-baked pita quarters with Egyptian hummus inside, a Greek salad, and an orange from Mexico. How many continents are represented in this photo?! What a world we live in. In the olden days you'd have to have been a Roman Caesar to eat such a world-cafe of ingredients, as in "thrushes' tongues from Persia and honey from Africa" etc. Now it is all at our fingertips.

My husband eats lunch with a somewhat rowdy crowd of co-workers, who are a bit fascinated with his Bento lunches now. Today one of them said, "What did you do last night??" I think it was the sushi rolls.

The best Mr. Bento so far!

This one was a big hit, partially because it included shrimp but also (surprising me) the yogurt got high marks.

Jan's Mr. Bento du jour included: Szechuan shrimp stir-fry, cabbage slaw with a cherry tomato smile that made it all the way to lunch without being disarranged!, miso mushroom soup, and plain yogurt topped with blackberries and drizzled with agave nectar. The cherry tomato smile was supposed to be cheerful but somehow it reminds me of an axe murderer...

For anyone watching carbs: agave nectar is as sweet as honey but has about 1/5th the carbs of a comparable amount. It costs more but I don't use much of it so it's a good investment. I get it at my local co-op natural foods store. And it pours freely, unlike honey which can be messy and slow and can get the honey jar stuck on your head.

Jan's Tuesday Mr. Bento

I am only making one Mr. Bento lunch per day this week because I am in a workshop which is providing lunch for us -- terrible ghastly food from the university food service, but we are required to eat together and I can't bring myself to open up Mr. Bento in front of everyone eating sad cardboardy pizza and damp chicken wrap sandwiches...

Anyway here is Jan's Tuesday Mr. Bento:


He got: spaghetti pie in a bed of shredded Savoy cabbage, green beans from last night's dinner, grapefruit slices, and ginger cookies with chocolate covered cherries. He said he wasn't able to finish the grapefruit because it would have been too many carbs for him, but he did not say the cookies went uneaten for that reason!

I figured out how to remove the gasket from the soup container of Mr. Bento for cleaning; a chopstick pops it out nicely and also pushes it back into its groove.
I'll include a photo of this fascinating operation in tomorrow's blog.

Meanwhile here's a winter sky photo of the church across the street, a pretty building with an obnoxious mechanical chime that plays such things as an off-key version of 'Kumbaya' loudly at noon and 6 p.m. every blessed day:

Jan's Monday Bento

I packed: wasabi meatloaf with tsukemono of lemon celery on the side, braised brussels sprouts in orange and ginger sauce, and black cherry jello with ginger cookies.

People either love or hate brussels sprouts it seems....these I had fun with because I wanted to fight the cabbagey scent with the orange and ginger. I seared them in a tiny bit of oil, then squeezed the juice of one fresh orange over them and let them simmer on until almost tender:

I had used one of my favorite tools to get a tablespoon of orange zest; this 'zester' I bought at one of those Pampered Chef parties where you basically have to buy something and this was about the cheapest thing, sigh. But it really works well:

The zest and the ginger went in for about 5 minutes of simmering and that's all.
I got the recipe for the lemon-celery tsukemono (fresh veggie pickles) from this lovely little book:

It seems these 'pickles' are really lightly flavored, slightly preserved fresh veggies which add a savory touch to Japanese lunchboxes. Most of the recipes here are super fast and easy. I plan to use these cute little sticks for my pickles of the future:

I have to admit I am having a blast with this whole Bento concept!! Now I am off to look at everyone else's Bento sites for more ideas. Here's to your good health and beautiful lunches!

Preparing for the Bento Week Ahead

Jan bought me this lovely spicewood cutting board and pink-handled knife in honor of our commitment to Mr. Bento lunches in 2009. The cutting board is almost too pretty to use and so far, I have not been able to bring myself to cut anything on it.

This morning I rose up outlandishly early as usual and rather than immediately go out to shovel snow (we got a foot of it last night), I started preparations for the lunches of the week.

First was jello in tiny portions; I bought these little containers at a dollar store last year and they are handy for fitting into Mr. Bento:



Then I found a nice recipe for lowfat ginger cookies on the internet; it uses molasses and applesauce instead of oil or butter.

I highly recommend this recipe, especially for anyone baking with little helpers. It makes a very tasty cookie with a slight crunch on the outside and a gum-drop texture inside. It is very easy, and there are no dangerous steps like melting.

So you see I have the dessert taken care of for the week, and need only the actual lunch! This is pretty much the way I think -- what's for dessert?? The caboose drives the train. My diabetic husband also does like a sweet taste, so the little portions of jello are great for him - and one cookie will do fine.