Bento Backlog!!

I haven't been as on-top of this as I wanted, but ... I'm still doing it!

First off, The Mister's co-worker was asking him to find out how I make miso soup at home. I thought I'd share ...

Let's start with the supplies:



Hon-Dashi granules
White Miso
Extra firm tofu (optional, not pictured)
Green onion (optional, not pictured)

Make Dashi stock as per instructions - 1tsp to 3cups water, bring just to a boil.
Add as much or as little Miso paste as you want and mix well. Reduce heat and keep warm.
Cut tofu into small pieces and finely chop the green onion - place into a bowl.
Pour dashi/miso mix over the tofu and green onion.
Ta-da!

Anyways ... on to the bentos!

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Bento #58



This is leftovers from one night:

Egg noodles
Veggie stir fry
Tofu in oyster sauce
Mini oatmeal muffin
Chocolate coins

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Bento #59



Egg noodles
Wontons
Wonton soup mix (in the blue strawberry)
Mini Bok Choy with sesame oil
Mini smokies cut into various shapes.

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Bento #60



Omurice (mushroom rice wrapped in egg), topped with HP sauce
Snow peas
Carrots
Hot dog octopus and fish (under the octopus)
Corn

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Bento #61



More leftovers - from dinner tonight!

Egg noodles with sesame oil and soya sauce
Sesame tofu (tofu fried crispy with sesame oil, soya sauce and sesame seeds)
Edamame
Miso Soup ball (just add water!)
Carrot sticks
Apple bunny
Cheese
Taro mochi

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Phew!

Bento #48 and #49

I'm so behind!



Mini pita sandwiches - 2 mini pitas cut in half, filled with red leaf lettuce, turkey, mozzarella, Caesar dressing (low calorie) and pepperoncini.
Cucumber
Tomato
Carrots
Pepper Kinpira




this one was a mish-mash

noodles with sesame oil and soy sauce
deviled egg
meatballs (on a pick!)
chicken nuggets
potato smiles
frozen corn
carrots
blueberries
and a container of teriyaki sauce for the meatballs.

delish!

***

Next one is Bento #50 ... I'd like to say that I'll do something special, but I probably won't.

Bento #43

Egg noodles with sesame oil and soy sauce
Deviled egg with chives
Cottage cheese with shredded cheddar, green onion, salt and pepper.
Garlic Cornick (Filipino style corn nuts)
Bell Pepper Kinpira - recipe from the Just Bento cookbook
Black Grapes

The Mister's bento was almost the same - he got Carrot Kinpira, because he doesn't like peppers that much, and I gave him cheese cubes instead of the cottage cheese.

Carrot Kinpira recipe here (though I added some dashi as well)

The kinpira reduced a lot more than I thought it would - mine is 3 mini bell peppers and it doesn't even fill the container! His was about 8 baby carrots and, same thing!

The cottage cheese recipe comes from my great aunt - I really never liked cottage cheese before. One day she was visiting my granny and whipped out a container of it mixed with the cheddar, green onion and a dash of salt & pepper. She said she never liked it either, but once she tried it this way, she couldn't stop eating it - I agree! It's really quite good (you don't use much salt at all and can omit it entirely if you'd like. I just prefer adding a tiny amount to cut the slight sweet edge that cottage cheese has)

Bento #41

Sorry for the lack of posts - I've been busy :(

Today's bento includes:
Cha Soba (green tea & buckwheat noodles) with dipping sauce, wasabi, chives and nori furikake (blue container and a second hidden container)
Baby corn
Leftover schwartzies potatoes
A hot dog, cut into various shapes (hidden)
mini sweet peppers with blue cheese dressing

Kinda thrown together, but delicious :)

Bento #38

Another ramen bento - the stock mix I made up the other day worked quite well, and meshed with the soy sauce and sesame oil I had dressed the noodles with. I used very little of the mix compared to how much water I put in - I didn't want the broth to be too salty. It was very nice. Also, I had a ton left over, so I'm bringing it in this bento - hah!

Ingredient-wise, this one is pretty much the same as Thursday's ramen, except I traded the turkey for some enoki mushrooms. I also put a dash of furikake on top.
I also included a little side-dish of some asazuke - quick pickled cucumber, made with the recipe from the Just Bento cookbook.

***

I haven't talked about my weight-loss efforts for some time.
This is mainly because they have come to a complete halt ... well, not the efforts, but the progress. It is something beyond my control, and it is very frustrating.

I mentioned some medical stuff a while back, well to give a bit more detail, I was diagnosed with Pemphigus Vulgaris (there are no pictures at that link, but please note, if you look up photos of the condition, it can look quite awful, so be careful if you are squeamish - mine was caught fairly early and did not get very bad). Essentially what is happening is my immune system is attacking the chemical that holds my skin cells together, so I get very thin watery blisters. They break easily and leave sores. When the skin heals over the sores, it doesn't adhere properly, so it tears easily. Rather uncomfortable!
As I said, mine was caught pretty early - I had symptoms for about 3 months before I was properly diagnosed (it looks a lot like other conditions, so it was a bit of trial and error at first). The only permanent scars I will have are from where they took two blisters off for biopsies.
It is a rare condition and they don't really know what causes it. It is commonly found in older patients, so I've surprised some of the residents at the dermatology office - they walk in expecting a 70 year old lady - hah!

I have had to go on prednisone - a steroid which can cause significant weight gain (and moonface!). I have gained back all the weight I lost since I started trying (before this blog) - plus another 5 lbs, so I'm up to 205 right now. I seem to have stopped there, which makes me happy. The medication also causes an increase in appetite, which I have been trying to strictly control (low calorie snacks and lots of veggies).
I am currently taking a different immunosuppresant medication (commonly used for translpant patients!), and I will thankfully begin to taper the prednisone starting in July.
I'm hoping that I will be able to lose all the weight I gained once I'm off the steroid.

