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.

Little Chick

Here is lunch for tomorrow, bento #15:


It is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, with carrots and raisins forming a flower on top. More carrots peices, some almonds, Wheatables, white cake with blueberry topping and a boiled egg cut into the shape of a chick. The chick has a carrot beak and mustard seed eyes.

Goodnight!

Quick Bento to take to Rehearsal

Bento # 14 was prepared in about 10 minutes. Therefore, it does not have any faces on it or special veggies punched out into cutsie shapes. However what it did have was one delicious sandwich and a few sides. Take a peek at what I brought to rehearsal. (By the way, I'm in a play with Magenta Theater right now, and if you want to come and see it, you can get ticket information here.)


The sandwich was rather an inventive one, utilizing the left-overs I had present in the fridge this morning. I started with a sourdough roll and spread hummus on it, then sliced up the last of the Shake-n-Bake chicken, and finally added a few peices of ham. The overall effect, when eaten with the cucumber slices that I had packed next to it, was very good, I thought. I filled in the gaps and rounded off the meal with cherry tomatoes, grapes, and almonds.

Smiling Bananas

Yesterday's lunch, bento #13, was put together in about 30 minutes the morning of. I was just going to throw a sandwich in a baggie or something... but I couldn't help myself. I took one of my newly frozen onigiri out and made up a bento instead.


The bananas are the main event, with big goofy grins on their faces. I got the idea from a pic I saw on Flickr. They are surrounded by almonds and grapes. Below is a flower-shaped onigiri filled with a little bit of tuna and some relish. It is topped with carrots punched into flower shapes. Cherry tomatoes and steamed broccoli finish off this simple bento.

Making Onigiri

Here are some pics of the process of making onigiri the other night:


I had purchased what I felt was a very small portion of "pearl rice" to see if it was a good kind to get for making onigiri. I figure I had about 1 1/4 cups of unprepared rice. Then I put it in my steamer, with twice as much water and turned it on for about half an hour, while I did other things.


Above is a picture of me making onigiri according to Biggie's tutorial, which suggests using regular cookie cutters and plastic wrap in the place of an onigiri mold. I put some tuna and relish in the center.


Later, I decided I wanted to make some in the more basic shape - a triangle formed by hand. So I got out a teacup and used the method described on Just Hungry. These I filled with tuna and some spicy seasoning.

I am very pleased to learn that I like the taste of these onigiri, since I still have about six of them in the freezer - in various shapes. And tonight when we were at the grocery store we picked up some nori, so now I can make cute little faces with more flexibility than I had when using black olives.

Little Onigiri Man

Bento #12 features my first attempt at making onigiri (basically, a Japanese rice ball). I made this man using Saran Wrap and a cookie cutter, as described in Biggie's tutorial. I used a bit of cut up (left-over) Shake & Bake chicken for the filling, and used olive peices for the face (as I have yet to purchase any nori).


Though the onigiri was the main accomplishment, let me describe the rest of the meal:

Beside my little man are green apple slices, and gap fillers include cashews, an almond, grapes and dried appricot. In the smaller container below are little wraps made of tosted torilla spread with hummus, mujaddara, and carrot (for color). I stuffed them in there a little too tightly, though, I think, because you can't really tell where one leaves off and the other ones begin. I tried to fix this by putting a bit of parsley in the gaps (such as they were) with limited success.

Bird in Nest Bento

For Bento #11, I boiled my first egg (except for Easter, and maybe that one time I made potato salad) and fashioned it into a little chicken. This is easier said than done, I found. To look where I got this crazy idea, check out Christina's blog and the how to garnish website she has linked to.

Here is my bento:


The "bird" is a hard boiled egg (with the yolk removed, because I don't much like the texture). The eyes are tiny bits of olive, and the rest is carrot. The "nest" is made of whole wheat spaghetti noodles, cucumber slivers, and parsley. On the right is more cucumber and carrot in the shape of a little sideways flower, two cherry tomatoes, some Wheatables crackers, a plumb, grapes, and the gaps are filled with salted almonds.


My co-workers have taken to asking me how long these lunches are taking me to create. So I looked at the clock today, and have to own spending 50 minutes in creating this lunch. I can only get faster at this, right??

Chicken and Mashed Potatoes

Bento #10 is my first reheatable bento. Mashed potatoes, topped with shake and bake chicken pieces, steamed broccoli, tomatoes and corn.


Put together mostly during commercial breaks. :0)

Pizza

Tonight's dinner was inspired by the lunch served in the cafeteria today: pizza. I went back to the site where I got my pizza recipe, pulled out a crust I had made from scratch earlier and frozen, and got cooking.


Things didn't go quite as planned when I got halfway through sauteing the onion and garlic to make the sauce and realized I didn't have any tomato paste on hand. Oops! Not to be deterred at this stage in the game, I grabbed a can of tomato sauce and proceeded to apply it liberally throughout the kitchen. (Well, that part was on accident... but after I got that wiped up and cooked off the extra liquid in the skillet...)

I preheated my oven to 450 degrees with my baking stone in there, and slid the now-finished pizza on top of it. You will notice from the picture below that only half of the pizza has cheese on it. Alas, I cannot do cheese due to my food alergies.


That is why I am so pleased to have fresh tomatoes to slice on top. Yum!


Now I need to go see how much of the kitchen I can get cleaned up before it is time to watch the season premier of Heroes with Bryan.