♥ NomBento

Bit of news...

2012-03-05T03:44:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone... I just wanted to stop in and, I suppose both apologize and explain. Mostly explain. But vaguely. There are some things in my life right now that are making not just the fun things in my life (bento, art, writing) very difficult but also the very important things (grades, school, blood pressure, sanity). I don't want to go into detail as those things are very personal and according to NomBento's statistics, people read my blog! It still surprises me that I have as many hits as I do (its not a whole lot, but enough to still surprise me). I am not sure how much I will be able to post over the next few months or what forms those posts will take.... I may suppliment the void with photography or restaurant food or reviews or something. Or I may not. I really don't know.... I just know that right now, at 3:30 am when I should be sleeping I am typing this post on my phone and I have no idea what the next few months, let alone weeks, days or hours will hold. Nor am I willing to make any promises or specific plans till I figure out the best way to deal with my situation. For anyone familiar with the Briggs-Meyer or Kiersey personality types.... I am an INTJ. And an INTJ without a plan is like a fish out of water.

Also... I wanted to say I am soooooooooooooo happy to find that Blogger improved the comment system so that we can make direct replies to comments. In the past all replies were posted as new comments, which was terrible. There was no way for me to make sure that people knew I was responding them and people couldn't see my responses unless they checked the page. It was very inefficient. I am glad it is changed. Unless this somehow jinxes the whole bit. Geh.

One last thing, because I am a nerd and its important to me.... Mass Effect 3 comes out this week and I am super excited. And no, a new game is not the reason I am having trouble posting... I cannot afford the game yet. XD I'm still excited for it though.

Onigiri!

2012-02-19T19:20:00.000-08:00

This week was apparently onigiri week. There is a recipe for the first one, which is a mixed rice type of onigiri.

2012 Feb 15

Three Tanuki Onigiri in disposable clamshell.

Tanuki Onigiri
recipe by Runnyrunny999

Note:makes about three medium or two large onigiri or will fill a bit more than half of a medium sized obento box. This is not a very healthy recipe... but it IS a very delicious recipe. I try to enjoy this in moderation. Key word "try" because its soooo good.

170g/6oz/~1American Cup hot steamed rice
a few green onions
1 tb mentsuyu or soy sauce

for Agedama(also called tenkasu)
2.5 tb water
0.5 tsp vinegar
2 tb flour
oil for frying

Chop the green onions and set aside.

To make the agedama. Heat a quantity of oil sufficient for deep frying in a pan. Mix the ingredients for agedama batter. Drop the batter into the oil in small drops and fry till golden brown. Remove and drain.

Mix the agedama, onions and mentsuyu in a bowl. Mix in the rice. Form into onigiri (use plastic wrap, its really hard to press this mixture with your hands since it is a little oily), press into an obento box or just eat it right there in all its warm, delicious glory. If you make onigiri, it is a good idea to put a piece of nori or soy paper around it or leave it wrapped in plastic to help keep your hands clean.

While this tastes best when the agedama are freshly cooked, you can make them up to several days in advance. I have made them up to three days in advance with little change in the crunchiness or flavor of the agedama. This recipe also scales well, so you can make the minimum or you can make a whole lot. If you make a whole lot of the agedama then use about a heaped half cup measure to each 170g of rice.

2012 feb 13

Plain onigiri with a small sprinkle of umejiso furikake and fresh kaiware (I grew them myself!!!). In the lower container there are two chicken meatballs and various pickled vegetables.

Ebikatsu Burger Obento

2012-02-12T14:34:00.000-08:00

Its been two weeks... T_T Midterms are this week. @_@ I have been living off of energy bars and to go food. Not good, for my health or my wallet. Most of what I have done otherwise did not turn out pretty enough to bother photographing, LOL which is saying a lot because I do have a few pictures of some gnarly looking obento hanging around in the archives. I am trying to steer closer to just posting the good looking ones, or the ones that include recipes.

T_T I also failed at my planned Valentine's Day post. One person asked me to do a honmei-choco style post for valentines day.... but something easy to do for beginners. >_> In my effort to make things easier, I ended up making them worse. My chocolate did not set, my cookies were ugly, my chocolate dorayaki was weird. I took tons of pictures too, and they all turned out dark and blurry. =_= It is really hard to photograph yourself cooking. I don't have anyone to help me with this stuff, I do it all by myself. As a student I don't have tons of free time either (like right now I should be studying for my midterm tomorrow morning). Sometimes things just fail.

I know Valentine's is on Tuesday so if any of you are making chocolate for loved ones you have probably already decided on or started making it... but if you haven't and need an idea or two, I am posting links to two recent posts done by a blogger I am very fond of (Ochikeron-san)... her recipes are simple, yet very tasty and she does videos for all of them.
DecoChoco Photo Frame (if you have a picture of your loved one)
Ginjo Sake Nama Choco but you can omit sake

I guess the moral of the story is: Don't try too hard. XD I think I tried too hard.

I might still make a <3 bento for the boyfriend though, we will see. Also, I plan on posting a recipe later this week for the flavored rice in the last obento photo.

On to the Obento!!

2012 Feb 1
This day I had lunch with the boyfriend at his school. It can be hard to get him to eat vegetables so I try to suppliment with fruits. O_O I had a huge platter of fruits to use up so the only vegetables here are potato salad! >_>

We had Ebikatsu burger, potato salad, kumquat, strawberries, watermelon, honeydew melon, cantaloupe, apple, mango, pineapple and an itty bitty habanero pepper. I ate the pepper, he didn't. Consequently, I suffered greatly and he did not! LOL!

Ebikatsu Burger
recipe by Runnyrunny999, video here.Its super easy, trust me.

12 large shrimp (he used Tiger shrimp, I used regular shrimp)
1tsp sake
2 tsp mayo (I used kewpie but you can use whatever is available)
2 tsp flour
2 tsp cornstarch or potato starch (I used the latter)
salt and pepper
egg, flour, panko

Buns of some variety, if you like and whatever veggie toppings you like.

Sauce Ingredients:
(Vary quantities, to taste) butter, mustard, ketchup, mayo, honey, worchestershire sauce

1. Shell and devein shrimp. Sprinkle with salt and mix well. Rinse in running water.

2. Cut four of the shrimp in to small size pieces. Mince the rest of them.

3. Mix the shrimp, sake, mayo, flour, starch, salt and pepper to taste. Runny-san uses his hands but you can use a spoon. I used a spoon so that I wouldn't smell like shrimp later. Line a plate or small tray with plastic wrap and spread the shrimp mixture on it, somewhat thinly. Put in the freezer for 10-20 minutes.

4. Form the mixture into two large patties (I made mine into four smaller, thinner patties). Dredge in flour, dip in beaten egg and roll in panko.

5. Deep fry in hot oil that is 340F/170C. (I don't know if my oil was that temperature - I use bamboo cooking chopstick to test the oil temperature. When bubbles come off the chopstick as soon as you put them in the oil, it is hot enough) Deep fry till golden brown.

6. For sauces:
Sauce 1: mix equal parts soft butter and yellow mustard.
Sauce 2: mix ketchup, mayo, worchestershir sauce and honey in whatever ratios taste good to you. Or you can use Tartar sauce.

7. Spread sauce 1 on your bun. Add burger. Pour sauce 2 over the burger, add veggies and other side of bun.

Sometime last week

Mixed rice with simmer tofu and stir fried cabbage with carrots. Not good looking, but very good tasting.

Bindaetteok

2012-01-27T16:44:00.001-08:00

D: Ugh... I am behind! Again.... But (after a recent meltdown of my phone which included a full factory reset), I found that Blogger has an app now to write your blog on your phone. I am hoping that being able to write portions of posts while on the go will help me be more inclined to remember to post more often.... Though we will see how that works out.

Anyways, today's post is one long over due. One of my readers requested a recipe for bindaetteok like she has at Korean restaurants.... I feel somewhat unqualified in posting this because I've never even seen it at restaurants, or made it myself until the other day. But, it tasted good so maybe she will like it?

:c oh and I lost my pictures... Somehow they disappeared. So this will have the recipe but not the mass of pictures I had planned on posting. Sorry.

Bindaetteok
makes about 15 to 16

1 c dried, split mung beans
2 tb rice
1 clove garlic
2 tb sesame oil
1/2 tsp salt
5 tb kimchi juice
4 tb water
1 tb Japanese soy sauce ( add additional salt if you use Korean or Chinese soy sauce)
Toppings of your choice (for example kimchii, slices of meat, cut vegetables, sliced chilipeppers)

Method:
Place beans and rice in a large bowl. Wash well with water until the water runs clear or is no longer cloudy. Pour in enough water to cover the beans and rice plus some extra. Leave to soak at least 6 hours, up to 24 hours max.

When you are ready to make the pancakes drain the bean/rice mixture well. Place the bean/rice mixture and the garlic in a blender or food processor with the water and kimchii juice. Blend, but not too much. You want a sort of chunky, sort of smooth texture. It should be really thick.

Mix in the rest of the seasonings. You can mix the toppings into the batter (easier) or you can reserve them and place them on top of the formed formed bean cakes while cooking (prettier).

Heat a non stick pan on medium with a little oil. When the pan is hot spoon large spoonfuls of batter (shaping into rounds) into the hot pan. If you did not mix in your toppings, place them on top of the cakes now. When the bottom of the cake is browned and the batter on top starts to change color, flip and cook the other side.

Serve with sauce that is equal parts apple vinegar and Korean soy sauce (if you use Japanese or Chinese soy sauce, add a little sugar or honey.)

This made about 16 bean cakes for me.

..... so many soy sauces. >_> Sometimes I wonder if I have too many.

==========================

:( Chkn, I thought this tasted good... but it is probably not what you were looking for but I hope that you like it. Oh and I am working on the valentines day post now... <_< I have the ingredients... its just a matter of doing the work and and taking the pictures. I have a cute idea.

Yummy Chive Burgers

2012-01-15T20:18:00.000-08:00

Completely not in order, with rambling commentary. ^.^

2012 January 10

490ml Vive box: rice with soft-type umejiso furikake, chicken chive burgers lightly simmered in sauce, broccoli, carrot, cherry tomato

The recipe I used for the chicken burgers is from Ochikeron's blog/youtube channel and you can find the video here or by searching youtube for her. I used chicken instead of the beef/pork mixture, made a double batch and froze half the mixture in portion sizes and cooked the other half and froze those. For this obento I defrosted them and instead of drizzling the sauce over the burgers I heated the sauce and then put the already cooked burgers in the sauce turning to coat. It was really good and warming the burgers in the sauce made them easier to pack in my lunch. If you can find the ingredients in your area I highly recommend trying this recipe, it is probably even more delicious if you use the 50/50 beef/pork mixture... but I don't eat beef or pork so I won't know O___o unless I get adventurous and try to make it for someone else. But then I would have only their word.

2012 January 09
Sometimes I make lunches for my roommate as well. This day we had egg salad sandwiches, small cheeses, carrots, cherry tomatos and snap peas.

This one is for my roommate. She has two sandwiches stacked on each other and a piece of brie.

This one is mine, it has a piece of cheddar, kiwi and a million more tomatoes because I lack self control when it comes to tomatoes and eat them all at once. T_T They were supposed to last the week. As you can see that didn't happen. =_= Why does this always surprise me? ^0^ Haha

2012 January 12

This contains: inarizushi, kappa roll, pickled ginger and fukujinzuke. Ahhhh... this one did not turn out how I meant it to. I guess I wasn't paying attention and I messed up my tamagoyaki really bad. It looked like scrambled eggs. So I put it inside my inarizushi.

Kitsune Udon

2011-12-15T16:06:00.000-08:00

Of course, just as soon as I say something like "I may or may not have any more posts until school starts up again" I end up making a liar of myself. Last night I made kitsune udon, it just so happened to look okay and I just so happened to get a decent photo so I thought, what the heck? Why not give it a post?

For those that do not know, udon is a type of Japanese wheat noodle. It is a very thick, white noodle with a firm and chewy texture. However, when one says "udon" people tend to think of udon noodle soup. Of which there are a great multitude of varieties, styles and variances based on local cooking style.

In this case, it is kitsune udon - or udon with clear soup (I say that loosely) and seasoned aburaage (fried tofu). Kitsune udon is rather ubiquitous in Japan. You can find it anywhere, though it will taste different based on the section of Japan you are in. As I understand it, and don't quote me here, the broth tends to be darker with a more salty/soy sauce/katsuo flavor on the east side of Japan and on the west side it is lighter with a more konbu heavy flavor, a variety of fish used in the the stock and usukuchi (light colored soy sauce). I have a personal preference for the latter - but neither is any more or less valid than the other. I also like to have an egg in mine, which appears somewhat unorthodox ... but that is how it was served to me whenever I ordered it in Japanese restaurants and I like it.

If you are interested, I found this link on the history of the dish, why it is called what it is, and why it is served the way it is.

If you can't find udon noodles in your local area, I found this recipe for fresh udon noodles made from scratch. I have not tried it - nor will I any time soon as I have easy access to imported fresh frozen noodles. I would, however, recommend that you follow Ms. Itou's directions and suggestions for substitutions to the letter in making them. She is a fabulous cook, knows far more about food than I do and she is blog writer that I adore and her substitution suggestions are typically very good and work well. At the end of her post she also talks about making Tokyo style kitsune udon.

This type of home cooking is difficult for me to post recipes for because it is highly dependant on individual taste and I don't measure. I approximate, taste, then adjust seasonings. There is no "one true" way to make this either - this is just how I like to make mine.

To make what is in my bowl you will need:
a. 1 bunch of udon (fresh, fresh frozen, or dried)

b. Concentrated seasoned dashi
OR
dashi
light soy sauce
sugar
salt

c. abura-age seasoned for inari-zushi
OR
plain aburaage (soft, puffy fried tofu pouch things... I don't know how to describe this >_<;;)
dashi
soy sauce
sugar
mirin

d. sliced green onion (optional but amazing. I used freeze dried because I was too lazy to go to the store.. but fresh is much better!)

e. naruto or kamaboko (optional and not used here)

f. 1 egg (unorthodox but delicious, also optional)

1. Get a large bowl. If it is glass/ceramic put some boiling water in it and set it aside. (This will make your bowl warm so that when you put your soup in it won't immediately get cold.

2. If your aburaage is already seasoned, skip this step. If it is plain then in a sauce pan pour about a cup or more of dashi stock or water with dashi granules (honestly, any type will do as long as you like it. This time I used half hon-dashi and shiitake dashi because I felt lazy.). Wash the tofu in really hot water to remove oil. Gently squeeze out the water. Heat up the dashi. Add splash of mirin, some sugar and soy sauce. Taste it. It should be on the sweet side. If its not, add more sugar. If its too sweet add some salt or Soy sauce. When you like the way it tastes put in the tofu. Cover and simmer, turning occasionally, until the tofu has turned a darker shade of brown and the liquid is mostly absorbed. Turn the heat off and set aside.

3. Cook your noodles then dump them in a collander to drain.

4. To make the soup:
If you have concentrated seasoned dashi, dilute to the ratio listed on the bottle. Heat it up. Taste it and season with either more concentrate, sugar or salt as necessary. (This is what I used this time, I chose one with more konbu and a few types of fish. It made a very clear, lightly tinted broth. I was feeling real lazy.)

If you have do not have concentrated seasoned dashi, make about a cup to a cup and a half of dashi. If you are making it from scratch, go heavy on the kombu and and light on the fish flakes. If you are using granules, you probably are using hon-dashi... so just use that. Unless you also have konbu dashi granules, in which case use some of those too. Of course, heat up this dashi. From there add increments of light soy sauce, sugar and salt, tasting as you go, to get a light colored soup that tastes good to you. You don't want your soup sweet (the sugar is there to bring out other flavors) nor do you want it salty.

5. For the poached egg: Crack the egg into a cup. Tilt your pan to the side and then placing the cup close to the surface of the soup, gently pour the egg in. Give the egg a few seconds for the white to begin solidifying then place the pan flat on the burner. Cook the egg to your liking. If you like your egg more raw you can crack the egg on top of the soup after its in the bowl.

6. Dump out the water in your bowl (from step 1). Add the noodles. Gently coax the egg on top of the noodles and pour in the broth. Top with the tofu and green onion, and fish cake if you want it.

It sounds complicated but its not. It takes me tops ten to fifteen minutes to make. The bulk of the directions is just provisioning for different needs of people.

Update

2011-12-14T19:06:00.000-08:00

So much for my weekly update, right? Finals this quarter kicked my butt. After my last post obento were very... quick, ugly and to the point with little to no planning and zero eye towards aesthetics. If I made them at all. I ate out a lot. But finals are over!! And I have slept for a week.

Anyways, I wrote a big long post but I hated it so deleted it and am gonna keep it short. Just wanted to let you guys know that I am working (slowly) on a few projects for this blog but I may or may not do any posts until classes reconvene after the winter break. It depends on my mood and in the case of tutorials if I can get someone to help me with photography (photographing yourself is harder than it sounds).

Happy Wintertime holidays... which ever ones you may celebrate.
Cristal

Behind a Bit....

2011-11-23T14:55:00.000-08:00

As the school quarter gets closer to its end I get more absent minded. I realized that I have not posted in couple weeks... fair to be said, I haven't made much. I've been subsisting primarily off of coffee and whatever I could find that did not have to be cooked. Which is probably I ended up with a sick stomach last week.

500ml Vive box: chicken mushroom rice with carrot/green onion decoration

530ml Monokuro Boo Box: home made Yumm Bowl. Explanation: Where I live (and I don't know how far their franchise ranges) there is a restaurant called Cafe Yumm. They serve Asian-Mexican Fusion cuisine which is part organic/GF. They serve lots of stuff but their main thing is what they call "Yumm! Bowls" of which there are many varieties but for the most part contain rice (brown or jasmine), beans, cheese, fresh tomatoes, avocado, sour cream, olives, cilantro, red salsa and their special sauce (which they sell bottled and is absolutely amazingly delicious). You mix it all up and then eat it. Its really good. Its not hard to make at home either. If you make it for obento though, I would keep it refrigerated or in an insulated lunch box with a couple cooling packs since it has perishable ingredients. I left mine in the fridge while I went to class... so this is not a normal obento for me.

