Bento Bliss

Nameless Bento

2012-01-26T07:00:00.000+01:00

I couldn't think of any name for this bento a there isn't really anything that sticks out or characterises it. It has all the usual vegetables that are crowding my fridge (brussels sprouts, ramiro pepper, snow peas, asparagus, carrots, brocoli, mini corn) which accompanied by a purple rice onigiri and some veal. Fruits are all blue and red today : grapes, blueberies, blackberries, strawberry and pomegranate seeds.

This will be my last bento of the week. We are having our annual New Year's lunch with the whole office tomorrow in some fancy restaurant, so I don't have to prepare anything for lunch.

Nothing left to do, but to wish you all a great weekend.

See you back on Monday.

Saveurs d'orient bento

2012-01-25T07:00:00.000+01:00

As the title already suggests, today's bento is inspired by the Orient and more particularly, Morocco and its cuisine. I made some taboulé (couscous with tomato, onion and cucumber) to accompany a bit of lemon chicken, sprinkled with green olives. I need to finetune the recipe a bit so I will post it later on. The "greens" are mini corn cobs and cauliflower hidden under some carrot slices, brocoli rosets and ramiro pepper slices. The dessert section is composed of black and white grapes, blueberries, blackberries, redcurrant, a strawberry and orange slices.

Bon appetit.

Shrimp Stirfry Bento

2012-01-24T07:00:00.000+01:00

Again pressed for time last night, so the bento is again an easy stirfry one. The noodles are a killer for my diet, but they are so good :o)

Besides the obvious shrimp, the stirfry also has cabbage, zucchini, carrot, onion, mushrooms and leek. I added some black bean sauce to the stirfry for a bit of extra flavour.

Second tier is all fruit : cara cara orange, apple, redcurrant, blueberries, blackberries, pomegranate seeds, strawberries and clementine.

Bon appetit.

Scaloppina alla Milanese bento

2012-01-23T07:00:00.000+01:00

I hope you all had a great weekend. I spent a nice couple of days off work but am not really looking forward to getting back into the rat race. In order to cheer me up a bit (much needed on this cold and windy winter day, I put lots of vibrant, colourful foods in my bento.

In this Monday bento, I have scaloppina alla Milanese, some black/purple rice (which will probably be a regular this week as I made a batch of it on Sunday), assorted steamed veggies (cauliflower, brocoli, carrots, brussels sprouts, mini corn, snow peas, green beans, green asparagus), radishes and cherry tomatoes. My daily fruit vitamins come from white grapes, clementine wedges, apple, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, redcurrant and pomegranate seeds).

Bon appetit !

Berberechos a la cataplana

2012-01-21T00:00:00.000+01:00

No bento making in the weekends, but that doesn't mean no food is prepared, of course. During grocery shopping yesterday, I came across a little box of cockles in the seafood aisle and I knew immediately what I would make for starters on Friday night : Berberechos a la cataplana, or Portuguese cockles. [Although it is originally a Portuguese dish, I gave it a Spanish name as (a) I don't speak Portuguese but do speak the language of Cervantes and (b) I put Spanish chorizo in this dish].

I am sure that there are as many versions of this dish as there are cooks in the world but this is how I made them.

Ingredients (for 2 servings):

* 1 Tbsp olive oil

* 330g fresh cockles (strange quantity but that was the contents of the box)

* 4 shallots

* 4 garlic cloves (you can use less, but we love garlic over here so always use a lot)

* 50g diced chorizo

* 50g smoked ham

* chiseled coriander

* a pinch of chili powder (the original recipe would call for a tsp of piri piri or tabasco)

How-to :

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and fry the diced garlic and shallots, until they are soft but not coloured.

Add the ham and chorizo, season with a bit of chili (or tabasco if you prefer) and cover. Let simmer a bit, shaking up the pan every now and then.

Add the cockles and the coriander, cover and let simmer for an additional 5/6 minutes, shaking up the pan again. As soon as the cockles have opened up, the dish is ready.

Serve hot with some bread.

Ginger & Sweet Chili Turkey Bento

2012-01-20T07:30:00.000+01:00

I didn't have much time to prepare my bento last night, so I opted for a one-pan dish, a stirfry. It doesn't make for an attractive view but the taste definitely makes up for it. In the bottom tier , the stirfry has noodles, turkey slices, zucchini, carrots and white cabbage, all seasoned with ginger and sweet chili.

The top tier has a piece of mini pineapple, a clementine, white grapes and a piece of apple for the fruit section. The second half has a mini babybel, raw carrot sticks and cherry tomatoes.

The end of the week, so no more bentos until Monday. I wish you all a great weekend.

Brocoli Stoemp Bento

2012-01-19T07:30:00.000+01:00

Sakura bento again today and I carried the sakura theme into the food as well. My sakura cutter is my favourite of the bunch, simple but pretty. :o)

As for the contents of today's lunch, I have brocoli stoemp (for more info on stoemp, you can check out this old post), topped with cheese sakura. All around there : diced up chicken chipolata, the usual steamed vegetables (brussels sprouts, snowpeas, green beans, sakura carrots and mushrooms). The fruity vitamin section features grapes, apple, kiwi and clementine.

Bon appetit.

Terriyaki Beef Bento

2012-01-18T10:39:00.001+01:00

Strange how despite the numerous amounts of bento boxes in my cupboard, I usually end up using the same ones over and over again. So unsurprisingly, I grabbed the M4SB again today. I think what I like most about that box is that I can keep everything nicely separate, sometimes colour coordinated, but always looking neat. Someone told me yesterday that I am a control freak with a longing for things to be square and orderly. Maybe that's the reason that my bentos look the way they do. :o)

Anyway, today's bento has some boiled potatoes, an assortment of steamed greens (brocoli, green beans, snowpeas, asparagus), carrot sticks, a mushroom skewer and cherry tomato, terriyaki beef and a sweet section for dessert (golden kiwi, white grapes, apple slices and a piece of blood orange).

Hump day today ... and I am already starting to look forward to the weekend. :o)

Happy Wednesday everyone.

Vegetable méli-mélo bento

2012-01-17T08:30:00.000+01:00

Lots of vegetables in today's bento, hence the title. Next to some chicken patties, I have two brocoli rosets, mini corn cobs, green asparagus, sugarsnaps, snowpeas, carrots, a couple of mushrooms and cherry tomatoes for that necessary splash of colour. Dessert is the same as yesterday : clementine, apple, grapes and a mini babybel cheese.

Bon appetit.

Mini burger bento

2012-01-16T09:56:00.000+01:00

For the first bento after a very long absence, I chose my M4SB ... nothing I put in this box can ever go wrong (even if I am a bit rusted in the bento making). As far as the content goes, nothing fancy today : potatoes for carbs, mini burgers for protein, mini zucchini, sugarsnaps, green asparagus and mini corn for greens and dessert is made up of white grapes, clementine wedges, a piece of apple and a little babybel cheese.

According to scientists the third Monday of January, called "Blue Monday", is the most depressing day of the year. As if to prove them wrong, I am in an excellent mood today : although it is freezing outside, the sun is shining, the air is crisp and frost is making everything glisten like little diamonds.

I am bursting with energy and ready to start a new workweek. Are you?

Have a nice week everybody !

Happy New Year 2012

2012-01-15T23:47:00.000+01:00

2011 has been a very eventful year with lots of ups and down in my personal life. One of the consequences has been that I have completely stopped blogging, tweeting and flickr-ing for the most of last year and disconnected from all the bloggers I followed and most of my online friends.

I don't know how many of the persons who followed my bento adventures will still be around to read this post, but I wish you all a great 2012!

One of my resolutions for the new year is picking up (again) where I left off and make myself a bento every workday, so stay tuned for a real post tomorrow.

Perle d'Asie Bento

2011-06-27T11:20:00.001+02:00

I didn't feel like cooking last night, so when I got an last minute invitation to come over for some Chinese takeout at a friend's, I couldn't pass on the occasion. Moreover, as there usually is always more than enough for the next day, I came over carrying an empty box (very subtle :o)) So I spent not only a very nice evening over a tasty meal, I also came home with a full bento.

And that is what I am having for lunch today (counter clockwise) : yellow curry scampis, cantonese rice, beef with vegetables and the last section has lacquered pork and lemongrass chicken. The only "homemade" part is the fruit section although I have to admit that not too much effort went into this neither : grapes, blueberries, blackberries, strawberries and a few apple slices.

請慢用 (-> should be "bon appetit" in Chinese).

Have a nice week everybody !

Frigo Pulito Capellini Bento

2011-06-24T15:06:00.000+02:00

Ok, so I could have called this bento "Fridge Clean Out Pasta Bento" but somehow, that doesn't sounds as good as the Italian version, does it? :o)

It's Friday again (yay), so I'll be going for groceries tonight and in order to make some room for the fresh stuff, I needed to clean out the fridge of all bits and pieces of vegetables I still had in there. The result was this maybe not very attractive looking, but nevertheless tasty pasta dish.

I have some capellini pasta coated with tomato sauce, all kind of veggies (endives, zucchini, bell pepper, snow peas, eggplant, carrots) and finally some pork dices for proteins.

The sweet section features my regular fruit selection : white and black grapes, peach, strawberry, blueberries, blackberries and a apple square.

And that's it for this week. Only have one more thing to do and that is telling you to

See you next week !

Chicken Sausage Bento

2011-06-23T07:30:00.000+02:00

Another day, another bento. And for today's lunch I dusted off my sakura box which had been laying fornlorn in the bento cabinet for these last few months.

In this single tier box I squeezed in everything I will be eating today : a stirfry of all the veggies I had in the fridge (i.e. carrots, zucchini, bell pepper, endives, snowpeas, spring onions), a steamed broccoli roset topped with a cheese maple leaf, a diced up chicken chipolata, some grenaille potatoes with a cherry tomato on top and a radish for decoration. I also packed my usual fruit selection (the advantage of summer and its abundant supply) : white peach, strawberries, apple, white and black grapes, blueberries and blackberries.

Bon appetit.

Terriyaki Turkey Bento

2011-06-22T10:41:00.003+02:00

Today's bento is already looking a bit better than yesterday's (if I may say so myself). Proof that I am slowly getting back in a certain routine :o)

Bottom tier has terriyaki turkey (I was planning to make duck but they were sold out), glazed carrots, a bell pepper/snowpeas/endives/spring onion stirfry, some grenaille potatoes and radishes and cherry tomatoes for decoration. I also added a little container of orange sauce (I deglazed the frying pan with some orange juice after frying the turkey).

Top tier holds the dessert and snack section : white peach, nectarine, strawberries, pink lady apple (my fave), white and black grapes, blueberries and blackberries, a piece of Camembert, and two mini tartines russes. I don't know how they are called in English, literally translated these are "Russian sandwiches", basically two crispy biscuit slices with some buttercream in between. Yumm.

Usually, I don't use a same box two days in a row but as I am housesitting for my parents at the moment (who are enjoying some happy time far from cold and rainy Belgium) my packing possibilities are rather limited. I already dragged along my "bento accessories" storage box, so I couldn't take all my bentos with me as well. I'll try to pick up a couple of other ones at home tonight, so I break the monotony. Somehow the vivid red of this box, is just too much for the camera to handle.

Talking about boxes, I encountered some wonderful boxes and tiffins while perusing some (food) blogs yesterday and a couple of them just scream out "come and get me". I don't know how long I will be able to resist their siren song, but I will do my best. And because shared happiness is always better, these are the ones I am talking about.

First of all, this gorgeous handpainted Lolita tiffin on sale at monbento.com. The price is steep and its volume and weight quite impressive, but you have to admit that this stunning container is one of those "got to have".

The second box that charmed me is the Jenggala Rantang from the Indonesian factory Jenggala Keramik Bali. Unfortunately the post on Decorablog dates from last year and I couldn't find this ceramic and wooden box anymore in Jenggala's online catalogue. At 32 EUR, it would have been a wonderful addition to my growing collection. Maybe I'll get lucky on ebay. Anyway, this is what this beauty looks like. If anyone sees it on sale somewhere, please drop me a line.

Until tomorrow, enjoy your bentos ! :o)

Bami Goreng Bento

2011-06-21T10:16:00.002+02:00

Today I am trying out a new red two-tier box I got as a free gift with a bento cookbook. OK, I'll admit that the box was the main reason for buying the book ... I always live up to the marketeers' expectations ;o)

As for the contents of the box, I am not really excelling in originality. And although I do tend to eat with my eyes too, sometimes producing something tasty is just that tiny bit more important than delivering a picture perfect dish. So please bear with my rather unattractive bento.

The bottom tier has some leftover bami goreng from last night's dinner : stirfried noodles with chicken, omelette and assorted vegetables. The top tier has some carrot and cheese sticks in between slices of tuna cake and the usual fruity vitamins : apricot, nectarine, apple, kiwi gold and a strawberry.

Smakelijk !

Garlic Chicken Bento

2011-06-20T12:10:00.000+02:00

After a hiatus of a couple of months and lots of changes in my life, I am trying to get back into the bento groove and what better way to do that, than by just making one in the famous M4SB.

Obviously, I am a bit out of (bento) shape, so this new first one is relatively simple : some stirfried veggies (leek, bean sprouts, bell pepper and cabbage), potato salad and some ovenbacked garlic chicken. Quite a few fruits for dessert too : apricot, nectarine, apple, kiwi gold and strawberries.

Bon appetit !

Terriyaki Pork Noodle Bento

2011-02-14T08:04:00.000+01:00

Works are being executed in the kitchen since last week and I think that at least for the rest of the week or so, I will be without a cooker. I only have the microwave, the oven and (lucky me) an electric wok to prepare dinner right now. As these works weren't really planned (gas leak), last week was a bit of a balancing act in the gourmet department and preparing bentos wasn't high on the priority list. Nevertheless eating sandwiches for lunch is becoming a bit boring, so I tried to make myself again a bento for the first day of the week.

As usual my two tier bento has a savoury and a sweet compartment. The savoury tier consists of a noodle terriyaki pork stirfry with snowpeas, yellow bellpepper, mushrooms and a bit of green cabbage with a cheese sakura for decoration. The fruity vitamins for Monday are white grapes, orange, pear and kiwi slices and a piece of apple with a sakura cutout.

So no special pink bento or hearts galore, but nonetheless I wish everybody out there a

Coconut Lemon Chicken Stirfry

2011-02-07T15:43:00.000+01:00

I didn't spend a lot of time preparing my bento last night as I was too caught up in following the progression of the bushfires in Roleystone, Western Australia. A very close and dear friend of mine is living in that area and being on the other side of the world, there wasn't a lot I could do except watch and pray that he and his loved ones would stay safe from harm. Meanwhile, we did manage to make contact today and I am so relieved that they're all doing OK and that he managed to save his home after battling the fires all through the night.

