Main

made an awesome discovery at Cost Plus World Market: they have tiffin tins! They carry the two level (pictured) and a three level as well, but M. eats so little for lunch I couldn't imagine filling the three. Maybe I'll go back and get it for picnic purposes, though.

Something about this tin is so satisfying. I like the handle and the way the containers lock together. I can't wait to make some rice and curry and try it out.

Posted by Satya at 12:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

he leftover pizza went into a bento the next day along with a carrot apple muffin, nuts, and carrot pieces.

Posted by Satya at 9:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

or this bento I used a frozen rice ball from the last time I made sushi to make the yaki onigiri, and it worked great - this will work well for bento supplies I can keep on hand in the freezer. I microwaved the rice ball for a minute and then proceeded to grill it on each side as is, then again brushed with soy sauce. I let it cool before putting it in the bento box. According to Lunch in a Box, they can be frozen after the grilling part as well.

Contents: Celery with cream cheese, homemade oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (from frozen dough balls), orange wedges, hardboiled egg with s+p packet, and yaki onigiri.

Posted by Satya at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

stumbled on this idea in an internet forum I frequent, and it's brilliant and super-easy. I mixed eggs, cheese, s+p, diced zucchini, and finely chopped red onion (i.e. whatever I had around) in a bowl, poured into muffin cups, and baked for about twenty minutes until set. They make great leftovers.

Posted by Satya at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

ontents of bento: mango chunks, baguette with little sunburst-shaped wedges of cheese and mustard on top (in a lettuce divider), cashews, and homemade apple frangipane galette. M. ate everything but the galette, go figure - I would have gone for that first.

Posted by Satya at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

orry this one is a bit late. I was low on groceries on Valentine's Day so I threw this little bento together out of ingredients not ideal for M.'s tastes, but he was too busy to actually eat this one anyway so it didn't really matter - he had a very hectic day!

Contents: Tortilla chips and salsa, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (I had the dough frozen and baked a few that morning), carrot sticks, heart-shaped cheese sandwich, and a tiny tangerine.

After M. got home we went out to a sublime dinner at Fork in San Anselmo. I highly recommend this place, as we've eaten there several times and always had a great experience. I knew I could count on them for an elegant meal that wouldn't be harried despite the holiday diners, and they came through impeccably.

I'm a pretty unmemorable type on my own, but Charles, the maitre'd and co-owner, always remembers me, which gives the experience a personal touch. He wore a tux for V-day, classy guy. The service is always excellent and the menus interesting and seasonal. They have a great early bird prix fixe menu on weekdays, and a larger prix fixe tasting menu during normal dining hours, complete with wine pairing. Or you can order à la carte (except for on Valentine's day - they had prix fixe only). M. appreciates the vegetarian tasting menu, which they always offer, and overall everything about the place shows a tasteful restraint and attention to detail. Stop by if you're in the area!

Posted by Satya at 7:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

ust got back from the hospital to have the stitches removed, and the finger is doing well - just have to baby it along for a couple weeks, as the doc said. Meantime I've jumped back in the cooking saddle, but haven't had a chance to update for a little while, so here's a big entry with my myriad latest creations.

Numero uno: a little bento for two to celebrate my friend L. obtaining her own studio space for artistic/crafty endeavors - something Repast is a big supporter of! I packed us turkey BLATs (the A is for avocado!), carrots, cheese, Haribo gummy rolls, and miniature champagne. I packed straws in the chopstick container, but the champagne bubbled over quite amusingly when we tried to use them.

More after the jump!

Continue reading "Catching up" »

Posted by Satya at 9:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

t was bound to happen sooner or later. I recently had my knives professionally sharpened, which has been fabulous but also, unfortunately, dangerous. Friday night I was happily prepping for a cozy dinner of red beans and rice when I slipped while horizontally cutting an onion. I caught my pinky and it was all over - M. drove me to the E.R. and I wound up with seven stitches and a bottle full of antibiotics to ward off infection. It was a drag but I'm healing with all my digits intact, Alhamdulillah.

As a result I haven't been doing too much cooking, but I did put together this little bento, which M. really enjoyed to my relief. The cabinets were pretty bare but with a little creativity a bento can be created out of very little.

Pictured is a container of chopped raw carrot and green pepper (with dressing in a tiny bear-shaped squeeze bottle), cornbread, two star-shaped cheese sandwiches, and gingersnaps. Edamame were liberally employed to fill the gaps.

Posted by Satya at 5:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

ere is M.'s bento all boxed up and ready to go. I didn't show the inside because I had a bad bento morning. I started out thinking I would cook a sweet potato in the microwave to include, but forgot how awful the texture is when you do that until after it was done. On to the butternut squash, which I cubed successfully (thanks to a diagram in Bon Appetit showing how to peel it safely) but then overcooked into mush. To top it all off, it is packed far too loosely because I needed a box sized in between what I actually had.

Ah, well. It has candy inside so I know M. will like that. Hope I have better luck next time!

Posted by Satya at 4:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

his isn't really the kind of bento I would get excited about for myself, but M. seemed to like it - we have very different taste in food.

Radishes with sea salt packet, leftover tofu stir-fry with rice, carrot sticks, and seaweed crackers.