Jam Sandwich!

2011-11-03T18:29:00.000-07:00

This is my lunch/dinner combo for today! I managed to fill all four boxes of my monokuro buu nesting boxes. @_@ The smallest one is not in the picture. Its really hard to get all four of them in a photo and still have it look decent.
530 ml container: Mille Feuille Jam sandwich (from 10minute Obento for Girls - below)
360ml container: Watermelon
230ml container: kiwi
100ml container: (not shown) a horrifically mutilated hard boiled egg with salt. Lesson: Peel eggs while hot.

This is the image from the book... its hardly a recipe and more of a cute idea. But I liked at least the idea so I wanted to share. Mine did not come out nearly so pretty but I also had to squish mine to fit it in the box and I didn't exactly follow measurements closely.

Jam Mille Feuille Sandwich
from 10 分で女子弁当 (10 minute Obento for Girls) by Yanagihara Ruri
4 slices sandwich bread
20g cream cheese
2tb each: strawberry jam, blueberry jam, orange marmalade (or any jams of your choosing... I used strawberry, homemade marmalade and homemade Queen's blend jams)

Abbrieviated instructions: Stack bread and cut off the crust. Microwave the cream cheese for 10 seconds or until very soft. Take one slice of bread and spread with cream cheese. On the next slice spread jam. Put those together. Spread cream cheese on top of the sandwich. Spread jam on the next slice of bread... etc. :) Simple. When done with assembly, place in the fridge or freezer for four minutes to firm up. Slice in two.

It says it should take six minutes total to make but it took me longer (about 15 min) because I don't have a microwave. I also did not measure my cream cheese or jam... I just kinda slapped it all together. It was really tasty... sweet, a bit wet (In retrospect I put way too much jam) but very much yum.

2011 November 1

420ml Hello Kitty box: Two teriyaki chicken onigiri, mushroom/carrot/snow pea stir fry, kiwi, umeboshi (in the plastic thing).

And for my roomate - the same stuff but with the addition of fried fish sausage.

All packed up and ready to go, with a travel cup for my hot tea.

This photo is for Girlgoth, one of the lovely ladies on the Livejournal BentoLunch Community. She asked for a photo of these boxes closed. They are small and they stick together when you stack them! And if any of you guys are interested, BentoLunch always welcomes new (or returning) posters.... I've been there for years, they tend to be a friendly bunch all putting their own take on the whole obento thing.

Orange Marmalade

2011-11-02T21:14:00.001-07:00

Ahhhh the city.... I really missed it. Suburbia is very nice, I do admit... however, my heart remains in the city. So alive. And in Portland, the city is still green. Trees and other foliage are planted everywhere. Its a city, but not barren looking like NYC. Of course, this has nothing to do with my post today. I just wanted to share the view from my little window.

What I really wanted to talk about is marmalade. Not that it is exciting or anything, its just rather expensive to buy and cheap to make. I needed this for the obento I am going to make tomorrow and since there were some oranges around I made it rather than spend six dollars on it.

Sweet Marmalde
(This is a sweet type of marmalade, not the normal bitter British kind. I also used evaporated cane juice sugar rather than white sugar so it turned out a bit darker and less bright orangy looking than the stuff at the store.)

Juice and zest of 3 navel oranges
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup sugar

Mix everything together and cook over medium heat until a small amount of the jam on a spoon will soft-set in few minutes at room temperature. (It took about 45 minutes for me.)

Sandwich and Banana Milk!

2011-10-20T17:26:00.000-07:00

Sandwich Obento: Sandwich: French bread, kewpie mayo, Inglehoffer stone ground mustard, lettuce, Kerrygold Aged White Cheddar, cucumber slices, Dinosaur chicken nuggests. Drink: Bingrae Banana milk (one of my favorite drinks!)

Only one obento this week... I haven't been feeling so great. I guess a new town means new germs to get used to. XD

This one is a sandwich obento (obviously) that didn't turn out anywhere near what I wanted it to be. I have a cute Keroppi sandwich box but in my haste (I had very little time to craft/photograph that day) I could not cram it into the box I wanted it nor could I fit in the side dishes I wanted. This was supposed to have potato salad, half a kiwi and half a tomato... but the sandwiches turned out so big!!

Noriben and Catching up Post

2011-10-13T21:25:00.000-07:00

The new school year is here!! *_* That means its time to make obento again! I live on campus at my college now, so I guess I don't *need* to make them but it is really nice to already have food made so that it is less tempting to eat out, especially since living in the city and eating out are so expensive. I have two weeks of obento here... it was stressful adjusting to going to a different school but now I hope to post once a week-ish. Don't quote me on that. XD Especially near finals.

When I ran a poll on my blog earlier this summer (which admittedly only got a handful of people who voted ;_;) the resounding request was for more, in terms of obento type, traditional style obento. So I thought to myself what is most traditional and most iconic? It doesn't really get much more traditional than plain Noriben, excepting for Hinomarubento (consisting only of rice with umeboshi in the center) which is by far the most simple/traditional/nostalgic/pure essence of Japan/etc obento out there. I digress. On with the noriben... to which I added some side dishes lest there be a peasants revolt.

;_; I apologize for my photography... I live in the northwest which is pretty dark and gloomy this time of year and I didn't have a lot of time to make/photograph these as I made it during break between classes.

This one was mine.
160ml green container: plain noriben topped with ume flavor sesame seeds.
160ml white container: boiled egg, tomato, snow peas, pickles

This one was for my roomate Tori
650ml Sanrio box: noriben with katsuobushi, boiled egg, tomato, snow peas, pickles

As you can see noriben is, frankly, not very good looking most of the time (especially if I make it)... but it is pure and simple (and quick)... so simple it is often over looked and not really written down (not unlike peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in America) or written about. Noriben is kind of what you make when you're tired or there isn't much in the kitchen. It usually fills the whole obento box, and as such does not have any side dishes... though that is not a requirement per se... I usually try to add something to it. There are also many variations on it and probably as many ways to make it as there are people. I will show you my way.

=_=; I apologize for my brown counters... again I live on campus.

You will need:
nori (I used 1 and 1/3 sheets to make two obento)
soy sauce
fresh, hot rice
some kind of bowl to put your soy sauce in
Optional: fillings like katsuobushi, soboro, any filling that can be spread thin and is good with nori

Shred the nori into pieces, maybe 3-5cm (1-2 inches). You can use bigger pieces if you want. It makes a prettier noriben but it also makes it harder to eat as once the nori is wet its hard to cut with just chopsticks or a spoon.

Press one thinish layer of rice into your obento box.

If you have toppings, spread them on the rice now. As you can see, mine is plain and Tori's has katsuobushi flakes.

Take pieces of the nori and dip them in the soy sauce (just a quick dip is sufficient) then layer them over the rice to cover it. It is not necessary to make this part look good as no one will ever see it. :)

Cover with another layer of rice.

More toppings, or different toppings if you're opting for those.

Again dipping the nori in the soy sauce and placing it over the rice. Here is where you would take your time to make it look nice if you were caring about how it looks. My suggestion would be to look at the nori before dipping it, one side is smoother and shinier than the other - put that side facing up. And while the nori is still somewhat crisp wedge it between the rice and obento box then lay it down over the rice. That is the easiest way to cover up all the rice.

Decorations on top are purely optional... though now that I think about it... it really does make a nice black canvas, doesn't it? Maybe I should post these more often.

And, like I said before... there are definately other ways to make it. For example Ms. Maki at JustBento makes her's by mixing katsuobushi with soy sauce, spreading that over rice, and then covering with nori (not dipping the nori in soy sauce). I have seen multi-hued four layer Noriben. All kinds of stuff.

And now for the older stuff from last week....

2011 October 04

Omurice and (chicken) sausage obento! My omelettes >_> One broke and one got brown... its been so long since I made omurice bento I paniced and one burned XD it was still good though!

2011 October 06

Onigiri, tamagoyaki, broccoli, fruit jellies, potato, tomato

Moving and Goals for the Coming School Year and my working Pajeon Recipe

2011-09-03T19:38:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! (Which is like ten of you tops, right? LOL)

In about two weeks I will be moving to downtown Portland to live on campus while going to the University. I will be sharing a small flat with a friend... I am really excited to have my own kitchen again. The last year was rather difficult for my cooking and obento and especially my blog posting as I was renting rooms in friend's houses so most of my stuff was boxed up all this time. In this new place I will be able to unbox my kitchen stuff once again. And with the T_T much higher price tag of living downtown it will be all the more important that I cook my own food and don't eat out. I am pretty sure I don't have any scary stalkers at this moment so I guess I feel comfortable saying that here.

Because I have been going to school for so long and will continue to be taking classes for about five billion years more while I work slowly towards my doctorate degree the start of the school year feels more like new years to me than January first ever will. So I wanted to talk about my goals and such for this blog for the coming year...

Goals
+a post with photo tutorial on making pure yellow pretty tamagoyaki
+a few posts on college/dorm/restricted cooking space bento and cooking
+rice cooker one pot meals
+a few photo tutorials on traditional Japanese decorative vegetable & kamaboko cuts
+re-make my apple cutting tutorials
+translate/make a few more of the obento from 十分で、女子弁当 (10 min obento for girls)
+photo posts on tools/ingredients I find handy
+a few posts contrasting some products (like the differences between Japanese, Chinese and Korean Soy sauces and soybean pastes) and substitutions for them

Requests people have given to me
+bin dae dduk recipe
+there was a general request for more traditional obento and recipes on my mini poll I posted
+my teriyaki sauce(this one will be hard because I rarely measure when I make Japanese food because I am just so used to it I don't think while I am cooking it)
+Gamja JoRim recipe

If anyone has any sort of request please tell me by leaving a comment!

Recipe: Pajeon

Pajeon is a type of Korean savory pancake made with green onions. This is my working recipe based on combining techniques and measurements and working from several other people's recipes. Its not perfect yet but its not bad either and for me it worked well.

Makes 3-5 Pajeon.

4-7 green onions depending on size, trimmed and cut into 2-3 inch pieces
1/2 cup flour
1 egg
water
1 tsp sugar
1 tb Korean soybean paste (NOT the same as a basic white/yellow miso... if you can't get Korean soybean paste you might be able to use a chunky red or orange Japanese miso for a similar effect.... but if neither of these are an option you can use regular miso or omit it but it won't be as flavorful)

Dipping Sauce
(modified from maangchi.com)
2 tb Korean soy sauce (if you can't get this double the honey)
1 tb Korean apple vinegar or regular apple cider vinegar
1-2 tsp honey or sugar (honey is better though)
some chopped onion
some toasted sesame seeds

1. First make the sauce. Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and set aside.
2. To make the pancake: Crack the egg into a half cup measuring cup. Fill to make a half cup of fluid. Mix the egg+water with the flour, soybean paste and sugar.
3. Mix in the green onions. After mixing in the onions most of the batter should be used coating the onions. Add more if needed or don't if you like more batter than fillings.
4. Heat a few table spoons of unflavored (peanut/coconut/canola) oil in a frying pan. You want oil so that it will brown and crisp nicely.
5. Spoon some of the onion batter into the pan, spreading it out in a roundish shape.
6. Let it brown well on one side, scooting things around in the pan if needed. Like an American pancake, it will look "dry" around the edges when its ready to be flipped.
7. After flipping press it periodically while cooking till the second side is fully browned. The pressing is important because if you don't press it the batter will hole up inside the onions and not cook. Pressing the pancake pushed the batter out of the onions.
8. After cooking all the batter, cut your Pajeaon into pieces and eat with the dipping sauce.

Enjoy!

Pico de Gallo / Salsa Fresca

2011-07-29T17:42:00.000-07:00

T_T Summer (or the two weeks before final exams) is the hardest time for me to post. >_> Being a student and usually out of class or with classes in such a schedule that a lunch need not be made, obento posting usually gets put off. Coupled with this year just not being the most conducive to nice looking obento I have not posted much, I know. Posting was just ..... so hard for me this year. D: But to help make up for it a little I have this salsa recipe (and later a recipe for pajeon - a Korean green onion pancake)

Sorry for the bad picture, I did this post on a whim... I am writing it now as I am taking a break before making chicken tacos for dinner.

If you are quick with a knife, this salsa can be made quicker than going to the store and buying that stuff in a jar (which is not nearly as delicious).

This is salsa of low-heat for me, probably medium for most other people. The heat of the salsa can be adjusted lower by washing the jalepeno well after deseeding and making sure all seeds are gone, and further reduced by omitting half or all of the jalepeno (it wont be as tasty though). The heat can be increased by not deseeding the jalepeno and adding the seeds to the salsa. It also has a lot of lime, because I love lime (its really good for you too), this can easily be cut in half and still make a tasty salsa.

Salsa Fresca
4 medium tomatoes, diced
1 large sweet onion or white onion diced
2 jalepenos, seeded and chopped fine
1/2 bunch of cilantro* or culantro**
Juice of 2 limes, freshly squeezed (the concentrate in a bottle is not a substitute!)
dash of pepper
salt to taste

Combine all ingredients. Mix well and taste. Adjust if needed. Tastes the best the day it is made but keeps up to a week or so.

*cilantro is also known as coriander leaves, fresh coriander or chinese parsely
**culantro is a plant which tastes very similar to cilantro but with longer, flatter, willow shaped leaves.

Update

2011-06-01T00:42:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody.... I just wanted to say that I haven't forgotten my blog. :( Its just nearing the end of the quarter and I haven't had much in the way of obento that looked good enough to photograph. I plan on getting at least one more in for the school year (Finals are next week!) and that will be the third part of the TenMinute Obento for Girls burger bento. I have kept the burgers in my freezer just in case this happened (that I would become a sloppy lunch crafter towards the end of the quarter). Expect a post Monday or Tuesday! (Possibly Wednesday if I am REALLY lazy this week.)

At long last... Recipes from 10 分で女子弁当 (10 minute Obento for Girls) - (Turkey) Hamburger Obento!

2011-04-30T17:39:00.000-07:00

This has taken me a lot longer than I wanted it to. But here goes.

In the first half of the book it has three recipes per spread where it uses one main dish in three different ways. Its really helpful - you get three meals with a minimum of work. It also has recipes for individual obento in the middle and side dishes in the back of the book.

That said, I feel that the title is bit misleading. The only way these will take ten minutes or less is if all ingredients are pre-chopped and pre-measured and side dishes made in advance. If you have to make anything extra in the morning, measure or cut anything it may take longer to make.

This monday past I decided to use the recipes from the first spread - hamburger obento. I made two of them (one for me and one for a friend) and will make the next one probably this coming monday.

Sadly, I had zero patience for the food styling or the photography.... I ended up unwell (I had vertigo and nausea) that day. I gave my friend her obento - which she said was awesome. I only managed to eat a corner of one of my burgers.... They turned out rather tasty and moist. I might have to switch occasionally from my own recipe because this one was just that good.

Hamburger Obento 1 - Classic Hamburg Obento

This obento relies on a pre-made broccoli salad and fresh vegetables. Also, my burgers ended up huge. This recipe is supposed to make nine small burgers to be divided between three lunches. I ended up with nine burgers for which two of my burgers take up a bit more space than three in the book photos. I did use turkey instead of hamburger though, and that may be the difference.

The book says this obento should take ten minutes to prepare.

200g ground meat (beef, chicken, turkey, pork, etc)
1/3 an onion
1/2 a beaten egg
6 tb panko
3 tb tonkatsu sauce
salt and pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients well. Form into nine burgers. Place a little oil in a pan and fry the burgers till browned then flip and brown the other side. (I am going out on a limb here and saying that this would make a GREAT mini meat loaf too...) Cool and place three burgers in obento box (reserve the rest, wrapping well and putting in the fridge or freezer). Top with ketchup (or other sauce if you want). I used Kagome ketchup :( which promptly ran down the sides of the burgers. XD but it was so good.

The broccoli salad is essentially: one crown of broccoli mixed with a few chopped/hardboiled quail eggs and a bit of vinagrette type dressing. Poppy seed dressing works well here too.

And here is the book's photo of what the meal should have looked like:

Hamburger Obento 2 - Loco Moco with Cheese Obento
(And yes, Hawaiian people, I apologize. Its not a real loco moco... its a Japanese approximation that is obento friendly)

For me, the majority of the time spent on this one was in making sure the egg was fully cooked yet still pretty.

3 burgers from the previous hamburger recipe
1/2 piece sliced cheese (I used American cause I was feeling lazy and cheap)
vegetables (cucumber, tomato, carrot, etc)
egg
2 tb japanese bottled demi glace sauce (Japanese demi glace sauce is NOT the fancy french deal where you cook bones for a week. Its an inexpensive sauce similar to tonkatsu sauce in thickness and texture. If you don't have access to it use tonkatsu sauce or ketchup. In my case I kept the sauce on the side because I didn't know if the recipeient would even like it)

In your obento box, make a flat bed of rice. Fry the egg and place on top of rice. Take out the three burgers and warm them briefly in the microwave. Add the cheese and warm a little more to slightly melt the cheese. Top with demi glace sauce and add vegetables.

How the book says this should look:

Recipes from 10 分で女子弁当 by Yanagihara Ruri

XD Yeah.... so I really failed on the aesthetics this time but I am told they tasted really good.

Two Obento and a Recipe

2011-04-22T16:22:00.000-07:00

お久しぶり. ^_^;;;

It seems I have been away for a while. Initially it was because I was very ill for many weeks. Then I was busy from testing. Then I was sick again... and I totally could not keep foods down O_O so I subsisted off of things like crackers for weeks. Then I started working again. Its really hard to make nice looking bento, photograph them, work/school in the same day, and then post. So I just opted not to post. It was just too much for me to do. But, I am feeling better and things have settled down and since it is the middle of the term I am not working (I work part time at the school bookstore during the ends and beginnings of the quarter to help with students buying their textbooks.) Now I can post. Now I can catch up. Since it has been quite a while, I am only going to post two of the better looking ones of the handful I did manage to even take pictures of.