Back to the bento. As I didn't want to spent a lot of time in the kitchen away from the news updates, I stirfried some strips of chicken thights with a mixed assortment of veggies (carrots, bell peppers, zucchini, sugarsnaps, ...) all seasoned with a ready made coconut & lime spice mix. And that's what I had for lunch today. Because I didn't add any noodles, rice or potatoes, this is a low points value bento, only 6 points for the chicken and the oil. Decorations are cucumber slices topped with black & regular sesame seeds.

Smakelijk.

Chicken Chipolata & Oyster Mushroom Bento

2011-02-03T11:28:00.000+01:00

I wanted to call today's lunch Oyster Mushroom bento but considering that they are hardly visible on the picture, I opted to add the chipolata in the title as well, at least the meat part is clearly visible :o). So today's bento features, mini chicken chipolatas, baby oster mushrooms sauteed with apples and a bit of goat cheese, steamed brocoli and cauliflower rosets, baby potatoes and some carrot slices as baran. The WW total for today is 8 propoints.

For dessert I am having roughly the same as the previous days : white grapes, apple and blood orange slices and more pomegranate seeds.

Bon appetit !

Ginger Pork Bento

2011-02-02T12:41:00.001+01:00

Because I still had ginger to use before it went stale, I decided to make some ginger pork for my bento last night. It's an recipe I already used for bento (and which you can find here). This time I did as Maki suggested in her book and coated some new potatoes with the ginger sauce, to accompany the meat. It smelled divine and I am sure the taste will be equally satisfying. In between the gingery elements, I added green beans, green asparagus tips, some broccoli rosets, radish, a mini cauliflower, a cherry tomato and a few olives (inspired by Ohayobento's post from yesterday). The WW total for today is 7 propoints.

As I am still battling the nasty germs, I stocked up on as many fruit vitamins as possible : white grapes, blueberries, blackberries, apple bunnies, blood orange slices, pomegranate seeds and some dried fruits (pineapple, papya, cranberries, banana).

Wishing everybody a healthy bento lunch today !

Bon appetit

Chicken Burger Bento

2011-01-31T08:09:00.000+01:00

I spent the whole weekend being sick and feeling miserable, so I was not really in the mood to make an elaborate bento last night. The savoury part only has some steamed potatoes, mini chicken burgers and braised mini endives (witloof). Considering that the only ingredients to be counted are the cooking oil, potatoes and chicken burgers, this bento is very low on points, only 5 WW propoints.

As I need as much vitamins as I can get at the moment, I packed the second tier full of fruits : white grapes, blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, apple, clementine wedges and some pomegranate seeds. With all this healthy stuff, I should be back to good health in no time.

No bento post tomorrow as I am having a business lunch then and I can't really show up at the restaurant with my bento and furoshiki :o) But I'll be back on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, bon appetit !

Salade Liegeoise Bento

2011-01-27T11:29:00.001+01:00

As I was feeling a bit under the weather last night (and unfortunately not any better today), I didn't feel like whipping up something extra special for my bento. Quick and tasty were my only objectives. So I opted for another typical Belgian dish to add to my bento : Salade Liegeoise, although in a slightly less calorific version.
Salade Liegeoise, is a one pan dish that is usually eaten hot, but which you can eat at room temperature too so perfect for bento. It is a mix of green beans, potatoes, onions and bacon although I substituted the bacon by diced ham. I didn't know it was "popular" outside my little country's frontiers, but apparently the recipe even made it to the New York Times at one point :o)

So, for lunch today I have : some salade Liegeoise, more ramiro pepper/beansprouts stirfy, carrot kinpira, a few green asparagus tips, a few radishes for decoration and some zucchini slices as a baran. Like the previous days, the fruity vitamins consist of strawberries, white grapes, blackberries, blueberries, apple, half a banana and a few clementine wedges.

As the only ingredients to be counted are the oil, potatoes and ham, this bento is very low on points, only 6 WW propoints.

This also happens to be my last bento for this work week, as we are having or corporate New Year's Lunch tomorrow at noon and I don't have to pack anything.

See you all next week and I hope you'll have a great weekend!

Vegetarian bento

2011-01-26T14:04:00.000+01:00

I'm having a vegetarian bento for my midweek lunchbreak, as I still had some vegetarian "meatballs" in the fridge that had to be consumed by today. Even though I couldn't possibly do without meat or fish, I appreciate the vegetarian alternative every now and then.

My sakura bento has some of these "meatballs", white rice topped with green asparagus and a cheese sakura, a beansprouts/ramiro pepper stirfry, carrot kinpira (recipe here) and more steamed veggies (romanesco, cauliflower, green beans, zucchini). The fruit section has like most days, strawberries, white grapes, blackberries, blueberries and a few clementine wedges.

And like yesterday's bento, this one also totals a value of 9,5 WW propoints.

Smakelijk !

Chicken Sausage Bento

2011-01-25T11:05:00.001+01:00

First of all, yes I am aware that the furoshiki I used as a background is in bad need of ironing, but as the main focus of the picture is supposed to be the bento, I thought that all in all it didn't look too bad. Call it artistic freedom :o)

When looking at all the bento boxes last night and considering which one to pick for today's lunch, I was again drawn to my favourite M4SB, with its colourful compartments. As usual I didn't really plan on the box to be (rather) colour coordinated but halfway through packing, I realised I was doing it again ... OCD anyone? :o)

Anyway, today I will be having a sliced up chicken sausage, green veggies (being romanesco, edamame, snowpeas, cucumber slices and green asparagus tips), steamed potatoes with spring onion and the usual fruit selection i.e. grapes, clementine, strawberries and two banana chip slices.

And all this for a total points value of 9,5 WW propoints.

Bon appetit !

Chicons au gratin bento

2011-01-24T13:24:00.001+01:00

Today's bento features a typical Belgian dish : (Belgian) Endives rolls, locally knows as Chicons au gratin (in French) or Witloofgratin (in Dutch). Basically these are braised endives, rolled in a slice of ham, covered with bechamel (or as I did cheese sauce - although I didn't add any liquids to the bento) and generously sprinkled with grated cheese, before getting a tan in a hot oven.

It is a typical winter dish as well, as endives are very much in season now. I always go for the field-grown variety as I find those more savoury and less bitter than their greenhouse counterparts.

So besides, the endives, my bento has a few cherry tomatoes, shredded carrots and cucumber slices. The sweet dessert portion consists of half a banana, white grapes, apple and a few strawberries. And all this for a total points value of 6,5 WW propoints.

Bon appetit !

Green Curry Chicken Noodles bento

2011-01-19T15:45:00.000+01:00

To tie in with the green curry bento I posted back in October, I decided to make my first bento post of 2011, again a green curry one. I still owed you all the recipe to that one anyway.

A rather straigthforward bento, to get back into the groove : green curry chicken with brocoli, zucchini and noodles, and the finishing touch radishes for that little dash of colour.

Since the beginning of this year, I have decided to address the weight issue (again) and I think bento-ing will be very helpful for this as well. I will therefore try to add the WW propoints totals for all bentos.

How to green curry bento : (3 servings - 12 propoints per serving)

Ingredients:

* 4 tsp of vegetal oil

* 400g boneless chicken thighs, diced

* 1 zucchini, diced

* a few broccoli rosets (but you can use green beans, or eggplant or whatever vegetable you prefer), cut up

* 4 spring onions, diced

* 3 cm of fresh ginger, peeled and grated

* 2 garlic cloves, diced

* 1 Tsp of fish sauce
* 1 tsp of green curry paste

* 250 ml defatted chicken stock

* 200 ml coconut milk

* 400 g pre-cooked noodles

* coriander

* lime juice

Heat one tbsp of oil in a wok and fry the diced chicken. Remove from the pan and set aside.

Add the remaining oil and sauté the vegetables for about 4 minutes. (If you use eggplant, it will suck up the oil at first but release it afterwards.) Add the spring onion, the curry paste and the ginger and stirfry for a minute.

Add the garlic, the fish sauce, the chicken stock and the coconut milk, bring to a boil and let simmer for 10 minutes. Add all the chicken you set aside and the noodles and let simmer for an additional 4 minutes. Before serving sprinkle with coriander and lime juice. Done.

Bon appetit !

Happy 2011 !

2011-01-19T14:45:00.000+01:00

Yes, I know ... New year is already like three weeks ago, but I think etiquette permits you to send your best wishes until the end of January. So, that is what I am doing :o)

2010 was a year with lots of ups and downs for me and the blog updates were few and far between. I will try to make a fresh start in 2011, by uploading some nice bentos for you too look at.

Wishing all of my bento friends a yummilicious, bentolicious 2011 !

Thai Green Curry Chicken bento

2010-10-22T14:10:00.001+02:00

The last day of the week brings more Asian flavours in my bento. For me savoury, "exotic" foods are the perfect remedy to forget about the grey and cold weather outside : sunshine in a box :o) And Lord knows, we could use some cheering up on the weather department.

So, for today's bento, I came back to the M4SB, an old time favourite. It holds white basmati rice sprinkled with sesame seeds, thai green curry chicken (with peppers and green beens), a carrot/daikon/edamame salad, with some leftover springrolls and of course the usual fruits. It was the first time I tried packing leftover springrolls and I was quite disappointed that they turned out to be completely soggy by lunchtime. The taste was still OK, but texture left a lot to be desired.

How to Thai Green Curry Chicken :

[Green curry chicken recipe will be added later tonight]

Have a nice weekend and see you back on Monday ! :o)

Chicken Gyoza bento

2010-10-21T15:11:00.000+02:00

Today's bento had something special : chicken gyoza. It may not seem that spectacular but for someone like me who never ate these before today, it's big news :o) And now that I have tasted them, I don't know why I never made them before : these are so yummy. I wonder what other delicious foods I have been missing out on. I'll have to make up for lost times soon, maybe even this weekend. And I know for sure that I'm not the only one in this house who likes them, because this box actually holds the second batch I made last night. Somehow, while I was waiting for the bento to cool down before taking my pic, P. went behind my back and ate all the dumplings I had put in the box. I guess that could be considered a compliment :o) I think they could be a bit browner and crunchier on the bottom, but these were fine too.

Anyway, this bento had a few chicken gyoza on a bed of lettuce, more of yesterday's bean sprout/ramiro pepper stirfry, broccoli florets and radishes, edamame and the usual white rice. Dessert consisted of a nice apple which didn't make it to the picture.

Ginger pork bento

2010-10-20T17:00:00.001+02:00

Multiple postings on the same day, don't worry ... it won't become a habit. :o) Sukiyaki style bento was my lunch on Monday, no bento on Tuesday (aftermath of the unwanted visit), and today I had this delicious ginger pork at lunchtime.

It was also the first outing of my new purple Bento Color Box, with its tree separate tiers. The box turned out to be a bit smaller than I expected (although it still holds 650 ml), so there wasn't a lot of room of embellishments, which can be an advantage when you're uninspired :o)

The bottom (and largest) tier held white rice with carrot slices for colour, alongside some broccoli and a cherry tomato. The next compartment has a beansprout/ramiro pepper stirfry and the ginger pork giving the bento its name. The top and final tier housed the sweet finish of any good lunch : some fresh fruits.

How to "ginger pork" :

Again a recipe from my new favourite bentobook JustBento. :o)

Ingredients :
* 100g thinly sliced pork
* 1/2 Tbsp fresh grated ginger
* 2 tbs soy sauce
* 1 tbs mirin
* 1 tbs sake

Fry the pork in a little bit of oil, until each side is browned. Remove the meat from the pan and wipe the pan with a paper towel. Add the other ingredients and bring to a boil. Add the reserved meat to the pan, in order to coat it with the sauce.

Show-off of the new bento :

Sukiyaki style beef bento

2010-10-20T16:42:00.001+02:00

A rather straigthforward bento, to get the groove back : sukiyaki style beef on a bed of rice, topped of with some carrots, snowpeas and radishes for that essential dash of colour. And a little sidecar filled with fruity vitamins.

How to sukiyaki style beef :

I can't take credit for this recipe as I found it in Maki's JustBento book (which is a fab book btw, go out and buy it, you won't be disappointed :o) )

Ingredients:

* enoki mushrooms (+/- 90g)

* 10 cm thinly sliced leek (white part)

* 2 fresh shiitake, sliced without stem

* 100g thinly sliced beef

* 1 Tbsp (brown) sugar

* 60ml dashi stock

* 2 Tbsp soy sauce

* 1 Tbsp mirin

* 1 Tbsp saké

Remove the stuck together roots from the enoki and separate them. Heat a bit of oil in a pan and sauté the leek until limp. Add the enoki en shiitake and sauté further for 4 minutes. Add the beef and sugar and stirfry until the meat starts to brown. Add all the other ingredients and cook for an additional 4 minutes. Done.

As you might (or might not) have noticed, this post features a new box : a foldable (and reusable) bento, I encountered while browsing the bentoandco.com website. They have a lot of different designs for the cover, but I liked the swirly red line this one had. I was a bit weary at first : would it be hard to fold (knowing that my origami skills are quite limited) and more importantly, would this box be leakfree?

My apprehension was totally unjustified: not only did I fold the box in a record time, it is also nicely sized (640ml), microwave safe and didn't leak at all (although I have to add that using common sense, I didn't transport it upside down). Compared to other boxes, this one is cheap, easy to use and doesn't take up a lot of room in the cupboard (reason to buy more of them? :o) ), so don't hesitate to get one.

Bento as therapy

2010-10-20T15:58:00.002+02:00

It has been five long months since this bento blog was last updated. My silence wasn't supposed to last, a little break, just the time of my holiday, but May brought serious health problems to my sweetheart and dealing with that new important fact in my life made me put quite a few habits on the backburner. When things were finally looking up by September, we left for 2 weeks of relaxing holidays under the Spanish sun... where I had a close encounter with the gravel of a parking lot. I didn't wish for ripped ligaments as a holiday souvenir but that was what I got, as well as a nice new piece of fashionable footwear i.e. a cast. My planned return to bento had to be postponed.

Last week, finally free of the annoying cast after hobbling about for a month, I immediately started planning my first "back to bento" post this weekend. I was eager and ready to go. My first bento post after my long absence would be happy and cheerful, and I planned to post it on Monday evening after work.

I seem to have real kharma issues though, or as a friend told me, I'm "really getting the short end of the stick lately". Because I had a nasty surprise when I returned from the office Monday evening : someone had broken into my home and had searched through the whole house. Needless to say that posting to BentoBliss didn't even cross my mind that night. I was much too shaken, trying to deal with police and making a list of what had disappeared.

Saying that I am over the whole invasion of my privacy aspect, would be a lie. I no longer feel safe in my own home and am torn apart : I'd like to stay home just to make sure they don't come back, but at the same time I don't want to stay, precisely because they could be coming back. The cops said I should try to get on with my life and not become a hostage of my own fears. Easy thing for them to say of course, but I know they're have a point.

