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.

2 x Bento

Bento #62



This one was leftover sloppy joes made with ground turkey.
Served with slider flatbread rounds, green onion, and shredded cheese
For veggies we have celery and carrot sticks
And 2 chocolate covered macadamia nuts for a treat.

Sloppy Joe Recipe:
1lb ground turkey
1/4 c green pepper, diced
1/4 c onion, diced
1/2 c. ketchup
1 tbsp yellow mustard
a few dashes Worcestershire sauce
Spices to taste (I used chili powder, cumin, cinnamon, garlic powder, onion powder, pepper and a dash of salt)

Brown meat, breaking it up as you cook it. Drain. Add onion and green pepper and cook until just soft.
While meat is cooking, combine ketchup, mustard, Worcestershire sauce and spices. Add about 1/4 c water.
Coat the meat with the sauce (add more water if necessary), and simmer to reduce the sauce.

Serve on your favourite bread or buns (we used whole grain sunflower & flax bread when we had it for dinner) with toppings of your choice!

A lot of the recipes I found for sloppy joes called for brown sugar, and little to no spice. I didn't have any brown sugar on hand, so I skipped it, and added some of my favourite spices. This recipe had a nice slight sweet edge (ketchup already has sugar in it, and cinnamon is sweet), and just a touch of spice.

If you've never tried cinnamon in a tomato sauce, I highly recommend it. It adds such a rich flavour to the sauce. It works really well with meat sauces, but I often have it with just plain sauce. You only need a dash.

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Bento #63



Sorry, this photo is a bit blurry, I was in a rush that morning.
We have 3 round onigiri (l to r: Salmon Furikake, Plain (lightly salted), Umeboshi Furikake)
1 hotdog cut into 2 octopi and 2 crabs (black sesame seeds for the octopus eyes)
Mustard in the little blue container
Deviled Egg
2 apple bunnies

yum!

I haven't made onigiri in so long, and I forgot just how delicious they are - even just the plain ones!
I picked up some more furikake today: Veggie, Bonito and Egg.

I've never actually had an umeboshi ... I will admit that even though I'm all for trying new things, a pickled plum makes me hesitate. I like the umeboshi furikake though. I'm sure if the opportunity presents itself, I will try one someday.

Bento #40

I said I was going to ...

My Sailor Jupiter Bento box - it's not exact, but it's fairly close, and I was working with what I had on hand just to see if I could do it. Also, my bento box is smaller in size, so I couldn't fit as much as there is in the one from the cartoon.

Here is what I put in it, with comments.

2 round onigiri with furikake with lettuce baran - Jupiter has 3 onigiri and it looks like they are in a long divider cup.
tuna croquette (recipe from Alton Brown) - I only put in one, again due to space constraints, but it looks like she has 3 and they have some sort of sauce on them. I had to cram mine in, so I skipped the sauce.
pasta salad (whole wheat rotini, carrot, cucumber, honey ham, mayo, a dash of sour cream, onion spice mix) - If I used regular pasta, it would be closer in colour, but I like the whole wheat stuff, so ...
mini octodogs (hot dog cut into 4 pieces, only cut 4 legs on each one) - I didn't put faces on mine.
tamagoyaki slices - if I wanted it to look exactly like the picture, I could have used nori in the middle, but I didn't like the flavour when I tried that once.
juliened carrot and snap pea wrapped in honey ham slice (sealed with a dab of cream cheese) - it looks like this might have been wrapped in beef in Jupiter's
cherry tomato - this is the only thing that is exactly the same - hah!
Strawberry - I didn't have anything to replicate the pink things - I think it might be mochi, but the only mochi I have wouldn't have fit, and I didn't want to take the time to make some, because I was running out of steam.

This was a lot of fun ^_^
I'm sure I'll do it again someday.

I showed The Mister ... he kinda stopped and went "oh" - I think maybe he thinks this one is a bit too silly - haha. Thankfully his is different - it's got a lot of the same stuff, but it's laid out differently and in a square lock & lock container.

Bento #21

Chickeens!

The onigiri are filled with teriyaki salmon (I know chicken would have been more appropriate, but I used it all for dinner) - turned them into chickens with corn, corned beef and nori. I made 3 - one got eaten right away, because it fell apart. The one in the bottom of the photo is starting to fall apart ... I guess it's okay for a first try.

The egg is a deviled egg, the yolk was mixed with mayo and finely diced olives - turned it into a chicken using carrots and black sesame seeds.

The cup has leftovers from dinner - I made a chicken mushroom noodle casserole (diced chicken breast, diced brown and white mushrooms, low fat cream of mushroom soup with a bit of skim milk mixed in, 1/2 a small tub of low fat sour cream, and about a cup of shredded cheese, mix it all together, bake @ 350 until bubbly. I topped it with some dried chives)

used 1/2 a clementine, 2 asparagus stalks, 3 grape tomatoes, the last of my baby carrots, 1/2 a mini cucumber and 2 snow peas to fill up the rest of the box.

The Mister got a plain riceball with a strip of the wasabi nori wrapped around it.
I did give him a chicken deviled egg - his is mixed with chive.
He came into the kitchen, saw it and told me he thought it was awesome. I'm so happy that he likes the odd cute food now and then.
He got more of the casserole (filled the bottom tier of his red bento box), the other half of the clementine, some carrots and some snow peas.

Bento #13

Tried to make a Sanrio Kyaraben - first attempt ever at something like this.
Hello Kitty worked ok - I formed the ears separately, which was a mistake, because they aren't sticking well. I'll have to form it all at once next time.
Badtz-Maru looks good, but doesn't really work at all. I used black Thai rice, which is sticky, but it's a wet sticky, so it doesn't hold together well when moved. I might add a few grains of the black rice to regular rice while it's cooking, and just do a lighter coloured Badtz-Maru (it dyes the white rice a purple colour) if ever I decide to do this again.
They're both filled with tuna - Badtz has pickles inside too.
The rest of it was just thrown together, because it was getting late.