Sorry for the dark lighting on this one.... 6am in winter is not bright around here. Here was a tasty sandwich of smoked chicken, havarti and lettuce with a tomato salad and potato salad.

But here is what I really wanted to display. Its been a long time since I made a soboro bento. I thought this one turned out well. I used recipes from "The Just Bento Cookbook" so its different that my usual soboro bentos.... >_> Its better. Prettier. Tastier. Stands up better during the day than my recipes. I suppose I will have to switch.

500ml White Asvel box: rice with iridofu, peas, iritamago and carrot soboro.

I've never made iridofu before (I am a person who will eat raw tofu or plain fried tofu so iridofu always seemed like a lot of work to me) but I thought it turned out well. It makes a lot too. O_O I was eating this for days.

Iridofu
4 dried shiitake mushrooms (I used four fresh and substituted instant shiitake dashi for the mushroom soaking liquid in the recipe)
1 lb firm tofu
2 tb mild white miso (I was out of miso, I used a packet of instant miso soup wet type - just themiso, not the dried vegetables)
1 tb soy sauce
1.5 cups chopped green onion
1 tsp peeled and finely chopped fresh ginger
2 tb sesame oil
1/2 tsp salt
sansho

Soak the shiitake till soft. Remove and toss the stems, chop finely. Drain the tofu. Wrap in a towel or paper towels and top with a plate and a weight (such as a can of something) and allow to drain till somewhat reduced in size.

In a bowl combine the miso, soy sauce and 4 tb of the soaking liquid from the shiitake.

In a large pan (it helps if its deep and non-stick) saute the ginger, shiitake and green onions in the sesame oil. Lower the heat. Crumble the tofu into the pan with your hands. With a pair of wooden or bamboo chopsticks whisk the tofu till its like scrambled eggs (fine eggy looking bits). Add the miso/soysauce/shiitake liquid, stirring vigorously until the liquid is absorbed and the pan is kinda dry. Sprinkle with sansho.

NOM NOM!

Sukiyaki Obento with Recipe and Some Catch Up Posting

2011-02-08T23:52:00.000-08:00

Today's post is a bit long... I was sick for two weeks and I have a lot of catching up to do. Well, maybe not a whole lot.... I didn't make much while I was sick. I have five obento to post on and a recipe from the Just Bento Cookbook with comparative photo. (After I try a few more of the recipes I may review it on my blog. :P For those of you who might care.)

2011 Feb 08 - The Sukiyaki Style Beef Donburi Bento

(sorry for the terrible picture! It looked really good, much better than the photo... but my roomates 3 year old wanted to "help" me and this is the best we could get together ^___^ She pushed the button, I held the camera)

Quick Sukiyaki
1 serving

1 3/4 oz (50g) enoki mushrooms
1 tsp vegetable oil (I used coconut oil)
4 inch (10 cm) piece of the white part of a leek, thinly sliced (Leeks are super expensive here - I used an equivalent portion of a sweet onion)
1 fresh shiitake mushroom, sliced, stem discarded (use two if they are small)
3 oz (90g) sukiyaki ready beef (I used bulgogi cut beef and shredded it a bit by hand)
1 tb sugar
1/4 cup (60ml) dashi stock (I used instant)
2 tb soy sauce
1 tb mirin
1 tb sake (I omitted as I was out)
shichimi pepper, to taste (I used shichimi togarashi)

Cut off the stuck together roots of the enoki mushrooms and shred the mushrooms apart.

Heat the oil in a small frying pan over high heat (I have an electric range - so medium heat). Put in the leek and saute until limp. Add the enoki and shiitake and saute for a further 3-4 minutes.

Add the beef and the sugar and stir rapidly until the beef has started to brown. Add all the other ingredients. Cook rapidly over high heat for 3-4 minutes. Turn off the heat and transfer the contents of the pan to a bowl. When cool, put the mixture on top of the rice with some of the cooking liquid (I used it all - there was not much left). Sprinkle with shichimi pepper.

The cookbook photo

This is what the bento looked like in the cookbook. In addition to the sukiyaki it has a dashi simmered carrot/daikon, blanched snow peas and an edible chrysanthemum. The boyfriend =_= will not eat snow peas so I subbed in broccoli and carrots.

The note is also made that the beef recipe improves with time, so its great to make it the night before and assemble the obento in the morning. I made it in the morning and this bento got rave reviews from the boyfriend, who normally just says things like, "Its not bad".

2011 Feb 6

530ml Monokuro Buu box: Rice with eggs and pepper, blanched snow peas, gobo kinpira
Side: Kiku apple

500ml Hamster Club box: Rice, teriyaki chicken, carrot/daikon namasu, blanched snow peas, kinpira gobo

Bento catch up

Spinach salad with tomatoes; rotini pasta with parmesan, marinara sauce, sauted mushrooms and onions

Rice, veggie nuggets, baby bok choy cooked with oyster sauce

Insert Witty Title Here

2011-01-20T21:56:00.000-08:00

This is the only decent looking obento I've made this week. :*( I'm really hoping to get better at making super quick (yet still acceptably attractive looking) obento. These two were for a between class lunch with my boyfriend.

Mine

He asked for teriyaki... I tried something new. I read that cooking the teriyaki with the skin on made for a more flavorful teriyaki and kept the meat nice and moist. :( We didn't like it (despite using no oil in the pan it was super greasy - I had to pour a ton of chicken fat out of the pan before I added the sauce) but I could see some people really liking it.

And His

This Week

2011-01-08T01:56:00.001-08:00

Its been an insanely busy week for me, the first week of school and busy at my temporary job at the student bookstore. I actually have to be back there in less than seven hours for an extra shift, so I should probably be sleeping instead of blogging! The extra money is nice, but it makes keeping up with school work hard and I really wonder how people can work full time and have full time classes. It has also been a week where I required nine obento, but only managed to make two that were anywhere near photo worthy. And my pictures didn't come out too hot either. Perhaps next week will fare better.

480ml Sugar Bunnies Box
Top Tier: Quorn Meatballs, fukujinzuke, sauted broccoli/carrot/mushroom
Bottom Tier: Rice with sesame seeds and cilantro

Onigiri
Fruit salad
popcorn chicken with ketchup in the cup and soy sauce in the bottle

Backlog of December 2010 Obento

2011-01-01T18:01:00.000-08:00

In no particular order, here is the better looking of the obento I made for the month of December.

Sandwich of turkey, cheddar, poppyseed dressing and salad on whole wheat bread.

For the boyfriend: Rice with sesame seeds, broccoli beef, pickled carrots and fukujinzuke.

Whole wheat bagel sandwich of roasted turkey, Dubliner with a side of english cucumber, tomato and pickle slices.

Salad, turkey with gravy, roasted vegetables and potatoes. All courtesy of the catering at the boyfriend's brother's fancy business school (he gets free food)

Nothing too impressive, but what I managed to accomplish last month whilst everything was going crazy. O_O;;;

The Bread Project 009 - Bob's Red Mill Perfect Pizza Crust

2011-01-01T17:07:00.000-08:00

There is a local brand around where I live called Bob's Red Mill. They make all kinds of flours, starches, cereals, grain products and have even branched out into things like flaxmeal, beans and poppyseeds. I know when it comes to flour there is huge loyalty in the online food community to King Arthur flour or some other brand with a flower in the name, Lily something I can't remember. Anyways, I've always been drawn to the small local or smaller (as compared to nation wide business) regional businesses. Sometimes it's a waste of money and sometimes you find really great products. Bob's Red Mill flour is made something like two hours from where I live and I've never been disappointed with any of their products - be it flour, flax meals, muesli, grits or scottish oats. And they have a photo of the owner/business starter on the front of the bag, and I'm a sucker for adorable old people. Maybe I'm gullible, but I feel better buying products produced closer and when there are and I can SEE pictures of the owner-operators. Of course, by now I am just babbling.

This pizza crust recipe is off of the side of the bags of the unbleached white flour and organic unbleached white flour. It produces a very American style of pizza with a thick fluffy crust (as opposed to my experience with Italian pizzas which tend to be thinner and designed to be eaten with salad/antipasto). Its an easy recipe that produces reliable results - just be sure to use the right type of flour. Whether or not it lives up to the nomer of "perfect" may be subject to opinion.... I prefer a more Italian style, but the boyfriend LOVES this recipe for pizza crust. He thinks its pretty much the best homemade crust that he's had. It also makes great calzones and pizza pockets!

Bob's Red Mill Perfect Pizza Crust

1 Tbsp Yeast, Active Dry
1 cup Warm Water (Not hot, not cold)
2-1/2 cups White Flour, Unbleached
2 Tbsp Olive or other Vegetable Oil
1 tsp Sugar
1 tsp Salt

Combine flour, salt and sugar in a small bowl. In a separate bowl, dissolve yeast in water. Add oil and dry ingredients. Stir dough until tough, then knead on lightly floured board until smooth and elastic. Form dough into a ball and place in a greased bowl. Cover bowl and let dough rise until doubled. Divide dough in half and pat with floured fingers or use a rolling pin to form 2-12" circles. Pinch an edge around the crusts and place on cornmeal dusted baking sheets. Top as desired and bake in a preheated 450F oven for 15-20 minutes.

My alterations:
-I mix the sugar with the yeast.
-I don't knead on a surface, nor do I used extra flour.
-I don't dust my baking sheet with cornmeal.

You don't have to make those alterations, its just what I do.

To make the pizza in the picture above: brush the crust with a good extra virgin olive oil, spread with chopped or minced garlic, top with fresh basil, scatter with Italian cheese mix and sliced mushrooms.

Happy New Year

2011-01-01T16:42:00.001-08:00

Hello Blog!!!

And Happy New Year! As soon as Chinese New Year comes around it will be the year of the bunny. I hope everyone had a good holiday season and a happy beginning to the new year (I spent mine being a nerd with my friends playing Dungeons and Dragons, eating copious amounts of chips with home made pico de gallo and ingesting caffiene laced beverages.)

I am finally done moving, done baking, done visiting, done making necessary purchases that make my bank account weep and ready to start school again and pick up my blog.

.... It truely has been a lot longer than I estimated it would be before I was able to get back. I originally typed a long paragraph about all the things that had tied me up like moving and stress and holiday stuff... but it seemed more like a sob story than anything else and that is not what I write this blog about. So, with out further excuses - over the next few days I will be posting a couple of the nicer looking obento I made in December, a pizza crust recipe (as part of my bread project), pictures of my holiday baking (the photos did not turn out well, most were blurred and discolored) with some recipes, and a review for DecoFuri (a project I have put off for almost a year now).

Its nice to be back!!

I'm still here I swear..

2010-11-22T02:51:00.000-08:00

Hello Blog!!

Honest, I haven't forgotten my blog.... things have just gotten so busy with finals approaching and trying to find a place to live that I haven't had the time to pull my posts together. I have finally settled on a place and will be moving there in the coming weeks. Two and a half or something like that... when my final exams are over. Once I'm all moved I will be making a nice big back logged update. (As well as few Bread Project updates - can you say AMAZING pizza?!) =_=;; Or well I will probably just pick the better photos and post those since I don't think really many people want to see all of those photos... like what, three or four weeks of them?

I also have not forgotten my mission that I talked about - translating that bento book and sharing it, along with my results from trying the recipes. Its just that I did not anticipate being a couch surfer for four months. As things stand I'm not in the best position to be doing that stuff. But after settling down I think I will be.

For Christmas, I like to bake tons and tons of cookies and sweets and pass those out as presents... like a bit mixed box of sweets. I was also considering this year posting some of my baking recipes... the ones that are cuter and tinier. We will see. I haven't yet decided what I will even be baking.

Well, I have to be up for school in three hours, but I wanted to give an update so that no one thinks that this blog is abandoned.

Who Says Convenience Must Look Bad?

2010-11-14T04:52:00.000-08:00

Nope, did not fall off the face of the planet.... just super busy with lots of tests and trying to find a new place. Thusly, most of my obento have not been so photogenic lately. It happens. This last week I managed to squeeze a few in that were decent enough looking though :3

2010 Nov 10
These obento were made with a lot of convenience items. I purchased the chirashi mix (to be mixed with rice), atsuyaki tamago, vegetable fishcake (which I found out was a fishcake a day after buying it, as it was mislabeled as vegetable tenpura and I was too tired to tell it was a fishcake) and nameko mushroom salad from the deli. The teriyaki was made beforehand and frozen. These three contain the same foods, in different ways.

(In this one the chirashi zushi rice was put inside an inari skin)

2010 Nov 09

A humble teriyaki donburi for the boyfriend. :< Who was sadly weirded out by the lotus root.

Bit of back log

2010-10-24T12:37:00.000-07:00

First I wanted to apologize to people that have commented to me (either on my blog or on Livejournal), the last two weeks have been horrible combos of busy, sick, tests and relapse sickness. Can I just stop being sick and all tests magically do themselves?

2010 Oct 20

Keroppi Sandwich box
Top: Sandwich of whole wheat bread, poppyseed dressing, red lettuce, aged white cheddar, cilantro and sprouts.
Bottom: broccoli salad (hardly qualifies as a recipe but I've posted it below)and tomato slices

490ml Vive box: rice decorated with cilantro, grapes, chicken gyoza, steamed broccoli and carrot
160ml side: apple kanten with mandarin orange

Same as above but in a bigger box (for the boyfriend)

2010 oct 13

rice, leftover roast beef, carrots, fruit salad of kiwi and blueberry, chocolate (for the boyfriend)

Broccoli Salad
chop raw broccoli into bite sized pieces, add some poppyseed dressing and toss/stir to coat. The dressing will soften the broccoli a little bit by lunch time (though it will still be relatively crunchy, which I like)

Is it sleep time yet?

The Glory of Leftovers

2010-10-08T11:17:00.001-07:00

@____@ Erg, long week. ._. And Wednesday I didn't have time to make my bentos...

I really love leftovers. They are amazing. I can get up in the morning like a zombie, and my side dishes are already made!! Both of my obento were leftovers. XD It was a nice day.

2010 October 04

530ml Monokuro Buu box: Salad with grapes and hazelnuts, some cheese orzo thing that is really yummy (sorry, I don't have a recipe, it was brought home by someone else)
Side: boiled egg.

I often wonder why I don't have many boiled eggs in my lunches these days. Boiled eggs are so good.

Rice with garlic stir fried vegetables and Panda Express Sweet Fire chicken. OMNOM. I could probably eat their Sweet Fire chicken every day if I didn't beleive it was so bad for you.

This Week's Obento

2010-09-30T22:43:00.000-07:00

Ugh. I'm still struggling with the lighting at 6am. >_> There are these really soft over head lights... and bringing out additional lighting seems like a herculean task that early in the day. So. Tired.

Keroppi Sandwich Box
Top: Chicken Katsu Sandwich
Bottom: Mixed salad leaves with tomato and cucumber, vinagrette in the pig bottles
160ml Mashumaro Bowl: Coleslaw

490ml White Vive box: Rice with sesame seeds, baked katsu nuggets(recipe/instructions here), mixed vegetables

500ml Hamster Club box: Chicken Loco Moco with vegetables.

Essentially, Loco Moco is a dish common in Hawaiian fast food. Its rice, with beef patties and a fried egg. Apparently its very hard to make attractive >_> I planned this one out and thought that I could make it pretty and then make a special post for it in my blog but it didn't come out even a fraction as attractive as I had imagined it in my head.... XD Things don't always turn out the way we want them to, eh? I suppose that is what practice is for?

530ml Monokuro Buu Box: Inarizushi, one egg tamagoyaki, tomato and cucumber

Sesame Mushroom Burgers

2010-09-21T22:33:00.000-07:00

D: Not dead... just took a nice long break before school started up again, which was officially Monday. XD I am late in my posting, like usual. My schedule is set up in as such I spend essentially all day on campus Monday and Wednesday... 9am to 8:30pm and that doesn't factor in my near horrendous commute. @____@ I keep reminding myself that education is so very, very worth it.

Barring any unforseen events, days off or general explosions I will officially be back to posting at a minimum of twice a week. I am currently working on two projects - 1) coming up with recipes, ideas and tutorials that are quick, simple and easy enough that they can be done in the wee hours of the morn by extremely non-morning people and are beginner friendly as well & 2) I am going to be translating sections of one of my Japanese obento books, prepare the recipe as written, post the recipe and photo and share how it turned out. Its a book of obento that supposedly take 10 or less minutes to prepare in the morning. I thought people might especially appreciate the latter, though it may take some time to get around to it since school work is first priority and my Japanese is a bit rusty.

So, without further ado here is a days worth of obento - two meals and a snack!

490ml White Vive box: Rice, chicken burgers in sesame and mushroom sauce (recipe below), steamed broccoli and carrots with coarse salt, fukujinzuke

360ml white monokuro boo box: stir fried frozen veggie mix with tofu puffs
230ml black monokuro boo box: rice

sando de panda box: honey peanut butter and jelly
mini chocolate

Quick Sesame Mushroom Burger
I have not listed exact amounts but rather proportions... its super easy and scales endlessly whether you are cooking for one or many.

burger mix of your choice of meat (I used ground chicken with bread, milk, egg, garlic, ginger and green onion), formed into 2tb size patties*
gomadare (either homemade or from a bottle)
water
one button/crimini mushroom per two burgers

Heat up a pan with little sesame oil. Place the burgers in the pan. Add the mushrooms and cook till the patties are lightly browned on both sides. Mix some gomadare and water in a 3:1 ratio (quantity depends on how much sauce you want) and add that to the pan. Boil so that it cooks the burgers and softens the mushrooms. Remove the burgers and reduce the sauce so that it is thickened and top the burgers with the the sauce.

