Alright, this next bento has no rice in it because on the day that I made this, my boyfriend and I agreed that we'll meet in the office for lunch and he'll take care of the rice as long as I took care of the viands. So, for that day, I made a tonkatsu sauce stir-fry with beans and mushrooms, a helping of bagnit and a pair of bunny hard-boiled eggs. The star candy was, of course, dessert.

Anyhoo, one of the things that I learned about making this bento was that the candy stars may not have been in such a good spot. I only figured this out because in the 15-minute trip to the office, the wax paper holding the candies was starting to get moist from the tiny bit of sauce in the stir-fry. If I had to let the bento sit for longer than that, and if my boyfriend and I didn't end up eating immediately when I got to the office... well, I would have ended up with a weirdly-colored-splotched bunny egg, or worse, tonkatsu flavored candy. Bleh. O_O;;;

Anyway, lesson learned. At least the photos don't show that I've botched it. XD XD

The bento lid was shut with the help of a couple of bands from my other bento boxes, and it was carried to the office in a furoshiki. ^_^;;



(Yes, I couldn't decide on which shot was better, as they're both kinda dark. Again.)

Well, here we go. I'm finally getting around to posting old bento pics that I've taken so were we go!

As the title suggests, the star of this bento is actually the sorry-looking mashed potatoes. Hehehe... I've actually tried making mashed potatoes before, but the VERY first attempt ended up being potato SOUP because I placed too much milk in the whole thing. ^^;;; I'm also loathe with the idea of buying those mix-in-hot-water types of instant mashed potatoes at the grocery so I insist on making my own, stubborn oaf that I am.

Anyway, the bento is composed of tamagoyaki, hotdogs, yet another of K's vegetable-with-cinammon stirfrys, and then, mashed potatoes with cheese. No gravy. Just quickmelt cheese.

The container below shows servings for two people. My boyfriends and I ate from the same bento that day since I got to join him for lunch. ^_^


Meanwhile, a single serving which I had for dinner that day, looked like this:


Messy-looking as it is, I'm actually proud of the potatoes since the consistency came out just right.

The potato recipe
Anyway, it's made of a batch of marble potatoes (the tiny ones). I chose those since they cook a lot quicker and more evenly. I was afraid that I'd be boiling the potato for an hour and I'd STILL end up with a raw core in the end, if I used one of those big potatoes...

Anyway, I washed each tiny potato carefully, then boiled it in water which was some salt and a laurel leaf. Once it's cooked, I mashed it all up (yup, with the skin on), seasoned with salt and pepper and added a small amount of milk to make it creamy. On a whim though, I took about 4 tablespoons of water and placed some crushed rosemary in it. Then I heated the water in the microwave and ended up with rosemary tea. I let it cool as I mashed and mixed the potatoes, then when the the rosemary has steeped enough, I poured it into the mashed potatoes (I used a sieve to get the rosemary bits out, of course). Then, top with cheese!^__^ I thought it was actually pretty nice, despite realizing much later, that I should have had gravy and butter somewhere in the recipe. XD

( more photos )

Hehe... back. Moving house and work in general has pretty much kept me from doing a whole bunch of stuff, including making bentos. In any case, I do still have a bunch of unposted photos from previous cooking sessions, so here there are I guess until we manage to buy a new ref and I can start stocking food and cooking again. ^_^

It's just a plain one:
- salted rice and tomatoes
- tofu and vegetable stir-fry with oyster sauce and cinnamon (the dash of cinnamon powder did the trick)
- flower marshmallows and cheese cubes for dessert



All good for three, as usual. ^^

( More pics! )

More of K's delayed bento posts. *yawn* Sigh. It's weird when your body clock refuses to adjust. Never been a morning person.

Anyhoo...

- Rice + furikake + fried eggplant slices
- tamagoyaki + sliced tomato + bagnit on a lettuce leaf
- packet of instant miso soup

* Bagnit is a local dish which is basically pork that has been smoked/cured and then later on deep fried. Best served crunchy and with dipping sauce. Not for the health-conscious. ^_^;;; Sorry, to lazy to look for a wiki link or something. I'll just try to edit this later. Anyway, I love the stuff.



( More pics + K's sad attempt to describe bagnit )

X_x

Another late bento post. Just one this time around since it was my boyfriend's day off that day, and this bento ended up as my dinner and the rest became lunch that we shared before I headed for work.

Anyway, tamagoyaki + hotdogs + asparagus/veggie stir-fry and rice with furikake, umeboshi and kani slices. Marshmallows for dessert.

My boyfriend and I ended up talking about how the umeboshi and kani slices reminded us of either Evangelion or Sin, the last boss in FFX.



( more pics )

*and she's off rushing away again*

busy, busy, busy...

A typhoon struck in our country a couple of weeks ago, and due to the semi-crisis that we had at our apartment that day, we were just plain cold, hungry and exhausted that day as well as the next.

The next day, my boyfriend and I pretty much just stayed home to recover from the previous day's exhaustion, so no bento then, and just a home meal made from whatever I could grab from the ref and some leftovers...

