Bento of the Day: Vegetarian Bento w Inari

I'm trying to eat a little healthier at home to counter balance my dining out. Since I've moved in with M I've taken on a lot of his bad eating habits, including eating meat at (nearly) every meal, serious snacking in front of the television, and generally eating richer foods. Before, I used to go through packages of whole wheat pasta fast, and ate more vegetables, being that my breakfasts and lunches were generally meat-free.

Here is my lunch for today - vegetarian, and my first time playing around with inari. I've never had them at home, only in combinations and takeout from the nearest sushi bar. A friend got me hooked on them. Initially, the sweet flavour really didn't resonate with me, but as time went on I actually craved it! The bonus? Paying $4-6 for 12-16 of them at T&T, versus paying per piece in restaurants for $1.50 to $2.50 or more.

Four pieces of inari, stuffed with brown rice mixed with seasoned rice vinegar. Left to right, one is topped with kinpura Belgium Endive, gomaae, watered down gochujang, and one simply sprinkled with togarashi. I completed the meal with a simple green salad and campari tomato (I had some sesame dressing at work).

As I only had white sushi rice at home, I used regular brown rice instead. Gross, I know. But it worked for me. I was surprised how the toppings worked - I think I'll be making more kinpura vegetables from now on. It is a simple method of frying the shredded vegetable, then seasoning with a mixture of soy sauce, sugar, and sake. As Belgian Endive is generally bitter, the sugar and sake, paired with the natural sweetness of the inari pocket was a good combo (for me anyways). The brown rice added some nuttiness, although the texture (as it was regular rice) was not favourable.

The gomaae also worked - as I was eating I remembered that I had neglected to add sugar to the cashew and sesame dressing, but again, the sweetness of the inari worked well. If I had added sugar to the dressing, it would have been too sweet. Two for two! How was the gochujang? It provided a much needed "savoury" flavour to the meal. Although the sauce was still slightly sweet, there were touches of spiciness from the Korean chili pepper. As for the final one, it was the only one which needed any soy sauce.

So, do you stuff your own inari at home? (Gosh that sounds dirty.) What do you use? I want some ideas!

Previous bentos:
Hainanese Chicken
Quichie-Quichie Bentos
Holy Meatballs!
Healthy Bento
His and Hers Bentos
Plushie Bentos (My favourite!)

Lunchtime Bentos: Hainanese Chicken Rice with Tomatoes & Cucumber

I made some Hainanese Chicken (with chicken rice of course!) this weekend and have been chowing down on some every night with M. Chicken quesadillas, grilled chicken sandwiches, chicken soup with noodles . . .



I finally went back to the chicken and rice today today and had it in its original form, Hainanese Chicken with yummy (oily) chicken rice, with slices of tomato and cucumber, with some sweet chili sauce.

I'll post a recipe later!

Bento of the Day: Meatballs & Chocolate Bread Pudding

I arrived home last night to find that M had made meatballs! Not just any meatballs, but giagantuan (sp?) meatballs the size of a small orange! ...ok, not quite that big but when I saw the huge suckers I was like, "whoa!"



They were so big and so many in number that I could only have two at dinner, and we packed some for lunch today.

Above we have a ramekin of chocolate bread pudding that I prepared on my honourary day off (bossman was supernice and gave me a day off for working a couple hours on the weekend - sweet!). We also have one and a half meatballs topped with a mushroom and corn gravy, on a bed of steamed rice. I also added some cucumber and avocado for a healthy veggie side.

Recipe for the bread pudding later!

Healthy Bento!

I packed some healthy energy food for today. It started with me not wanting to bring the same old pasta and tomato sauce to work - so I looked in our "carb drawer" (yes, we have a carb drawer FULL of noodles, pastas, grains, and rice sheets. When we run out of one particular noodle, we kind of go crazy and stock it up again. They don't call them "filler foods" for nothing!). Perusing the carb drawer yielded some yummy buckwheat (soba) noodles!



Soba noodles are made from buckwheat grain and thus have more fiber and nutritional content in them than plain white or egg noodles. Plus, they have a nutty flavour and more texture to boot! They are called "soba" as they resemble a straw broom. I think the description is right on the money! Although, being that soba noodles are a little bit more expensive than regular noodles, I wouldn't exactly use them as a broom...



