Eating in a box

Hey guys, sorry about the lack of bentos lately. Work has really ratcheted up and free time has gone down to a minimum. I've had a few photos and off topic posts that I wanted to put out but simply getting a moment to write a quick post has been difficult. I'm actually doing this one over my lunch just to take a break from my deluge of emails and meetings. Anyhow, enough belly aching. I had the great fortune to cook with a long time friend and coworker. She and her husband use to have a Persian restaurant in town and both are fabulous cooks! She invited me to help host/cook for a party of our friends just to get everyone together. We've done this in the past and it was a wonderful opportunity to learn a bit more about Persian cuisine. So given the chance I immediately jumped on it. Besides, her house is beautiful and her kitchen a joy to work in just look at the view (from the title shot) and this outdoor/kitchen grill. The indoor kitchen was just amazing it really has eve...

This week's bento is courtesy of my enthusiasm after taking a cooking class over at Thai Fresh with chef and fellow foodblogger Jam from Thai Cooking with Jam . It was an incredibly fun time and full over great information about Thai food and ingredients. The class was a hands on so that meant plenty of time in the kitchen helping with the meal we all shared in at the end. If you've ever considered going, get off that duff and go, if you've never even knew it existed then you're just plain missing out. Ok just a bit of stuff on curry making, above you will see two of the three curry pastes (Green curry on the left, Sour curry on the right) used in the box. This is where most of the magic happens. Homemade curry paste compared to can has a fresher/cleaner taste, I'm not sure if it's because some of the ingredients aren't perfectly ground as you would find in the commercial version so you can get some of the components or duh you're using fresh ingredient...

I've been having this craving for curry, not just any curry, but a nice Thai green curry. Of course this quickly translated into a fully formulated Thai (part 2) bento. It also just so happened that my local grocery chain was running some special on shrimp, obviously this was a sign that I had to make some Gaeng Keow Wan with Shrimp. I will say this bento really almost did me in. I think I traversed the city twice to find everything. Everywhere I went, it was either sub par ingredients, or trusted sources for ingredients that were completely out. I think I burned more on gas than I did on the ingredients for this bento but 6 hours of shopping later I was ready to begin. I love green curry, it's mild and has a hint sweetness to it. There's many variations to the ingredients, I used a bit of what was on hand and tossed the shrimp into it. I think the core must haves are: coconut milk, green curry (of course) and the basil. Everything else seems fairly negotiable. I would have...