*It is generally impractical to make burger mix in the morning... what I do is make a lot of the mix one day and freeze in 2tb size portions. At night I take out as many portions as I need, and because the portions are so small they usually thaw by morning and I use them for a myriad of things from mini burgers, soboro, dumplings, fillings, etc.

The Bread Project 008 - 5 minute Artisan Bread

2010-09-02T16:59:00.000-07:00

Some years ago the whole "OMG Artisan bread in 5 minutes!!!!" thing became hugely popular. I've spent several weeks working on this so called 5 minute bread. I have to say that its pretty dang easy, and its tasty... In terms of results, its comparable to a grocery store loaf of French bread around here, albiet better tasting... but its still not as good as the crusty loafs of Pain Ordinaire/Baguette/French Bread/Etc I can get at the Pearl Bakery (a small French bakery in Portland). Its better than the store bread and is really easy to make as there is no kneading and really no work at all.

In this case, I baked up the entire recipe (I was making dinner for many people)... and my breads became conjoined XD so I apologize for the photo...

5 Minute Artisan Bread
I usually make half of this recipe because it makes a HUGE amount of dough.

6.5 c bread flour
1.5 tb active dry yeast
1.5 tb salt (I use sea salt)
3.5 c lukewarm water

In a large (HUGE bowl if you're not cutting the recipe in half) mix the yeast into the water and let it rest 5 minutes. Mix in the flour and salt until just incorporated - you want a loose shaggy dough.

Rise for about two hours, or till doubled. Gently deflate the dough. You can use or store it at this point but I found that repeating the rise/deflate one more time helped the dough bake into a fluffier less gummy loaf.

To cook:
Preheat oven to 475F. Shape the dough and let it rest for about thirty minutes. Slashing the dough helps it be able to expland. Place about a cup of water in pan in the oven and place the bread in the oven. Bake about thirty minutes.

2 Obento for a Friend

2010-09-02T15:48:00.000-07:00

=_=;;; Bleh, I'm so behind with my posts... these days it seems like all the time. But I've been packing, and moving and cleaning. @___@ My work, in that regard, is finally done. For now anyways.

I recently re-opened relations with a friend (through circumstances we avoided each other for about nine months). And like something that creeps out of your past I ended up making her some bento (she had to be out and about for some time that day). This one (technically two, but they were given all at once) was crafted sometime last week. I thought it came out kinda cute for being in all disposable containers.

Plain rice, pan fried shiozake, steamed broccoli/carrot/snow pea mix, egg sheets decorated with nori

Onigiri box: four onigiri with umejiso furikake, filled with cooked tuna and wrapped in nori

Other box: kimchii! (unfortunately, on its last leg XD)

Sweet Misoyaki

2010-08-21T03:11:00.001-07:00

Ack. Its been a while... I've been O_O somewhat busy and constantly whisked away from home. <_< I cannot remember the last time I slept in my own bed. >_>;;;; But I have a recipe for you lovely folks!!

blue bowl: rice with colored egg sheets
pink bowl: sweet chicken misoyaki, mixed vegetables stirfried in plum sauce

Top: veggies stir fried in plum sauce, various pickles, satsuma and kiwi
Bottom: rice, colored egg sheets, sweet chicken misoyaki

Sweet Chicken Misoyaki
One large chicken breast, cut into chunks
2tsp to 2tb miso (more or less depending on your miso - mine was mild white so I used two tb)
2 tb umeshu, mirin or a wet/sweet sake
2 tsp evaporated cane juice sugar or brown sugar
splash of soy sauce or pinch of salt (if your miso is not salty)

Mix everything in a plastic ziploc bag, pressing out as much of the air as possible. Marinate overnight or at least 2 hours and up to 3 days. Pan fry with a little bit of oil. Enjoy.

The Bread Project 007 - Cheesy Vegemite Scrolls (Or Cheesy-Mite Rolls)

2010-08-03T21:07:00.000-07:00

Ahhhh CheesyMites... This has been a long term project for me. Apparently its been quite the rage in Australia, my friend Davey said they were even sold in some bakeries where he lives. Never having been to Australia, I had no reference and blindly stabbed in the dark at making them, only to be told that the food in my photo was not it. Failure. XD

Then there is vegemite. It seems, either you love it or you hate it. I love it, always have. I am alone in a sea of vegemite haters. Then again, most of my friends try to spread it on bread like jam. =_=; Its no wonder they don't like it. (FYI butter your toast and apply vegemite sparingly!) You can find Vegemite in the US - the rumor of it being illegal is false - but its usually exorbitantly priced. D: I order mine off the internet, its WAAAAAAAAAY cheaper. I can order a large jar of it and get it shipped to me for less than the mico-sized jar at my local market. =_=;;; Sad, eh?

Anyways, on to the goods!!!

You will need:
1 recipe Milk Bread Dough
1 tb Vegemite (to taste)
1 tb butter
2 cup grated cheese (or more!!!)

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a small bowl, microwave the butter and vegemite till liquid. Roll the dough out into a large rectangle. Spread with the vegemite mixture, leaving an inch or so at the bottom clean. Sprinkle cheese all over. Roll towards you, pinching the end to the side of the roll so it stays closed. Slice into 9 rounds and place about 2cm apart. Leave to rise in a warm place until the buns have puffed and touch each other, about 20-40 minutes. Preheat oven to 375F. Bake 15-20 minutes, till browned. Great for breakfast with a cup of coffee!!

The Bread Project 006 - Milk Bread Master Recipe

2010-08-03T20:04:00.000-07:00

Haaaaa.... I'm getting really good at posting things late, eh? I totally made this a week ago on the 26th. :P Anyways, on to todays barrage of posts, starting with bread!

So I made this milk bread a few more times trying to get it as good as I could and write everything down this time. I like to think I did a good job, or at least it definately got the seal of approval from its recipients!

Milk Bread
Makes: 6 big hamburger sized buns, 9 medium rolls/buns, 2 loafs, 4 mini loafs, 8 hotdog buns or any combinations you can think of.!

Sponge:
3/4 milk
1 1/4 tsp yeast, dried
1/2 c flour
2tb sugar or honey

The Rest:
1 egg
2-3 tb butter, cold and cut into 8-12 pieces
3/4 tsp salt
2 c unbleached white flour/bread flour (do not use self rising! AP or bleached flour will not produce a fluffy bread in this recipe!)

1/4 c additional flour, reserved for kneading.

Method:
1. Put the yeast in a large mixing bowl and set aside. Place the milk in a pan and heat just till no longer cold, at most just warm. Pour the milk over the yeast, whisk a couple times and then let it rest five to ten minutes (its okay if there is not a lot of foam).

2. Into the yeast mix the 1/2 cup flour and 2 tb of sugar. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and set this in a warm place* to ferment and rise for 20-40 minutes or till doubled. (This is called a "sponge", for reasons that I am too lazy to research.) It will be jiggly like a custard or jello.

3. When the sponge is done give it a little stir to loosen it. Add the egg, giving it a quick stir. Add the 2 cups flour and the 3/4 tsp salt. Stir till the dough starts to come away from the sides of the bowl (you will need a wooden spoon or strong spatula for this). It will take a few minutes. I found doing it this way instead of immediately kneading helps prevent it from sticking to your hands and lessens the need for additional flour in kneading.. both of which are a good thing since this is a rather wet dough (wet=soft bread).

4. Once the dough starts to be really cohesive you can stop stirring. With the additional 1/4 c flour, use a little to dust your surface and your hands. Your goal is to knead using as little of this flour as possible. Turn your dough out onto the surface and dust with a little of the flour. Knead as you desire till the dough is smooth and just a bit tacky but not sticky. I personally like to hold the dough in my hands and knead it by way of folding it in itself continually. >_> Of course, I am also short and have small hands with weak wrists so kneading on the counter is difficult and sometimes uncomfortable for me. And I seem to need less flour doing it this way.

5. Knead the butter into the dough a couple pieces at a time, fully incorporating each time.

6. Butter a large bowl and place the dough in it. Cover and rise in a warm place till doubled. Gently deflate the dough, reshaping into a ball. Cover and rise again.

7. Shape the dough as desired. As noted above, this will make 2 loaves of sandwich bread, 4 minis (I love the mini), 6 large buns, 9 medium rolls, etc... If you want to fill the dough with anything now is the time. In the photo above I flattened the dough out into a rectangle then rolled it up like a jelly roll, placing it in the bread pan in an S shape.

8. From here you have two options: A) Cover and rise about 20-30 minutes or you can put it in the fridge overnight for a slow ferment (this will make a better tasting bread but will delay your NOMNOMNOMing for about 12 hours.) and then proof it the next day before baking.

9. Either way, when you're ready to bake... Preheat the oven to 375F and bake 15-35 minutes depending on the shape of your bread.

10. Pat yourself on the back for being so amazing!!! (if you made loaves or hamburger buns wait till they are completely cooled before cutting or the bread will just squish, its cloud soft right out of the oven.)

*I like to put the bowl in the oven (not turned on) along with a bowl of boiled water. This method has worked the best for me, I can't seem to get my breads to rise otherwise no matter what other method I've chosen. Thank you Alton Brown!! (I swear he must be divine in nature!)

PS it sounds more complex than it is.... its really easy to make! And its extremely versatile!

The Bread Project 005 - Milk Buns

2010-07-25T18:36:00.000-07:00

Mmmmm Milk Buns... soft, fluffy, yummy. I'm so stoked, these turned out pretty good! I gave them a light salt wash... oh man. I ate two of them that night. They could have been fluffier and more pillowy, but at this point in my bread making efforts I am satisfied with them being light and tasty. I don't quite have a recipe for this one... I made my own stab in the dark at making milk bread and forgot to write down all the measurements. I am going to try it again this week and see if I can't get a recipe down on paper!!

Game Day Obento

2010-07-25T18:24:00.000-07:00

Every Saturday is my game day... I go to my friend's house and we play Dungeons and Dragons to the wee hours of the morning. But before that, I get the pleasure of hanging out with their two year old who seems to think I am one of the coolest people in all of existence. Ahhh they are so cute at that age. Anyways, I occasionally bring my obento so that I don't have to steal some of their dinner or buy fast food. And the little one feels entitled to pretty much everything I may be eating, drinking, playing with, or even looking at. She gets away with it because she is way too cute. She's gonna be a heartbreaker. This Saturday, however, I came prepared with matching obento.

Chloebelle's Obento

300ml Hello Kitty Box: Rice, heart shaped tamagoyaki, broccoli

160ml Purin round: mixed canned fruit

Oh boy was she happy about getting her own lunch, she grinned and grinned and asked me what things were ... and insisted the tamagoyaki was a cookie!

My own Obento

2 Tier - 480ml Sugar Bunnies Obento

Bottom: Rice with Sesame Seeds

Top: Heart shaped Tamagoyaki, pickled carrots, sesame spinach, various pickles (takuan, aokappa, shibazuke)

160ml Sugar Bunny Blue: mixed fruit

160ml Sugar Bunny Pink: fresh kiwi

2010 July 19

I forgot to post this one... it is a quick lunch made for the boyfriend. Bleary eyed and with an empty kitchen, I managed...

870ml Lock & Lock Container: Rice, buttered boneless pork chop, broccoli, pickled carrots

Torikatsu Bento

2010-07-12T21:13:00.000-07:00

This one was not for me... but was well received except for the furikake, which made me slightly sad, but not too sad since that means I don't have to share it.

875ml Black Asvel box
Top: Rice with wakame-daikon leaf-salt-sesame seed furikake, broccoli, pickled carrots
Bottom: torikatsu nuggets, plum sauce, tonkatsu sauce

And I got the tasty leftovers!!

The Bread Project - 004 Banana Bread

2010-07-12T20:27:00.000-07:00

Okay, not exactly what I was gunning for in my summer bread project but banana bread really is a classic. One of those things that I think just LOADS of people really just LOVE to eat. And, if you go easy on the sugar and add in some nuts or something like that you've got a decently healthy breakfast or snack item. Lot better than that sugar cereal most of the people I know eat for breakfast.

In this case, I added a handful of fresh blueberries that I picked myself! m(_ _)m sorry for the bad picture, it was late last night and I took it with my phone... then promptly devoured the bread.

Banana Bread
This is my recipe, for the most part. I made it after looking at a large number of other recipes. It makes one normal loaf, three small loafs, four smaller mini, or about eight to twelve medium muffins (depending on how big you want them).

1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup butter, soft
1/4 to 1/2 cup sugar depending on ripeness of bananas
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
3 bananas, ripe

Optional: 1/2 tsp banana flavoring, nuts, dash of cinnamon (Trust me, the cinnamon is a SUPER amazing addition) or pie spice or chocolate chips or anything else that suits your fancy.
Optional toppings: (mix and match) brown sugar, nuts, fresh berries, fresh fruits, banana slices, chocolate chips, etc.

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter, lightly, your baking recepticles. You can of course use spray or margarine, but the butter is better taste and texture wise.

2. In a large bowl, mash the butter and bananas loosely. I do it with a fork or spatula - having some small banana chunks is ideal and a mixer will destroy those lumps. Stir a few times till it looks well mixed and perhaps even fluffy. Add everything else but your toppings.

3. Divide between your pans. Add toppings if desired. Bake 25 to 70 minutes depending on your pan - with muffins taking the least time and a full loaf taking the longest. Check for doneness with a skewer - you want some moist crumbs but nothing mushy and wet (unless you're in my family, in which case the banana bread it considered over cooked unless the middle is a little mushy)

4. Cool appropriately, removing from the pan as soon as its cool enough to handle. If you buttered your dish appropriately this bread will fall out of the pan with nere but a slight jiggle of the pan.

Tastes great warm, better cold and even better aged a day or so wrapped in plastic or foil. Its very moist, yet holds its shape well and is not crumbly or cakey-fluffy like. I'd venture to say it might make some amazing french toast but a loaf never lasts long enough for me to test that theory. :3

The Bread Project - 003 Brioche

2010-07-06T19:42:00.001-07:00

Ah, Brioche. I am sad to say I first tried it only a couple months ago, at the suggestion of my mother. She said something akin to "FIE FIE OH ICKY FRENCH FOOD!! FIE AND A HEX UPON THY HOUSE! But I make an exception for Brioche." Okay, it wasn't actually like that, but the gist is the same. She doesn't care for french food, but has a soft spot for Brioche. I too do not have a lot of love for French food - not that it isn't tasty or beautiful (it frequently is very tasty and artistic) - just that it tends to be quite rich and tends to be loaded with butter and the sweets are quite sweet and fatty. It often makes my stomach hurt, as I am a girl who eats a lot of plain rice and things like steamed or pickled vegetables. I've always had a stomach sensitive to lots of fats and sugars (I could eat buckets of salty, spicy and sour foods though - Kimchii anyone? LOL) Plain french breads though I adore. I don't mean those flavorless, colorless limp loafs at your local grocery store.... you have to go to a small, local french bakery to buy good french bread. Not saying grocery chains can't pump out something that is kindly on the taste buds, but they rush it and its just not as good. I digress, Brioche. My first brush with Brioche was at a coffee house. I got a cup of coffee and Almond Brioche - a dish for which I am unsure how it is made and the internet has 5 billion versions, all very different. The one I had was like a thick slice of Brioche bread, dipped in an egg batter and cooked till lightly crisp on the outside, sweetened with almond syrup, topped with almond creme and sliced almonds. It was probably the most delicious bread I have eaten since the time I had Gibbasier.

Anyways, stories aside.... this was my first attempt at Brioche. I went for a middle of the line recipe (Brioche is categorized as poor, middle and rich man's brioche by the amount of eggs and butter in it) and this is the best bread I have yet to make. I don't know if I was just really hungry or if they were just that tasty but I managed to eat half of the rolls in one sitting. (They are small though!) Making the bread was surprisingly easy and I did it all by hand - no fancy mixer. (Though I do lust after a Kitchenaid mixer, but how many of us do not?)

I made a half recipe of the recipe I am including at the bottom of the page, I ended up with one mini loaf and eight à têtes, the latter of which I used too much dough for and they turned into monsters. XD Thier little heads just exploded.

This is one of the à tête... Honestly, I didn't like the rolls nearly as much as the loafs. The little rolls with heads are cute, but somehow just don't do it for me.

The loaf though... I was quite fond of. Here you can see the crumb of the bread... I thought I did a vastly better job this time. =_=;;; Usually its just a dense mass with no fluffy little air pockets.

Brioche
For two full sized loafs, or an assortment of other shapes. Don't be intimidated by the length of the directions.... its time consuming, but easy.

Sponge
2.5 tsp / one package active dry yeast
1/2 c milk, warm
1/4 c granulated sugar
1/2 c bread flour (important - use unbleached white bread flour, bread flour is different than regular flour)

Bread
8oz (2 sticks) butter, cubed
3 c bread flour (see above)
1.5 tsp sea salt
4 eggs

Egg wash
1 egg whisked with pinch of salt

Pour warm milk over yeast, whisk to dissolve. Let set 5 minutes. Whisk again. Add sugar and flour. Whisk to combine into a thin batter. Cover with plastic wrap and leave to ferment 30-45 minutes in a warm place until bubbles appear on the surface.

With a spatula, give sponge a light stir to check bubbles. Add flour and salt and eggs. Mix till dough comes together and forms a cohesive texture. (Using hands or a mixer). Knead butter in a bit at a time, fully incorporating each addition before adding more.

Turn dough onto a floured surface. Wash out bowl. Oil or butter the bowl. Place dough in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Place bowl in a warm area and let rise till double, 1.5 to 2 hours.

After rising, gently deflate dough. Cover again and place in the fridge overnight.

Remove from the refrigerator. Dough will have risen and will be firm. Remove from bowl onto a floured surface. Push lightly to deflate then let rest.

Prepare pans by coating with a thin layer of butter.