I packed a small container of zaru soba (cold soba) with an even smaller container of dipping sauce made from soy sauce and dashi (bonito fish stock granules dissolved in water). I didn't have any seaweed flakes or green onion, but if I did, I would have added them... I also packed some blanched and chilled edamame (soy beans), as well as some strawberries I had in the fridge. Lastly, I packed a container of tofu dessert. Yes, that's a lot of carbs, but the carbs are from healthy, fiber-rich sources, and the meal is low in fat and high in protein.

I think it deserves a prize! :p

For my other foodie photos, visit my flickr photoset "Food, Glorious Food!"

His and Hers Bentos

Another lunchtime favourite: bentos!

Although I don't have the skill or the craft to make elaborate, tasty and healthy bentos, I couldn't help but snap a photo of the lunches I packed for today for the beau and myself.



We have some lovely spicy, sweet and fragrant Carribean chicken drumsticks, herb-buttered mushrooms sauteed with onions and garlic, russet and red potato frites, topped with some creamy avocado. His and hers bentos? Well obviously the man has the triple helping of drumsticks on the left, while I have the two smaller boxes of food on the right.

This was a fairly cheap meal, considering we picked up the drumsticks at $0.99 / lb at Sunrise Market this weekend. We also picked up a pair of lovely avocados for $0.69/each. I snatched them up as I'd read that the price of avocadoes was going to soar this year. I'd also seen them advertised at chain supermarkets at the "sale" price of upwards of $1.25 each! So when I saw them at only 69 cents at Sunrise, I had to get them.

Have a good day everyone! It is the dawn of a new era - Obama was sworn in this morning and I listened to it at work.

Change is good.

More foodie photos at my flickr photoset, Food Glorious Food!

Plushie Sushi Bentos

Aside from loving and making food, I also knit. And am learning my basics with crochet.

Here's some softies / plushies I made for my boss' daughter. I got the idea when the boss' wife was talking about having a hard time finding some sushi / sashimi play toys for her daughter. When she brought that up, in pops that image of the amigurumi and knit sushi toys I'd seen on knitty.com and (the now defunct) magknits. And so after much procrastinating, a lot of trial and error, and some learning on the go, I give you the following two sushi bentos - they made me crave sushi while I made them!



The two completed sushi bentos above!

Below is my favourite of the two. Some of these were just trial and error, and playing around with little balls of yarn that I had in my stash. Clockwise from the bottom left hand corner, the items (supposedly) are:

- inari (like the confetti-coloured "rice"? ...the boy thought it looked like a dumpling. Meh.)
- tuna sushi
- tamago (egg) sushi w/ a band of nori encircling it
- ebi (shrimp) sushi (in the grey area between "fun to make" and "I can't believe I started this".)
- inside out rolls (definately in the "geez. did I *have* to commit to making rolls?" category)
- pickled ginger "flower"
- small ball of wasabi
- a baby cupcake! This was a lot of fun to make. I wished I had more time to complete it, and to embroider it with some seed bead "sprinkles".
- veggie sunomono, complete with baby "heirloom" carrot and two slices of cucumber





Above is the first bento box I worked on. Although I liked working on this, I almost gave up and wanted to gift the littler girl just one box, because I ran out of ideas on items to make! Clockwise from the bottom left hand corner:

- a baby cupcake! (see above) I really enjoyed the amigurumi items in this project as opposed to the knit items, although I am more familiar with knitting, the circular crochet methods made for near-instant gratification.
- lettuce leaf, topped with a gyoza (both were similar circular "doily" items, the gyoza was just worked a couple round less, with HDCs on the outer hem, as opposed to the TC stitches on the lettuce leaf)
- four mini rolls
- ebi sushi
- tuna sushi
- tamago sushi
- small ball of wasabi
- pickled ginger "flower"

For the entire Flickr photoset, click here.

Next "cooking" projects, will be the big Christmas feast. The bf has been working on stuffing some turkey wings with sticky rice - we had some of the stuffing for dinner last night and it was so good!

Merry Christmas everyone! Hold your loved ones close. I know I will.