This is the bento I packed with the olive oil poached salmon leftovers. The salmon stood up to re-heating well. Not as good as freshly made, but also not dried out and gross.

Then we had a foray into Indian with this yellow dal:

The dal recipe is from Smitten Kitchen. I made it pretty much as written, except I used a bit more tomato and didn’t bother to fish out the tomato skins. It was delicious.

I improvised the chicken. First, I made a rub from ground cumin, ground coriander, cayenne, garlic powder, salt and pepper and rubbed it all over boneless, skinless chicken thighs. Covered, and put it in the fridge for about an hour while I did the prep for the dal. When I was ready to cook the chicken, I coated the thighs with olive oil and then broiled them on a wire rack set in a sheet pan for about 10 minutes, until crispy and slightly charred in spots.

They tasted great together. The crispy crust on the chicken made a nice counterpoint to the mushiness of the dal. Next time I might go with bone-in, skin-on thighs, maybe using a modified version of the lime chicken recipe.

And finally, today’s brunch:

The recipe is Herb-Baked Eggs from Annie’s Eats.

Confession time: I bought these crocks just to make this recipe. And French onion soup.

I modified the recipe slightly. Didn’t have cream, so I just upped the butter a bit. Didn’t have too many herbs, so stuck with rosemary and chives.

Overcooked them a bit—our broiler definitely runs hot—but they were still tasty. Served with toast, butter, and strawberry jam.

Now to go lay about the house.

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I don’t usually pack Western-style bento lunches—heck, I haven’t been packing lunches, bento or not, at all these days—but the leftovers from tonight’s chicken actually fit perfectly into Ms. Bento!

This is also a good example of where packing a good bento can become very, very fussy. See all those celery sticks on the right? The lid wouldn’t close, so I had to take a bunch of them out and cut them precisely to the height of the container. I also had to choose the grape tomatoes and blackberries carefully to make sure they would pack tightly without crushing!

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Here’s the long-overdue photo of last week’s Mapo Tofu bento. It unfortunately looks like a chunky brown mess even though it tasted great. Some chopped scallions, peas, or red peppers would have added some much-needed color.

The green stuff in the corner is sautéed baby bok choy. I cut the bunches in half, then lightly sautéed them with some garlic, salt, and pepper. The meal is rounded out with some grape tomatoes and sweet pickled daikon.

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We went out for sushi last night and I ordered some tonkatsu because I really wanted something hot and fried. My husband turned the leftovers into katsudon for me and that was my lunch!

To make katsudon, you need some bonito broth, a bit of sliced onion, sake, mirin, and soy sauce. Combine everything and heat until simmering. Add the leftover katsu and pour some lightly-beaten egg on top. Cook until the egg is set.

Eat.

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More leftovers! Not that you can really see what’s in the small bowl.

The beef is something my husband makes, so I’m not totally sure what goes into it. I do know he starts with sliced bulgogi beef (fattier cuts are better), adds some grated ginger, soy sauce and…mirin? And then cooks it until the beef starts to brown.

The mushroom mixture is my creation. Slice some shiitake mushrooms fairly thinly—around an eighth of an inch. Heat some oil in a pan over medium-high heat. Add the mushrooms and cook until they start to brown, stirring occasionally. Add a splash of soy sauce, rice vinegar, and a pinch of salt. Toss to combine, then remove from heat and serve.

Some furikake on the rice, a hard-boiled egg, grape tomatoes, and a few strawberries, and we have a nice, filling meal.

This was actually yesterday’s bento. Today’s “bento” was yakisoba-from-a-box (not the mac-and-cheese kind).

Tomorrow’s bento proves to be more promising.

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I made tonkatsu and dengaku-style roasted eggplant, both recipes from Harumi’s Japanese Home Cooking, along with the same sautéed baby bok choy from my first bento.

I had the long, Chinese-style eggplants, so instead of cooking them whole like the recipe calls for, I cut them into large chunks and pan-roasted them that in an oven-safe pan, taking care to brown all the fleshy sides. Then I stuck the whole thing under the broiler for four minutes instead of putting them on the (nonexistent) grill.

