Pasta Bento for Feb 28

I'm a bit behind on the Reddit Bento challenges - and I'm the one running it!
I really only missed the Chinese New Year one ... but I haven't made a bento in 2 weeks.

This week's theme was pasta - here's what I did:



Linguine with Capers and Green Olive Sauce (recipe here) - this is my go-to pasta sauce, I just use basic tinned tomato sauce as my base (I'm sure I could get fancy and make my own, but I often don't have time). I could eat this for days.

The rest of the box is filled with: blanched asparagus with lemon pepper, grape tomatoes, cocktail sausages (with fish shaped skewers, because why not?), quick pickled cucumber (recipe from the JustBento Cookbook), apple bunnies.

Chicken Tikka Pasties

I took out some ground chicken to thaw for dinner, but then I realized I didn't have all the stuff I needed for the things I usually make with ground chicken. Oops.

I started looking up recipes for ground chicken or beef, and I came across a recipe for these biscuit cup things, which suddenly reminded me of Cornish pasties.

Then I wanted to see what people did with chicken in a pasty.
After a bit of google searching, I found a few recipes for chicken tikka pasties. I had a jar of pre-made tikka masala sauce, so I glanced at the recipe, then decided to come up with my own version with what I had on hand.

I made large ones for dinner using a hand pie press that I picked up a while ago.
Then I made some mini ones - I used a crumpet ring to cut the pastry (about the same size as an egg ring), and then crimped them closed with a fork

Here's my lunch with two mini pasties, some salad, apple, and a deviled egg:



Recipe!

1lb ground chicken
1 large russet potato
1/4 white onion
Jar of tikka masala sauce (I used this one)
1c frozen peas

Peel and dice potato (about 1cm pieces), boil until just done (stick a fork in, or cut it with a butter knife, if it's easy, it's done)
Cook ground chicken almost completely through, drain,
Dice onion, and add to the pan, cooking for a bit longer until chicken is cooked through and onion is soft.
Add enough sauce to coat the meat, fold in potato and peas. Add more sauce if necessary.

This will make about 9 large pasties... and a whole lot of mini ones (I have no idea how many - hah!)

I used this recipe for shortcrust pastry - it makes 3-4 pasties, depending on how thin you roll it. and about 6-8 mini ones.
If you want the pastry to be more golden, you will need to use an egg wash, but because I was doing such a small batch last night, I skipped it.

You can fill the large ones with about 1/3c of the filling, and the small ones take about 1tbsp.

I only made 2 large and 4 small pasties, so I have enough filling left for at least 2 more dinner/lunch combos, maybe more.

If anyone wants to do it completely from scratch, here is the recipe that inspired me.

Mini Tuna Burgers

Yesterday, when I opened the can of soup to put into my bento, my cat came running into the kitchen and sat down at my feet.

She's not a big fan of soft food, and we've only ever given her the kind with the pop-top. What she was looking for was tuna water. Because I'm silly, I told her she could have tuna water later that night.

So, when it came time to make today's lunch, I settled on a mini tuna burger recipe from the just bento cookbook. Sure enough, as soon as I clamped the can opener onto the tin, the cat turned away from her water (from the brita - it's her usual 'treat' she goes crazy for it), and came to sit at my feet to wait quietly for her new treat.

Anyway, here's my bento:

Short-grain rice mixed with plum furikake

2 mini tuna burgers

I filled the remaining space with 1/4 of an apple, and some veggies. There are cucumbers under the tomatoes (tiny, tiny tomato <3 p="">

Two Lunches!

I wasn't home all day yesterday, so I didn't get to make a post. I have to go make lunch for tomorrow, so this one is short!

Yesterday's lunch was chicken teriyaki with rice, corn and gyoza:

Today's was quickly thrown together - Mediterranean meatball soup and assorted veggies:

Both were super tasty!

Pasta Salad and Cocktail Sauages

I've been on a Greek salad kick - cucumber, tomato, pepper, onion, olive. So simple, so delicious.
Yesterday's lunch was packed in 15 minutes in the morning, and it was a full-sized version of the salad I had on Thursday, with the tomatoes cut in, and some olives added.

