Eating in a box

I confess there's not really a good cohesive theme for this box. I just got two things of free food product and decided to just throw something yummy together. Above you see my attempt at creative swirling with the cream in the soup but it just looks like weird modern art. I need more practice. So part of being plugged into the food blog community I seem to get product samples a lot. By no means do they say, "hey you must shill for us" or obligate me to do so, but I figure it's nice if I find a product useful to put in a nice blurb at the very least, I like to let my bento eaters benefit as well. Kinda like the foodblogger events, I go, I write a nice entry about it. This is no different, but I figure it's important that I disclaimer that I did get free stuff, I'm using free stuff, and I've decided to write about the free stuff I got. I'm no professional so I'm in no obligation to disclose all this stuff, but I figure it shouldn't hurt to be up...

Not really any good cohesive theme today. These are a few of the dishes I've had on my list of "gotta try" that say fall to me. It's gotten cold and dreary lately and what better way to warm the bones than with some stews and soup. Let's start with the main dish, Chicken and chickpea stew. Its a nice blend of spices and vegetables, more reminiscent of a thin curry with more going on than I usually attribute to a stew. The carrots provided a bit of unexpected sweetness to the overall taste. The original recipe called for chicken thigh, but in the interest of trying to cut back on fats I went with chicken breast, in hindsight this may have been a mistake because the chicken thigh would have produced a more flavorful stew it was a call between health and flavor we'll see what the jury has to say about it. Here we have a nice Penne pasta with Green Pea Pesto. Usually that much basil pesto would really turn me off of a dish, but the green peas really sweeten and li...

Another gadget post this week, it's been a good two week recharge, full of catching up with stuff and gathering new ideas for the coming year. I only have a few more bentos for the year with the holidays and all but I promise to bring you a food post next week. This week's gadget is the Blendtec blender that's right, from the folks that bring you " Will It Blend " (I can practically hear a studio audience chant the phrase as I type it). I decided on this purchase based off of my inability to blend my broccoli soup to the consistency I needed it to be, unacceptable. I spend so much time in the kitchen that I've made it a point to try to always buy commercial grade equipment, ultimately only two made the final list. I was trying to decide between a Vitamix or this Blendtec blender, it turns out what was available at my "local shop that allows me to use my handy-dandy coupons" only had the Blendtec so there we have it. I understand the Vitamix is also a...

Super sweet, I had motorcycle class so I can get a license for my new scooter, the only downside is that it left me very little time to prepare a lunches. I really needed to find a set of dishes that would be either very easy to put together or extremely quick. Hence my quickfire bento, ok not quite the same quickfire as in the TV show, but I had to call it something and quickfire has a catchy ring to it. Like him or hate him, Gordon Ramsay is an accomplished chef and researching his "fast" and "easy" books as well as watching a few youtube videos I was very inspired by his methods and philosophy of letting ingredients speak for themselves. I will say there will probably be some future inserts of his dishes because both books had some very tasty looking stuff, but for today we're sticking with the fast and easy. We have two quasi mains today we start with Curry dusted shrimp with Corn Salsa. I made a slight modification in using shrimp instead of scallops to tri...

So I counted it up, this is my 50th bento for my eaters. 50! Wow! granted I've posted more, but there's a lot of Offtopic "yammering" and also some meals that weren't lunches. So my eaters should have collected 50 small index cards with my lunch time greetings and menu description! Go me! Ok enough back patting. Another Fruit themed bento this week. My wife suggested a peach challenge for me. Didn't have time to hit the farmer's market this week so I had to make due with the regular grocery store. Despite the tenderloin, I came in under the five dollar mark this time (I was impressed) I suppose partly due to the fact that peaches are in season. I scoured the internet for various ideas and came up with this set of highly modified mix and match recipes. First of we start with a Pork Tenderloin with Peach Chutney. The shot isn't very pretty, infact the color from the chutney messed with the color of the overall picture (I picked the best one). I think it...

Ok we had a 2 week intermission, not my fault mind you :). With all of my wife's work craziness and the travel we decided to put off last week's bento to this week. (Course I had already made half of it.) I continue this week on the fruit theme, the heat here is abysmal and I can't fathom eating anything on the heavy side. Easy peasy, we start with a basic salad and a pear balsamic vinaigrette. Nothing fancy here, I needed to fill the space, and I had bagged salad from last week's bento to use up. We head to our soup course: we have a chilled Melon Ginger Soup. The recipe is courtesy of a local restaurant, "The East side Cafe", they pride themselves on an organic menu from a local farm they own and run themselves. I didn't get to taste the soup after the ginger got a chance to really sink in, but from the hint I got I'm sure the soup will be very good in the morning. Chopped cantelope, watermelon, and honeydew to give it texture and a bit of ginger t...