I skipped pounding the pork cutlets and I dredged them in corn starch because we were out of flour. And instead of deep-frying them, I pan-fried them in about a quarter-inch of oil.

The whole meal was very tasty and the leftovers fit nicely into Ms. Bento.

The top side bowl contains some sweet pickled daikon, a hard-boiled egg, grape tomatoes, and strawberries, along with two tiny bottles of katsu sauce.

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Another bento eaten at home. From the top right, we have:

• Tuna salad. Made with canned tuna, finely diced celery, onion, and dill pickles, and Japanese mayonnaise. Seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and dried basil. This was what was left over after dinner last night. (Yes, we had tuna salad sandwiches for dinner. Inspiring, I know.)
• Green salad. Baby romaine with some pecans thrown in. I was planning to eat it right away so I just added a tiny pinch of salt and drizzled some olive oil and red wine vinegar on top. I do have some tiny bottles for dressings and sauces but didn’t feel like busting them out.
• Sides. I put some cubes of cheddar in the left of the side bowl, along with some dijon mustard in a silicone food cup for dipping. On the right, some more grape tomatoes. Qoo friend makes another appearance. He was kind of superfluous yesterday, but he was excellent for skewering the cheese cubes today.

I’d wanted to put some crackers in but we didn’t have any. So it turned into a low-carb bento.

This bento also made me realize I really ought to get some sauce cups with lids. I’m not sure how the mustard-in-silicone-cup thing would work out if I had to carry today’s lunch farther than the distance from my kitchen to my desk. I’m kind of a condiment freak and they would be more useful than the tiny sauce bottles I have.

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My first bento! Which I ate at home, since I don’t start work until next week, but…it’s a bento! The contents are:

1. Sautéed beef in ginger-soy sauce (leftovers)
2. Sautéed baby bok choy (leftovers)
3. Kim chee
4. Sweet pickled daikon
5. Grape tomatoes

And of course, steamed white rice.

I read somewhere that a bento rule of thumb is the food should have at least five colors for maximum beauty/nutritional value. I’ve got exactly five. Woo!

The little silicone food cups do not come with Ms. Bento; I picked up a bunch at a 100 yen store in Japan. The Qoo friend food pick is from my mother-in-law.* I have no idea where she found it.

Now let’s see how long it takes me to get hungry again.

—
*The first time I went to Japan, I had to stop and take a picture of a vending machine with Qoo in it because the mascot is so cute. Now my mother-in-law keeps buying me Qoo stuff.

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Vacation: Returned. Trying valiantly to NOT be living on Japanese time any more. Failing.

Stomach: Misses the copious amounts of Japanese food consumed while away, though it’s probably better for the waistline that we’re back state-side.

My husband bought me a Ms. Bento lunch container as a graduation gift, the better to bring tasty lunches when I start work next week! He also bought me this Nissan thermos, the better to bring copious amounts of coffee as well. Both fit neatly into the nice carrying bag that comes with the Ms. Bento.

The bowls look very small when you first take them out and initially I was worried that they wouldn’t pack enough for me to eat—I’m a big eater!

But according to the product description on Zojirushi, the largest Ms. Bento container holds 10.5 fluid oz of food, the side dish bowl holds 11.2 oz, and the soup bowl holds 6.8 oz, for a whopping 28.5 oz, or over 3 cups of food.

Back when I packed my lunch in ordinary tupperware, 2 cups of food was plenty, so I’m happy about the size. Japanese-style bento boxes are designed to hold approximately one calorie of food per milliliter volume, so Ms. Bento should hold over 800 calories when fully loaded—more than enough for lunch!

And now for lunch inspiration.

There is a Mr. Bento Flickr group dedicated to showing Mr. and Ms. Bento lunches. I love this one with it’s smiling steamed bun. This one is also very pretty.

I plan to do some bento practice this week to get an idea of what and how much I can realistically pack in Ms. Bento and how long it takes. Watch this space for pictures!

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