Divide dough, shape as desired and place in pans. Cover and let rise till doubled. Preheat oven to 400F.

Make egg wash. Gently brush bread with the wash. Bake 15-35 minutes depending on size.

These instructions were adapted from the two part instructional video made by a delightful seeming young woman named Melissa. I'd recommend watching them, she's really great!

The Bread Project - 002 Petit Pain

2010-07-05T21:24:00.000-07:00

T__T Again with the late posting... since I have so much free time now I've been constantly whisked away and I forget about what I wanted to post about.

This time I tried making petit pain, a sort of small french roll based off of the basic white bread. I am not sure exactly what days I made it.... sometime between the 22nd and 28th of June. I made a total of eight rolls, two each of four flavors: Sugar and Spice, Sugar and Valencia, Sea Salt and Herbs de Provence, Sea Salt and Fresh Pepper. My favorite was the Sea Salt and herbs.

Again I had the problem of the bread not being as fluffy and light on the inside as I wanted... It was tastier than the last one, but very dense and it got quite rock hard the next day. I wonder where I am going wrong? Perhaps I did not knead it enough. Its very tiring kneading by hand, I can see why those expensive kitchenaid mixers with bread hooks are so popular.

Taken from:
The Art of Bread
Cooking Club of America
(I got this cookbook as a gift from my grandmother... I was told by someone else that that cooking club is a bit spendy and it costs money to be a member and all, so I feel really lucky!! Thank you for the gift Nana!)

Pain Ordinaire
2tsp dry yeast
325ml or 1 1/3 cups water
3 1/2 cups or 500g flour
1.5 tsp salt

1. Sprinkle the yeast into 1/2 cup (125 ml) of the water in a bowl. Leave for 5 minutes; stir to dissolve. Mix the flour and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the center and pour in the dissolved yeast.

2. Use a wooden spoon to draw enough of the flour into the dissolved yeast to form a soft paste. Cover the bowl with a dish towel and let the paste "sponge" until frothy, loose and slightly expanded, about 20 minutes.

3. Pour about half of the remaining water into the center of the well. Mix in the flour from the sides of the well. Stir in the reserved water, as needed, to form a firm, moist dough.

4. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. Knead until smooth, shiny, and elastic, about ten minutes.

5. Put the dough in a clean bowl and cover with a dish towel. Let rise until doubled in size, about 1 1/2 - 2 hours. Punch down, then let rest for 10 minutes.

6. Shape the dough into a long loaf, about 14 in (35cm) in length. Place the shaped loaf on a foured baking sheet and cover with a dish towel. Proof until doubled in size, about 45 minutes.

7. Cut five diagonal slashes, each about 1/4 inc (5mm) deep, across the top of the loaf. Bake in the preheated oven for 45 minues, until golden and hollow sounding when tapped underneath. Cool on a wire rack.

(There is some sort of typo in the recipe... it doesn't say to what temperature to set the oven, so I am assuming 425F/220C like the others)

Variation - Petit Pains (Bread Rolls)
Make one quantity Pain Ordinaire dough up to step 6.

Divide the bread dough into eight pieces and shape into smooth, round rolls.Place on a foured baking sheet and cover with a dish towel. Proof until doubled in size, about 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 425F/220C.

Sift a dusting of flour on the top. Use a pair of scissors to snip an X in the centre of each roll. Bake for 25 minutes, until hollow sounding when tapped underneath. Cool on a wire rack.

Optional
Make an egg wash of one egg and a tablespoon or so of water. Gently brush the rolls with the wash. Sprinkle with flavorful toppings.

The Bread Project - 001

2010-06-21T18:25:00.000-07:00

Like I said in a previous post.... this summer's project for me is bread. Fluffy, yummy yeasted breads. I can do biscuits (Woe betide the southern girl who can't) and quick breads and muffins and cakes just fine.... but the yeasted bread eludes me. Something is always just off. And frikken yeast hates me. But I will prevail. I will win. I will be the victor. Because I can.

And because I have no class this summer so I have extra time until I can find a job.

My first attempt thus was pizza dough. :( Because I was hungry for pizza. I used this recipe. It has a 4.5 star rating on allrecipes.com so I garnered it might be tasty.

As you can see, it didn't brown very well. It stayed quite pale despite a good brushing of oil and baking it any further would have just killed it. I have to say though, all in all I found it rather flavorless and dull and I was disappointed. Upon second thoughts I found it reasonable since reading in the comments it was compared to PizzaHut pizza dough - which is a sin upon the earth. D:< And I'm a spoiled brat who has always lived in places where one can get real pizza, not just super chain fast food equivalent pizza. Of course, there is also the possibility that I screwed it up as well.

As one can see, it obviously puffed up upon baking... but the inside was not, well, pizza crust like. It was somewhat dense and soft, not light and chewy.

This attempt was edible, but I still consider it a failure as the texture of the bread came out wrong... indicating some sort of problem in the rising.

The Pizza Bento

2010-06-21T18:10:00.001-07:00

Ughhhhh.... this one is week late in posting. Last week was the first week after finals and I was whisked away from the batcave which is my abode. Whisked away as in I got home yesterday.

So, last week I wanted to make a bento for the boyfriend... I asked him what he wanted and he joking said, "Pizza!" However, I thought it was a great idea and I went for it. I totally cheated and used mostly prepacked stuff to make these mini pizzas but sometimes cheating a bit is not so bad. Especially when you've not made the dish in question in a great many years (about 16 in my case). And I made a lot. So he couldn't say it wasn't enough food. D: I made enough to be sure of that. Very sure.

6 Mini pizzas
Cut baby watermelon
Cut baby cantaloupe

Cheater Homemade Mini Pizzas (6)
Basic
1 tube Pillsbury pizza dough
1 jar pasta sauce (I used Newman's Mushroom Marinara)
1 bag Italian cheese mix (I used Tillamook Italian blend of mozzarella and parmesan)

Toppings
Really you can put anything your heart so desires but I chose combinations of:
Roma tomato
mushroom
fresh basil
olives
pepperoni

The premise is super simple... take your roll of dough and cut into six roughly equal sized portions. Flatten each portion and place on a greased baking sheet (I used cooking spray on a foil covered baking sheet for easy clean up). Put some sauce on each one. Top with cheese. Add additional toppings if desired. Bake about ten to tweleve minutes. Enjoy.

Not the most attractive of lunches or skillful presentations... but damnit, it really did the job. And it got *really* good reviews.

Summer Project - Bread

2010-06-13T17:02:00.001-07:00

Spring term is over!! Finals are done!! I wanted to take classes in the summer term but I unfortunately fell short on funds and the school could not help me out. So here I am, with naught else to do but look for employment. So I have LOADS of free time now. LOADS. What do I do with it?

I've decided that this summer, whilst searching for gainful summer employment, that I will conquer bread. Bread is the one real group of foods that kicks me tush. I can make some mean biscuits, cakes, quick breads and the like... but I have never been successful at making a yeasted bread. As they say, practice makes perfect, and that is what I intend to do. I also figured that if I could master the whole bread thing then I could make breads and bread items the specific size I want for my bento(read: cute mini bread)!! Yummy, wholesome homemade breads. I am really hoping this will go well and that I will have a lot to share!!

Picnic

2010-06-05T01:34:00.000-07:00

I'm posting this one a bit late, this was made for Thursday... I went on a 5km volkswalk with the boyfriend and we had a picnic lunch. Well, it ended up raining and we were all wet so we ended up eating it at his place (warm and in the house!) but as they say... tis the thought that counts.

Each box contains Salad Makizushi, Tangy Karaage, potato salad and broccoli.

Tangy Karaage
(This is my own recipe... I had been trying to create a very spicy karaage, but I ended up with this instead. Despite the amount of pepper paste in it, its not hot at all. Its quick, easy and quite tasty though! The amounts are easily adjustable for taste and it easily doubles.)

~225g chicken, cut into chunks
1 tb Kimchii base (I do not know a substitute for this... I buy it at the store, I suppose you could make it from scratch and puree it)
1 tb Soy Sauce
1 tb Pepper paste or Sriracha
1 tsp garlic paste (or crushed and minced)
1 tsp ginger paste (or finely grated)
Potato starch (or cornstarch or flour)
Oil for deep frying

Mix everything except the starch in a non-reactive bowl and marinate about 20-40 minutes. Heat up your oil... I heat my oil till bamboo chopsticks make lots of tiny streams of tiny bubbles in the oil. Stir in starch one spoon at a time until the marinade becomes sticky. Drop piece by piece into hot oil and fry till golden.

Salad Rolls
(This recipe is from Kawaii Bento Boxes published by Japan Publications Trading Co., with no listed author. I bought it last year and have since seen it reviewed by other obento bloggers. While it is has some nice ideas... it focused heavily on pre-made and processed foods... and frankly, there was not much that was new to me... but I could see it being a valuable beginner book.)

1/2 sheet nori (I used a two whole sheets)
1 cup sushi rice (I did not measure my rice, and seasoned with Marukan Light Seasoned Rice Vinegar)
1 tb canned tuna (I mixed one can tuna with with a splash of soy sauce, sesame oil and a sprinkle of black sesame seeds)
3 seafood sticks (I used 2 imitation crab sticks per roll)
shredded omelet (I whisked two eggs and made two egg sheets with it)
lettuce (I used spinach)
Mayonnaise (I used Kewpie mayo)

Basically, assemble all your ingredients. Lay the nori out on a bamboo rolling mat (or plastic wrap). Thinly cover three quarters of the nori with rice, spreading it with wet hands. Add all the fillings and roll it up. Cut with a wet knife. 2 sheets of nori, 3/4 a can of tuna, 4 crab sticks, 2 egg omelet will make two full size maki rolls.

Over all, I liked this one... would have been better with a better crab stick... but the boyfriend hated it.

Sweet Payback No. 1 - Almost Vegan Chocolate Strawberry & Creme Cupcakes

2010-06-01T21:59:00.001-07:00

*_* I really, really meant to post this sooner (Ala May 20th when they were made)... but I've been whisked away from home for quite some time (and final exams are encroaching). About a month and a half ago the boyfriend purchased for me what I would consider an outlandish gift - (super nerd alert!) a used Warhammer 40K Ork army. While he assured me that he "found it for super cheap on ebay" looking at the sheer number of models makes me think that it was still quite costly on my terms (however, I am a poor college student so I consider most things to be "too costly"). I mean I certainly doubt I could have afforded it. They were hideously painted (and I do mean with horrendous color schemes like red pants with neon yellow shirts) and obviously owned by a drug user (There was a purple and yellow tank with "Krunk Tank" sloppily painted on the side not to mention some "interesting" model creations). But it was decided by the boyfriend that we would make a project of stripping, cleaning, reassembling, and repainting them into something better. As something we could do together.

Anyways, to allay my guilt over such a gift, I decided to shower him with sweets until I no longer feel guilty. (Guilt because I cannot give a gift of equal monetary value) Sweets I can afford to make. Homemade sweets need not be expensive to be really special.

I got the idea for these a while back - we were talking about marketing and gender, a discussion which was brought about by me bringing up a site I had found for a company which sells "Manly cupcakes". *eye roll*

Anyways, these are vegan chocolate cupcakes each with a whole strawberry baked inside, frosted with vanilla swiss meringue frosting and each individually decorated with candies of different varieties. The boyfriend helped me decorate them with the candies - he has a surprisingly good eye for it, most of his were way cuter than mine. >_<;;; So most of the closeups I took and kept (I tossed most of them, I had a bad photography day) were of cupcakes he decorated.

The cake I added more vanilla and cocoa powder. (This cake freezes really well!) This cake is a depression era recipe, during that time many foods were rationed so people learned to make cakes without eggs and such. It was vegan out of necessity rather than choice... it is surprisingly delicious.

The Swiss Meringue - I used homemade double vanilla syrup instead of the lime syrup. Its a very rich frosting. O_O Very. It makes a sizable quantity as well. This frosting also freezes well.

The candies were from the bulk bins at the Sweet Factory store at my local mall.

I decorated this one - cherry gummy with cotton candy jelly beans.

He did this one - sixlets and pina colada stars. He said it was a D-pad.

He did this one too - Gummi frogs, pina colada stars, strawberry puff gummi.

♥_♥ This one is sooo cute (he made this one too). Its two froggies kissing, with heart shaped jelly beans, and the pina colada stars.

And he made this one too... cherry gummi with sixlets.

One For Me, One Not For Me....

2010-05-23T09:44:00.000-07:00

>_>;; Normally I show the most recent one first but I'm running out of veggies and too lazy to go to the store. Final exams are approaching.... and all I want to do is nap.

Saturday, 2010 May 22

500 ml Hamster Club box: Rice with sesame seeds, leftover fried chicken, steamed broccoli/carrot/snow peas, bbq sauce, pickles, soy sauce...With a side of baked sweet potato (not shown)

Today, 2010 May 23

890 ml Asvel 2 tier box:
Top: mamegohan (rice cooked with peas) and maple glazed carrots
Bottom: crab shumai, spring roll, plum sauce, simmered kombu, pickles

This one is for the boyfriend... and is supplimented with chocolate hazelnut milk, some almonds, fruit leather and a couple Japanese kitkat.

These shumai look nice... but they don't have much flavor. :< I am tempted to try to make my own.

Frog and SugarBunny Charaben and home-made egg sheets

2010-05-08T16:48:00.000-07:00

Ahhhh... Today. =_=;; What a day. O_O I fell asleep on my homework studying last night, woke up too late to go to school... Made bento for my friends at my Dungeons and Dragons game to find out just as I was leaving my house that I misread a text message and the game was canceled. I'm not saying it was a bad day though... the sky is a beautiful shade of blue, its almost warm outside and Oregon is as green and verdantly beautiful as always. (Well, on this side of the mountains. Its brown desert across the mountains.)

500ml blue Asvel box: Rice with carrot butterflies and two froggies made of egg and cheese, tsukune burger with tonkatsu sauce on spinach, broccoli, simmer mushrooms with snow peas, carrot flowers, sweet potato (Okinawa) ball.

I think this one is the cuter of the two. I rather liked the way it turned out.

Sugar Bunnies box: Same contents as the froggy obento with the addition of an umeboshi. The bunny's face is kinda not the way I wanted.... I got lazy and tired towards the end. >.< The brown bunny is supposed to look smug, not happy.

I do not make charaben often. In fact, one could go so far as to say "rarely". When I do make a charaben, one thing that helps me a lot is tracing the box I will use and drawing what I want it to look like. I draw the character as I want it to appear and I draw in the side dishes I want to serve. The side dishes are not drawn in this picture, I had them on another piece of paper. I think that having drawn your idea out, and visualizing the food becoming the idea makes it easier to achieve. D: It also helps when making characters that will need to be cut out by hand (such as my bunny). You can just trace your template to a piece of cooking paper then cut it out.

Annnnnd.... a recipe

Yes, it is nice and healthful and tasty to craft all your decorations from a variety of foods... but its very much not easy. I like easy. And quick. I LOVE quick. I also love it when I don't have to mutilate the entirety of a $3 pepper trying to cut it into some shape I desire. Enter egg sheets. They are flat, moist and easy to cut. You can make them any color you want and they are completely edible. Did I mention you can make them en masse and freeze them till needed? Very convenient.

Sturdy Colored Egg Sheets for Obento decoration

This quantity will make two sheets each of two colors
2 eggs, separated
3tsp cornstarch, divided
6 tsp water, divided

oil (i used coconut oil but any kind is fine)
fine seive
2 cups
ramekin, soy sauce bowl or some other small bowl

This may sound complicated because there is dividing of stuff going on but trust me its easy peasy if you're patient. It is a lot like making tamagoyaki or the omelette for omurice... except there is no rolling or folding or fancy footwork. If you can fry an egg, you can do this.

First set out your two cups and strainer. If you have two strainers that is frikken fabulous... I have only one so I kinda just try to work in succession. Separate your eggs, strain the white into one cup and the yolk into another cup. Straining the egg will take a while (which goes much faster if you have two strainers) and not all of the egg will strain through... you'll have some blobby stuff left in the strainer, just toss that. The white will take longer to strain than the yolk.. and you may have to push some of the white through the strainer manually. The strainer IS important. Without straining the egg you will get blotchyness and white spots, uneven texture and the starch will not dissolve evenly into the egg.

Put 2 tsp of water into a tiny bowl. Mix 1.5 tsp of cornstarch into the water. Mix this into one of the cups of egg. Repeat for the other cup of egg. Be careful not to whisk or beat your eggs... air bubbles are your enemy. Stir like you are a ninja assassin covertly mixing poison into the Shogun's tea.

Coloring.
This step depends on the color you desire.
White: mix 1 tsp water into the cup of egg white
Brown: mix 1 tsp soy sauce into the yellow egg (for darker browns substitute soy sauce for some or all of the water in the cornstarch step)
Yellow: mix 1 tsp water into the yellow egg

Reds, pinks, blues, purples
Place 1 tsp of water in a tiny bowl. Add food coloring till you get a very pigmented water. Slowly add the colored water to the white egg till the desired color is achieved.

Greens, darker yellows, teals, oranges, aquas
Place 1 tsp of water in a tiny bowl. Add food coloring till you get a very pigmented water. Slowly add the colored water to the egg yolk till the desired color is achieved - you may need to compensate for the yellow tint of the egg.

Bear in mind, the color of the egg sheet will be slightly paler than the egg mix in the cup. Also, color gels and other high pigment food colors are better than the water drops. Adding too much water to the egg will make the sheet harder to handle.

Create however many cups of eggy mix as you desire.

Place a non-stick skillet or crepe pan on the stove and heat it over a lowish heat (I use the 3rd notch on my stove). You want a heat that is low enough not to brown the egg but hot enough that it doesn't take forever for the egg to set up. Put a small amount of oil in the pan, then remove most of it with a small square of paper towel. You want only a very think film of oil in the pan. Too much oil will fry the egg and brown it and leave you with a non-moist egg.