Making a bento is my first step in getting my life back on course. It's silly really, but it helps me focusing on easy to handle things without getting swept up in a maelstrom of anger, fear and other feelings. For the time being, bento making will be my therapy. Hopefully, I'll soon be able to consider bento as I did before : a fun challenge of making happy lunches, without any ulterior motives. Fingers crossed.

Crêpes salées aka savoury crêpes bento

2010-04-28T12:15:00.000+02:00

I had crêpes salées at my parent's last week and as it had been a while since I last ate them, I kind of had forgotten how much I love them. So yesterday evening I decided to make some and then a few extra to pack in our bento. Moreover these are extremely simple to make, which of course is a lovely bonus :o)

So my bento has, the leftover savoury crêpes containing ham and zucchini topped with some cheese flowers, some carrot sticks, steamed brocoli and a cup of coleslaw. The fruits are the usual apple, orange, cantaloup, Belgian (!) strawberries, black and white grapes, nectarine and kiwi slices.

How to crêpes salées :

Ingredients :

- 8 savoury crêpes (bake them as you would sweet crêpes, just omit the sugar)
- 3 zucchini
- bechamel sauce (I used storebought one, because I ran out of milk, but with just milk and flour you can make your own)
- 200g diced ham
- 100g grated cheese (preferably gratin cheese because it melts evenly and colours nicely but any grated cheese will do)

Preheat the over to 200°C

Wash the zucchini, cut it into thick slices and cook them until tender with some water in which you have diluted a stock cube (elminates the need for more salt or spices down the line). Once cooked, drain.

Mix the zucchini and the ham dices in the bechamel sauce. If you like you can keep some of the sauce aside to pour on top of the crêpes before adding the cheese, but I didn't this time.

Grease an oven dish. Spoon some of the zucchini mix in a crêpe and fold it up (I just make rolls) and put it in the dish. Repeat until the dish is full. Sprinkle the grated cheese on top of the crêpes and put the dish in the oven for 20 minutes. And there you go ... bon appetit :o)

Sweetie's bento has the same ingredients, minus the broccoli and with some diced ramiro pepper. The ramiro pepper should have been in my bento as well, but as I don't like raw peppers that much, I tried grilling them. Tried being the keyword here. But cooking and watching Cold Case on TV at the same time isn't really a match made in heaven (multitasking fail). The carbonised pepper ended up in the bin instead of in the bento ... Lesson learnt? We'll see :o)

Back to bento

2010-04-26T11:45:00.002+02:00

Due to some family issues (I don't want to get further into), the last two weeks have been kind of an emotion rollercoaster, draining all our energy and leaving us mentally and physically exhausted every single evening. Not the best circumstances to put a bento together. So both our lunches have consisted of sandwiches from a nearby snackbar for the last 10 working days. And although the snackbar near my office makes a delicious "boursin méditerrannée" sandwich, after eating those for such an extended period ... you can indeed have too much of a good thing. :o)

Now that things are looking up on the family front, I felt the urge to make a bento again for lunch. For my first day back "on the job", I didn't strain myself : orzo, grilled veggies (eggplant, zucchini, bellpepper) and some souvlaki skewers I had to take off the skewers to get into the box. The dessert section has lots of different fruits today, as the return of sunny days (24°C yesterday !) calls for this colourful sweetness : cantaloup, orange wedges, apple, black and white grapes, kiwi, strawberry, nectarine and plum. I am really longing for some blackberries but haven't seen them in ages. I wonder when they'll be in season again.

My "back in bento" will be relatively short by the way, because I will be on a plane to sunny Turkey for a week on May 5. I just hope that Icelandic volcano with the unprounceable name doesn't act up and doesn't spit out another ashcloud in my direction, because I am really looking forward to this break and don't want to be grounded like so many other travellers last week. This is a new hotel we'll be staying in, but if it is anything like the one from last year, many food pics on my flickr will make up the lack of bento pics. :o)

I am also seizing the occasion to show off my new round two tier box. I found this one at a discount (8,99 EUR) the day I made my last bento and I couldn't pass up on this purple goodie. They had a few other colours as well (included a hot pink one), and if they still have them when I come back from vacation, I might be tempted by an additional box. I like the metal handle, which makes it rather sturdy and very picknick-like. It makes me feel like a schoolgirl, instant rejuvenation minus the pimples :o)

Chinese takeaway bento

2010-04-09T10:35:00.000+02:00

I was dead tired yesterday evening, the result of sleeping for a mere 4,5 hours the night before. Because I didn't feel up to cooking, we had Chinese takeaway for dinner and the fact that there were leftovers, allowed me to take this bento to work today without any culinary nor creative effort from my part. I love cooking and bento, don't get me wrong, but every once in a while, it's nice to have someone else do it for you :o)

So the M4SB has fried rice, babi panggang (according to wiki, it's known in "English" as Char Siu), pork in satay sauce, a bit of chop suey (which I spread over the two meat sections) and lychees for dessert.

I also added a fortune cookie I had in the cupboard (I bought a box of them when they were in the supermarket on the occasion of the lunar new year -> we don't get these in Chinese restaurants over here). The fortune cookie is bilingual (Dutch on one side and French on the other) and today's fortune is : "You have the talent to create order in disorder". Hmm ... if you saw the state of my desk, you'd pray for that talent to manifest itself soon. :o)

Have a great weekend everyone and "see" you next Monday!

Peas & ricotta moelleux bento

2010-04-08T00:59:00.004+02:00

Another day, another bento ... and we're Thursday again already. The weekend is almost there ... I can smell its sweet scent, beckoning me :o) But I still have to more working days to go, which will need lunch-boxes.

Today's bento has a moelleux as center piece. I looked for the correct English word, but couldn't find it. A moelleux is in fact a cake with a soft core. The most famous example would be a moelleux au chocolat, a chocolate cake with a gooey centre. The cake in the bento is a savoury variation of that concept, although the core is clearly not runny like the chocolate version. The recipe for these cakes can be found below.

My bento has white rice with green asparagus layered on top, brussels sprouts, steamed broccoli, a moelleux with ricotto and peas, and some cordon bleu pieces (breaded veal scallop with gruyère and ham in the centre). The vitamins can be found in grapes, blueberries, nectarine, oranges and cantaloup balls.

The second bento has the same ingredients except for the veggies, because brussels sprouts are a no-no in my other half's bento and Sweetie isn't too fond of broccoli neither. So I replaced those by green beans, snow peas and sugar snaps ... also green greens, but different ones.

How-to Moelleux Ricotta & peas (for 9 pieces):

Ingredients :

* 100g (frozen) peas
* 140g ricotta
* 3 eggs
* 20g grated cheese (gruyère)
* 60g all purpose flour
* 25 cl milk
* 40g demi-sel butter (i.e.lightly salted butter)
* salt & pepper

Cook the peas in salted boiling water for 10 minutes. Drain and mash them and mix with the ricotta.

Preheat the oven to 210°C.

In a bowl, wisk the eggs as it to make scrambled eggs. Add progressively the sifted flour, while mixing with a fork.

In a pan heat the milk with the diced butter. When the butter has melted, pour the warm milk in the bowl with the egg/flour mixture. Mix and add the peas/ricotta mash. Mix again and season with pepper.

Pour the dough into 9 individual recipients, sprinkle with the grated cheese.

Bake for approximately 20 minutes (according to the size of your molds).

Let them cool slightly before taking them out of the molds.

My talented bento friend Lia from MyBentolicious surprised me yet again by passing on two awards to me. I'm paying it forward to all my fellow bentoists whose blogs are such an inspiration to me. Feel free to grab the badges here :o)

Empanada de atún bento

2010-04-07T15:03:00.004+02:00

Spanish flavours in today's lunch, as I decided to make empanadas de atún last night to pack in our bento boxes. As it was a kind of a "spur of the moment" idea, I didn't have the time to make it completely from scratch as my MIL used to do. Luckily for me, the "organised business woman" I am, has everything she needs in her fridge and cupboard to produce these savoury pastries in a relatively short time.

As my (Spanish) Sweetie grew up with these flavours and with MIL's comida casera, cooking up a Spanish dish is always a bit tricky. No matter what I do, I'll never make things exactly the way she did. And as she sadly passed away a few years ago, I can't ask her for advice anymore neither. Nevertheless, I had to shoo someone out of the kitchen last night, who had picked up the familiar scent, trailed it back to the kitchen and was intent on stealing a few scraps out of the hot pan. I guess I can consider that a compliment :o)

So both our bento have an empanada de atún on a bed of young lettuce leaves, radishes, cucumber, tomato/mozzarella skewers and a green olives skewer. It's nice to include raw veggies again, it reminds me that sunny days are on their way and that it will soon be BBQ weather again :o)

The dessert section has grapes, cantaloup balls, orange parts, nectarine and blueberries.

How-to speedy Empanada de Atún :

Ingredients for 8 empanadas:

* 3 garlic cloves (or less, if you're not a garlic fan as we are)
* 2 red onions
* 400g of canned tuna (I used tuna in olive oil, but on brine would work too)
* 2 (bell) peppers (traditionally you'd use green ones, but I used the two red ramiro peppers I had in the fridge)
* 1 jar (400 ml) of tomate frito (my fave brand : Solis)
* 2 hardboiled eggs
* 1 egg
* 2 puff pastry sheets

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Dice the onions and peppers and finely chop the garlic. In a skillet, fry the onions and garlic in a bit of olive oil, and add the peppers when the onions have glazed over.

Once the peppers are starting to tender, add the tomate frito and let it simmer for a while on low heat.

Meanwhile, drain the tuna and crumble it. Chop up the hardboiled eggs and add them together with the crumbled tuna to the tomate frito. Stir all the ingredients together and let it simmer a while longer. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Remove from heat and let cool a bit. The filling should now be rather consistent and not watery or liquid.

Roll out the pastry sheets. The ones I had in the fridge were round ones, which aren't the easiest to use. If you make your own pastry dough you can make roll it out in a sheet, cut out round shapes, reshape the remaining dough into a new flat sheet, cut out again, etc. (empanadas are normally presented as half circles, like goyza)... But I just cut the round doughs in four, filled them and then (painstakingly) tried to close them.

Whisk the egg and brush it on top of the empanadas, before putting them in the oven for about half an hour (depending on your oven).

The empanadas are delicious hot and cold, which makes them ideal for bento.

Creole turkey bento

2010-04-06T11:19:00.005+02:00

We just had a three day weekend (Easter Monday is a holiday in Belgium) that passed way too quickly, as usual. I sometimes think I wouldn't mind two day workweeks and 5 day weekends, but on the other hand, I guess you have to work for a longer time to really enjoy the time off :o) On the positive side, it will be weekend again in 4 days ... yay.

Today's bento is not sophisticated. I have been busy with creative things this whole weekend and didn't think about what I would pack for bento, until it was already quite late.

So my lunch is composed of white rice with some cheese decoration, creole turkey with baby mushrooms (leftover from diner), green beans and sugar snaps for that dash of colour. I used some slices of spinach savoury cake (which I found in the frozen bento stash) as a baran to separate the savoury from the sweet. The fruit section has my usual fruits : grapes, plums, nectarine, apple, strawberry, blueberries.

Same thing for P.'s bento, nothing to add.

And to end this post I just wanted to show off what I baked this weekend : oriental cupcakes. :o)

The cupcake has almonds in it (powder and pieces) and is flavoured with cinnamon and orange flower water. Because I didn't have any rose water left (it met an untimely end on the kitchen floor), I flavoured the white chocolate and cream frosting with orange flower water again and used food colouring in order to have it look orangy. I wanted it to be a rather funky orange but it ended up way more pastel, oh well. They were delicious and that's what counts in the end, right?

Easter Bell bento

2010-04-02T00:31:00.000+02:00

For those of you who aren't familiar with the Easter tradition in Belgium and France, seeing a bell as an Easter theme will probably raise some eyebrows. Bells bringing Easter eggs is part of the catholic Easter tradition, although nowadays we also have Easter Bunnies as seasonal decoration. Trivia fact : in Dutch it's not a rabbit, but a hare, the Paashaas :o)

Back to my Easter bell. I am sure you're eager to know how it is related to Easter (and even if you aren't, you're still getting the full story :o) ).

Children are told that after Mass on Maundy Thursday, all the bells leave the bell towers of their respective churches and fly to Rome (hence the wings). This explains why you can't hear any churchbell toll from Maundy Thursday to Easter Sunday (the silent bells are actually a sign of mourning, but that's not half as fun as imagining flying bells). In the night of Saturday to Easter Sunday, the bells return with their bellies full of Easter eggs, which they drop in the gardens on the way to their churches. On Easter morning the children have to search the garden to find the eggs the bells dropped.

So far the Easter trivia. Now the bento. Under the forbidden rice, I have a stirfry of green bell pepper, bean sprouts, leek and carrots, and mini schnitzels. The carrot kinpira acts as a baran. The vitamin section is composed of white and dark grapes, plum, nectarine, clementine, nectarine and strawberry. I even added two chocolate eggs ... because it's the season :o)

The Easter bell deco is made of cheese (coloured with turmeric), with ham and nori decorations.

To all my friends & readers

Garlic mushroom bento

2010-03-31T15:16:00.001+02:00

How time flies. The blink of an eye and it's already the middle of the week again. And this time there is a three day weekend urging me on, as a carrot on a stick. :o) I really look forward to it, as I have so many pending projects I would like to start on. If the weather decides to finally give in to spring and the rain and wind would subside, this would indeed be a perfect break. Fingers crossed that the sun will be quicky rerouted to my part of the world. :o)

Back on the bento front, there isn't anything special today. I have been thinking of making a bunny/Easter themed box, but don't seem to be able to come up with something nice ... maybe tomorrow, maybe (don't get your hopes up).

Anyway, my bento has sausage slices (left over from last night's dinner), some white rice with cheese sakura, fresh carrot kinpira (made a whole new tupper of it yesterday) and baby mushrooms sauteed with garlic and shives. A cucumber baran separates main course from dessert, being the usual fruit selection (orange, plum, nectarine, grapes, apple and kiwi).

Mediterranean stirfry bento

2010-03-30T15:12:00.000+02:00

I love stirfries : they are easy to make, quickly done, the veggies keep more vitamins than by cooking/boiling them and as you only use a wok, the amount of dishes to be done afterwards is also reduced to a minimum.

The only downpoint, as you can tell by looking at this picture, is that it looks so downright messy in a bento,which everything poking out in every possible direction, as if the greens were hit by some kind of natural disaster. :o( Luckily the taste didn't suffer from this lousy presentation.

Back to the contents : for today, I packed balsamic sesame chicken pieces and a mediterranean stirfry composed of green beans, red and yellow bell pepper, zucchini, potato wedges and baby carrots. For dessert, there are grapes (black & white), strawberry, nectarine, kiwi, orange.

Exact same ingredients as the previous one, so nothing to add :o)

Because food doesn't always come in bento

2010-03-29T17:50:00.001+02:00

I didn't have time (or rather the motiviation) to make a bento last night. I rather spent the evening on the couch watching the "La Vida Loca" DVDs, which I gave Sweetie as a birthday present on Saturday. Watching these younsters and the way they face death on a daily basis is quite chilling. Entering a gang is a personal choice of course but can you really speak of choice when you have no other options? For short, I highly recommend this documentary to anyone.

