Eating in a box

It's been two tortuous weeks of no cooking for me. The rest was probably really good for me, but to be in the kitchen cooking again felt really good. It's my way of relaxing and having fun. Besides I'm a busy body, for two weeks there was a giant hole in my schedule where I had absolutely nothing to do it was freaking me out. Anyhow I digress, I had plenty of themes queued up but being so close to Valentine's day I figure it would be nice to send my diners a valentine's day dinner surf and turf style. I managed to save a few bucks in the previous few bentos so it allowed me to do a splurge this week. I kept the menu easy to make sure I don't over do it on my first week back. And of course I had my new toy, which I'll post more on in a bit. I can't say enough about my new found love of sous vide cooking. You really need to click into the photo to the right. Can you see it? It's a medium rare steak with maybe a 1 millimeter brown top. The whole thing...

Special bento today. It's my wife's birthday tomorrow, so I figured on making a special bento just for her. Pulled out the stops and splurged a bit on the menu. Hopefully a great week to start birthday week. Well on to the box. We'll start with the sides: First up we have Steamed Vegetables with a ginger miso dressing. I've latched onto the wonders of pre-bagged veggies that you toss into the microwave. They even have this one brand that also have a couple of slots of butter so that when you finish microwaving it's all done for you. What a great idea and timesaver. I'll have to re-use this one. Our second side is a Lobster salad with tarragon and chives. Picked up a couple of frozen lobster tails and put this little number together. I could easily have substituted chicken in place of this for a more budget conscious menu item. Note to self: a little tarragon goes a *long* way. For the main course we have Filet Mignon with a shitake wine sauce. Pretty self expl...