Today's bento incorporates the same flavours into a pasta salad, dressed with a feta salad dressing.



The pasta is one of those 'smart' ones, fortified and all that jazz.
The main protein today comes in the form of cocktail sausages (weiners!). I did 3 cut in half, and a 4th cut into an octopus, because it's hard to resist doing. There is a grainy mustard and mayo dip in the container.
I also have a tamagoyaki in there as a secondary protein. I didn't season it with the usual soy sauce and sugar - I used seasoned pepper instead, which is amazing on eggs.
Filled the space with 1/4 of an apple (not bunnified today, the other slice is hidden), broccoli and matchstick carrots.

Salad Bentos and a Cat

I forgot to take a photo of yesterday's bento, but it was just leftover taco fixings arranged into a salad, with some tortilla chips on the side. Yum!

I wanted to take a photo of both mine and my husband's bento boxes for today - they're essentially the same, but you can see where I've changed things up to accommodate our slightly different tastes.




Mine is on the left, his is on the right.

The main component in each is a salad - the base is spinach and romaine, then I've topped it with various other veggies. I get cucumber and red pepper, he gets snow peas and matchstick carrots.
I have salad dressing, but he likes his plain.
We each get a deviled egg, 3 chicken nuggets, and 1/4 of an apple - sliced into bunnies, because I can.
For the space filler, his is entirely broccoli, and mine is tiny grape tomatoes and broccoli.
Aren't the tomatoes so cute?

I take my photos on a bamboo slat placemat set on our kitchen table.
When we're not using the table, the cat likes to sleep on the edge of it up against the windowsill, so when she spotted me over there, she had to come see what I was doing:



Thankfully she doesn't like people food.

January 10 - Onigiri with Beet Salad

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The only thing I had leftover from dinner last night were some beets, so I had to get creative.

I didn't want to just throw the beets in there plain. That's how I had them for dinner, and it was delicious, but I wanted something different for lunch. I grabbed my Just Bento cookbook, and flipped to the index to see if there were any recipes featuring beets. There was one, so this is it. It's a beet salad with a grainy mustard dressing. I sliced up the beets in to thinner pieces before dressing them.

I settled on chicken nuggets as my protein - there are actually 4 in there, one is hidden under the cup.

And for my carb, I've got 2 onigiri, made with a plum rice seasoning I found at a little Japanese style convenience store near my work.

I filled the space with grape tomatoes (I like how these ones are slightly green at the tips - they don't taste underripe, but they look nice!), and some carrot matchsticks.

Fresh Start

Holy cow, I've been gone a while.

I've been super lazy for my work lunches for aaaaaaaaaaaages, and I want to try and be healthy, and look forward to my lunches again.
For the last several months, I've been throwing assorted veggies into a zip lock bag, a hand full of crackers in another, an apple sliced up with a container of peanut butter, a fruit cup or some pudding, and anything else random that I feel like.

Well, hopefully no more ...

Since it's been so long, I'm sure nobody will notice, but the blog has a new name, and a new theme.

On to the Food!

I work early, so I have to bring breakfast with me too. In the small container we have some greek yogurt with a touch of honey, and some vanilla almond granola mixed in (it was packed separately in a tiny zip lock bag, but I mixed it in before the photo)

Lunch is a leftover chili-cheese sausage from dinner, potato-cucumber salad, grape tomatoes, snow peas and a deviled egg. Also, a can of flavoured sparkling water (I find it helps me not drink pop - I get the fizz without all the sugar or chemicals)

Simple and tasty!

Oh! Also new is the box - it is a 550ml glass container with a 4-way locking lid. Haven't tested it's water-tightness yet, but it has a rubber seal. The yogurt container is a round plastic 100ml version. I got them both at a dollar store. Big container was $2, little container came in a 3-pack for $1.25.

Now I have to go make tomorrow's lunch!