Back to food. Even if I didn't make a bento, I kept busy in the cooking & baking field this weekend, so I am going to share some of it. Incidentally it will also help me to keep the blogging rhythm. :o)

This post will have like my bentos a savoury and a sweet part.

I made Tagliatelle a la carbonara for last night's dinner, and I did it the Italian way i.e. with eggs and NO CREAM. I wonder why they always insist on putting cream in carbonara in my neck of the woods, when it's obviously unnecessary. Now I won't pretend that my version is the only legitimate one, because in the end it's just the taste that matters. But this one was really good.

Googling up recipes for this dish, will lead you to hundreds of different recipes and variations, something for every taste. I'm going to add my version to that pile of recipes as well, who knows one of you might find it useful :o)

Ingredients I used (for two servings):

* tagliatelle (or any other larger size pasta - fettucine, linguine, ...)
* 3 eggs (if you want to make it in larger amounts, count 1 to 1,5 egg per person)
* 180 g of bacon (you should use pancetta if you have it available, but I couldn't find any)
* 60 g of grated pecorino cheese
* 1 tsp of garlic paste
* lots of ground black pepper
* chopped parsley

Separate the whites from the yolks and put the yolks in a bowl. Whisk them as if to make scrambles eggs, season with salt and pepper, add the grated cheese, mix well and set aside.

While cooking the pasta (in salted water), fry the bacon (or pancetta) sticks with the garlic paste in olive oil until it's nice and cripsy .

When the pasta is al dente, remove from the cooking water (without draining it too much) and add it to the skillet with the bacon, still on medium heat. Toss the pasta and the bacon, season with fresh ground black pepper.

Remove from the heat, pour the egg mixture on top of the pasta and toss until everything is coated with the eggs. The residual heat of the pasta will cook the eggs. If it seems to be too solid, add a bit of the pasta's cooking water to "loosen it up".

Add some freshly chopped parsley and serve hot.

And because no meal is finished without desert, I made a Baileys & Mascarpone cake.

I saw the recipe for this cake on Miriam's blog, The Winter Guest, and as I had leftover mascarpone in the fridge, I decided I'd give it a try. After all, anything sweet AND containing Bailey's can't be anything but delicious.

The mascarpone was storebought but I will be making my own next time, because it seems rather easy to make (have a look at the link Miriam referred to in her post).

Miriam used agave syrup in her recipe but because I never encountered that type of syrup while shopping, I asked her if I could replace it with sugar. She advised me to increase the sugar amount to 200g, as the syrup sweetens more than regular sugar, and add an additional 80g of vegetable oil to the batter to make up for the syrup's liquidy.

The kitchen smelled deliciously of Bailey's (attracting all kind of curious houseguests to the kitchen) and the taste of this cake is simply divine. I think I will leave it in the oven just a bit longer next time (there will be a next time for sure!), because when the wooden testing stick came out clear, I took it out of the oven immediately for fear of the cake becoming too dry and just a bit less moist would have been better. In my rush to get it out, I managed to burn my arm but it's nothing I won't survive. This delicious cake was worth any blister :o)

Taboulé & falafel bento

2010-03-25T14:33:00.000+01:00

I was a bit at a loss last night as to what to pack in today's bento. My main problem is that I don't plan ahead. I try, really, I do, but somehow it just never works out the way I want it to. This means that by Tuesday, all my good intentions have already gone down the drain and I have given up on the whole "let's plan ahead and save precious time in the evening" plan.

Yesterday was no exception to the rule: like on other evenings, I found myself staring blankly at the inside of the fridge. And then I saw the M4SB on the kitchen cupboard, waiting to be put away and inspiration hit me : the magic of the M4SB was operating :o)

I didn't plan it to but when I finished assembling the bento, it was quite colour coordinated again. I guess it's a virgo thing that takes me unawares, whether it be colours or symmetrical lines, I always come back to "neat and orderly".

Anyway, enough rambling. My M4SB of the day has :

* yellow section : taboulé with bell peppers, parsley, scallion, tomato and raisins (and a drizzle of olive oil). Taboulé is more of a summer dish but with temperatures up to 20°C today, a sunny dish was in order. :o)
* purple section : storebought falafels (because I still can't make them myself, at least not edible ones) and a cherry tomato
* green section : steamed greens (brocoli, zucchini, peas)
* red section : strawberry, nectarine, plum, apple, grapes

Fried rice with shitake bento

2010-03-24T16:42:00.000+01:00

For some odd reason, I never made fried rice. Come to think of it, even back in the days, fried rice never came out of my mom's kitchen. I used to get some from a good Chinese take-away nearby but when that place closed down more than a year ago, I never bother to look for a replacement supplier. All the more reasons to dive into my favourite cookbook (aka internet) and see how to reproduce the yummy dish in the privacy of my own kitchen.

So yesterday I decided to throw myself in at the deep end ... until I realised that I wasn't at the deep end at all, rather in the toddler's section. This is such an easy dish to make, why didn't I give it a try years ago?

Anyway. I had some leftover brown rice in the fridge and turned that into fried rice together with some sliced shitake, scallions, smoked ham strips and a diced omelet. The fried rice took up almost the whole bento, but for some extra veggies, I added a little cucumber baran, two cherry tomatoes and a few green manzanilla olives.

I spotted some strawberries at the store yesterday and although they're still expensive (almost 3 EUR for 250g) because out of season and therefor imported (from Israel this time), I couldn't pass up on the juicy red sweetness. My fruit section has strawberry (of course), kiwi and apple slices, some orange wedges, a piece of yellow plum, two lonely black grapes and some cantaloup melon. It was a pleasure to encounter a cantaloup, it's a telltale sign that spring finally getting here :o)

As always the main ingredients of Sweetie's bento are the same as mine. Besides the fried rice, I added 2 slices of manchego cheese, boursin (garlic & herbs) balls, a tomato & oliver skewer and some carrot sticks which I attempted to cut into flowers (attempted being the key word!).

The fruit sidecar has again strawberry, kiwi slices, a piece of apple, some orange wedges, a piece of yellow plum, black grapes and some cantaloup melon balls.

Let the sunshine in ...

2010-03-23T12:27:00.002+01:00

On this almost springlike day, Lia from MyBentolicious surprised me by passing on this Sunshine Award to me and as I don"t have any bento pic to post today, this pretty flower is getting a post all by itself.

Receiving an award by a fellow blogger is always an honour, so not only do I graciously accept it, but I also want to thank Lia (whose charaben bentos and other culinary delights are an inspiration to us all) for thinking of me.

According to the rules, the award should be passed on to 12 other bloggers. I don't know if the award is limited to foodies, but as there are many things that brings happiness (aka sunshine) into my daily life, I thought it fitting that my nominees were active in different communities. These are the few of the blogs I follow on a daily basis (ever since I discovered Bloglines, my blogroll is rapidly expanding) and deserve this award for bringing the sunshine in my daily reads. Some of these have probably already received the award, but you can't have too much of a good thing, so here you go ...

French Bento was one of the first blogs I discovered when I decided to try my hands at bento. One of the few French language Bento blogs (because most write in English, even if it isn't their mother tongue, just like I do), she provides her readers with everything they need in order to venture into this world : recipes, book reviews, tutorials on how to use all those cute accessories, ...

Hapa Bento by the talented Debra is offering lots of tips, tricks and easy to make recipes for anyone interested in merging multiculteral cuisines in quick & healthy bento. Whenever she posts one of her short recipes, I feel compelled to try them out. Check out her new ongoing bento stash series.

And yet another bento blog is called to collect the award : Bento Zen, vegetarian and healthy foods (with particular interests in Korean dishes, which I never heard of before venturing out into her food world) presented in a cute and stylish bento ... it's Megan's specialty.

Amuses Bouche is another French language blog (by a published author) on everything a sweet tooth like myself craves : fabulous pictures and tons of recipes for patisserie and other baked delights.

The Winter Guest is a another food blog by Miriam this time. Her blog also exists in a Spanish version and I usually switch between the both of them ... it helps me keeping my Spanish up to date (which I don't use a lot anymore since my MIL passed away). For accessible recipes and mouthwatering pictures, this is the way to go. If you are familiar with the Foodbuzz website, you'll regularly see the produce of her skillfull hands featured in the "Today's Top 9" section.

I recently discovered another awesome blog by Sasha, who set off on a great aventure of cooking up 195 meals from as many different countries and for as many weeks. Global Table will be like a culinary roadtrip exploring not only the foods but also the customs of all those nations who call Earth home. The next best thing after going to these places myself. Check it out.

One of my flickr contacts, Ana Fuji also has a blog with never ceases to marvel me Acúcar com arte. Her sugary creations are so precious that I wonder who would have the heart to actually eat them. Undoubtedly sunshine award material coming from one of my favourite countries, Brasil.

Besides bento-ing and being "into food", I am also active in the arts & crafts deparment, so some crafty blogs were also limelightworthy :

Through Etsy (my favourite shopping channel !), I discovered the incredibly talented Afi who has created a little place called JooJooLand, a sunny place filled with exquisite jewelry, fabulous mini sculptures and gorgeous watercolours. Quite a few of JooJooLand inhabitants have emigrated to Belgium last year and they would love more of their fellow critters to follow in their foodsteps. Looking at her creations always make me happy, so she definetely deserves this sunshine award.

Sandrine, who is also a talented scrapbooker and customiser, posts the most gorgeous projects on her blog ... check it out.

I also like to present you Noialand, a little corner on the world wide web which filled with gorgeous creations, from jewelry over doll faces to fimo minatures ... a real treasure cove.

And because some blogs are just plain fun to read, as they let you have a glimpse in the life of total strangers, I couldn't pass up on these.

Misadventures With Andi , a blog I discovered only a short time ago but is a fun read as it touches all kind of subjects. One that I will definetely keep following and what better way to show your appreciation than by passing on this award, so that she keeps up the good work.

Charlie's Blog, because it's funny to see your country through the eyes of a foreigner for a change :o) (quite an eye-opener sometimes too).

Cajun Turkey Bento

2010-03-22T16:16:00.002+01:00

A very simple and straightforward bento for Monday's lunch because I just didn't have the time nor energy to come up with clever ideas last night : my parents returned home after a small vacation and I had to pick them up. Between driving to the airport, waiting for what seemed an eternity (their luggage didn't make it to Brussels so they had to do some paperworks), driving them home and having a little holiday debrief, it was already passed midnight when I finally saw my kitchen again.

So today's bento just has whatever was leftover from last night's dinner, which had been "quick & easy" also. I went to Stonemanor last Friday and while strolling through the aisles looking for novelties, I came across the Discovery Food range. The packaging looked appetizing, so I grabbed the Cajun and Creole stirfry sauces for those times when you need a quick turnaround to get dinner on the table. I used the Cajun sauce and spices last night and it turned out really good. I was afraid it might be a bit too spicy but it was just perfect. (Completely off topic, but I also found for the first time Reeses pieces at Stonemanor's, oh boy, after sour skittles I feel a new addiction coming up ... I only wish my addiction involved readily available candy, instead of me having to depend on my friends abroad to get my candy fix :o( )

Anyway, I disgress. Back to today's bento which has brown rice, cajun turkey and a cucumber baran separating it from some grapes, orange, kiwi and plum slices and an apple piece.

P.'s bento has the same items but my camera battery gave up on me before I could take a pic of it. It looked quite simliliar though :o)

ETA : I got a shunshine reward from MyBentolicious (thank you Lia !!) and I will upload a post dedicated to this award later tonight or tomorrow. I'm still thinking about the blogs I want to nominate for this award. Stay tuned :o)

The M4SB feat. risotto gremolata

2010-03-18T00:43:00.002+01:00

After having eyed up the M4SB for two days, I decided that the time had come for this bento to make its long awaited debut and accompany me to the office.
I was surprised at the capacity of the box : it holds way more than its compact size would lead you to believe.

So for this inaugural lunch, I packed leftover risotto gremolata with an olive skewer, soy nuggets with bell pepper stars, aubergine slices on top of carrot kinpira and red bell pepper strips and finally the red dessert section holds nectarine, red plum, a part of a pink lady apple and a small Easter egg.

Bon appetit.

St. Patrick's Day bento

2010-03-17T12:57:00.000+01:00

Not a drop of Irish blood is running through my veins, nor is Lá Fhéile Pádraig celebrated around these parts, but any holiday involving drinks, food and having a jolly good time in general is worth dedicating a bento to :o)

In my pursuit of using green items, I clearly went "a bit" overboard but the sun is shining, trees are budding, the birdies are singing to their heart's content and they even announced a peak of 18°C for tomorrow, so I think I am entitled to some green euphoria :o)

My Paddy Day bento has green rice (coloured using Maki's technique posted on JustBento.com) with a cucumber peel shamrock in a green lettuce cradle, brocolini, asperagus, baby pak choi, brocoli sprouts, leftover sausage covered with snowpeas, goat cheese maki and a orange bell pepper heart for that dash of colour. :o)

The fruit section is equally green with granny apple, grapes, kiwi slices and kiwi berries, separated from the rest with cucumber baran. And for the final touch, as Easter is nearing, pistacchio Easter eggs :o)

Sweetie's bento is also ... green, what did you expect? :o) It has as usual roughly the same ingredients : green rice with a cucumber peel shamrock, leftover sausage, snowpeas & sugarsnaps, goat cheese maki, carrot slices and orange bell pepper hearts. On the other side of the cucumber baran : granny apple, grapes, nashi, kiwi slices, kiwi berries and a little Easter egg.

Lemongrass scampi & beef/pork patty bento

2010-03-16T15:29:00.000+01:00

Two slightly different bento for me and P. today, as both the scampi and the minced meat had to be cooked up before they turned bad. I know that the date on the packages is indicative and says "best before" and not "unfit for consumption after", but still, I don't like taking risks.

My faithful sakura bento (I love that one so much, I keep using this one every single time) has some white rice topped with bellpepper flowers, scampis stirfried with scallions and lemongrass surrounded by carrot baran, a cherry tomato, brocolini and green asperagus covered with snowpeas, some cauliflower roses and carrot kinpira to the left. The whole veggie section is separated from the fruits by red lettuce leafs, and those fruits are the usual clementine, grapes, plums and nectarine.

P. has a lunch bento and a dessert sidecar today. The lunch bento consists of beef/pork patties with scallion and red onion, white rice topped with red pepper flowers and surrounded by red lettuce baran, brocolini with snowpeas and sugar snaps, carrot kinpira, a cherry tomato and the last of the mozzarella balls.

The dessert sidecar holds beside the usual fruits (clementine, grapes, plums, nectarine, apple and nashi), also a small cup of the spring edition M&Ms I found during grocery shopping last weekend.