When your pan is heated, carefully pour half of one of the cups of egg into the pan. Spread the egg out a little, but not by too much or your egg sheet will be too thin and get hard. Being a little too thick is better than too thin. If its too thin it gets hard and can't be used. Wait for the egg to set up in the pan. You are looking for the point where the top of the egg sheet is glossy and egg does not jiggle or be runny when you move the pan. Carefully start to peel up the edge with chopstick or thin spatula/turner/flipper (whatever you call them in your area). Once you get a corner up you can peel the egg off the the pan with your fingers (be careful not to burn yourself. Flip the egg and cook about 10 more seconds then remove from the pan to cool. Re-oil the pan and pour in the other half of the cup.

Repeat process for all cups of egg.

Sheets made from the egg white will be harder to peel up and generally be more finicky than those made of the egg yolk. Occasionally in the flipping process a sheet may rip or bunch or some other such mishap... but don't worry, the sheets are quite forgiving. If it breaks or shreds(as many of the white based sheets tend to do) just flip the pieces. If it crumples, just flatten it out. In most cases, the egg sheet will be fine. I mean, most of the time, you don't need 6 uninterrupted inches of egg.

Wrap tightly and store in the freezer till needed.

Sugar Bunnies

2010-05-08T15:59:00.000-07:00

*_* I went "I'm in an emo mood" shopping the other day. T___T On my very small "poor college student" budget. O_____O So naturally, I ended up in the Sanrio store, which is full of cute things that make me smile (says the girl who LOVES goth metal - cuteness truely is my secret weakness. Maybe I should buy Lolita bentos? XD hahaha). Anyways... Apparently the store got a huge shipment and all the old stock was rotated out just a couple days before. They got a lot of new bento supplies. O_O Now, I'm not a pink person... but I snatched this stuff up immediately like all bento boxes were being burned tomorrow and I needed to hoard them in my cellar.

All of these pieces have the same motif... so its all cute and matching. I was just sad I did not see a matching bag... but I will of course survive not carrying a pastel pink bag around. I really want to make my own custom bags. I could have skulls and cross bones!!! It would be awesome.

This is the two tier SugarBunnies box. It's just under 500ml (I think 480ish - too lazy to go look lol) so perfect for me. (It seems that most 2 tier boxes are in the 650ml range which is too big for me or 400ml which is just a tad too small.) The bottom part is powder blue with a white lid and the top part is pale pink. The lid has a rubber seal and it also clicks shut for security. There was a single tier box as well, I beleive around 360-380ml. The plastic is nice plastic and sturdy enough... but not as thick and sturdy as my old Hello Kitty bento boxes (which are going strong almost 10 years now), which is probably a lot to ask. Those old boxes were really built to be work horses.

I also picked up the matching chopstick with case, and the spoon. They also had a fork and I believe a spoon/fork/chopstick combo box. I am less graceful with a fork so the spoon and chopsticks were all I wanted.

And then there was this set of 160ml bowls. I have another set like this with Mashumaro-chan (a kitty type character less stylized than Kitty-chan) that are green with clovers and I LOVE them. Keeping in concert with the obento box... the Sugar Bunny bowls came in blue with a light pink lid...

And pink with a dark pink lid. I seriuously, seriously love these bowls. They are cute and the perfect size. One by itself is the perfect size for supplimenting a lunch without adding too much to the meal. Two together is the perfect size for those days when you are sick or have low appetite and a full on obento is overwhelming. Well, it works for me. The smaller size makes the food seem more approachable when I have no appetite.

I am normally not so big a fan of boxes and containers being used together that are not in the same color group... but this set is really stinkin' cute (to borrow a friend's expression upon seeing it). I think perhaps the blue and pink work well together because they are translucent blues and pinks and because the Sugar Bunnies are a boy and girl pair. It seems to me, part of the cuteness of Sugar Bunnies is the fact that they are a pair (not implying non-hetero pairs cannot be cute, if the bunnies were a non-hetero pair I would still stand by my thoughts that the pairing is a major source of their cuteness) and always doing things together. In this case, playing in the warm weather.

I would have liked to go clothes shopping instead...but bento supplies are cheaper and make my day extra super sparkly.

Omega3 shakes!

2010-05-05T14:31:00.000-07:00

That's not my sponge I swear. It's my roommate's and I only touch it to scrub labels off of jars.

Apparently, even the healthiest of diets are frequently deficient in Omega-3s. There are loads of ways to get your omegas but the most compact and efficient way is supposedly flax. Flax also happens to be durn tasty.

For one serving You will need:
1 banana (I used organic)
Your serving glass loosely filled 80-90% of the way with fresh or frozen fruit (I used 11 organic strawberries, hulled)
1/2 cup yogurt (I used Nancy's plain lowfat organic yogurt D: Value size ftw)
2 tb flax meal (I used Bob's Red Mill organic golden flax meal)
1-2 spoons of your favorite sweetener if desired (I was using California strawberries so I opted for one spoon of organic evaporated cane juice sugar)

Chuck it all in a blender and blend till smooth. Oh, and you might want to put the yogurt and banana in first. I always forget that and have to go in with a spoon and push the yogurt and banana down so that the stuff blends.

Just so you know... unless you own one of those thousand dollar super terminator blenders with lasers and nukes and stuff its not gonna be like a Jamba Juice smoothie... its really thick and has texture. No joke I could live off of Jamba Juice during the height of summer and I'm not dissing them... just saying if you've never made a home-made smoothie before its gonna be different. I was fully taken aback the first time I made a homemade smoothie. If you're just starting out I think this a good one to start with. Its flexible enough so you can use whatever fruits you want, simple enough that its nearly fool proof, and its very healthy. It really is a no guilt treat. You can make it organic, or non... and substitute the yogurt with vegan friendly products. It is easily thinned by whirring in some extra milk or soy milk and made into a slushie by adding about 6 ice cubes. If you use a really good natural yogurt (none of that yoplait or dannon stuff - its milk with gelatin in it) its friendly to people who are lactose intolerant as well. A progressive lactose intolerance is apparently something that is prevalent in my family - and I would feel comfortable giving this to my mother. D: Actually I'd be delighted if she'd drink it, she probly doesn't get much Omega-3s.

I was oh, so sad when it got to this point.

Mmm Peanut butter!

2010-05-02T15:05:00.000-07:00

Sando de Panda sandwich box: peanut butter and mashed banana on milk & honey bread
Purin yellow container: mandarin and kiwi in plain kanten

Sorry about the wrinkly hankerchief... I just got it a few weeks ago and had not gotten around to ironing yet. >_> sometimes I'm really lazy.

Admittedly, I'm eating this one at home and I made it because I had been wanting to do a post about the sando de panda sandwich maker that I bought oh... about 6 months ago. Truth be said, I don't eat many sandwiches and when I do it usually ends up being either lazy home food or some monstrous concoction about 3 inches tall. Bread, for me, is mostly a breakfast food. Now that I think about it I could make some killer egg sandwiches with this thing. Anyways...

This is the sando de panda sandwich maker. You may have seen it floating around the internet. Its versatile - it makes large square sandwiches (2 pieces of bread), rectangle half sandwiches (one piece of bread folded in half) and triangle shaped sandwiches (one piece of bread folded diagonal). There are loads of things like this on the market in America and in Japan. They are a cheap way to make something like a sandwich a bit cooler and prevent sandwich innards from going everywhere or drying out.

The sando de panda is different than most of the other sandwich cutters I have seen because it is two parts - one to seal the bread and one to cut it neatly.

For reference, here are the undersides of the gadget. The white part is the sealer and the brown part cuts.

Its simple really. Put 1-2 tb (I think 3 max?) of fillings between your bread and position the cutter over the center of the bread. Press really hard to get a good seal and nice cut.

Remove and enjoy. As you can see, there really isnt all that much bread waste either. This particular bread is wider than normal square white bread. Unfortunately in my case they were end pieces so they were a bit too short.

And because I could not resist... the people who make the sandwich maker also make a sandwich case that is the perfect size for a sandwich made with their cutter. (/*_*)/ It has a panda, I could not say no when it said to me, "Cristal, buy me, I am cute and I match the sandwich maker!! I'm practical I swear!!" -_-; So I purchased it. *grumble* Cute things are my weakness, O___O not something most people think when they meet me.

Rawr! I mean come on, sandwich box with a panda... holding the sandwich box!! How could I say no?!

Overall: I think its a pretty cool item. I did run into a bread problem though. I tried the sandwich maker using many different types of bread but the bread always ended up breaking (T_T even the expensive Japanese bread)no matter what kind of bread I used and how I reduced fillings. *_* Then I read on the internet that the manufacturers suggest microwaving your bread briefly. Because of course I wouldn't stop to read the packaging of a simple item. Or so my line of thought was. I tried that and it improved greatly but the bread still didn't seal well or cut perfectly and it caused the bread to dry out. D: I came up with the solution of microwaving the bread under a wet paper towel - about 20-30sec in my microwave, starting with frozen bread. It warmed up the bread so it was nice and elastic but kept it moist. The only thing I didn't like was that pretty much (due to the limited elasticity of bread) when using this one is doomed to thin simple sandwiches.

Stove on Fire Torikatsu

2010-04-23T16:33:00.000-07:00

870 ml Asvel 2 Tier box
Top Tier: Torikatsu (chicken) on lettuce, bottle of soy sauce, bottle of tonkatsu sauce
Bottom Tier: Rice with 16 grain mix, boiled broccoli and carrots, strawberry puccho

Admittedly, its not as aesthetically pleasing as I had envisioned (nor does it have as many veggies as I planned) but I was being rushed out of the door and the recipient was excited about that katsu - leaving a few pieces out in lieu of more veggies was apparently out of the question. When I tried to stop packing the katsu to make more room for veggies he promptly started stuffing more pieces of katsu in the top!

D: So, this katsu... I normally make my katsu in some sort of vegetable oil (not optimal, I know). I decided it was time to upgrade to peanut oil, which is better suited to deep frying and is lighter. I put as much oil in the pan as I normally use and heat it up. I put the katsu in and FOOOOOF!!! The oil bubbles up HUGE and all over the place... it totally boils over the sides of the pan and gets all over the stove and some gets on the burner and catches on fire! Not a huge fire, but enough to make me kinda loose my cool over it. I say "OMG FIRE! The stove is on fire!!" The boyfriend is going "Oh god water!" I'm all "No, no no!! Oil fire! Water is bad!" So we both start blowing on it and stuff. Eventually the oil burns away and we get it all out. No damage at all (surprise), but by far it was the most adventure I've had cooking in the last 16 months (last time it was my car that caught on fire lol). D: All in all, it was arguably the tastiest katsu I've made too.

Homemade Bolognese Sauce

2010-04-20T16:28:00.000-07:00

This post was long in the making. Some time ago while making my >.< girlish attempts at subtly romancing a ♥ target of my affections ♥ i decided to woo him with pasta. D: I don't know if this sauce was just that effective or if it was something else along the way but it worked somehow. ♥♥!!!!

This sauce surprised me... I'd never made a homemade bolognese, it looked so intimidating but it was very easy!

Bolognese
I made mine with turkey, but I don't see why this method would not worke equally well for beef, pork, lamb or mixes of those. Chicken might be too mild though.

Olive oil
Butter (use if cooking with turkey or pork, for moisture)
jarred pesto sauce
mirepoix (I used trader joes pre-packed mirepoix mix, alternately you could chop up your own) an additional 1/2 an onion, diced
Garlic, fresh grated or powder
1/2-1 bottle of red wine (I used Santa Cristina Sangiovese 2006, the entire bottle) or if you're cooking booze free use a flavorful stock
1 package of meat, approx 1-1.5lb - any combination of beef, pork, veal, turkey, etc (I used turkey)
1 jar of marinara pasta sauce (I used Trader joes)
Spices (I used dash of cardamom, dash of cinnamon, lemon pepper, salt, pepper, nutmeg, dried tarragon, allspice, vinegar)
mushrooms, sliced (I used two cartons of crimini from trader joes)

In a large, heavy bottom steel pan (non stick pans can be used as well but will not produce as much omph from browning) heat up a few glugs of olive oil and a couple tablespoons of pesto. Add in a lob of butter if you are cooking with a dryish/non fatty meat. Add garlic. Once that is all aromatic like, toss in your mirepoix, adding a bit of salt to help sweat the veggies and saute till everything is soft and translucent and there is a lot of brown stuff all over the bottom of your pan.

Here is where things get fun. Please be liberal with your wine.

Dump in a quantity of your wine (I think somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2 a cup - eyeballing it is more fun than measuring) and completely cook it off. Add in the meat and cook again until again there is a layer of brown stuff on the bottom of the pan. Again deglaze the pan with more wine and cook it off till there is brown stuff on the bottom of the pan. From there dump in your jar of marinara. Pour some wine in the jar and shake it to get all that good stuff and dump that in the pan.

Turn the heat to med-low, add the bay leaf and simmer. Add whatever spices you want, till it tastes good.Simmer about an hour.

After the hour is up, add the mushrooms and simmer and additional 2-3 hours, thinning with more wine or stock as needed and periodically tasting and adjusting seasonings.

Plate and top with fresh cut slivers of parmigiano regianno.

This makes a substantial amount of sauce. If properly reduced (it should be something like a thick mass)it has multiple applications. It's great on many types of thick noodled pasta, on crusty breads, potatoes, or polenta. This sauce is also thick enough to stand up in a bento box as well, though I would be concerned about staining.

Tasty Leftovers Obento

2010-04-20T15:39:00.000-07:00

Wow... I've been away for two months. Quite some time. School really caught up to me, combined with a lack of real need to make obento. I've been meaning to pick it back up again, I've just lacked so much inspiration. I'd like to get back into it, we will see how that goes I suppose.

I have a long list of ideas for posts... I don't know how far I'll get with that but I hope who ever reads this enjoys them. :3

D: Also, I'm looking for ideas for names for my blog. I want to call it something other than Bento but I am horrendous at naming things. I don't know how many people read my blog and livejournal (I post to both, generally)... but any suggestions would be welcome.

Anyways, on to the goods!

Bento for April 17, 2010

430ml white box: Rice with black sesame seeds and umeboshi, 'snow white chicken' from take out
160ml green Mashumaro bowl: miso ball made of (very low salt) white miso, salt, dashi granule, black sesame seed, freeze dried green onion
160ml white Mashumaro bowl: coffee jelly and milk jelly
Blue travel cup (with lid! I love it) - ginger tea bags

*w* Yay for leftovers!! This obento is all about the using up of leftovers. A couple nights previous the boyfriend and I ended up in this Chinese restaurant where the food was pretty durn tasty. O_O We were ravenous and ended up ordering SO much food... an appetizer plate of fried shrimp/fried chicken/bbq pork/egg rolls/some other stuff I dont remember, rice, lo mein (super tasty), hot and sour soup (also super tasty), schezwan beef (for him) and snow white chicken (for me). O_O It lasted for days..... XD And the cute, elderly Chinese ladies teased us rigorously whenever they passed our table. It was fun.

2010 Feb 05

2010-02-05T22:30:00.001-08:00

I was inspired!! I got up at the crack of dawn this morning with the intent of craft an amazing obento with Alucard from Hellsing for my friend!! I was fired up and ready to go!! T_T But the bento gods didn't quite agree and after 2.5 hours of cutting and slicing and manipulating my materials.... I ended up with what looked like a murder scene on hanpen. XD So I made something else.

Rice with quick soboro and sesame seeds, beef/onion/mushroom rolls, fried eggplant/daikon, carrot salad, broccoli, pickles (rakkyo, fukuzinzuke, ginger)

I was so confident with this one.... it looked so good... XD But as they say looks are deceiving. I am told some of the foods were quite bland, others overpowering and the flavor combinations just... didn't work.

This is what I planned on making... goes to show I guess sometimes the best laid plans don't work out.

This was my obento: Onigiri filled with quick soboro, broccoli, daikon/eggplant, carrot salad, pickles

A Quick 2 Minute Soboro

2010-02-05T21:07:00.000-08:00

Soboro is a type of moist furikake, good to mix in rice, put on top of rice or mix in other foods. Its not any sort of elaborate affair, you dump all the ingredients in the pot and stir like hell till its cooked. But, to make a flavorful one completely from scratch involves some time to dice vegetables. If you don't have the time, and have some frozen mini burgers on hand, this is tasty substitute.

1 tsukune mini burger or beef mini burger (or ~4tb of other chicken/beef/pork/turkey burger that has onions/seasoning/shredded vegetable mixed in)
tsp green onion (I use little packets of freeze dried green onion I buy at my local Asian market)
1.5-2 tb teriyaki sauce (more or less to taste, more and added slowly in batches

In a hot pan with a tiny bit of butter/oil, add the burger and stir vigorously to make tiny meat chunks (cooking chopsticks work great for this). Add onions and sauce and continue to stir vigorously until all the sauce is cooked off.

Ms Maki at Just Hungry has a good looking tsukune recipe. No doubt her's is waaaay more authentic than mine... mine (what I used in this recipe) is similar to her's but with added diced onion, panko and milk.

The Manly Bento

2010-02-05T20:44:00.000-08:00

Mmmm... I actually made this obento... ahhh... I think last December or early January. I was trying really hard to make a manly looking obento for my friend Tim, since he takes these to work as lunches. (Read: other people, namely other men, see them) I often wonder if he's embarassed by the cuter food that I tend to send. XD In my opinion, it didn't gain much in the "manly" qualifier, but did gain a bit in the "homely" category. XD Which may or may not have made it any more manly. Anyways, despite my opinions on its appearance, it got good reviews for taste.

brown rice, umeboshi, broccoli beef, kinpira carrots, quail egg cooked in soy sauce

D: Of course, after trying so hard... I immediately girly-fied it up by adding cute, tiny sugar cookie-nutella sandwichcookies and coffee/milk jelly.

I was proud of the jelly layers. Its the first time I made a layered jelly.