So, terribly sorry for those of you who were interested in hearing about any progress - it was definitely helping before, and I will definitely update once I start to lose weight again!

Bento #37

Blue box is for The Mister and pink box is for me - they are essentially the same, just different portions.

This one is a ramen inspired bento - but with no broth! I'm sure I could put together a packet of instant broth to throw in, but I thought this would be good on it's own.
((edited to add)) It turned out to be a cold grey day, so I did put together a packet of powdered soup mix - I mixed chicken and beef 2:1 and threw in some dashi granules. I usually do the chicken/beef mix, but I've never tried it with dashi - hopefully it's ok!

In the base of each box is a layer of noodles with soy sauce, sesame oil and a pinch of chili flakes.
We each get half of a Shoyu egg (hard boiled egg marinated in soy sauce), sprinkled with black sesame seeds.
Mini Bok Choy (blanched)
Carrot matchsticks
Frozen Corn
Veggie Dumpling (he gets 2, I get 1)
He gets 2 pieces of imitation crab
I get 3 slices of turkey lunch meat, cut and rolled into flowers.
Each box is topped with a bit of green onion.

We also each get 2 pieces of seasoned nori and a small box with some assorted fruit (mango, donut peach, black plum, black grapes and strawberry)

Bento #33 & #34

Bottom tier:
Egg noodles with sesame oil, soy sauce, black sesame seeds and chili flakes
Meatballs with teriyaki sauce and carrot hearts

Top tier:
Frozen corn (thaws by lunch!)
Snap peas
Strawberry
Apricot slices
Black Grapes

And the centerpiece is slightly different - we each get a hard boiled egg ...

The Mister gets a chick (the egg broke around the middle, otherwise it would have been a deviled egg):



Mine is Totoro! - cut a 'V' out of the top of the egg to make the ears, painted the egg with food colouring, used the leftover egg to make the eyes, black sesame seeds for the pupils and nose:



Here's a closeup of Totoro:

Bento #31

Today's bento is

yakisoba with cabbage
Mini salmon burgers (recipe here) with tartar sauce
mini cucumber sticks
baby carrots and a grape tomato arranged in "flowers"
snow peas (hidden under the sauce container)
apple bunnies
blood orange
black grapes
apricot slices (hidden under the other fruit)


Yakisoba recipe (2 servings for smaller tiers of a two-tiered bento box):

1 bundle soba noodles
handfull of shredded cabbage
dash of olive oil

Sauce Ingredients:
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp worcestershire sauce
3/4 tbsp rice vinegar
1/2 tbsp mirin
1 tsp sugar
ginger to taste

mix sauce and set aside
boil soba noodles until tender, drain and rinse in cold water
in a frying pan, heat oil and add noodles - stir fry for a minute or two
add cabbage to pan, continue to stir fry until noodles just start to stick to the pan
add sauce and stir fry to reduce

you can add meat, fish or other veggies too!

dinner post

I had to take a photo of dinner, because it was so pretty (dinner doesn't normally look like this, I promise you).
I was planning on serving rice with it and making some imitation crab maki sushi, but the rice did NOT cook properly (it was mush on the bottom and crunchy on the top). I took the imitation crab and mixed it with some cabbage, mayo, sesame seeds and pepper to make a salad.
The sausage slices are a honey garlic smoked sausage cooked with a bit of garlic and some teriyaki sauce.
Frozen veggie dumplings with homemade gyoza sauce.
And finally, the part I am most happy with is the Cha Soba (green tea buckwheat noodles) - served cold, I lightly toasted some nori over a burner and cut it into thin strips, made some soba tsuyu (dipping sauce) and served it with some wasabi and green onions (as per several websites when I was looking up how to serve the cha soba). I mixed the wasabi and green onions into the dipping sauce and dipped the noodles in before eating them. The noodles are so refreshing and the wasabi complimented the flavour so nicely.

I always wondered about all the different sauces they serve at Japanese restaurants, and once I started incorporating some of the cuisine into my cooking, I learned that those sauces are all pretty simple and only require 3-4 main ingredients used in different combinations.
My next goal is to make gyoza from scratch! I'll probably wait until we're moved in to our new house before tackling that.

Bento #24

Today's main dish is cold soba noodles with dipping sauce, nori furikake and chives
Top tier has 1/2 an apricot and 1/2 a clementine, frozen corn, snow peas and tomatoes.
Not much protein again, only 1/2 a hotdog cut into 2 crabs.
The white wedges are Pajeon - a Korean pancake with chives - the little pig container has some jeon dipping sauce in it.

PaJeon (makes about 10 pancakes in a small frying pan)
2 cups flour
2 cups water
2 eggs
chives, chopped fine
salt & pepper

mix all, let rest for 10-15 minutes
heat a little bit of oil in a small frying pan
pour in batter, sprinkle with more chives, seafood, whatever you want.
cook over medium for 5-6 minutes until golden brown
flip and cook other side 5-6 minutes until golden brown

Jeon Sauce
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/2 tbsp vinegar (distilled white)
1 stalk scallion, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 tsp Korean dried hot chili pepper flakes (optional)
1/2 tsp sugar
1 tsp sesame oil


I think tomorrow I'm going to go out and buy some tofu when I'm picking up some fresh veggies. I'd like to try a couple of tofu recipes out.

The Mister and I bought a house - we're moving in a little under a month!
I will be so happy to get out of my tiny apartment kitchen (I have 1 small piece of countertop and two cupboards for food!) and into something with space to move and prep multiple items at once!