Baby pak choi & stuffed eggplant bento

2010-03-15T17:02:00.002+01:00

I went to the Asian supermarket last Friday and for once I found some baby pak choi in the fridge. I guess that the regular Asian buyers get them all before my normal shopping day i.e. Saturday and that's why I never saw them before. I also encountered some white thai tomato eggplants, and couldn't wait to put these in our bento.

So for Monday's lunch, I packed carrot kinpira, steamed pak choi (quickly tossed into the pan I made the kinpira in), stuffed mini eggplants, a plain rice onigiri, the remainder of the stuffing, cherry tomatoes and mashed sweet potatoes seasoned with parsley and coriander.

The sweet department features clementine, white grapes, nectarine, red and yellow plum and some kiwi slices.

How-to stuffed mini eggplants :

For the recipe of the eggplants, I'm going to refer you to Chubby Panda's recipe, as that was the one I used to make these. The main difference is that I didn't have thin-sliced beef in the fridge and used beef mince instead.

I could copy the recipe here, but that would deprive you of the mouthwatering pictures her post contains. So, check it out :o) Hers ended up looking way better than mine anyway :o)

Same ingredients in P.'s bento, except for the sweet potato mash, which is without any additives in this one and the extra slice of nashi.

And then the main news of the day ... the M4SB arrived :o) Can't wait to fill this baby up (although I'll have to think of some cool colour coordinated ingredients for its inaugural lunch :o)).

Chicken Curry bento

2010-03-13T00:07:00.002+01:00

I had dinner at my parents' thursday evening and as my mom makes a yummilious chicken curry, I didn't hesitate to ask for a "doggie bag". I really should ask her for the recipe. When I have it, I'll add it to this post.

Meanwhile, let's have a look at P.'s last bento of the week. The top tier has the chicken curry leftovers and some white rice. The "weave" on top of the rice is made of carrot and spring onion.

The bottom tier has green manzanilla olives, cucumber sakura, two mozarella balls, two mini carrot/boursin cheese skewers, carrot kinpira, cherry tomatoes and quail egg on brocolli sprouts.

The daily vitamin section holds half of a tamarillo (see more about this new strange fruit below), white grapes, red and yellow plum, nectarine, kiwi, clementine, blueberries, kiwiberries and a piece of apple.

My attempts at making an attractive bento layout for myself all failed miserably. Some days it just doesn't work out. So I ended up covering everything up with some eggs. Everything clean and out of sight. :o)

Below the egg, there is a quinoa salad with cucumber, red lentils, spring onion and smoked ham. Sakura cutouts in the egg sheet were filled with cucumber sakura and a little pansy delivered the splash of colour.

The second tier holds the same fruits as in Sweetie's box: half of a tamarillo (see more about this new strange fruit below), white grapes, red and yellow plum, nectarine, kiwi, clementine, blueberries, kiwiberries and a mini nashi bunny.

TAMARILLO

Last instalment of the strange fruits series. After this one my fridge's fruit & veggie drawer only holds the commonly known items, except for the kiwiberries maybe. But I guess these are easily found everywhere these days.

Back to our fruit : the tamarillo. The tamarillo is a nice egg shaped fruit and as it appearance might already have given away, it is related to tomatoes (same family as eggplants too by the way). It is also often called tree tomato.

This andine produce (called Japanese plum in frenchspeaking Africa - wouldn't know why) should, according to what I have just read, best be eaten orange. Apparently the taste grows sharper and more bitter as the fruit matures. Mine would therefor be a bit "overdone". I'll let you in on the final verdict after lunchtime. The peel is not fit for consumption (bitter) and the proper way to eat this fruit is scooping the flesh from a halved fruit, sprinkled with sugar if desired.

Oh and the juice stains easily, same as with tomatoes, just so you know :o)

ETA : After tasting the thing, I have to say that I don't like it. I found it tasting oddly acid and sweet at the same time. I shared half of it with my colleague (who eyes up my bentos and their contents every day during lunchtime - we're the only ones who don't go out for lunch btw) and he liked it even though he found the flavour not very pronounced. "Tastes like a mix of tomato and kiwi, with a lingering bitter aftertaste", to use his words.

Check it out : Announcing The Spring 2010 Bento Contest

2010-03-12T12:45:00.001+01:00

When my three favourite sites FrenchBento, Justbento and Bento&co join hands to hold a great contest, I have to share the good news with all of you. One bento per participant and deadline for submitting your entry : March 29, 2010.

Check it out !

=====================================

I’m very excited to to announce the Spring 2010 Bento Contest, together with top French bento site FrenchBento and the awesome online bento boutique Bento&co.

Here in the northern hemisphere, the days are getting longer and the weather is slowly but surely turning warmer. Spring is the perfect time to bring delicious, healthy bento lunches from home. Whether you’re just starting out, or already an experienced bento crafter, you can never have too many bento boxes or cute bento accessories, right? Right! So, now’s your chance to win one of 10 great bento prizes.

The Spring 2010 Bento Contest is sponsored jointly by FrenchBento, JustBento and the supplier of the great prizes, Bento&co - who have just launched the English version of their site!

The contest details

Theme: Spring! Just create a spring-themed, balanced and healthy bento. It does not have to be a charaben! We want to see colorful, delicious looking bentos that reflect the season.
Photo: Take as good a photo of your bento creation as you can. It doesn’t have to be professional quality, but how clearly we can see your bento will make a difference in the judging process.
Include a description: Include a description of your thinking behind the bento, who the intended recipient/eater is, any ingredient notes, etc.
Include your contact information: Be sure to include your name (or nickname), email address and country, to be eligible for a prize. You can also include your blog name and URL if you have one.
Email your entry to: contest [at] bentoandco [dot] com.
Limit: One entry per contestant. Take your time choosing your best creation.
Contest period: March 12, 2010 to March 29, 2010. Your entry must be submitted on or before March 29th.

The prizes!

The following prizes will be awarded to ten lucky winners:

One (1) Gold Medal: A geniune wood lacquerware shokado bento box worth 7500 yen (approx. 60 Euros or US$82) plus a 75 Euro (about US$102.50) gift certificate from Bento&co
One (1) Silver Medal: A 75 Euro (about US$102.50) gift certificate from Bento&co
Three (3) Bronze Medals: A 40 Euro (about US$54.50) gift certificate from Bento&co.
Five (5) Runner-Up Winners: A 25 Euro (about US$35) gift certificate from Bento&co

The fine print

Anyone who lives anywhere that Bento&co ships, and is not associated with Bento&co, FrenchBento or JustBento is eligible. Bento&co ships worldwide, except within Japan, so if you live in Japan you can’t win a prize, sorry!
To repeat: Only one entry per contestant will be accepted.
The entries will be judged by Mook of FrenchBento, Erico and Thomas of Bento&co, and Maki (that’s me!) of JustBento. We will choose the top ten entries, which will then be put up to a public vote to see who will emerge with the medals!
The finalists and the winners will be announced on both FrenchBento and JustBento, as well as on Bento&co’s official blog; the winners will be announced on or after April 9, 2010.

So…good luck everyone! I’m really looking forward to seeing your great entries!

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Pasta Salad Bento

2010-03-11T11:57:00.002+01:00

We had Capellini Bolognese for dinner last night and I have taken up the habit to cook more pasta than necessary as I know it will be a welcome ingredient in the bento. Today's bento will therefore have ... pasta ! :o)

Because I turned the pasta into a salad, with different ingredients, I didn't add any additional vegetables to my bento.

The salad consists of cappellini pasta, spring onion, cucumber, tomato, smoked ham & lean bacon strips, a chopped up scrambled egg and parsley. I mixed a dressing of oliver oil and strawberry vinegar (a Taiwanese product I found in the Asian market, smells and tastes delish) into the pasta to avoid it drying out and getting sticky.

Some cucumber baran is separating the pasta from the different fruits : clementine, red and white grapes, red and yellow plum, nectarine, kiwi and the jelly like substance is a new strange fruit, the grenadillo. More about that below).

Sweetie took the owan tsukumi bento to the office today which has the same pasta salad as the sakura bento in the bottom tier. In the top tier there are mini tomato/mozarella skewers, green olives, quail egg, snow peas and sugar snaps, broccoli sprouts, cauliflower, bell pepper flowers and two pieces of manchego cheese.

No working day being complete without the essential vitamin break, I packed quite a few fruits in one of my new Kutusitanyanko boxes. The first really kawaii box, P. is taking to the office. As I have packed up both boxes in a solid colour furoshiki, it will be the lunchtime surprise. Let's see how that one will go :o)

Anyway for the fruits : half of the grenadillo (see more below), white and black grapes, red and yellow plum, kiwi, clementine and a piece of apple.

STRANGE FRUIT #2 - GRENADILLO

On my continuous quest of trying every strange thing in the supermarket, this is the latest instalment.

With a name like grenadillo, I thought the inside would be more like a pomegranade. As you can see for yourself, it is not.

The grenadillo is the size of an average orange, although slightly elongated, has a nice apricot coloured rind and was very lightweight, feeling kind of hollow. No particular smell from the outside. Opening it up neatly proved more difficult. The rind was papery dry and hard and after initial resistance, broke like an egg shell would have. The structure reminded me of an egg shell in general, somewhere in between hard and brittle.

Now on the inside, it doesn't look very appetizing, does it? Green/greyish jellylike substance with lots of seeds ... I sure know how to pick them :o) The taste however is delicate and sweet (if you can block out your apprehension - closing your eyes helps ;o)). I never had fresh passion fruit but it looks quite similar and I think tastewise they mustn't be too far off. I tried eating one of the seeds but it was like an apple seed, quite hard, so I don't think these are edible. Slurp it up and spit out the seeds seem to be the way to eat this baby. Upon googling the grenadillo, it appears that I should have cut it lengthwise instead of through the middle as I did. I don't think the cutting method alters the taste though.

More strange fruit tomorrow ... I got a last strange thing in the fridge :o)

Wortelstoemp bento

2010-03-10T11:41:00.000+01:00

For those of you unfamiliar with Belgian "cuisine", the title of this post will have raised some eyebrows. Stoemp is a popular dish over here, eaten by everybody up and down the social ladder. It evokes cosy family dinners and hearty winter meals. But what is it exactly? Stoemp consists of mashed potatoes with another vegetable, and is usually named after the other vegetable used. In this case, the stoemp has carrots in it and therefore it is called wortelstoemp (wortel being the Dutch word for carrot). But you could also make spinaziestoemp (spinach), erwtenstoemp (green peas), preistoemp (leek), koolstoemp (cabbage), ...

The recipe is also quite straightforward : cook the potatoes and the veggies, mash everything roughly together (you should still be able to make out the pieces), season to taste with salt, pepper, nutmeg and the herbs you like.

Anyway, this bento almost didn't make it because I was dead tired yesterday and went to sleep around 10 PM. (If you know that my normal bed time hour on working days is somewhere between 0.30 AM and 1.00 AM, you can appreciate my effort.) So, I didn't feel like making a bento last night and went to sleep thinking I would grab a sandwich on my way to work. When the alarm went of at 6.00 AM however, I felt completely refreshed and decided in the spur of the moment, to make a bento anyway. A morning bento ... now, that's a first.

I made this one in half a hour's time. Quite an achievement!

In here you'll find two wortelstoemp cones (leftover from last night's dinner) topped with cheese sakura and lined with broccoli sprouts. On top of the green sprouts, there is a quail egg and some baby corn slices. In order to go with this month's B.O.M.B., I used red lettuce leaves and cauliflower to separate the broccolini and snowpeas from the rest of the bento. The protein part consists of storebought falafel (I have given up on trying to make my own) and for the sweet section I have red and yellow plum, nectarine, black and white grapes, blueberries and kiwiberries.

Smakelijk. :o)

The nameless bento

2010-03-09T11:45:00.008+01:00

Ok, the title of this post is lame, but frankly there's isn't anything special that stands out in this bento and as my mom says "if you don't know what to say, better say nothing at all". So there you go.

This bento has a few leftover items in it : the sliced meatballs are from last night's dinner and there was still a bit of vitelotte mash left, so I took that one along as well. For the veggies I have red lettuce (under the meat), brocolini (finally found some in the stores last weekend), sugar snaps and two cherry tomatoes/mozarella/mini corn skewers. The fruit part of the bento has black and white grapes, kiwiberries, half a strawberry, blueberries, plum, nectarin, clementine and a slice of kiwano (see more about that below).

P. only took a fruit snack to the office today as a lunch meeting had been sheduled.

KIWANO

Ok, so most of my friends know that I can't resist anything marked new or looking unfamiliar while grocery shopping. I'm the dream of any marketeer : the volunteer human guinea pig :o)

Anyway, this fruit is the result of that weakness. I saw this strange looking thing in the exotic fruits section and I just had to buy it (truthful to my "try everything at least once" motto). Kiwano : the name sounded promising and called to mind images of sunny tropical islands. Needless to say that I had high expectations...

and it didn't live up to it. It doesn't have any particular taste and could best be compared to a lightly sweetened cucumber. Very fresh (even for a fruit that has to stay out of the fridge) but otherwise tasteless. It looks pretty as decoration but I will pass on this one next time around. Definetely not worth its price.

Spanakopita bento

2010-03-08T12:24:00.003+01:00

I have been out of the bento blogging running for a while, but here I am, ready to jump on that train again.

I might post of few of the bentos I made for the last two months. But before looking back it's more interesting to look ahead and more particularly look at today's lunch. :o)

Inspired by Blorgie1's mouthwatering Spanakopita snail bento picture, I decided to give that Greek pastry a try. Googling the name for recipes lead to many posibilites and variations, and unable to choose the "right one", I opted for making my own version of it. It's probably not traditional (nor very greek for that matter) but in the end, it's the taste that matters.

I have to admit however that I made the triangle just for the bento and haven't tasted it yet, but the filling was good in itself (yep, I'm the type of girl that can't help snacking on whatever she's making), so baked and wrapped in filo it can only be better :o)

P.'s bento for the day consists of a spanakopita triangle, two skewers composed of cherry tomatoes, smoked duck and mozarella, a grilled chicken sausage, vitelotte mash in a lilac cup, cucumber baran and beetroot sprout. The fruit section has a selection of mainly dark fruits : blueberries, grapes, strawberries, kiwiberries, nectarine, clementine and plum. I also added a mini blackberry macaron for sweetness.