Done Moving

2010-02-01T07:35:00.000-08:00

I'm finally done moving my posts to here from Livejournal. I wish there was an easier quicker way than copy/pasting everything... but I couldn't find any other way to move my posts so I skipped out on re-posting a number of them (on top of what I deleted after gutting my LJ a while back).... even the one about my car catching on fire, which I found amusing. I was looking over my old journal and it looks like I took a steep decline after moving to my present location... though in all honesty I don't have as much reason to make Obento as much since my classes are not stacked and my seasonal job is over (and it was only 5hour days anyways).

If anyone is interested, my old livejournal blog is HERE.

But, fear not. I'm not abandoning my blog. I've decided to expand my blog to include cute or small foods or things that make good obento fillers. Admittedly, it is also very hard for me to cook just for myself and that makes filling up my blog kinda hard. So until I start having to spend more time away from home, in all likely hood the bulk of my posts will be obento I have made for my friend Tim (Isn't he a lucky boy?) or days when I decided that its just not right for me to subsist off of baguette/rice and coffee.

All that said.. its my goal to post at least twice a month and have at least one recipe included.

Dec. 4th, 2009

2010-02-01T07:31:00.001-08:00

Less of a full meal and more of a snack.

160ml White container: brown rice and chicken kelaguen
160 ml green container: red grapes and Tillamook smoked cheddar cheese cubes
Mr. Brown Macadamia Nut Iced Coffee

Oct. 29th, 2009 - Tonkatsu Obento

2010-02-01T07:22:00.000-08:00

Some time ago I promised my friend Tori a tonkatsu obento, as opposed to the torikatsu I usually end up making. The flu has been making its rounds in our area and pretty much everyone is zapped... I thought now that she and I are done being sick, it would be a good time for some healthy and calorie rich food. *_* So I woke up at an ungodly hour this morning, to go about the task of making fresh tonkatsu and three obento.... surely something welcome on such a cold rainy day in the Portland area.

Tori's Bento

650ml Chichaimonchan box: Salted rice, tonkatsu, steamed broccoli, apple wedge, honey kabocha, Japanese potato salad, snow pea + shiitake mushroom fried in hoisin sauce. Not shown (and unceremoniously tucked in at the last minute): pink bottle of tonkatsu sauce

There was much gaiety at the table as we ate. I do believe she enjoyed it.

My Obento

160ml Green Mashumaro bowl: vinegared rice with ginger, shiso and black sesame seeds, umeboshi
160ml White Mashumaro bowl: broccoli, Japanese potato salad, honey kabocha, snow pea + shiitake mushroom fried in hoisin sauce

Yes. I do realize this is very small at a 320ml total. :( But it is sick season and my appetite is low. I figure this is better than packing myself a large one and only eating half of it. These two bowls, and matching chopsticks + bag are absolutely adorable, and I'd be willing to post better photos of them if there is interest. I found them at my local Sanrio store earlier this week.

Obento for Tim

Lies and Lies!! He says to me, "Blah blah blah, I don't eat any more food than you do. Blah, blah, blah... Prepare me as much as you would eat." After complaint that the last one was more a snack than a meal (it was a 500ml box, which is more than I can eat), and unable to find a larger sized men's box that didn't have to bought off the internet.... D: I've upgraded the bento paraphenalia assigned to him to two lock and lock containers and a melange of smaller containers as needed. (Yes, I DO assign boxes to people that I plan to make lunches for more than once and they get their own utensils as well.)

800ml Lock and Lock: vinegared rice with ginger/shiso and black sesame seeds, shiso leaf, tonkatsu, lemon (wrapped in cellophane after photographing), honey kabocha, broccoli, apple, mushroom/snow pea

Side container: Japanese potato salad (packed separate so he can refrigerate it since he takes this to work)

Not shown and packed in a 250ish ml Lock and Lock: 1 Dorayaki (med size), 1 starbucks VIA columbian roast, 2 packets sugar, 1 Land o Lakes Mini Moo (its a half and half), 3 Meiji Noir Chocolate Venezuela Blend mini packs, and some <3.

Also, I packed soy sauce and tonkatsu sauce in yet another small container.

O_O I'm so tired! But it was worth it!!

Oct. 1st, 2009

2010-02-01T07:09:00.000-08:00

I wanted to get out of the house today, so I made obento for two of my friends and myself. They both have classes in the morning and I had none... so I consider it a morning well spent for me. ♥

My box

430ml white Asvel box: Ginger-shiso-shrimp rice (cannot see it very well sorry), shiso leaf, karaage chicken, simmered mushrooms, tamagoyaki, snow peas, broccoli with cheese, kinpira carrot/lotus root. Tonkatsu sauce and sanbaizu in the bottles.

Tori's Box

650ml Chichaimonchan box: Vinegared rice topped with sakura denbu and suboshi ebi (I know they look gross in this photo but trust me they are tasty), leaf, broccoli with cheese, tamagoyaki, simmered shiitake, kinpira carrot and lotus root, snow peas steamed, shibazuke, karaage chicken. Soy sauce and tonkatsu sauce in the bottles.

This one was for my friend Tori (that blue box is one I bought specifically for making bento for her since its bigger than my other boxes)... She liked it. She said the shrimps looked strange to her, but she liked the way they tasted.

Obento for Tim
(there are two photos of this one, I couldn't pick >.<)

500ml Asvel box: Salted rice with sesame seeds, umeboshi, kinpira carrot/lotus root, steamed snow peas, tamagoyaki, simmer shiitake (he really likes this!!), shibazuke, rakkyo (pickled scallion), shiso leaf, karaage, broccoli with parmeggiano Reggiano. Soy sauce and tonkatsu sauce in the bottles.

Recipe time!!

I don't use measurements, sorry, but if you need help or an approximation I would be glad to help!

Ginger-Shiso-Shrimp rice
Not so much a recipe as a method or idea

fresh hot rice
pickled ginger, chopped fine
fresh shiso leaf, sliced fine
Suboshi Ebi/Sakura Suboshi Ebi or any tiny dried shrimp or fish

Combine and enjoy!

Kaarage
I have long struggled making kaarage from scratch that tastes as good as the stuff I can make with the box mix... but I discovered the secret of flavorful kaarage! Kimchii base! It makes the chicken much... XD perkier for lack of a better word.

Chicken cut to bite size pieces
Kimchii base
Soy sauce
Any additional flavorings you feel like adding in
potato starch/flour
Oil for frying

Put an inch or two of the oil in a small sauce pan to heat up (I heat it until cooking chopsticks make bubbles when put in the oil). Add the kimchii base and some soy sauce and allow to marinate 5-20 minutes. This is not a soupy marination, more like just enough sauce to coat the chicken and perhaps a little extra in the bowl. Add potato starch and mix, you want enough starch so that the marinade is not liquid anymore. Fry the chicken in the hot oil till golden (it only takes a minute or two). Drain on paper or a rack and steal a couple pieces immediately!! <3 Well, that is what I do! :P

Kinpira
Hardy Vegetables, sliced to matchsticks*
sesame oil
korean chili flake or japanese chili mix**
pinch of sugar
mirin and/or sake
soy sauce

Heat the sesame oil in a sauteing pan or wok. add the vegetables and saute lightly (till cooked but still very firm). Sprinkle with the chili and sugar and give it a good stir. splash in some mirin/sake and cook off the liquid. Splash in some soy sauce and again cook off the liquid.

*Some vegetables, like fresh gobo or fresh lotus root, should be soaked in several changes of water before cooking.
** What I have is House Brand Shichimi Togarashi - The ingredients say its a mix of red pepper, roasted orange peel, yellow sesame seed, black sesame seed, Japanese pepper, seaweed, ginger. I tell you, this stuff is HOT. Two small shakes of this tiny bottle and my eyes popped open (I am not a morning person) when I taste tested my kinpira. Its not a burning tex-mex hot, but a sweet hot that slaps you in the face to let you know its there then its gone.

Sep. 26th, 2009

2010-02-01T07:05:00.000-08:00

So. I've been away for a very long time. I have not had much ocassion to pack lunches the last 9 months and the whole lacking a camera thing really made things difficult. But, thanks to my Grandmother, I now have a camera that is capable of taking beautiful photos. *_* And, I have class alllllllll day Saturdays so I now have a reason to actually be using my bento equipment!

This is a brand new box I have never used before... so I hope it goes well today. T__T It's dreadfully dark in my kitchen at 4am (when I made this) but I'll scrounge up some pretty photos of this box at a later date when the sun is out.

Top Tier: Tamago furikake onigiri filled with umeboshi, umejiso furikake onigiri filled with a spicy wakame salad, clemintine

Bottom Tier: Pineapple chicken teriyaki, broccoli, carrots, shiitake mushromms simmered in soy sauce and stock, shibazuke, soysauce + rice vinegar in a bottle.

Soooooooooo tired. *_* Good morning to all of you! T_T I sadly am off to spend my day at school.

Oct. 10th, 2008 - Fish Sausage

2010-02-01T06:58:00.000-08:00

In my last post I used fish sausage, a pleasant pink substance, and got some questions about it (such as what it is/where to buy it/ etc) so I thought I'd make a post about it with the brand I buy and as much general information as I could find.

There are many brands of fish sausage out there, though not many are widely available outside of Japan. Fish sausage is in the same family of foods as kamaboko, hanpen, chikuwa and the like. The fish is steamed then milled very fine, spices and flavors are added, then it is formed into a shape and cooked again.

As it is a fish product, its naturally low in fat (unless a lot is added in its manufacture), rich in calcium and DHA and considered a health food of sorts... or a lesser of evils since fish sausage must contain some amount of preservatives to keep it stable enough for manufacture and shipping. I did read somewhere that the type and quantity of preservatives legally able to be added to fish sausage is really small and tightly restricted.

From what I can tell, in Japan its used a lot the same way we use ham in the United States. You can cut it fifty billion shapes and add it to just about anything. Because its pre-cooked, right out of the package you can add it to salads, sandwiches, wraps, have it plain or with dip, etc etc. It has a mild flavor so it wont over power most dishes. You can add it to stirfries, soups, caseroles, pasta, anything really. Even just pan fry it and eat it as is with sauce.

Since I moved away from Seattle, what I have access to is limited (compared with the resources I had in Seattle T_T) This is the only brand that is available, currently, where I live. This is the front cover of the bag. Its called Maruha Fish Sausage. Haha... I have opened the bag and eaten one already so there is one missing. Its a bright red bag and hard to miss - unless of course the aisle is filled with red packaging.

This is the back of the bag, with the nutritional information. Of course the recipe will change by brand but this one contains: Pollack, water, cornstarch, soybean oil, rape oil, sugar, soybean paste, onion, calcium carbonate, pepper, gelatin, msg, cochineal extract, pyroligneous acid extract, disodium5-ribonucleotide, trisodium citrate, garlic.

O_O Wow... I never really looked at the ingredients because they are hidden under the flap of the package... but good think I eat these like maybe once or twice a month only. >_> Perhaps I should look for a brand with less additives.

This is what the individual sauasages look like. They come individually wrapped in plastic to preserve their freshness (and so your fridge does not smell like fish!). They are quite easy to open.

As for the purchase of these sausages, the best place to look is your local Asian markets. Its a perishable product, not shelf stable, and must be refrigerated. Though it is possible to have it shipped directly to you through a third party (I have seen this on the internet) and in a refrigerated container... the shipping and the additional fee of the company makes it, at least in my opinion, not worth the hassle or the money. Because it must be refrigerated, you would have to have it shipped overnight or 1 day with dry ice. =_=;;; No piece of pink, processed fish that should not cost more than a couple dollars is worth that. Please look at your local stores! If your store has a section with kamaboko, hanpen, fish balls, etc... its a good bet to look in that section.

Oct. 9th, 2008

2010-02-01T06:55:00.001-08:00

35oml hello kitty box: salted rice with sesame seeds, umeboshi, tamagoyaki slices, fish sausage, snow peas, daikon, carrots, broccoli and cheese, sauce in the bunny shaped bottle.

Oct. 1st, 2008

2010-02-01T06:53:00.000-08:00

Top Tier: Yummy, yummy sandwich made with honey whole wheat bread, Inglehoffer stone-ground mustard, Kewpie mayo, pepper turkey, Boar's head Butterkäse cheese and leaf lettuce.

Bottom Tier: apple (small and hiding in the back since I got lazy after I cut two XD), grapes and pickles.

Sep. 24th, 2008

2010-02-01T06:46:00.001-08:00

Sadly uneaten. 490ml Vive box: Rice, flaked salmon with teriyaki sauce, iri tamago, edamame

I dont remember when I made this one. 490 Vive box: rice with sesame seeds, carrots (XD cut into carrot shapes!), shrimp panfried in umeshuu and drunken plum, snow peas, golden kiwi, assorted pickles

Dunno how many obento I will squeeze in this school quarter... my classes are such that I dont even need to bring a lunch to the campus. That may change with work though.

Aug. 23rd, 2008

2010-02-01T06:41:00.001-08:00

This is my new box that I found at Uwajimaya last week. Its a combination of a sandwich box and a regular box. I like it a lot!! It looks really small but you can fit an entire sandwich (cut in fours) in the top section and the bottom section is something like almost 400ml! O____O That is a lot of food! And it comes with this cute little green fork.

Top: 2 sea salt/sesame seed onigiri wrapped in fresh shiso leaves, strawberries, golden kiwi

Bottom: fried home made shrimp gyoza (I made like 150 of them the other day, and a large quantity of egg rolls too! *__* I was so tired!!) on cabbage

I don't usually cook with recipes so I do not have the recipe for the shrimp gyoza but I can tell you what was in them: wild shrimp, shiitake mushroom, cabbage, finely shredded carrot, scallions, shiso, garlic, sesame oil, salt, pepper, umeshu (a type of liquer made from the same kind of plums used to make umeboshi - its really sweet and fruity, I use it instead of sake in cooking). I think that is it but I cant help but think there is something missing.... not that it matters much XD i change the ingredients all the time

Aug. 20th, 2008

2010-02-01T06:36:00.001-08:00

Sorry about the bad picture, it was taken at 4am. *___* I was very tired while making this one, my new job starts very early! In this lunch there is an egg salad sandwich, potato salad, carrots, broccoli, snowpeas and nori strips

From July

bottom tier: heart shaped onigiri, orange peppers, umeboshi
top tier: cucumber, daikon, carrot, pickled ginger, takuan, quail egg, sauteed shiitake mushrooms

May 28

This is a lunch I made for a friend in my Japanese class (hence the disposable container). Its rice with sesame seeds, umeboshi, egg, orange pepper, honey lemon ginger chicken, carrots, daikon, lettuce, snow peas, lemon ginger sauce.

Sometime in May

Rice with shrimp, avacado, red pickles, pineapple

Apr. 9th, 2008 - Pineapple chicken

2010-02-01T04:11:00.000-08:00

430ml Asvel box: Rice with sesame seeds, tamagoyaki, orange bell pepper, pineapple and chicken stirfry with teriyaki type pineapple sauce, snap peas, broccoli, simmered shiitake and daikon, kampyo, carrots, apple, small bottle of ponzu.

T_T not much appetite lately....

The pineapple chicken was really easy and tasty. Its not much of a recipe but I included it anyways. I apologize, there are no quantities.

Pineapple Chicken
Chicken breast cut into to small strips
canned Pineapple + juice
teriyaki sauce
sesame oil
katakuriko/potato starch/cornstarch/rice flour

In a saute pan pour in a little sesame oil and heat up. Add the chicken and cook it quickly so that the outside browns nicely but the inside isnt quite done. Pour a bit of pineapple juice in the pan and cook it down. Do this a few times. The quantity of juice added should not lower the heat of the pan too much and should reduce in about a minute or so. Remove the chicken and pineapple from the pan. Again pour some pineapple juice in the pan but this time more. Then add several spoons of teriyaki sauce (I have homemade teriyaki sauce that is pre-partially reduced) and stir quickly. In a small bowl add a tiny bit of potato starch (too much will make the sauce icky instead of pleasantly thickened) and water. Stir that into the pineapple teriyaki mixture and cook till thickened. Should take like... 2 minutes. Pour the sauce over the chicken and tada~!

Apr. 2nd, 2008

2010-02-01T04:10:00.000-08:00

tamagoyaki and stir fried vegetables (broccoli, orange peppers, daikon, shiitake mushroom, snow peas, carrots) over rice with black sesmae seeds. On the side a peice of banana and castella cake!

Mar. 25th, 2008

2010-02-01T04:04:00.000-08:00

>_< I really miss posting to the BentoChallenge community and I wanted to post for the "spring" theme but XD Alas I was too late (I was out of the state for a few days and missed the deadline). ^___^ For me spring is the cherry blossoms... which I miss dearly but was lucky enough to see while I was visiting in Washington.

Lunch is : Rice with sanbaizu, a cherry blossom tree made of kanpyo and home made sakana no oboro (recipe below), pickled lotus root, yet more snow peas (I bought waaaaay too many, thank goodness they are almost gone), carrots, shibazuke, blood orange, takuan and fresh shiitake mushrooms simmered in water/ponzu. >_< My tree looks terrible but it was fun to make.

Homemade Sakana No Oboro
Mine looks terrible since I dont have a mortar and I added too much coloring but it tastes good... its a lot like sakura denbu but not as fine. More like "flakes" rather than powder. I also apologize that there are no measurements here. I rarely measure when I cook.

piece of white fish (any white fish will do, I used an ANCIENT piece of frozen halibut.. even odds and ends of various white fish will be sufficient, shrimp and prawns as well)
soy sauce (may be omitted)
mirin
sake (may be omitted)
sugar
coloring

1. Boil the fish till cooked through. Remove all fat, skin and dark flesh. Chop it finely.
2. Put the fish in a paper towel or clean kitchen towel and rinse with hot water. Squeeze and repeat. (This is supposed to get rid of additional fat in the fish, which would prevent it from drying properly.)
2. Heat a dry pan.
3. Mash the fish in a mortar. I didnt have a mortar so I shredded it as fine as I could.
4. In a small bowl mix a small amount of sugar, mirin, sake (may be omitted), red or pink coloring and a tiny splash of soy sauce. Not enough soy sauce to change the color but enough to give a little balance to the sweetness of the mixture.
5. Mix the fish and the sauce and put it in the dry pan. Stir constantly until the fish flakes are completely dry.
6. Cool in a wide, flat dish.