Posted by Satya at 4:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

made a special bento request yesterday, and I was happy to oblige as it gave me a chance to use some of my new bento gear. He was going to join some friends for a post-dinner D&D game (don't ask) and needed some repast for his primary meal: the late night snack.

I should have taken a picture of it all closed up, because it was truly adorable - I used a red lacquer box secured with a decorative elastic band, with an artfully folded paper napkin and a chopstick case tucked inside. The whole thing went into a cloth bento bag. I'll get the finished product next time.

Pictured in this bento: gingersnaps, curried rice in coconut milk with cashews, avocado half, hard-boiled egg (you can't tell but I used a fish-shaped egg mold) with salt and pepper packet, and curried skillet potatoes. I filled the gaps with extra cashews and apple chunks. M. confessed that he's pickier about food touching than I first assumed, so I employed some plastic wrap for flavor sanitation.

Posted by Satya at 4:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

esterday I finally got a chance to head over to Japantown in San Francisco and investigate what turned out to be the Holy Grail of local bento supplies: Ichiban-Kan (their adorable slogan is "Different things!"). Eyes bulging out of my sockets, I gleefully roamed the aisles tossing all manner of lacquered boxes, hard-boiled egg molds, miniature sauce containers, chopsticks with matching cases, rice molds, and other assorted supplies into my basket. The damage for this huge haul? About twenty-five bucks, as everything was a buck to a buck-seventy-five apiece.

One tip if you're considering getting into bento: it was really helpful that I had already made a few bento lunches beforehand using plain tupperware and things I already had on hand, as I had a much better sense of what I would actually use. Otherwise I think I would have gone much crazier than I did, and ended up with a pantry full of adorable, but impractical items. You'll be seeing different pieces of my haul in photos and entries to come, I'm sure.

I also got to reap the benefits of the bento myself. M. didn't get a chance to eat his lunch at school yesterday, so I brought it along with us in the car for the trip into the city (about half an hour from our house). It was pretty awesome to be sitting in traffic and snacking on chips and homemade guacamole - so civilized! Then on the return trip we split half a sandwich and some orange slices - the perfect little snack to tide me over until I got home to make dinner.

Posted by Satya at 12:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

asked for a small lunch today, so I put in half a PB&J sandwich, which looks a little weird there because the bread was rectangular and I only used one slice. I prefer the diagonal cut to the straight, but I had to trim off the parts that didn't overlap.

Also pictured are orange slices, a piece of banana (I rubbed the ends with lime juice), trail mix, cheese, and homemade candied orange peel. I made a batch of the latter for the holidays and fortunately it keeps in the fridge for up to a year, so it's a nice thing to have on hand. To hold it all I used this Reynold's tupperware I got in the grocery store - I like the shape and the type of plastic, and it has a closeable steam vent in the lid.

Posted by Satya at 2:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

n my way home from the city today I had to stop by the grocery store, so I picked up an extra green vegetable for dinner. We just had kale and collard greens, but the only other decent green in the organic section was some sorry-looking broccoli at $3.98/head. On the other hand, in the regular section a fresh batch of beautiful brussels sprouts was just being added to the bins, at $1.88/pound. Sometimes I'm not so sure about organic - not the idea of it, but the reality of it in practice. Is my extra money really going towards a more sustainable product that's moving my local food chain in a positive direction? Or did the broccoli get trucked in from even further away than the sprouts? The only way to know for sure would be to shop the Good Earth store in town where they tell you these things (or trek to a farmer's market on its available days), but I'm not quite entrenched enough in the culture of my little hippie town to brave its doors. I still need to shop somewhere that sells Entenmann's and Coke.

Anyway, I picked the brussels sprouts. They roasted up beautifully and are pictured here tucked in a lettuce cup along with homemade mac and cheese, salad with separate dressing container, and sweet potato pie - a bento of winter comfort foods. I packed the salad in its own container so M. could microwave the other things if he liked. My makeshift packaging isn't ideal, but at least the pie fit on top of the salad in the main container after being wrapped up and put all together.

Posted by Satya at 12:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

inner tonight was a potato/greens/feta cheese pie with a breadcrumb crust that I made from one of my favorite vegetarian cookbooks. Butternut squash on the side that I dressed in leftover vinaigrette. I still haven't figured out butternut squash, though I'm trying to use it so I can cook more seasonally and use everything up from our weekly organic produce box. It always tastes bland to me unless I make soup with it, so I need to figure out some good seasoning for steaming or roasting - any tips?

I used some extra potato from the pie for a quick potato salad with frozen corn, fresh parsley, and more vinaigrette - a better use for it flavor-wise than on the squash. That went into the bento in a silicone baking cup, along with leftover potato pie and squash. An avocado half rubbed with lemon and a truffle for dessert round out the meal. I packed all this up in a tupperware, but I'm hoping to pick up some more proper bento gear this weekend.

Posted by Satya at 11:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

hanks to Lunch in a Box, I've become completely obsessed with the bento lunch now that I'm packing for M. while he's student-teaching. For my first attempt, I followed some recipes and tips on the site to make some yaki onigiri (grilled rice balls), which I packed up with a hard-boiled egg (complete with salt and pepper packet), butternut squash, japanese snack cracker mix, and gummy alphabet letters. It was fun putting it all together, but my aesthetic still needs some work I think.

Posted by Satya at 11:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)