Bento Challenge Week 3 Report

Here's my Getting Started Bento Challenge report for Week 3! I was out in Arlington last night so I haven't had a chance to update until now.

I ended up making bentos on four out of five weekdays: I would have made five, except that I didn't eat the bento I made for Monday's lunch. I was too busy at work with the preparations for making Chinese dumplings with my students in honor of Chinese New Year, so I actually skipped lunch completely (not a good idea, I know) and ended up eating my Monday bento on Tuesday. Also, we had a snow day on Wednesday, so I only made a bento for M. on that day.

Monday 01.26.09 (no picture)
-Leftover Japanese chicken curry with rice
-Braised gailan (Chinese broccoli)

Tuesday 01.27.09 (ate Monday's bento today; M. packed something else for himself which I can't remember)

Wednesday 01.28.09 Snow Day Bento for M., who had to work

-Leftover Japanese chicken curry, in Stanley thermos
-Steamed white rice
-Steamed broccoli trees
-Carrot kinpira made with powdered ginger because we didn't have any fresh

Thursday 01.29.09 "First" Onigiri bento (for me; M. had lunch provided for him at a seminar that day)

-4 onigiri rolled in furikake
-raw carrot sticks
-roasted beets and parsnips with fennel
-marinated baked tofu cubes - I basically followed this recipe and just added Sichuan peppercorns (花椒）
-2 tuna tofu miso mini-burgers

Friday 01.30.09 Flavor Explosion Bento, for me and M. (M.'s bento is pictured)

-Leftover kubideh kabob, rice, and bread from Moby Dick's House of Kabob
-Simmered lima beans and carrots flavored with dried thyme and sherry
-Roasted beets and parsnips with fennel
-Marinated baked tofu slices (M.)
-2 tuna tofu miso mini-burgers (M.)

My favorite bento of the week was probably Thursday's - I'm definitely going to be making onigiri more often! I was also very pleased with how the lima beans turned out. M. commented that he thought the components in Friday's bento, while tasty on their own, didn't really harmonize very well in the bento. Since his bento also included the tuna tofu miso mini-burgers and the marinated tofu with Sichuan peppercorns, I could see that. I thought mine went together very well.

On meeting my goals for this week: I narrowed my bento-making goals down to three: Frugality (in keeping with the week's challenge), Variety, and Trying a new recipe. I succeeded in achieving all three goals, and did particularly well in the Frugality department, if I do say so myself: We used up leftovers (chicken curry; black bean soup) and I used up most of the tofu that I had in the fridge and dipped into our pantry a bit when making this week's bentos. I also used some of the frozen lima beans lurking in our fridge and overall thought that I did very well at using up odds and ends that we had around the pantry, in addition to restaurant leftovers (from Moby Dick). I managed to pack more of a variety of okazu into one bento on Thursday and Friday; and I tried three new recipes: roasted root vegetables (which I had never made before - more of a technique than a recipe, really), baked tofu (again, more of a technique than an actual recipe; I added huajiao, Sichuan peppercorns, to the marinade and it turned out great), and Maki's tuna-tofu-miso mini-burgers, which were delicious - thanks, Maki!

I need to expand my thinking on bentos to include dinners, especially since we started our Korean class on Tuesday evenings, and my husband occasionally attends evening seminars immediately after work. On Thursday I had the opportunity to make him a dinner bento, and it wouldn't have required more than the normal level of effort, since he didn't need a lunch bento that day - but it did not occur to me, so we ended up eating out Thursday night, not the most frugal thing to do. I also might be adding on an additional person to make bentos for at least a couple days a week (more on that later).

While I really enjoyed the challenge of trying to incorporate more of a variety of foods into one bento, I would like to try for bentos with a variety of foods that harmonize well together, by possibly balancing bland foods with more flavorful foods in the same box.

For next week I'd like to start packing us two bentos on Tuesdays so that we don't have to grab something out before our class.

Belated Week 3 Bento Challenge Goals

恭喜发财－Happy Year of the Ox!

Our week started off very busily - we attended a house party in honor of Chinese New Year on Monday, and our Korean language class at GW started on Tuesday evening. In celebration of Chinese New Year, I decided to teach my students how to make jiaozi (dumplings) this week, and have been busy with the preparations for that. The weather has also been rather nasty here in D.C. and the surrounding area (and much of the Northeast, I've heard) - we had snow earlier in the week, followed close on its heels by freezing rain on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning:


Close-up of snow on the Duke Ellington bridge, taken on my way to work Tuesday morning

School was canceled yesterday due to the aforementioned weather, so I thought I'd have time to update - I got started on this post, but then didn't finish it!