How to Spanakopita, the BentoBliss way :o) :

The following ingredients make 4 triangles

* 250g fresh spinash
* 100g greek feta
* 100g mascarpone (I wanted ricotta but didn't have any available)
* 2 spring onions
* 2 garlic cloves
* 50 g of melted butter and 1 TBS of olive oil
* 8 filo sheets
* 1 egg
* 1 tsp chopped mint
* chopped parsley
* salt, pepper, nutmeg

Pre-heat the oven to 200°C.
Blanch the spinach, drain, squeeze the excess water out of it and chop it up.
Chop the spring onions and fry them shortly in a pan. They have to be a bit tender but not brown.
In a large bowl, mix together the spinach, the onion, the crumbled feta, the mascarpone and the herbs and spices.
Beat the egg lightly (as you would for making a scrambled egg) and add it to the mixture.
Take your filo sheets and lay the first sheet open, brush the butter/olive oil mix on the sheet and cover with a second sheet. Repeat until putting the forth sheet on top.
Cut the sheet in half lengthwise, add a fourth of the spinach mix on the bottom of filo rectangle and twist it into a triangle. It's the same method as for making briouats, see the pic below on how to do this.

Repeat the same procedure with the remaining 4 sheets to have 4 triangles in total.

Put the triangles on the baking tray lined with baking parchment paper, and bake them in the oven until the colour golden brown. The exact time depends on your oven, in my case, it took about 20 minutes.

My bento for today, has roughly the same ingredients as the one Sweetie got. I just left out the duck skewers for me and replaced the chicken sausage by surimi & tzatziki rolls.

Chicken shawarma bento

2010-01-13T15:10:00.000+01:00

No bento yesterday because I fell asleep on the couch on Monday evening and didn't have to courage to make something fancy in the morning. Yesterday's lunch was therefore just a cheese sandwich with some soup, hardly worth posting about, let alone taking pictures.

Now that I had caught up on the sleep department, I was up and ready to make myself another lunch in my favourite sakura box.

Last night dinner consisted of an easy homemade fastfood (ready in 20 minutes!) : shawarma. We call it shoarma or gyros but according to wiki, shawarma should be the correct "English" spelling.

The bento has chicken shawarma, iceberg lettuce, some cherry tomatoes and aioli for the savoury part, some pitta bread as baran and clementine, white and blue grapes, lychees, blueberries, pomegranate seeds, apricot in the sweet section.

How-to Chicken Shawarma :

Making this dish is so easy that you can hardly call it a recipe, but here you go .

Ingredients for 2 servings :

* 1 box of mushrooms
* 1 red bell pepper
* shredded iceberg lettuce
* 2 onions
* 260g chicken fillet
* 1 tsp olive oil
* 1 TBS of shawarma spices
* 4 pitta breads
* aioli

Slice the chicken fillets into strips, and dice the mushrooms, bell pepper and onions. Put everything but the bell pepper in a bowl and mix with the shawarma spices.

Fry meat and veggies in a teaspoon of olive oil. Add the bell pepper a bit later on, so that it keeps a bit of crunch (and isn't all mushy).

Heat up the pita breads in a toaster, fill the warm bread with lettuce and the shawarma and serve with some aioli. The aioli can be homemade, but we always have a storebought jar in the fridge, so that's what I used last night.

That's all there is to it, quick simple and very tasty.

Jambalaya bento

2010-01-11T10:57:00.000+01:00

I didn't make any bentos last Thursday and Friday, because we both had working lunches planned. And no bentos, no blog postings.

However a new week has started and I have boarded the bento train again, at least until next Thursday. On Friday at noon, we are going to a restaurant with the whole office for our traditional New Year's lunch and after lunch we are free to go home as well. So no bento then, but an early start of the weekend. :o)

But first let's get back to today's bento. I tried for the first time to make Jamabalaya last night and the leftover portions are in today's lunchboxes. This is most definetely not the most traditional jambalaya around (I guess any real Cajun would shake his head in disbelief at my makings), but you have to try somewhere, right? Moreover as I am on a diet (yes, yes, still haven't given up :o)), I tried to keep it as low-fat as possible and it still turned out a yummy hearty winter dish.

My bento has jambalaya, cucumber slices, carrot sticks, green olives, a mini babybel and some cherry tomatoes. The fruit section has clementine, white and blue grapes, blueberries, pomegranate seeds, apricot and plum.

How-to Jambalaya :

First of all, I encountered a little problem with the rice while making this dish. I had to cook it for 45 minutes in order to get it tender instead of the normal 25 minutes O_o, but otherwise, it came out very tasty. I think the problem might be linked to the small burner I had to use as button operating the large burner of the stove is out of order :o( , so I'll keep the normal cooking times in this recipe.

Ingredients for 4 persons:

* 120g lean breakfast bacon (can be replaced by chicken as well)
* 1 onion
* 2 garlic cloves
* 250g mushrooms
* 1 red bell pepper
* 1 tsp olive oil
* 120g brown rice (uncooked)

* 400g sifted tomatoes

* 150ml vegetable stock

* 400g gambas (pealed & cooked)

* 1 TBS parsley
* a pinch of sugar
* to taste : salt, pepper, thyme (and if you like spicy, you can add tabasco sauce as well)

Dice the bacon, the onion, the garlic cloves, the mushrooms and the bell pepper.

Bake the bacon in the teaspoon of olive oil, add the vegetables and stew.

Add the uncooked rice, tomatoes and vegetable stock. Season with salt, pepper, a pinch of sugar (and tabasco if you want) and cook for 15 minutes.

Add the gambas and heat for an additional 5 minutes, finish with the tablespoon of parsley (and thyme).

Sweetie's monkey bento had the same ingredients (1) in the square tupper : jambalaya, cucumber, green olives and some cherry tomatoes. and (2) in the fruit sidecar: clementine, white and blue grapes, apricot and plum.

I am wishing you all a great and yummilicious new bento week !

First bentos of 2010

2010-01-06T15:55:00.000+01:00

December has come and gone and I have been so caught up in all that had to be done before the year came to a close, that I didn't update the blog for more than a month. The time has come however to take up the good habit again of posting my daily bentos.

January 4, 2010 :

The first working day of the year and the first day back at work since Christmas as well, added to the fact that it is freezing outside, you'll understand why my bento had to be as cheerful as possible. :o)

Lots of fruits and veggies in this one as another of my new year resolutions (besides updating this blog more regularly) is to lose weight (again) and between bentos and weightwatchers, I hope I'll be able to write down a pretty minus on the scale by the next Holidays.

Fruit section has lychee, white & blue grapes and clementine pieces. Teriyaki salmon for the proteins, rice for the carbs and a whole range of veggies : romanesco, brocoli, carrot, red & yellow bell pepper, asparagus, green beans, yellow cherry tomatoes, olives and radish. And a mini babybel cheese for the calcium intake :o)

Sweetie's monkey bento had the same ingredients (1) in the bottom tier : teriyaki salmon with white rice and green olives and (2) in the top tier : romanesco, brocoli, carrot, red & yellow bell pepper, green beans, radish and a piece of Beemster cheese.

January 5, 2010 :

More fruit in Tuesday's bento, as I knew I would get home late and I need to have something sweet and healthy to snack on, otherwise I always end up grabbing some (and then some more) chocolates in the office fridge (very yummy but better avoided).

* Fruity : clementine, lychee, pineapple, blue and white grapes, melon, blackberries
* Savoury : brown rice covered with red/yellow bell pepper and green asparagus, sliced mini schnitzels, brocoli, romanesco and snow peas.

The second bento has basmati rice covered with slices of marinated smoked salmon with chives (leftover from the holidays) and the veggie section has all the usual steamed veggies : green beans, bell peppers, romanesco, carrots and snow peas. No yoghurt for dessert that day, so Sweetie got a healty sidecar of melon, blackberries, pineapple and clementine.

January 6, 2010 :

Just one bento for a change today and I used my favourite black sakura bento again.

We had capellini bolognese for dinner last night and because I didn't have any forzen rice left (I should make a new batch tonight), I made more pasta than usual to use it for today's bento. Mixed with some olive oil, apple vinegar, spring onions and smoked ham shreds, the leftover capellini became a yummy pasta salad. Add some healthy vegetables to this salad like brocoli, romanesco, green asparagus and green beens and you have a full bento. An overload of green with a dash of colour thanks to the bell pepper and mini corns (that are sitting on carrot sticks) Fruit section has the usual lychee, white & blue grapes and clementine pieces.

Mushroom bento

2009-11-29T23:56:00.004+01:00

I don't know who stole the weekend, but I would really want to have it back. I have the feeling that I blinked on Friday night and all of a sudden it's almost Monday again. :o(

I didn't post Friday's bentos, so I'm doing it quickly before Monday blues gets to me.

My black sakura bento had carrot wrapped enoki, shitake, the last of the zucchini cakes, rice, cheese and carrot cut outs, some olives and cherry tomatoes and clementine for dessert.

Sweetie's bento had (1) in the bottom tier : leftover potatoes and sausage from Thursday night and (2) in the top tier : shitake and enoki, carrot/cheese cutouts, olives and cherry tomatoes.

Nothing special nor recipe worthy, so that's all I have to comment on these.

Tomorrow another week starts : yay :o)

Kreativ blogger award

2009-11-27T00:10:00.000+01:00

Gamene from Bentozen, an inspiring bentoist who "decorates her soy chicken nuggets with little bear faces" (sic) kindly nominated me for a KREATIV BLOGGER award! My first award ever,OMG .. the pressure ^_^

But being nominated is only part of the game. Apparently I should post seven interesting facts about myself, and then nominate seven other bloggers. Finding seven things to enumerate shouldn't be too hard, finding interesting ones might proof a challenge though. Better trow myself into the deep end and get started with this ^_^

(1) Living in a country with three official languages (two of which I spoke at home), I was spoonfed linguistic love and unsurprisingly, when the time came to go to university, I decided I needed to learn some more. I got my interpreter's degree back in 1996 and nowadays speak 6 languages (Dutch, French, English, Spanish, Italian & German). And because I'm nerd/geek/loony* (* pick one - or all ^_^), I am currently trying to learn Japanese. Trying being the key word , because mastering kanji is HARD (and even that is an understatement). It's also through my interest for Japan and all related things, that I ended up making bentos.

(2) I used to play the piano but haven't touched it in years. I should pick it up again (after tuning it because at the moment it sounds horrible) but always find some excuse not to : too much work, need to go shopping, would rather be crafting, ... On the other hand, I'd love to learn how to play saxophone. Another entry on my bucket list.

(3) I love animals and have always had pets in my life. Currently I am being bossed around by two British shorthairs Lancelot & Lisa Lynn, Lotje and Lily for short.

(4) I passed my practical driving exam 7 years after taking the theoretical exam. As I didn't own a car, I found it useless to take the pratical exam. So I only got my driver's licence in 1999 at age 25. I haven't had any accident since 2004 (while still driving 30.000 km/18.650 miles a year), and I'd love to keep it that way (knock on wood)

(5) I love travelling and am always busy planning our next trip (we try to travel abroad at least twice a year, as much as our 20 days off will allow). There are so many cities and countries out there to be disovered, that we hardly ever go back to a place we already visited. Asia remains a blank spot on our travel map for the moment, but visiting Hong Kong and Japan are other bucket list entries. My favourite destination so far was Brasil. I cannot wait to get back to South America, if you can imagine falling in love with a continent, I think I did.

(6) Two years ago I discovered the wonderful world of swapping and it led me into a world of crafts I never even knew existed. I always loved drawing (did art school) and already worked on cross-stitching projects, but I have since then started making jewelry, mixed media projects (bookmarks, matchboxes), ATCs, and a whole lot more. I haven't updated the crafty section of my blog for more than 6 months (as blogging was put on the backburner for a while), but I will probably start updating it again this weekend, as I have some ATCs to upload.

(7) For almost two years now I am an active lender on Kiva, the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals like you and me to lend to entrepreneurs around the globe. Over the last 23 months I have contributed by loaning 25 USD at a time to 19 low income entrepreneurs or group of entrepreneurs. Fighting poverty has never been so easy : by using Kiva I know exactly who my money is loaned to and what they're using it for. And most of all, I know that I'm helping them build a sustainable business that will provide income to feed, clothe, house and educate their family long after my loan is paid back. I encourage everybody to participate in this project, changing the world, one step at a time.

Now for the nominations, most (if not all) bento blogs I am following, have already been nominated, so I'm not sure which one to nominate. I'll think this over this weekend and edit this post afterwards.

Eclectic bento box

2009-11-26T12:10:00.008+01:00

My bento box of the day is a bit of a mix of all things I had in the fridge, which makes it a bit eclectic flavourwise. Luckily this bento has different compartments which keep the different items well separated.

Clockwise my box has :

* inari sushi with salmon eggs and a bit of gari (I love the sweet and savoury combo of these, but finding aburaage isn't always easy)
* a mix of raw veggies (cucumber/carrot swirl, tomatoes, radish, olives, cuke filled carrot)
* zucchini cake, with takuan/daikon triangles
* clementine and melon balls
* more melon balls and a cupcake of sweet potato/cocosmilk/coriander mash.

The second bento has a tortilla wrap covered with seasoned sour cream, smoked salmon, spring onions and iceberg salad; a baked sweet potato and and the same mix of veggies as in the top one.

As you can tell, nothing special today, so the only thing I have left to say, is to wish all my American friends and readers a

See ya tomorrow :o)

Zucchini cake bento

2009-11-25T15:29:00.008+01:00

After spending the whole evening on the phone with the helpdesk (with constantly the same Santana music as long as I was on hold) because the newly installed wifi still doesn't work, I didn't have the courage to start making a bento on Monday night. So yesterday, I just ate a ready-made pasta meal I put in the microwave.

I missed my ordinary nice lunch though, so even if I was tired last night, I decided to go and make myself something nice. So here I am, back with a new bento.

Sweetie's bento has meatballs (leftover from dinner), more carrot kinpira (I'm really hooked on those) and rice with a cheese star. The rice is from the one I froze on Monday and I really like how even after heating it up, it kept that round form from how I wrapped it up in foil. The cheese star is a cutout from a babybel cheese that I dabbed with pimenton dulce for a colour accent.

The bottom tier has half of a zucchini cake with the second half of the cheese star, daikon/carrot swirl, yellow and red cherry tomatoes, radish and mozzarella balls. I am really starting to get a hang of my vegetable cutters. Only problem I still have is liberating the swirl from the remainder of the vegetable. Practise makes perfect they say, so I guess I just have to practise more :o)

How-to zucchini cake:

For 6 minicakes, I used :

- 120 g self-rising flour (or you can use all purpose flour with yeast, which you add at the very end, just before putting it in the oven)
- 70 g grated gruyere cheese
- 70 g grated parmesan cheese
- a medium-sized zucchini
- 7 cl milk (I used semi-skimmed)
- 7 cl olive oil
- 2 eggs
- salt & pepper

Preheat the oven at 180°C.

Shred the zucchini. I kept a 5 cm long end unshredded for decorating purposes but that's not really necessary.

Mix the eggs with the milk and oil.

Add the flour and cheese to the egg batter. Before adding the zucchini to the batter, you have to remove excess liquid. This can be done either by squeezing the shreds with your hand or by pressing them in a sieve like I did.

Add the zucchini to the batter and mix all the ingredients together. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
(If you used all purpose flour, this is the moment when you should add your leavening agent. )

At this stage I decorated the cakes with half slices of zucchini, but this is optional.