Store covered in the refrigerator and use within two weeks or freeze.

Mar. 19th, 2008 - The Handmade Soumen of Hyougo

2010-02-01T04:02:00.001-08:00

XD I dont know why but for some reason lately I have felt like posting pictures other than my obento as well. Tonight for dinner I had soumen. The weather is still a little chilly around here for chilled soumen but *^_^* it was so light and refreshing.

This quarter in my Japanese language class, our final project was to pick a prefecture and write a short essay (15-20 sentences very short!). Without much thinking, I picked Hyougo prefecture... which happens to be where the port city Kobe is. Kobe is a very important place because it was the first port to be opened to the outside world after Japan's long isolationist stint. It represents Japan's door to the rest of the world. Also in Hyougo, is the beautiful Himeji castle. In my opinion, one of the most beautiful I have yet to see pictures of (I would like to visit it in person one day!!!). Finally, and what ties this blurb to the photos, is that Hyougo is renowned for its hand made soumen noodles and is generally beleived to be the birthplace of soumen. I was so surprised when I found a packet of this hand made soumen in Uwajimaya (Beaverton location)!! I purchased it... and after eating it just now I must say that its definately superior to most soumen I have had in the past. This particular brand has "grades" and the only one available here was the lowest grade... O_O so if it was that good I imagine the highest grade is really worth the price?

Mar. 17th, 2008

2010-02-01T03:59:00.001-08:00

Disposable clamshell onigiri box: 3 onigiri - one plain salted umeboshi filled onigiri with nori strip, one with Hello Kitty vegetable flavor furikake, and one with egg furikake and nori strip. In the corner, pickled lotus root, snow peas, tamagoyaki, carrots and daikon. Also on the side and not shown, one kimchii filled onigiri wrapped completely in nori.

This one was not made for me but rather for a friend in my class. I promised her lunch today. She wanted rice balls. I didnt need one myself since XD I only had to go into the school for a test and to turn in a paper!

Mar. 12th, 2008 - Donburi

2010-02-01T03:52:00.000-08:00

I dont usually post pictures of my food other than my obento.. but I thought this turned out nicely. Its uh I call it.... bowl of stuff donburi. <33 There is (duh) rice on the bottom... On the top there is cabbage kimchii, white kimchii, daikon (cut to plum blossom shape), japanese eggplant, pickled ginger, takuan, shiitake sauted in mentsuyu, orange peppers, snow peas, carrots (cut to flower shape), rakkyo, kampyo and topped with sesame seeds. I think that is everything. *___* And miso soup on the side.

My stomach has been upset the last few days. >_> Needed something light but nourishing.

Mar. 10th, 2008 - Coconut Pineapple Curry Bento

2010-02-01T03:50:00.000-08:00

430ml Asvel Box: Kalijira rice reheated with a tiny amount of butter, roma tomato slice and some basil and a coconut curry made with chicken, carrot, okinawa sweet potato (purple sweet potato), orange peppers, pineapple and fresh basil (and a seasoning packet cause Im too lazy to blend my own curry).

D: It was good. Even cold. I used more vegetables than the packet called for though, and added some pineapple on top of that. The Kalijira rice was a little different than I am used to but it was nice. I was surprised by the sweet potato too, it was really nice. Creamy and thick and smooth. ^___^ Yay for positive food adventures!

Mar. 5th, 2008

2010-02-01T03:45:00.001-08:00

Main Box: *__* I found these really cute mini french rolls at the store yesterday.... so I have a sandwich of a mini french roll with honey dijon dressing, Ovengold blazing buffalo flavor turkey, cucumber, snow peas, Kerrigold Dublineer cheese. Also, corn on the cobb and an origami salt cone.

Side: Sicilian blood orange. *________* SO delicious.

March 3

430ml Asvel box: :3 I made kimbap with egg, carrot, cabbage kimchii, white kimchii and shibazuke.Also packed in there (not really visible) some cucumber and daikon mixed with a kind of instant home pickling powder mix. It has purple shiso in it.

Feb. 27th, 2008 - Sandwiches!

2010-02-01T03:41:00.000-08:00

D: Forgot to put the rice on last night.... didnt get up early enough so its a quickie lunch. Half a bagel sandwich (made with an onion bagel, smoked turkey lunch meat, leaf lettuce and half a slice of American cheese) and a shasta gold orange thingie

2008, Feb 20

Apple bunnies and a Tarragon/cranberry egg salad sandwich

Tarragon Cranberry Egg salad
I didnt use measurements so... yeah.... :X but this is what I used and I'll try to approximate the amounts

1 egg, hardboiled
Mayo (I used kewpie)
dried tarragon
Ocean Spray dried cherry flavored cranberries
Grey Poupon country dijon

In a bowl, mash the egg finely with a fork. Add just enough mayo to moisten and hold the egg together (mine was XD like a thick paste, its very little mayo). Add about half a handful of the cranberries and 1 or two tablespoons of tarragon. Mix well. Stir in one small spoon of the dijon, to taste. Let it sit over night so the flavors mix.

I thought it was pretty tasty.... but it could just be me.

Feb. 18th, 2008

2010-02-01T03:34:00.000-08:00

430ml asvel box: Salted rice with black sesame seeds, umeboshi, torikatsu, carrots, daikon, takuan, broccoli, curly lettuce, piggie full of tonkatsu sauce

Feb. 11th, 2008

2010-02-01T03:32:00.001-08:00

430ml Asvel Box: Inarizushi with kampyo (gourd?), pickled ginger, shibazuke, sauted enoki mushrooms, pickled lotus root, carrots, snow peas, tamagoyaki. D: This box says its only 430ml.. but it feels much bigger.

^__^ Additional photo from the top... Its been a while since I made tamagoyaki... ^.^ Im rather happy with this one. It came out lightly sweet yet mild.

Jan. 31st, 2008 - Ichigo Kyaraben

2010-02-01T03:21:00.000-08:00

>_> This is my second ever attempt at character bento.... (Some time ago I did a horrible Katamari one). This time I tried to do Ichigo from the anime "Bleach". >_> Its not as nice as I had envisioned, but its a hell of a lot better looking than my Katamari one was. *__* I see some places were I could have improved, but... D: Im too hungry to worry about fixing it!! *___* mmm will Orihime and Rukia ever forgive me for devouring Ichigo?

The whole thing took me about 1hr45minutes including photography and cooking time. >_< And since I had no where to go and not much to do today, everything was cooked/cut/etc right then. (YUM fresh torikatsu *_*)

360ml monokuro boo box: Rice, torikatsu nuggets, tonkatsu sauce in the piggy bottle, and Ichigo (who was lovingly crafted from roasted turkey, nori and cheddar cheese)

230ml monokuro boo box: Pickled lotus root (cut into a flower shape), carrots, daikon, snow peas, star apple, shibazuke, takuan, sanbaizu in the elephant bottle.

D: For fun, this was my paper template I made. >_>

Also.... The other day I was talking to my friend Becky and I asked her if she knew how to make homemade chicken nuggets. *__* Both of us were drawing blanks... but I came up with this: Why not make nuggets out of Torikatsu? I am sure there are better recipes out there and things that are more useful than this but I figured I would post my methodology anyways. D: BWAHAHAHAHA

Torikatsu Nuggets of ♥
chicken breasts, trimmed of fat/skin/cartilage/etc
sea salt
pepper
flour
potato flour
egg
Panko (I used Shirakiku Honey Panko)

1. Trim/clean up chicken breasts and then D: kinda beat them up a bit (with a meat mallet, flat end of a knife or your hands) until they are roughly the same thickness all the way across. Cut them into 1inch or so chunks. Season with salt and pepper.

2. Get 3 bowls. In one bowl mix roughly 2 parts flour and 1 part potato flour. In another bowl beat a couple eggs. In a third bowl dump a good quantity of panko.

3. Peice by peice... roll in the flour mixture, dunk in egg and press repeatedly and very firmly into the panko. D: Dont be scared to beat it up in the panko to get the flakes to stick. >_> Its difficult sometimes.

4. From here you can freeze or fry or bake.

5A. Freeze: layer (separating with wax paper) and pop them in the freezer! To use, just cook them frozen, dont defrost or they will get soggy.

5B. Fry: *__* Mmmmm... >_> I don't know what temperature the oil should be as I dont use a cooking thermometer. XD I just heat up oil and use long bamboo cooking chopsticks. The oil is ready to use when lots of bubbles rise off the chopsticks when you stick them in the oil. Fry till they are a dark golden brown then take them out and let them rest on a paper towel.

5C: Bake: I have had tasty success baking these in a toaster oven at 400degrees for 15-20 minutes. They arent as pretty as the fried ones, but I assume they are much healthier.

Variation: ^.^ I have had success adding all manner of spices to the meat during step 2!

Jan. 23rd, 2008

2010-02-01T03:18:00.000-08:00

360ml Monokuro Boo Box: rice with sesame seeds, umeboshi, boneless chicken wings, pickled lotus root, snow peas, takuan, daikon, carrots. In the piggy is honey bbq sauce and in the apple topped bottle is sanbaizu.

Not shown: 2 white peach halves

^.^ Ooooo I was rather happy with the way this one looked!

Aug. 15th, 2007

2010-02-01T03:11:00.001-08:00

300ml Hello Kitty box: Onigiri with umeboshi/sesame seeds/rice vinegar/nori strip, lettuce, honey Jalepeno shrimp, takuan, cucumber, carrots, cherry tomato, checkerboard cut apple and a blue bunny bottle of rice vinegar.

:3 I included a second photo because I couldnt decide which one I liked best.

Jul. 25th, 2007

2010-02-01T03:08:00.001-08:00

500ml Hamster Club box: White rice sprinkled with sesame seeds, Garden Burger BBQ Veggie Riblet, green onions, baby spinach leaves made into a divider, carrots cut into flowers, broccoli, cherry tomatoes, sliced takuan and a blue bottle with a bear/bunny top(XD im not really sure what it is) filled with sanbaizu.

This particular box came with matching forks, sauce bottles and a bag. =_= I never use the bottles though because they are hard to clean and 2/4 of them have yellow tops so they kind of dissapear into the box. Which makes me sad. I really like this one though! Its the perfect size/shape/depth for me and that bright yellow makes just about any food look good!

Purin side container 200ml I think: two rainer cherries and seedless watermelon! <3 It was on sale! I should have bought 2 or 3. O__O I found them for only $2 each.

Not shown: Tazo Organic Iced Black Tea (of YUM!)

2007 June 30

2010-02-01T03:00:00.001-08:00

500ml blue Vive box: 2 barrel shaped onigiri with sesame seeds, sanbaizu and nori; Torikatsu on lettuce with kewpi mayo in a rectangle shaped paper cup; half a satsuma <3, blanched broccoli, sweet takuan wrapped around a pitted umeboshi, a pink teddy bear bottle full of sanbaizu, and a pink piggy bottle (XD with appropriate sparkly eyes, the way mine look before a meal like this) full of Bulldog Tonkatsu sauce.

I was also wondering, is there a good way to keep torikatsu/foods generally like that nice and crispy after cooking them? I made my torikatsu yesterday and it was fabulously crispy... but =_= when I got up today the coating was soft. It still tasted good, but it sort of lost its visual omph.

In hind sight, my takuan looks like a duckbill with a tongue hanging out of it! XD

I dont know how many of you own a hot water dispensing pot (:D I am tea lover to my core so I have a 3 litre pot that ALWAYS has hot water in it) but if you are in a hurry and you like your veggies crunchy a quick way to give your veggies that steamed look is to put them in a cup and use the water from the water pot. :D Just rinse them with cool water, dry them and presto! Instant blanched veggies. <3 XD Probably everyone in the world already thought of that... but I figured I'd still throw it out there.

And one additional picture for food pr0n. Because, le gasp, I actually like the way this one turned out.

2007 June 16

2010-02-01T02:55:00.001-08:00

420ml Hello Kitty 2 teir box and a 140ml (i think) Purin box.

:O When I went to Uwajimaya last week I picked up two new onigiri molds, more specifically the ones that make barrel shaped onigiri. They are pretty neat, though a little harder to make the perfectly shaped onigiri that my other molds make.

Top Teir: steamed pea pods, steamed daikon ribbons with lemon, star shaped carrot salad, yakitori with green onions and lemon. XD I think Im getting better at making the yakitori... last time it was a little dry, but this time it was juicy!

Bottom Teir: 2 onigiri with nori, two lemon fans, umeboshi, and two apple topped sauce bottles.

2007 may 29 Mini Onigiri

2010-02-01T02:49:00.000-08:00

420ml hello kitty 2 tier box: I cant shake the feeling I should have put more in the bottom.. but I cant figure out how or what.

Top Tier 220ml: teddybear shaped boiled egg on top of some greens, square shaped plastic side container of watermelon, a yellow elephant shaped bottle of sanbaizu, the last of my raspberries (;_; they were fine and the next day ruined!), cucumber, cherry tomato, and a small peice of yellow sweet takuan.

Bottom 200ml: mini fork, 2 fish bottles of soy sauce, and three miniature rice balls wrapped in nori with an umeboshi filling.

To make the filling I finely chopped one umeboshi on the textured side of my cutting board then added a pinch of salt and a pinch of sugar and I mashed it all very smooth with the back of a spoon. I do not have a miniature rice mold so to make the rice balls I just packed rice into a tiny plastic triangle shaped side dish container. ;-; In hind sight, I should have put plastic wrap in there to make removing them easier. Also, I tried to wrap them with teriyaki nori strips but that did not work very well.

2007, May 25 - Ahoy Matey!

2010-02-01T02:33:00.000-08:00

:D This weeks theme for Bento Challenge is Pirates! >_> It was really hard to think of something that no one else had already done... so I feel really un-original. ;_;

500ml Hamster Club box: I picked the bright yellow box because yellow reminds me of gold! There are two Pirate bear shaped onigiri, a panfried tofu treasure chest with carrot pea and corn "gold coins and gems", Rainer cherries, fresh raspberries, a cherry tomato and an apple topped bottle of sanbaizu per SS-biggie's "sanbaizu #1" recipe. :D Thank you again SS-biggie, it was very delicious.

For those that are curious....

3Tb Rice Vinegar
1/4 tsp Soy sauce
2Tb Sugar
1/2 Tsp Salt
1.5 Tb dashi

:D Mix and microwave like... 25 seconds. In my case I used Marukan Rice Vinegar, Kikkoman Soy Sauce, regular sugar, sea salt and hon-dashi instant dashi. It makes a great quick dressing for veggies, meats and even rice. My onigiri today are dressed with it! XD Its rather a lot like sushi rice dressing so it probably lasts forever if you keep it covered in the fridge.

There are also alternate sanbaizu recipes in her journal, definately worth checking out.

XD Alternate pic of my obento today, with the treasure chest lid off.

Also posted to Bentolunch

2007, May 17

2010-02-01T02:17:00.001-08:00

630ml Monokuro Boo box: Oh yum.... but it was SOOO much food! >_>;; I really struggled to eat it all.

I tried to make baked torikatsu and baked (homemade) croquette... while they tasted pretty good... they did not look half as good looking as their fried counterparts.

Top teir: 380ml Rice, baked torikatsu, 1/3 a [herb, cheese, and pea]croquette, pink piggie full of okonomiyaki sauce

Bottom Teir: 250ml Fresh shiitake mushrooms, broccoli, snap peas, carrots cut into flowers and fresh peach slices pan sauted in a mixture of oil flavored with garlic*, sesame oil and chili oil then pan steamed** with a tiny bit of a mixture of water, instant dashi and ponzu.

* This is something I learned from a very old chinese cookbook... you heat up your oil and you saute sliced garlic in the oil until its very crispy then you remove the garlic. Viola, you have a garlic taste without garlic bits.

** I was not sure what to call that, but it is similar to the way you pan cook gyoza... heat up the pan, brown the contents then add liquid and cover.

Forgot the...

2010-02-01T01:53:00.001-08:00

2007 april 23
Originally uploaded by Cristal V

2007 April 23

420ml Red Hello Kitty 2 teir box: On the top there are kiwi peices, sweet takuan, fresh shitake mushrooms sauted in ponzu, and creamy potato salad with carrot stars. The bottom box is 2 kitty shaped onigiri.

;_; I forgot to add a protein.... XD Bah... who cares?

:D This also my post for BentoChallenge
I thought my potato salad turned out well for being out of most of the normal ingredients. All I did was boil 2 small red potatoes till they were soft enough to stick a bamboo skewer through them easily. I took the skins off and mashed them roughly with a fork and mixed in kewpie cheese mayo and kewpie 1/2 (half the fat and calories of normal kewpie... I bought it by accident but its pretty good) then stuck it in the refrigerator. While that was chilling I used a vegetable peeler to peel thin slices of carrot and I layered them 3-5 thick and used a small fondant cutter to make the stars. Then I used the vegetable peeler to peel small thin peices off a cucumber. I salted the cucumber and let it sit for a while. After the potatoes were cold I took them out, added more mayo and salt/pepper, the carrots and cucumber (after pressing out the liquid with a towel). :X It was so good I may stop making it the normal way.

This was originally posted at my old livejournal account

Old Blog, New Location

2010-02-01T00:36:00.000-08:00

:3 Hi guys/gals/whoever might read this...

My blog was originally hosted on livejournal and for the next while I will be transferring all my postings to this new blog. I will be gutting and possibly editing my old posts as well so we will see how that all turns out!! Hopefully this is quick and not so painful so I can get back to posting new stuff (something I am way overdue for doing).

♥