My Week 3 report on the Get Started Bento Challenge over at Just Bento is "due" tomorrow, so I'm posting my goals here and now to reflect upon in that post:

* Frugality - I didn't know that the theme was "Money-Saving" when we did this, but last weekend M. and I made a pot of chicken curry and a pot of black bean soup (from dried beans and a pork bone that I had saved in the freezer, very frugal!), both of which I plan to use in this week's bento lunches. Also want to use up some of the tofu we have in the fridge; I bought several packages of tofu last weekend when I thought I was going to be using them for the filling in the dumplings at school this week, but we ended up using mock duck instead, so now I have a surplus of tofu that needs to get eaten!

* Variety - To try and include more foods in smaller amounts in the same bento, and different, healthier types of protein (other than Spam, which figured more than I would have liked to in last week's lunches), such as chicken, tofu, or beans. Also, more and varied veggies.

* Try a New Recipe - Such as Maki's turnip cakes, or her tuna tofu miso mini-burgers.

So far this week has yielded several bento-related "revelations." Stay tuned...

Bento Challenge Week 2 Recap

So, it's Friday already! It's been quite the week, ending on a low note of sorts: I had a horrible, throbbing headache all morning that made me queasy and forced me to skip out on teaching my afternoon class today. Slept all afternoon, woke up still feeling horrible. When M. got home from work he made me some jook/okayu, the best convalescent food, with umeboshi (Japanese pickled plum), and I took an ibuprofen. Feeling a little better now after a second nap and lots and lots of water - the lights aren't making me queasy anymore!

Friday means that it's time to re-visit my goals for Week 2 of Maki's Just Bento challenge, with the theme "Healthy Bentos." I made bento lunches on Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of this week. Following are descriptions of the contents of each:

Sunday 01.18.09 Kimbap snack bento

-Korean-style sushi with leftover bi bim bap ingredients: ground beef, pea shoots, egg, carrot kinpira, kimchee

Tuesday 01.20.09 Obama Inaugural Bento

-spam musubi with broccoli trees (4 for M., me, and S. to share)(pictured)
-tea eggs on top of steamed broccoli, carrot kinpira, and pea shoots (not pictured)
-celery sticks (not pictured)
-assorted candy (not pictured)

Wednesday 01.21.09 Back to Work Bento (made two: one for M. and one for me)

-leftover Indonesian-y "mee goreng" stir-fried noodles with cabbage and carrot, seasoned with shrimp paste and ketchup and etc., topped with ground peanuts
-steamed broccoli trees
-half of a tea egg with black sesame seed garnish
-red grapes
-snack mix: wasabi peas, peanuts, and raisins

Thursday 01.22.09 Kidney Beans to the Rescue Bento (no picture)
-More mee goreng noodles
-salad of steamed carrot chunks and canned kidney beans, seasoned with bottled Pietro sesame dressing
-one orange, sliced
-wasabi pea, raisin, and peanut snack mix, again

Friday 01.22.09 Orange All Over Bento

This bento was prepared entirely the night before, and it still tasted good the next day (although maybe I shouldn't trust that judgment since I wasn't in the best shape at lunchtime...)
-Kimchee chahan (fried rice) prepared by M with spam chunks, kimchee, and egg
-Simmered vegetable medley: green cabbage, carrot, and reconstituted wakame, in a broth of water, soy sauce, and Japanese cooking wine, with black sesame seeds and gomashio (This gomashio was made and given to me by a coworker as a holiday gift - a very nice one, I might add!).
-Cheese chunks and red grapes
-The same orange from yesterday (not pictured)

As far as meeting my goals for this week, I did fairly okay.

1. Healthy - My need to honor the President with spam musubi was greater than that of rising to the "healthy" part of the bento challenge, and much spam was consumed this week, so I'm not sure how well I did on that score, but I did try to balance out the salty processed meat with simmered or raw veggie side dishes with minimal flavor enhancers (if any). I succeeded in including at least one veggie in every bento - frequently more.

2. "Beefing up" the bento with protein fillers - This worked really well, especially when I stumbled across the idea for the trail mix. I felt much fuller, and was also able to eat a bit of my lunch at lunchtime and save the rest for later in the afternoon, which helped prevent hunger pangs.

3. New recipe - Didn't get to it this week, with all the craziness. Maybe next week! I did purchase some shirataki noodles and konnyaku at our neighborhood Japanese market yesterday that I plan to use soon.

4. Make large portions of something to freeze - There is leftover beef soboro in the freezer. Didn't get to make gyoza, though, although I will be making a bunch of gyoza this coming week for Chinese New Year (jiaozi).

5. Making onigiri - If the musubi counts, then yes. Otherwise, no.

6. Looking at bento supplies online - Yes, I have started narrowing down my choices for actual bento boxes for us. I am partial to the tiffin-esque stainless steel bento boxes like these (Japanese page) because of their clean, timeless look and durability. I also looked at accessories, though I haven't purchased anything yet.

I also started using Maki's meal planner, which worked well for the lunches but was neglected for the other meals (and might have come in use, had I utilized it! We ended up going out to eat last night because we couldn't figure out what to make with what we had at home and didn't want to spend the time shopping and then preparing).

Two weeks down, three to go!