Spoon the batter into the individual mini cake forms and put them in the oven at 180°C for 30 minutes.

As with ordinary cakes, check if they're done by sticking a knife or pin into the cake. If it comes out clean, it's done :o)

And my owan tsukimi accompanied me to the office today with in the bottom bowl a linguini salad with zucchini, asperagus, tomato, bell pepper and tomato, mixed with legumaise and with a few large shrimps.

In the top tier I added the second zucchini cake half, carrot kinpira, a takuan star (first time I taste takuan and I quite like it), zebra tomato (nice to look at but the taste isn't great unfortunately :o( ), the last of the edamame salad and another carrot/daikon swirl.

Bon appetit !

Ika sashimi bento

2009-11-23T13:57:00.003+01:00

As this post titles already indicates, today's bento has a Japanese feel to it. Shopping in Asian supermarkets over the weekend clearly left its marks.

For the toptier (left), I used storebought edamame salad (I haven"t found the beans yet to make it myself), rice onigiri with red shiso furikake and salmon eggs, ika sashimi on top of iceberg salad (the reason why this bento is staying in the fridge until lunchtime) and carrot kinpira.

When making rice for today's bentos I made enough to fill 7 bentos so I froze 5 portions of it. I am still looking at ways to speed up the bento making and if this works, it will save me not only time but also some dishes. I'll keep you posted on the results of my freezing experiment.

In the other tier I added simmered kabocha and some fruity vitamins for dessert : blackberries, clementine and plum slices.

The plum is rather a surprise and is part of my renewed attempt of widening my fruit likings. For years I didn't want anything to do with plums, but this weekend I decided I should try one again. After all I didn't like fennel for years and now it's one of my favourite veggies. As they say Only fools don't change their minds. and being no fool, I gladly admit I was wrong. Plums are yummy :o)

The simmered kabocha is again a (slightly adapted) JustBento recipe, but it ended up being a tad too sweet for my liking. I guess I'll cut back on the sugar next time round.

How-to simmered kabocha (Kabocha no nitsuke):

- 1/4 of a whole fresh squash (found at Tagawa superstore this weekend)
- 310 ml or 1 cup water with 1/2 tsp. of dashi powder
- 2 Tbs. mirin
- 2 Tbs. sugar (will try 1 Tbs next time)
- 1 Tbs. soy sauce
- Pinch of salt

Put all the ingredients into a pan and bring up to a boil.

Lower the heat and simmer, turning the kabocha pieces from time to time, until the liquid has reduced to half - about 20 minutes. Leave to cool in the liquid - the kabocha will absorb flavor from it as it cools. Drain off lightly to pack into a bento box.

Sweetie has a day off today, so didn't really need a bento but for convenience sake, I made one anyway. No need to loose good habits :o)

Bottom tier has simmered kabocha, zebra tomatoes (first time I encountered these, I hope they taste as good as they look), leek sprouts and beemster cheese.

Top tier has white rice with a black sesame heart, carrot kinpira, iceberg salad on the mozzarella balls and ham rolls.

Smakelijk.

Sesame flavoured beef bento

2009-11-22T22:59:00.002+01:00

An overdue update of the blog but like most Fridays and subsequent weekends, this one has passed in the blink of an eye. Before posting Monday's bentos, I still have to show you those from last Friday.

I have been browsing the JustBento website quite a lot lately and I came across so many recipes that I'd like to try, I hardly know where to start. These bentos are a step towards my "try them all" goal, because I already tried 3 (three!) of them on one night :o)

The pictured bento holds gomashio rice with sesame flavored beef in the top tier and in the bottom tier, I put ham negimayaki, carrot kinpira, cucumber dividers and yellow bell pepper sticks, cherry tomatoes, olives and beemster cheese.

All the recipes can be found on the JustBento website but for convenience sake I'm putting these on here as well.

How-to sesame flavoured beef :

For 2 portions

- 200g / about 7-8 oz. thinly cut beef
- 2 tsp. soy sauce
- 2 tsp. mirin
- 1 tsp. brown sugar
- 2 tsp. + 1 tsp. sesame oil
Slice the beef across the grain into thin strips. Put into a bowl, and add all the other ingredients except for the 1 tsp. of sesame oil. Massage the meat with your hands to rub in the marinade.

You can cook this right away, or leave it for a little while or even overnight. I didn't have time to leave it a whole night to marinate so I left it for half an hour and the meat had already absorbed the flavour.

Heat up a frying pan and add the remaining 1 tsp. of sesame oil. Add the beef to the hot pan and stir-fry for a couple of minutes until done. It should be just a bit syrupy, and an appetizing dark brown.

How-to carrot kinpira :

- 2 medium carrots
- 1 Tbs. dark sesame oil
- a pinch of cayenne pepper
- 1 Tbs. soy sauce
- 1 tsp. sesame seeds

Cut the carrots into matchstick size.

Heat up a frying pan or wok with the sesame oil. Add the carrots and toss around until crisp-tender, about 4 to 5 minutes depending on how skinny the matchsticks are. Add the cayenne pepper (the recipe calleed for red pepper flakes, but I'm not a fan of them) and toss some more. Add soy sauce, toss toss. Add the sesame seeds near the end.

How-to Ham Negimayaki :

- Spring onions
- Thinly sliced ham or cured meat of your choice. (I used a cooked honey sweetened ham.)

Cut the green parts of scallions or spring onions into pieces about 5cm / 2 inches long. Put on a plate, cover with plastic wrap and microwave on HIGH for about 2 minutes. (I was sceptical about this, but it worked)

Cut the ham into pieces that are just a bit narrower than the length of the green onion pieces. Take small bundles of the onion and wrap the ham tightly around them.

Heat up a non-stick frying pan and add a tiny bit of oil. Put the ham-and-onion rolls with the roll ends down in the hot pan. Leave until the bottom is a golden brown (this also seals the ends). Turn over 2-3 times more to brown the ham all over.

You shouldn’t need any more salt, but if you like you can sprinkle on some allspice, or Chinese 5 spice powder, or chili powder, for a little extra oomph. I didn't add anything at all and they were just fine.

My bento contained the same items so I can be short on that one : brown rice with ham negimayaki, sesame flavored beef, carrot kinpira, cucumber dividers and bell pepper flowers.

Balsamic sesame chicken bento

2009-11-19T16:18:00.003+01:00

Today, I decided I should give the second sakura bento a try. Like the owan tsukumi one I have, the glossy black exterior is in stark contrast with the red on the inside, but I quite like it.

This bento is rather straightforward in presentation : protein, starch, veggies and fruits and it has five different colours as well which, I have been told, should be present in any bento. I'm not sure about this prerequisite, but either way I love to have colour variety in my lunch.

Today's bento has balsamic sesame chicken, rice with gomashio mixed into it, a selection of green veggies and some forest fruits and clementine for the fruity vitamine part.

I had been looking for fresh romanesco in the supermarket, but the only cabbage types readily available are cauliflower and broccoli. So I had to resort to using frozen ones. I wish I had a famer's market nearby where I would be able to find this kind of special fruits and veggies, because the "mainstream" range ends up being a bit boring after a while. I think I will have to try and visit the vroegmarkt (i.e. early/night market catering for the professionals of the food industry) in Brussels, one of these days. Maybe I'll be able to find coloured cauliflowers and purple carrots over there. These look all so good in other people's bentos :o)

How to balsamic sesame chicken:

I found the recipe for the balsamic sesame chicken on the Justbento blog and it really is delicious. For the sake of clarity I'm copying maki's recipe below

My ingredients (for 2 bentos):

- 300 g of skinless chicken breasts cut into small pieces (because the boneless thighs the recipe called for, aren't sold as such over here)
- 1 TBS of balsamic vinegar
- 1 TBS of soy sauce
- lots of sesame seeds (I started with 4 TBS but gradually added more when I ran out of them)
- olive oil

Combine the chicken pieces, vinegar and soy sauce, and stir around to help the flavors permeate the meat. Leave to marinate for at least 10 minutes.

Heat up a non-stick frying pan over medium-high heat, and add just a litte oil (or use a cooking spray) to coat the bottom.

Drain off the chicken, and coat with the sesame seeds. Press with your fingers so that the sesame seeds stick as much as possible. Arrange the pieces as flat as possible in the frying pan. Pan-fry for about 4-5 minutes on medium-high heat, then turn over and cook for another 4-5 minutes or so. The chicken should be cooked through, and the sesame seeds should be crispy rather than soggy.

This is a quick and easy recipe but definetely something that I will make again.

And sweetie's bento has the same ingredients : balsamic sesame chicken, gomashio rice & green veggies mix to which I added carrots, hummus, olives and a cherry tomato. I packed the sesame grissini for eating with the hummus separately today because they ended up a bit "soggy" in yesterday's bento. I hope they'll stay crisp this time ...

Sakura bento

2009-11-18T15:38:00.002+01:00

A rather large picture of my bento today, because I am particularly pleased by the way it turned out. And it didn't only look good, but tasted delicious as well. What more can one ask of a lunchbox.

Like yesterday's bento, this one has its fair share of fruity vitamins, because part of those fruits are my breakfast. And the fact that this bento has little removeable trays makes it extra handy for this purpose :o)

Clockwise starting from the top there are : (1) strawberries, blackberries & redcurrant (2) kiwi gold and clementine (3) leeksprouts, cucumber, olives, radish and babybell cheese (4) green salad, left over slices of Orloff roast we had for dinner (5) farfalle salad with parmesan, basil and sundried tomatoes.

P. has been asking for a bread based bento for a few days and now that my pan-da sandwich maker arrived wit the bento order, it seemed like the right opportunity to put it to use. As indicated in the instructions, I toasted the bread lightly before putting the filling in and cut/seal the borders. The first one loosened up almost immediately but the second sadnwich seemed to hold even though the bread cracked. I guess I'll just have to practise a bit more.

The yellow veggie tier has salad, leek sprouts, tomatoes, olives, bell pepper and carrot flowers, beemster cheese, radish, hummus with zathar (storebought although I have seen easy looking recipes on the net) and sesame grissini.

Two toasted sandwiches with smoked duck (smoked meats and fish are a recurrent ingredient for sweetie's bentos). And red fruits for dessert : raspberries, strawberries, redcurrant and blackberries.

Bento & Co order

2009-11-18T14:14:00.004+01:00

My new order from Bento & Co arrived yesterday and I think I should consider myself lucky for receiving it as quickly. It all started when I placed the order: I mistakenly indicated France as the shipping address instead of Belgium O_o. Luckily Thomas from Bento&Co noticed my mistake and corrected it himself, sending it to the right chocolate country **sigh of relief**

Then I kept checking the tracking site to see where the box was (because once ordered, it can never arrive too soon) and on Monday morning I saw it had arrived and had been cleared by customs. Yes ! Monday goes by, no parcel. Tuesday at noon, still no parcel. Eventually, I had to phone Fedex to get it, because they messed something up in their system and didn't want to deliver it before Friday (something about this being sent economy). Apparently they didn't see the urgency of me getting my "plastic kitchen ware" O_o

And to complete the saga, once I got the parcel I had the unpleasant surprise to find it had been opened. Everything is OK on the inside (luckily), but even if it's for "customs purposes", I don't like it when someone goes through my things. But then again, maybe I made the customs officer curious about bentos and that might be a good thing for him/her. :o)

So here are the two large size picknick bentos that arrived.

Normally the complete bento is designed for 2 persons, but I will use only one of the tiers, which is the perfect size to fit my breakfast fruits as well as lunch. I couldn't find any single tier bento of the right size, so I opted for this solution. Only down point compared to the others I have, is that these aren't dishwasher/microwave safe, but given how pretty they are that's only a minor inconvenience :o)

I already used one of them for today's bento (see next post).

Tandoori and pasta bentos

2009-11-17T16:57:00.002+01:00

When I made my bento last night, I knew I wouldn't have time for breakfast, so I thought I'd make it a brunch box, containing both breakfast and lunch. This explains the XXL fruit section of today :o)

In the savoury tier, there is saffron rice with bell peper and green beans on top, tandoori chicken, pineapple, mixed salad with radish cucumber and carrot.

And the fruit tier : canned peach (because fresh ones are out of season :o( ), strawberries, clementine and redcurrants. I normally don't like any red/blue/black fruits except for strawberries, but I am trying to make mysef eat other fruits. It will be a looong way before I will ever be eating cherries (yuck!) but I bought some raspberries, redcurrant and blackberries an should be giving them a try this week.

As sweetie isn't a fan of indian food and tandoori in particular, I had to come up with something different to fill the owan bento. Although I have to admit that I didn't strain myself on this one :o)

Bottom : farfalle salad with chicken strips
Top : carrot flowers, bell pepper sticks, cheese, cherry tomatoes, cucumber slices, olives and radish all on a bed a salad.

And a mini bag of M&Ms for dessert :o)

Peach tuna bento

2009-11-16T14:29:00.003+01:00

Why do weekends always seem so short. I have the feeling that I just blinked and it is Monday again. Now, I am usually grumpy on Mondays, but when it is grey and rainy like today, the Monday blues strikes hard.

And as I can't find any colour in the drab outside world, I tried to bring the sun a bit in our first bentos of the week.

Today sweetie's bento has a homemade tuna salad with peach slices. I don't know about other parts of the world but the peach/tuna combo is rather popular around here. They sell sandwiches with this on and also ready made salad bowls containing this yummy ingredients. Nothing beats the homemade version though, especially since the tuna isn't drowned in mayo when you make it yourself.
The second tier of the bento has tomato/boursin/olive/bell flower skewers, carrot balls (found these in the healthy snack section at the gas station (!) yesterday evening), a piece of beemster and a heart shaped egg. I think I am starting to master the egg molding art, because they come out better every time :o)

I also discovered a new way of peeling hard boiled eggs. While I was looking at videos on youtube on how to fold t-shirts the japanese way (fabulous technique by the way), I came across this quick egg peeling technique and it works! Usually I always rip of some of the egg white whith the shell, but this time the egg was spotless. A nice disovery (even if it apparently is an advertisement for a mobile network provider) !

How to tuna salad :

- 1 can of tuna (I used natural but I guess you can use the oil version as well)
- 1/2 of a red onion
- mayonnaise
- parsley
- seasoning

It's not really a recipe because you just mix all the ingredients together. Drain the tuna, and loosen it up with a fork, add the diced onion, chopped parsley and a tablespoon of mayonnaise (for binding it all). Mix everything together with a fork (adding a bit of mayo if it is too dry) and season to taste (salt, pepper, nutmeg, ...)

My bento on the other hand is mainly what's left over from Sunday's dinner : a pork/veggie/rice noodle stirfry (soy sprouts, brocoli, onion, carrots with a Santa Maria lime/coconut seasoning mix).

And in the bottom tier : diced red bell pepper, beemster cheese, tomato, more carrots ball, olives, star shaped egg and cucumber.

Buen provecho !