Bento #12

Today is leftover day.

Hamburger Helper Chili Macaroni (made with lean ground turkey and mushrooms)
Schwartzies Hash Browns (butter omitted, less cheese, all other ingredients were reduced fat)
Assorted veggies
Riceball mixed with furikake and topped with a nori and cheese penguin.

The Mister actually got something completely different today, because he doesn't like leftovers, and I make less food at dinner time now, so there are actually less leftovers to go around ;)
No photo, but I made him an egg sushi roll (tamago maki!), vegetable dumplings, meatballs with teriyaki sauce, grapes, apple chunks, veggies, cubed cheese and a turkey pepperoni stick.

I got some new bento supplies at Daiso, including mini sauce bottles (photo not mine), sushi molds (because I fail at rolling sushi) and vegetable cutters (mine only came with 3 - I didn't get the circular one, but it was only $2, so ...)

I'm having way too much fun with this.

Bento #10

So, I got an official diagnosis - I do not have to continue with the gluten free diet, I have a different skin condition.

One minor thing though, is the medication I need to take for it for the next few months can result in weight gain.
Good thing I have already started to eat right and exercise. It will make it easier.

Back to work today after a week's vacation.



My bento today contains:
3 eating right meatballs
tomato sauce (in the strawberry container)
2 mini onigiri - rice mixed with furikake
a deviled egg
cucumber with creamy cucumber dressing on top
grape tomatoes
grapes
carrots
m&m's

I used the silicone cups that are supposed to fit together in the bento box - my box is a touch too narrow one way, and a little wide the other way (so the cups squish a little, but there is space between the end one and the others - perfect spot for the grape tomatoes though!)

Bento #9

Tomorrow morning, I'm going out for a 10k(+) walk with a friend.
We will be going for lunch at Kushi Box (if it's still there - the website is down), but I thought it would be nice to pack a small bento for each of us as well, just in case we are really hungry.

I used the top tiers of my URARA Dragonfly and my Mori No Otomodati bento boxes.
Inside each one is:
- Onigiri filled with tuna salad
- 1/4 apple pear
- 3 snow peas
- 2 meatballs
- homemade jalapeno jelly

For the next little while I am going to be going gluten free.
I am being tested for celiac disease, as I am showing signs of a skin condition that is triggered by gluten intolerance.
The blood test should come back pretty quickly, but the skin biopsy will take about 3 weeks. I'm going to eat gluten free until the skin biopsy comes back, just to see if it will make any kind of difference.
Thankfully (sort of) my mother-in-law has celiac disease, so she has a bunch of resources and will be able to help me out.
It will be a big change. I don't expect The Mister to give it up, as he loves his sandwiches, but it won't be an issue to have the bread in the house - I can't remember the last time I ate any!
I'm just glad I already started to use more rice and less pasta in our regular diets.

Bento #8

I've been sick the last few weeks, so I've been in zombie mode pretty contstantly.
My mouth hurts, due to said illness. It's difficult to talk and it hurts to eat hard, chewy, acidic or spicy foods, so it makes mealtime interesting.
I'm on antibiotics that have to be taken on an empty stomach (1hr before eating or 2hrs after eating.), so I have to pay a lot of attention to when I'm eating.

Brunch was soup.

Lunch/Dinner today is:
2 teriyaki salmon onigiri
1/4 green pepper
1/8 apple pear
Vegetable supreme cup-a-soup
fruit & gelatin cup (peaches in strawberry gelatin - yum!)
Mango juice

The Sun Run clinic has been going well. Today's session requires a 30 min walk - 5min slow warm-up, 20 min brisk walk, 5min slow cool-down. I'm going to leave for work a half-hour early so I can get it in, since I'm working late tonight.

Bento #6

I had oatmeal crisp (triple berry - yum!) for breakfast - 1-1/2 cups with 1/2 cup skim milk (I don't like milk and milk doesn't like me). It was pretty good.

I didn't specifically get to go for my hour walk this morning, but I did get at least an hour of walking done while picking up veggies and cleaning supplies.

I was starved when I got back home, so I had a sandwich (portugese roll, ham, turkey, garlic & herb cream cheese, havarti, lettuce)

Then my bento box this afternoon.
I included an apple bunny, an octodog, carrots, cucumber, snow peas, 3 chicken nuggets (blue label from President's Choice) with homemade jalapeno jelly for dipping (thanks to my grandmother) and I made onigiri stuffed with a bit of tuna salad. Oh, and a toffee for a treat.
The Mister got the same thing, minus the cucumber (he doesn't like it, so I threw in more carrots to compensate) and with an extra nugget. He liked the octodog.

Dinner was a new rice mix I wanted to try - it's also from the blue label line. It's called "Bayou Blend" with 3 kinds of rice, black eyed peas and red beans. I added some cajun spice to add a bit more kick, but it was pretty good. The leftovers are going in the bentos tomorrow.
I served it with maple smoked sausage (1 for me, 1-1/2 for the Mister)

***

When I was at my doctor's today, I was getting a prescription re-filled for migraine medication. She asked how that was going, and I let her know that I pretty much stopped getting them (my prescription had actually expired with several refills left). I used to get them monthly, but hadn't had one for a few months. One hit and it was a doozy, but I've been fine for a few months since.
She asked if I could think of anything that may have changed to cause this, and really, the only thing I can think of is ... my diet and activity level.
Hooray for all around health!