Hot rice, tamagoyaki, tulip hotdogs, asparagus and mixed vegetables in some sauce which I have now forgotten about... I'm pretty sure it was some white sauce that I made for dinner the night before... and some kani slices for garnish. ^_^;;

Blurry pics due to tired hands. :p



( a couple of more pics )

Bento that I made shortly after buying my "Love me little. Love me long." and Putifresh bento boxes (check my previous post. ^_^)

Consists of:
- rice with furikake and naruto slice, and shredded kani with a dollop of mayonaise
- tamagoyaki on a bed of greens, and a mushroom/mixed-veggies/cut-up naruto stir-fry (that's a lot of hyphens there...)
- dessert box with banana slices and flower marshmallows.

As the subject of the post suggests, it just finally occured to me to get a tamagoyaki pan, so I picked one up from the 88-peso/100-yen store near our house to try it out. I like it so much since, not only is my fried egg pretty (yes, I'm shallow), I can use it on other small stuff, too, like hotdogs or whatever. Really convenient especially if I'm just cooking for myself since I don't have to lug out the heavier iron pan that I usually use just to cook a small amount of food.

Since I've tested it out on a cheaper (thinner, flimsier) pan, I'm now convinced and I plan to invest in one of those higher-quality tamagoyaki pans which are more expensive, but with better heat distribution and higher sides, since I think I'll be using it a whole lot more now.



( More pics because I couldn't make up my mind on which pics I like better + dessert box )

Sleepy today...

Bento made some time ago. Last week, I think (I'm always delayed with posting photos... meh.)

- Rice with some nori and furikake
- Curry croquette with tonkatsu sauce on a bed of chinese lettuce, and some shredded kani with a dollop of mayonaise, and some mixed vegetables.



( more pics )

*back to sleep*

Rice with nori strips and furikake
Shrimp-flavored Dria sauce + shredded kani + mixed veggies + naruto slices

This is a weird bento since when I made it, I'm pretty sure I had a good reason as to why I cut up the nori in strips. And then, oddly, as I was preparing the bento itself, I realized that I forgot why I did what I did with the nori... O_o;;; So, just so it doesn't go to waste, the only thing I can think of doing was a criss-cross pattern... then I thought it sort of looked like a fence so I added furikake so that it has "ground". I felt like a four-year-old with a marker (ooh... circle... circle... hey, I made an "8"!! Yay!!).

The Dria/Doria sauce (if that's what's it called...), it was my first time to use it since it was just one of the items that I was curious with the last time I went shopping. It tasted good, and my boyfriend said that he'd like more of it in the future. Hmm...

Lolz. Oh well.



( 8 pics under the cut... hehe. )

Another quick one.

Rice + Furikake
Curry + Mixed veggies + egg (my kuma eggs are still earless...)
Chocolate-filled marshmallows.


( 2 pics + corned beef. Hehe. )

(xposted to tanuki_no_bento)

My boyfriend recently requested for vegetables in his bento, so I decided to make this asparagus stir-fry that he likes. It's a pretty simple recipe that I sort of made on the fly, and, well, he likes it so I took note of it so I can do it again.

In the meantime, I made the mistake of putting okonomiyaki furikake on top of the whole thing. It looked yummy in real life, but I didn't realize that it would look fuzzy in the pictures and it would sort of look like mold... O_O;;

Speaking of okonomiyaki furikake, I used it a couple of nights ago to make onigiri. So, mixing it with mayo, tonkatsu sauce and a bit of salt and pepper on plain rice, it sort of tasted like okonomiyaki, except in riceball form. Hehe... Forgot to take pics though, so you'll have to take my word for it for now.

In any case, here's my bento which is too shy to reveal its fuzzy contents (plus the rice was too plain). It shows it's chocolate-filled marshmallows instead.



( 2 pics of contents + recipe under the cut )

Whee!!!

Finally managed a bit of time to post again. Just a simple one. A repeat of my boyfriend's beloved bacon + asparagus. And some omelettes and kani. ^_^



( 4 pics under the cut and a different box )

Gotta run again... @_@;;

(xposted at the bentolunch LJ community - here)

In today's menu:
(lower section)
plain rice
asparagus wrapped in bacon
(upper section)
naruto slices
mixed vegetables
tonkatsu sauce
a couple of cocktail hotdogs
fried eggplant
not shown - a bed of shredded kani for the upper section.

Hehe... I've been meaning to try the asparagus-bacon thing since I first saw Chiyo-chan's bento in Azumanga Daioh some years back. I just got to do it now. XD

As usual, this bento comes in two versions. One for myself and another for my boyfriend. Mine is in the urara box.

( same food in red urara box )


(xposted at the bentolunch LJ community - here)

Here's my second attempt at a bento, though I have to admit that it isn't much and it's still mostly fried stuff with not much effort involved.

For one thing, I've been kicking myself lately for two things:
- I forgot to buy sauce containers (I am sorely feeling the necessity for it now...)
- I forgot to buy divider/partitions/smaller cups (also sorely feeling the necessity for it now...)

and, tadah!

- I splurged on bento supplies but didn't buy food. *kicks self*

Sigh. Sometimes I miss living in my parents' house... at least the fridge was always stocked. ^_^;;;

And so we make do with more iceberg lettuce and tonkatsu sauce...



Todays lunch consists of rice with nori and cheese (hehe.... the slices aren't even...), curry korokke and kisu fry.

( more pics + new chopsticks )

My boyfriend and I have also now sworn our allegiance to curry korokke.

(xposted at the bentolunch LJ community - here)