Bento Roundup: End of January, Beginning of February

I’ve been slacking on posting bento, but not on packing them! I make my bento the night before and usually take a picture of it at work (love that fluorescent lighting). By the time I get home, it’s time to make dinner and go to bed.

Jan 14th – Rice; Vegetables and Pork stir-fried from New Years; cabbage tsukemono; kohaku namasu

Jan 20th – Another leftovers bento. Milk tea pocky; vegetable/pork stir-fry; kohaku namasu; cabbage tsukemono; roll and leftover lobster macaroni and cheese from Jackson’s Mighty Fine Lucky Lounge. The mac and cheese went mostly uneaten.

Jan 27th – I had class after work this day, so I packed my food in a cupcake box that had come with a purchase earlier in the week. ham, spinach and cheese sandwich; gingerbread truffle; fruit salad; baked chips. This was too much food since half of the sandwich, the truffle, and the fruit salad went uneaten.

Jan 28th – kohaku namasu; homemade applesauce; milk chocolate truffle; rice with sesame seeds; lop cheung cooked in ginger-chile sauce.

Jan 29th – Rice; spinach; grilled tofu; homemade applesauce; harry and david soft caramel; thai chicken dumpling; lettuce; random “Asian chicken”. A lot of this food was from the Whole Foods prepared food bar, which I have now concluded that I do not like. The caramel was delicious!

Feb 2nd – I had a meeting off-site this day, so I wanted something that was small and I wouldn’t have to carry around all day after lunch. sandwich on challah bread; strawberries and pineapple; homemade applesauce; salt and vinegar chips. This was a lot of food, so the chips were eaten later as a snack. The pink snack box is really an onigiri container!

Feb 3rd – Another challah sandwich; pineapple slices; red velvet cupcake from the bakery in my building.

Feb 4th – Milk tea pocky, coconut cupcake; dark chocolate truffle; tamagoyaki; rice with black sesame seeds; lop cheung; pineapple chunks; homemeade apple sauce. This was so much food! I ate the sausage, two out of three of the tamagoyaki and most of the rice. Nothing else!

Carte Postale de France

Bento Concept &  KaraChiwie have finished this world tour, but another one will start soon.
January’s stop was Morocco and February’s is France.

Besides the movie Ratatouille, France brings to mind desserts and picnics. For this bento I made a sort of Cordon Bleu-style chicken and packed it in a sandwich box. The inside of the chicken is filled with a little mustard, ham and provolone cheese. The bottom part is filled with chocolates I received from my sister for an early Valentine’s day present, a slice of a homemade roll cake I made (more on that later), two Nilla wafers, and the last of the pickled vegetables from New Years. This was too much food and sadly, I didn’t have enough room for all the chocolates.

I have bento from between last month’s world stop and this month’s, but I haven’t had time to post them! As it is, I’m always late for the Tour du Monde!

Carte Postale du Maroc

Bento Concept &  KaraChiwie are still traveling around the world with bento.
December was Brazil and January is Morocco. When thinking about Morocco, the first things I think about are preserved lemons, mounds of spices, and tagine. While many of spices are sold in stores around me, and some gourmet shops even sell tagines, I chose to make couscous, the main grain of Morocco. The couscous is lemon and spinach, with some lemon slices on top. Chicken is the most common protein in Morocco, but I chose to pair it with some leftover fish I had. To emulate the tagine’s traditional triangle shape, I split the couscous into triangles. One is the couscous and the other triangle is tomato rice.

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Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! (I’m a week late in saying this of course…)
How did you celebrate your New Year?

My family celebrates the Chinese New Year (on February 14th this year), but we celebrate it on New Years day since that’s when the family is together and available. On this day, my Grandma cooks a delicious feast. The side dishes vary every year, but we always have Roast Duck, Pork, and Stuffing (made with liver). It’s my favorite time of the year because I love all these foods! This year we also had vegetables (carrot, jicama, cauliflower, broccoli) with chicken, pickled cabbage, and rice. I arrived to dinner late, so there may have been other things that got eaten up! Dessert was green tea ice cream and some coconut cream pie.

I made sure to get first dibs on all the yummy leftovers. I especially like the pickled vegetables my Grandma made. She spent the whole year of 2009 pickling them for New Years! My first bento of 2010 was basically a recreation of this New Year’s spread. More on that later~