Playing With Our European Food

This summer, my husband and I took the trip of a lifetime and toured around Europe.  We did the Railpass thing with our backpacks, and even stayed in a few hostels along the way.  But the main thing that really stood out to us was the food.  We had a great time trying all the local specialties and enjoying the sometimes novel presentation of favorite foods.  Take a look at a few snapshots from our trip:

These flower shaped ice cream cones came from Amorino.  We loved the fun presentation.

This was a delicious meal in Austria that we ate on a terrace.  You will have to imagine the accordion players in the background.

This was me trying the (surprisingly tasty) lentils cooked in bacon lard.  In my hand is a glass of new wine.  We were in a wine garden outside Vienna.

Here is the special cake the folks at Princess Cruises made us for our anniversary dinner.  Happy 7 years of marriage to us!

This is a waffle that Bryan got at one of the Greek isles.  He said it was delicious.

Here we are outside the vatican with our tremendous ice cream cones.

Pizza was a must in Italy.

We also had sandwiches.

And big sandwiches on crusty baguettes.  This and the next two dishes were in Carcassonne, France.

Bryan's artfully arranged salad.

 My more down to earth cassoulet.

And of course, we had to try the local wine.

And Bryan even got to BBQ for us while we were away.

Hope you enjoyed this little "taste" of our trip to Europe!

Fresh Lunch

Today I stayed home from work feeling puny. But that gave me a great opportunity to make myself a delicious salad for lunch. Take a look at this:

This salad was delicious. It was full of:

• Romain lettuce
• Iceburg lettuce
• carrots
• red peppers
• cucumber
• celery &
  
• sugar snap peas.

All of that was zero Weight Watchers points. Then I added:

• 1 Tbsp fat free thousand island dressing (1pt)
• 3 slices of turkey (0.5 pt)
• 1 slice of bacon (2 pts)
  

Pretty huge plate of food for just 3.5 points. :)

And I have tortilla soup in the crock pot for dinner. I can't wait...

Yum!

Broccoli Salad

This is a picture of the salad that I made and took to Easter. (Okay, I admit it, I'm a bit behind on my blogging.) It was my first time making it, and it got rave reviews. The recipe is my mom-in-law's:

BROCCOLI SALAD
( 4-6 servings)

• 2 Broccoli Heads - cut into bite size pieces
• 2 medium Tomatoes - de-seed and dice up into bite size pieces
• 2-3 strips of Crisp Bacon broken into small pieces (I use the microwave kind, so there's no mess!)
• 2 bunches Green Onions
• Sunflower Seeds - salted - amount is up to you
• 8-10 small Mushrooms - sliced

You just put all the ingredients into a bowl, coat them with lemon juice (half a lemon is plenty) and then add a bit of mayonnaise and mix it up.

Thanks again, Leslie, for the tasty recipe!

Lunch

This is the most visually appealing lunch I've had in some time. Today one of my students asked if I ever decorate my lunches. Then she suggested that I should do that again. I will have to plan something here pretty soon and get back toward bentos.

Anyway, this salad came about because Bryan had asked me to cut up some lettuce ahead of time for the next night's dinner. But once I saw it all cut up and washed, it looked so much like a tasty salad that I took it for lunch, instead!

Oh well... I can cut up more.

More Salad

I always feel that salads are sort of cheating, and not really bento... but it is my lunch and it was packed all in one container - so we will just go with it.

Can you spot all three types of meat in my salad? Pig, cow, chicken... I've practically got the whole farm in there!

And I love adding seeds to my salad. It feels festive, like a trip through the salad bar at the local buffet place. Leave me a comment and tell me: what do you like on your salads to make them special? (I always need good ideas!)

Happy Bento!

Colorful Lunch

After the last extremely bland-looking bento, I knew I had to kick it up a notch or two. So I stepped out into the garden and came back with some color:

Salad contains:

• romain lettuce, spinach, carrots, cucumber & celery (from the grocery store)
• borage flowers and leaves & tomatoes (from the garden)
• sprouts (grown on my counter-top)
  

Up close you can see how fuzzy the borage leaves are:

I wasn't impressed with the texture. And though I've heard the flavor described as akin to cucumber... I couldn't distinguish it.

Here is the rest of my lunch, in bento form:

Grapes fill the top tier, and my own concoction of tomato-basil-garlic-chicken-pasta fills the bottom.

Happy Bento!

Salad Posing as Bento

Wow... last week was busy! One of the highlights was having a few friends over to play Rock Band. Matt brought the game, Aaron brought an extra guitar controller, and Andrea brought the beautiful salad that made it into my bento the next day. Take a look at bento 76:


Besides the salad, there are almonds, Italian dressing, and one of my mom-in-law's delicious sugar cookies. (By the way, this wasn't all I had for lunch. I had some stir-fry too, later.)

Happy Bento!

[Don't look now... but my next post will be post #100! I better make it something good, eh?]

I'll call it "bento"

It may look like a salad to you, but for the purpose of easing back into my bento routine, I'm going to call this bento #28:


Filled with dark greens, covered with poppyseed dressing and topped with carrot, pinenuts and sunflower seeds... this salad is sure to be a winner come lunch time. I will supplement it with an apple, a handful of almonds, and for dessert I will have a brownie.

Here's hoping tomorrow's bento is slightly more impressive!

In other food news, Bryan BBQed for us and our guests last night. The weather was so nice we just couldn't resist. Pre-marinated teriaki chicken and pineapple kabobs hit the grill. But we lost our daylight and Bryan finished up with a flashlight checking to see if they were done. They were super tasty, though!