Breaded chicken and potatoes bentos

2009-11-13T11:55:00.002+01:00

Making my bentos last night, proved quite a challenge : my fridge is desperately empty and I had to use all my imagination to be able to fill them up. I really should do some grocery shopping today, and maybe I should even buy a lottery ticket. Shouldn't a girl born on a Friday 13 have tremendous luck on another Friday 13? I'll only know if I play of course. And if I do win, I'm sure an empty fridge won't be a challenge anymore :o)

But I should quit the daydreaming and tell you more about these little bentos. For me, it's again a single tier bento today lined with green salad bowl and filled with roasted mini potatoes (krielaardappelen in Dutch) and breaded chicken, cucumber slices, kumato wedges, a carrot flower with a quail egg, mushrooms and a tomato/olive/boursin cheese/carrot skewer.

By the way, I just received a shipping confirmation of my new Bento&Co order, so by the end of next week, I should be able to have a cuter looking single tier bento to take to the office (even my colleague made a remark on my ordinary tupper yesterday "Tupperware? No pretty box today?", ah, the pressure of high expectations :o) ) I'll post pics of the boxes when they arrive.

As for the second bento, except for a different presentation the ingredients remain the same. The right tier seems a bit empty, but in order to close the box I had to move things around a bit so it ended up more filled than on this picture.

On the left : roasted potatoes, breaded chicken, carrot flower with quail egg, cucumber lotus flower with carrot heart, mini tomato/olive/boursin cheese skewers.

On the right : kumato and cucumber slices, clementine, grape, mini banana and some daim chocolates.

And that was the last bento of the week, because it is Friday at last. And to end this post on a witty remark :

Saturdays and Sundays are the strongest days of the week because all the other days are week days XD

Have a great weekend, everybody !

A long overdue update

2009-11-12T14:59:00.009+01:00

Everything seems to prevent me from updating this blog this last week and yesterday being a day off, I thought I'd do it then ... but I just hung around the house all day doing ... nothing. In Dutch we have a saying that "Idleness is the devil's pillow" (Ledigheid is des duivels oorkussen), but I find that being lazy every once in a while is perfect for recharging one's batteries. So after almost a complete week of absence, I should now be able to hang in there for a good while, or at least until Christmas :o)

An overview of the bentos of the last few days :

Nov. 12, 2009 : Quinoa pancakes & sweet potatoes bentos

Reading other bento blogs is always an inspiring process a browsing through HapaBento's blog is no exception to the rule. This week she posted bentos with quinoa as well as sweet potatoes, and her recipes seemed so easy and yummy that I decided to give them a try.

So, this is how my sweet potato mash / quinoa pancake bento ended up like. For this first time, I tried lining the box with green salad bowl, a technique gamene uses in almost all her bentos and which makes them look extra appetezing.
Then I added the quinoa/red lentils pancakes, the sweet potato mash in a silicone muffin cup, the regular carved cucumber and radish, three little rolls of cooked ham topped with cheesy stars and carrot triangles, a quail egg, the last of the snowpeas, alternating carrot and parsnip slices and a parsnip/carrot flower with a tomato heart.

For the recipes for the sweet potato mash and the quinoa pancakes, I refer you to the postings on hapabento's blog I linked to above. I didn't use mirin (because my other half isn't a big fan of the taste) for the pancakes but added nutmeg (a spice I add in every dish, I have to admit) and my sweet potato mash is chili-free.

My other half also had a bento of course, containing roughly the same ingredients : Quinoa/red lentil pancakes and sliced sweet potato in the bottom tier; ham roll skewer,brocoli, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, radish, snowpeas and carrot/parsnip slices and flower (with a quail egg heart).

Nov. 11, 2009 : Armistice Day -> holiday -> no work -> no bento :o)

Nov. 10, 2009 : Butternut pumpkin bento

As the main part of my bento was going to be a mixed salad, I took my little round bento again to work, filled with lots of beggies.

For the bottom tier, I made a salad of mini witloof (a typical Belgian vegetable, although I'm not sure what it's called in English. Chicory? Endives?) with cucumber, kumato and some leftover turkey from dinner, which I diced. All seasoned up with the usual parsley, salt and pepper.

For the vegetables in the top tier I tried out some of my new carving equipement, with varied success : a cucumber garland, a carrot twist and flower, cherry tomato, babybel cheese, radish, leek sprouts and half a kumato filled with the potato/butternut pumpkin puree leftover from last night's dinner.

The same ingredients also went in the other bento :

In the pink tier : another carrot swirl, a radish which was supposed to be Crysanthemum Flower but ended up strangely spiky, a bit of the witloof salad from the other bento and an ovenbaked sweet potato. It was the first time that I tried making a sweet potato and apparently P. found it so yummy that half of what I baked, never even made it into the bento. :o)

In the black tier : butternut pumpkin/potato puree rolled in ham, yellow zucchini, olives, carrot flower with a cherry tomato heart.

How to butternut pumpkin/potato puree :

It wan't really my intention to turn this into a puree, but running back and forth between the study (facebook addict), the TV (trying to catch some of the news) and the kitchen, I overcooked the potatoes, leaving me with no other aesthetic possibility than mash them up.

What I used :
1 butternut pumpkin
1 onion
4 potatoes

Dice the onion and flash fry it in a bit of olive oil. Peel the butternut pumpkin, remove the seeds and other mush interior, keeping only the firm flesh and dice it. Add the pumpkin to the onions, add a bit of water to cover the bottom of the panand let it simmer until the pieces are tender. Keep an eye on your pan and make sure your pan always has a bit of water in the bottom to prevent scorching your veggies. I let it simmer for half an hour, but everything depends on your cooker of course. As for the seasoning, I always cook my vegetables using a bouillon cube (a half one or a complete one according to the amount of water I am using), making it unnecessary to add salt or a lot of spices (especially since I cook with very little salt, much to my dinner's partner dismay). The only thing I always add is freshly ground nutmeg, but then again, I'm a nutmeg addict :o)
Meanwhile, boil your potatoes in salt water as usual. When cooked, drain them and put them back on the heat for a few seconds, to evaporate the remaining water. Take off the heat, add the pumpkin to the potatoes and mash everything into a even puree. I added freshly chopped parsley, but you could also add coriander leaves. And that's it, can it be easier?

Nov. 9, 2009 : Apple/fennel bento

In case you're wondering about the different colours of top and bottom tier : I only realised after I filled them up, that I inverted the bentos, so P. and I both got bentos in Swedish colours today. If I had known beforehand, I might have made köttbullar to stick with the theme :o) Maybe I should hold on to that thought, it might come in handy ...

My blue top tier had a organic rice mix I found in the supermarket consisting of red, black and white longgrain rice as well as wheat; and a leftover of the fennel with apple I made for Sunday night's dinner (made this with a yummy salmon/scallop "roast" ~ I'm not sure if the word is also used for fish in English, but you catch my drift).

The yellow bottom tier had surimi, green asparagus, yellow beans with spring onion, daikon flowers/carrot slices and yellow turnip flowers on green salad bowl.

Again, rougly the same things in the second bento :

Top tier : same rice mix as in mine with smoked trout on some salad leaves.

Bottom tier : apple/fennel, yellow zucchini, yellow beans, carrot skewers and daikon/turnip flower skewers.

Nov. 6, 2009 : Symphony of green & orange

Last Friday, the neko bento had the privilege to accompany me to the office, filled with a orange & green colour scheme.

In the top tier : radish, olives, leek sprouts, cherry tomatoes, carrot stars and carrot/orange bell peper bundle, green veggies stirfry (brocoli/asparagus/snowpea) and a strangly cut cucumber (which should have been star shaped but ended up alien-like :o))

In the bottom tier : crayfish with spring onions and spirulina tagliatelle with cheese flowers.

And P. needed lunch as well, so the second bento I made had :

On the left : two kumato halfs filled with surimi salad, spirulina pasta (Again I wisely omitted to inform the other half that spirulina are algae :o) ; orange bell pepper flowers, another attempt at creating a lotus cucumber flower (I hope I'll get better results with the carving tools I ordered today), cherry tomatoes and olives.

On the right : green veggies stirfry, yellow kiwi, clementine, the last two pineapple chocolates and to end the week on a positive note, a green tea fortune cookie.

That's it, an extra loooong post to make up for my absence last week. See ya tomorrow :o)

First single tier bento

2009-11-05T00:04:00.004+01:00

One single bento tonight, because P. is having a business lunch tomorrow and has no need for a homemade lunch. All the more time I can use for making my own bento :o)

Inspired by sherimiya's awesome single tier bentos, I decided to leave my tow-tier bentos in the cabinet tonight, which means that I will be taking a plain tupper to the office. The contents will have to make up for it. :o)

My single tier bento has (from L to R) : quinoa with red lentils and carrots, teriyaki salmon, a carrot/daikon skewer, snow peas, green asparagus with sesame, brocoli, radish, cherry tomatoes, cucumber flowers with a carrot heart and a little jar of carrot/ginger légumaise (everything on a bed of leek sprouts).

How to : cucumber flowers with carrot hearts

Ever since I saw this amazing Thai woman carving vegetables and fruits at the kokerello fair, back in 2007, I have been fascinated by the beauty of these carved veggies. Given the additional space I had in this box, I decided to give it a try. Googling carving let to a wide array of websites, but I found this site, with what seemed to be a rather straightforward cucumber flower. "Seemed" because when you don't really have the proper knifes for carving, it can be a bit messy. But still, I'm quite pleased with the final result :o)
The radish was carved following the tutorial from FrenchBento.

How to : teriyaki

I usually always have a store-bought mix of teriyaki marinade in my cabinets, but I emptied my bottle last time and didn't come round to buy a new one yet. However, I found a simple recipe to make the marinade in one of my books and as it is so simple, I thought I'd share it with you.

Put 3 tablespoons of soy sauce, 2 tablespoons of mirin and 1 tablespoon of sugar in a pan and heat the mixture up until it thickens. Take off the heat and marinate your fish/meat in this liquid for a least half an hour, and that's it.

Smakelijk.

Mid-week bentos

2009-11-04T12:25:00.005+01:00

Yesterday evening was a bit hectic and I didn't have a lot of time to spend on my bentos. So these ones ended up in the quick and easy range :o) But that doesn't mean they aren't tasteful of course!

A little round bento for me today, perfect for leftovers from last night's cappellini alla bolognese.

In the top tier : yellow turnip slices, brocoli, babybel cheese, half of a kumato filled with homemade surimi "salad", cucumber stars and red bell pepper flowers on leek sprouts and 2 green olives to fill in the remaining space.

For those who wonder about the kumato, you should check out this website. It's a sweet, dark tomato, that not only taste devine but looks fabulous in any dish (although granted, you can't see too much of it in the top picture).

The surimi salad is very easy to make and can be used as spread or as a filler for tomatoes or other veggies.

How to :

Take two surimi sticks and roll them open in order to have two small "sheets". Slice them up (horizontally and vertically) until you have small pieces. Mixed these pieces with freshly chopped parsley and chives and add a teaspoon of mayo or sour cream. And that's it :o)

The second bento I made, seemed Ok last night, but looking at the picture now, it seems a bit empty ... :o(

Top tier : smoked salmon/salad/zucchini wraps, olives and a red bell pepper filled with the surimi salad.

Bottom tier : kumato and yellow turnip slices, brocoli, radish and my first attempt at "merging" vegetables. Not the crisp look I was going for but I guess it takes some practicing. Better next time :o)

Bon appetit.

Vegetarian & non-vegetarian bentos

2009-11-03T20:27:00.004+01:00

Aargh ... these internet connection problems are really killing me. You never know how much you are addicted to the net and modern technologies until you are brutally cut off. I hope the connection will keep up until I complete my post ** fingers crossed **

I wasn't very inspired by the contents of my fridge yesterday. Nice ideas, but not the ingredients to work them out. :o/

Anyway, P. got the large bento today, so I could include the dessert section in the box instead of in a sidecar. This bento ended up being vegetarian, which is wasn't really my goal :

Top tier : clementine with grape, peanut M&Ms, pineapple slices covered with white chocolate, little gem salad with carrot and cucumber rolls and sliced radish

Bottom tier : mini green asparagus/raw ham roll, soy nuggets, purple rice onigiri with zucchini slice, babybel cheese, mini red bell pepper filles with corn and goat cheese/zucchini "maki" rolls.

I, on the other hand, took my cute pink and black neko bento to the office today :o)

Not a vegetarian bento for me but neveretheless lots of veggies. My Tuesday lunch consisted of :

Top : "indian" chicken filet rolls, purple rice on a bed of leek sprouts, a small purple pepper filled with the goat cheese (left over from the rolls in the other tier), cucumber, carrots & bell pepper sticks

Bottom : goat cheese "maki" rolls, corn, radish, snow peas and green (sesame) asperagus wrapped with raw ham.

I didn't take pictures of the dessert I had, but I brought me some Leopold III grapes again (it's the season) and a clementine.

Buen provecho!

Bento Monday

2009-11-02T11:44:00.006+01:00

My first real post on this new blog ... how exiting :o)

After one week on sick leave, I have taken the road to work again today, so it was bento time again last night. Strangely enough, I missed my little bento this last week ... glad to take up the habit again.

My pictures and bentos aren't very special compared to those found on the different flickr groups, but I'm working on it. After all, Rome wasn't built in one day neither.

My bento for today is all stacked in my blue urara dragon fly bento, just the right size for a healthy lunch.

Top tier : sliced oyster mushrooms with apples and boursin cheese, soy nuggets, cucumbers and a little cup of carrot/ginger legumaise.

For the "How to" part (for 2 bentos) :

Dice one onion and a clove of garlic, that you let brown in a bit of olive oil. Cut the oyster mushrooms (250g) into strips and throw them in the pan with the onions. While it simmers, dice an small apple and add it to the mushrooms. Let it cook some more and add one TBS of boursin cream cheese, that will melt with the heat of the pan and quickly withdraw from the heat (the cheese tends to burn quite rapidly).

As far as the carrot/ginger légumaise is concerned, this one is store-bought although I have found some recipes that seem rather easy, so maybe next time it will be homemade.

Bottom tier : leftover orzo turned into a salad with cucumber, orange bell pepper, tomatoes, freshly chopped chives and parsley, radishes and corn.

P.'s bento of the day is the Clickety Click Monkey Bento Box I received in a swap last year (just to explain why I have a monkey bento in my cabinet, because I am not very keen on apes) and it contains roughly the same things as mine :

Top tier : sliced oyster mushrooms with apples and boursin cheese, cucumber/carrot rolls, radishes, cherry tomato and smoked eel (because P. loves any kind of smoked fish).

Bottom tier : leftover orzo turned into a salad with cucumber, orange bell pepper, tomatoes, fresly chopped chives and parsley, and corn.

Smakelijk !

Welcome

2009-10-21T12:20:00.000+02:00

First posting on this new blog. I hope you're all hungry for bento food, because that's what you'll get :o)