Eating in a box

I actually made this bento a few weeks back and only managed to post it today. With a kitchen remodel and running into some health issues I've not really had much time to cook let alone post so my apologies for the sparse content. After our visit to the Afghan restaurant Helmand during our trip to Boston I decided to dig a little deeper into the cuisine. Much of the middle eastern cuisines have a lot in common, they share a lot of the same cooking techniques as well as ingredients. Yet as you move across the geographical regions each country has its distinct spin as new ingredients become incorporated and others go unused. This first dish is called Mashawa, it's a lentil beef stew/soup. It's seasoned with dill and normally served with yogurt. I left out the yogurt since the dill provided plenty of sour "tang". Although technically it's a soup it came out more like a indian "dal" curry dish as it's pretty thick so I served it with a bit o...

I so love Indian food, I grew up with the cuisine in high school trading lunches with my Indian friends. I like to believe I got the good end, trading my sushi rolls, and fried rice for their home cooked yummies from their mothers (my mom made 2x to help me accomodate my trading)! Anyhow it's probably a good reason why it's been a repeated theme here. I've been collecting recipes hoping for new themes and all the ones I tended to tag recently are Indian. I centered around this menu because they are a departure from what I normally get to experience, new items that I don't always get to see on the local menu. Butter Chicken shows up in many London menus, I don't see it much here but I couldn't resist when one of the blogs I follow did a fast/budget version that look scrumptious. I went with the more flavorful chicken thigh (instead of breast) which added a bit of flavor. I loved that the recipe called for yogurt to add some flavor instead of the usual heavy cre...