Monday sandwich bento

 
Pita, ham, cheese, celery, hummus, tomato, carrot, yogurt..our first bento where we counted calories. This week we are eating more fresh vegs and counting calories. Wonder how well we will do? It does look pretty. X and O are cut out of cheese. Of course, I put a fortune (folded paper) in hubbies bento, LOL.

No bento today, I participated in the MLK March

San Antonio's MLK march is the largest in the nation, about 100,000 people usually attend. This year, from the top of the hill near the end point, when looking back I could not see the where the march ended! The march route is 3 miles long.







It was fun to see old friends marching with various groups, and to make new friends too.

Busy, busy, have not posted...here's the last few

Left over apple/turkey sausage and rice, green beans and tomatoes, cherries, and my oatmeal with lingonberries.











Turkey sandwich, cherries, sweet pickles, my breakfast oatmeal and V8 juice.

Ok, I seemed to have gained about 3 pounds so it's either the rice or the quantity of food in the bento box. I need to come up with something else.
Learning as I go along. I may dig out my WW stuff and see what I can figure out.

Behind on posting bentos

Ah yes, late again. The story of my life. Too much to do, and too many events to attend to.
Photos to be posted Sunday. May all your bentos be beautiful.

Bento box #2, a little more involved

First, I had to cook the food, so I used my rice cooker (which is missing it's steamer basket) and my bamboo steamers.















Then, I got out my new find, Lundberg wild blend rice, which is beautiful...see?


I read about this rice in my bible, The Ultimate Rice Cooker cookbook by Beth Hensperger and Julie Kaufman.









Then, I got my green beans ready to steam and added my marinated chicken breasts to the steamer.



Ok the chicken looks ugly, but it tastes good. The recipe is from my rice cooker cookbook. The chicken is marinated in Dijon mustard, red wine vinegar, lemon juice, garlic, herbes de provence and olive oil. Green beans are self explanatory, I guess.





So, the steamer gets put together with the beans on top so I can take them off once they are crisp-tender.
















Here is what the steamer looks like all put together. And, the most astute of you will note that I don't have a wok. My house has a way of "disappearing" items of clothing, cooking tools, socks, homework, and sundry other items. Where the wok went is anybody's guess. Obviously, I need to drive into San Antonio (tedious drive) and get a new one, or order one online. Small town living is great except when you need "stuff."
















Now for the green beans. They are steamed and ready for step 2. Again from my rice cooker cookbook, they are sauteed in a small amount of butter and olive oil with onion, celery, parsley, basil and bell pepper.














Final step, making the gingered tomato relish.












So, dinner was great! Now to put the leftovers in the bento box. Complete with a fortune cookie fortune stashed in hubby's lunch to make him smile! Working in the hospital can be so stressful that something to make him smile is a something I feel is most important. We have been married for 35 years, so we have learned just a few things here and there. Besides, using a bento box and fixing his lunch gives me a chance to do more than leave him a nice note on the back door telling him to have a nice day, love you, etc. [He gets up at oh dark thirty in the morning, I don't, so I stay up later than he does.]

This one is pretty, with lots of color. We'll see how I do with the salmon that I have planned.















I have had a great time so far, and we both love our lunches. Our motivation is spurred on by the fact that my sister and her husband both got food poisoning (Salmonella) from a TV dinner. Their illnesses were so severe that they were hospitalized. It motivates me even more to make ALL my food from scratch. I have mostly made everything from scratch from the time my children were born, but in my older years got a bit lazy, but not any more!

My first bento box

 
Not fancy, and not pretty, but it worked. Left over Farmhouse macaroni and cheese, our favorite turkey meatballs, cherries, baby bell cheese, weight watchers snack cake (for my husband's sweet tooth), and a green salad. I also included left over home made waffles and syrup for breakfast.
For me, it was too much food, but my hubby loved his, which also included some juice. Since he works 12 hour shifts, he needs more than I do.
As I was making these, I was talking to my sister and explaining bento boxes to her. I thought she would remember them since she was a teenager when we lived in Japan, but evidently she was too interested in boys to pay attention to some things (lol).

Delay in posting first bento box

My Aunt Eleanor, is gravely ill tonight, She is nearly 90, and has pneumonia. They took her off the ventilator tonight, and she will likely pass away shortly. My excitement about my first bento box takes second fiddle to my feeling of loss. I will post pictures tomorrow, I just can't do it tonight.
My Auntie was a Veteran of the US Navy, a nurse, and a kind and gentle woman who was devoted to her collies. She maintained our family home and the family farm in upstate NY.
A picture of a portion of the farm, by my cousin Carol:



Dearest Aunt Eleanor, we love you, and you will be missed.

Supplies!

Big day today, picked up two of the grandkids (ages 5 and 7), and went to the Habitat for Humanity Re-store to look for french doors. There were none. Habitat has opened 3 stores in San Antonio, all a long distance from each other. We will drive 40 miles to the other side of town to check the other store, another day. It was time to eat and since were were in downtown San Antonio, what better place than Mi Tierra! My little grand daughter just loved it,she thought the ceilings were so beautiful with the pinatas, the papel picado,
everything all shiny and golden, strung with little lights. She said, "it's like a party grandma!















We indulged in a beef taco, refried beans, rice, fluffy hot tortillas, huevos rancheros plus porkchop; steak and eggs, and hamburger and fries. A last artery hardener for grandma and grandpa before we embark on a healthier eating style.

We were celebrating the X-man's birthday (now 7 yrs old), so of course we had a quick Alamo tour and views of the San Antonio riverwalk.

















Then, with our tummies full, it was off to buy supplies for bento boxes.

After much deliberation and a poor selection of lock and lock boxes, here is what we came up with...
















So, it was time to take the tired kiddos all the way back to Boerne. We are still doing arts and crafts in the kitchen as I write this. I guess tomorrow I will have to get busy figuring out what to put in the boxes for lunch on Monday.

Will I be able to do this thing called Bento?

I found a bento blog by accident, Lunch in a box, and after reading the blog and doing more research, I was intrigued. Then I found the just bento blog and just hungry and more and more, and I was hooked. I was so excited that I got my co-worker hooked too! LOL. We both like to cook, and we love to try new foods, so we were off! This week we spent every lunch break reading bento blogs and looking at containers. We even took a "field trip" to a Japanese grocery store near where we work! We came home with lots of goodies, and absolutely no experience. So back to the blogs!

Wednesday, I started rummaging in my kitchen to see what I had for containers that would be suitable, nada, zero, zippo. I have lots of containers, but no lids, or lids with no containers. Is there a gremlin lurking in my big plastic container drawer? My co-worker,DeeCee found fresh-fit through one of the blogs, and we both see a shopping trip in our future over the weekend. We live about 45 miles apart, in 2 different counties, so we'll be shopping at opposite ends of the city. Wonder what we will come up with by Monday morning?

I hope to learn from all the bento bloggers and their gorgeous photos, and hope that by Monday morning I will have 2 containers with lids so I can make beautiful lunches for hubby and me. One goal, besides pretty lunches, is weight loss. So here goes!