About Apples

Tomorrow is opening night of Hobson's Choice! I have no idea what I will be eating for lunch (or dinner for that matter) but I am very excited to be performing for an audience.

One thing I know that I will be eating, is apples. My character, Alice Hobson, eats apples all throughout the first act of the play.


If you are in the area, you should come and see it!

A Salute to the Cook

Because of our hectic schedule I have asked Bryan to help out with dinners... and I was extremely pleased with his first effort. So I snapped a few pictures to share with you all. Here he is rolling the goodies (pepperoni, my homemade pizza sauce, and olives) into Pilsbury crecent rolls:


Up close... you can see that his have cheese and mine do not:


The finished product:


These pizza wraps are evidently something that he would make when he worked at Izzy's.

They were SO tasty! The dough in the middle was moist and a bit stretchy (like the inside of homemade weener wraps) and reminded me of cheese, so I felt like I was really getting away with something. ;0)

Thanks again, Bryan!

Snackie Bento

Bento #27 is comprised of mostly cookies! :0) Fig Newtons, and Thin Mint/Tagalong pretenders. Very tasty. Also, there is a sliced apple, some trail mix, crackers and almonds:

Barely Bento

In anticipation of my VERY busy week, I assembled three bentos last night that prove to be tasty, if not all that colorful.

Bento #24... Boca burger pattie with BBQ sauce on top of fried rice and brown rice with lentils:


Bento #25... Last night's dinner left-overs. Pineapple pork chops & Minute rice and some added brown rice with lentils:

Bento #26...More of the same:


If you've never had pineapple pork chops, you should try this recipe.

Snack Bento

Bento #23 is a snack for Bryan and I. We will be moving in the set and getting things ready for the show... then we have dry tech, wet tech, and possibly a run-through. All that to say, it is going to be a long day, and we are going to want a few extra calories on hand.

Here's a picture of the bottom layer:


It features my mom-in-law's delicious, homemade sugar cookies (Thanks again, Leslie!) surrounded by Wheatables, Triskets, dried apple "o"s and his and her trail mix.

Here's the finished bento, closed up and ready to go:



To the other snacks I've added two Clif Z Bars and a couple tomatoes.

Chicken and Rice

Bento #22 was put together directly after dinner, utilizing the left-over chicken and rice. It also is the first bento to contain bell pepper grown in my garden:



I tried something different with the rice in this bento. I added lentils to the brown rice to make it a little more interesting. In the future, I will add them near the end of the cooking time, as they ended up a bit overcooked, but I liked the look and taste.



Besides the rice & lentil mixture there are bell pepper strips, tomatoes, sliced chicken breast, grapes, and a brownie made for me by my husband.

Princess Leia?

Bento #21 is a last minute creation that took on a life of its own. Most of it is straight from the freezer, then I heated it up in the microwave before lunch. It was really tasty! Here it is:



The bottom layer consists of fried rice and frozen corn. Hiding underneath the frozen Boca burger pattie is some BBQ sauce, yum! Veggies from the fried rice form the neck, and next to that, looking somewhat like a hand, is some fresh parsley. On the right and left of the pattie are cherry tomatoes. The face is drawn on with ketchup, mustard and a pickle.

And that was lunch!

October Onigiri

Bento #20 features a jack-o-lantern onigiri coated in soy sauce with a nori grin. It is surrounded by fried rice and tomatoes. Simple but delicious, here it is:

Last Minute Bento

Bento #19 was created with very little care, I must admit. This morning at the last minute I threw some leftovers together and called it lunch. Here it is, in all it's inartistic glory:


It contains spaghetti, cherry tomato with sprig of parsley, cashew peices, grapes, and a slice of cake.

Something Fishy

I can't quite put my fin on it, but there is something fishy about bento #18. Here is the lunch I will be taking with me on our feild trip to the swimming pool today:


Up top we have a fish shaped onigiri with a nori smile. It is filled with a bit of tuna fish. And I can't remember if this is the spicy kind, or the kind with relish, so I will just have to wait and see. (Since I froze them earlier and thought I'd be able to remember and...um...no, I don't.) It is swiming through a sea of spanish rice-a-roni near a school of carrot fish.

Below is a tuna fish sandwich (are you sensing a theme?) topped with little nori fish. Next to the sandwich are grapes and almonds, respectively.

And that's lunch!

Mexican Bento

Quick bento (#17) thrown together this morning with left-overs from last night's dinner:


In the smaller container are grapes and tortilla wraps with refried beans, olives and taco meat. The larger container is stuffed full of spanish rice, with accents of a plain onigiri in the shape of a star sprinkled with "chili con limon" seasoning, and a tomato with parsley.

Nori Faces

My "sweet sixteen" bento is the first that I have gotten to use nori to make faces with. I put them on the carrots from my garden, as well as the onigiri. But I found the seaweed very difficult to cut into nice shapes. It will take practice, I'm sure.

Here are the carrots, picked from my garden the morning of:


And here is the lunch itself:


On the left is the onigiri, steamed broccoli and some of the last cherry tomatoes from my garden (oh, wait, one of those is a roma). On the left are the two carrot characters, some raisins, little tortilla wraps with ham and dijion mustard in them, a few almonds, a couple crackers, and a chocolate chip cookie.