Taiyaki

The verdict? YUM!!! It was sooo surprisingly good. Basically, 2 waffles shaped like a fishy, with red bean paste inside. I'm only upset that I only brought one for breakfast!! X_x

Trials

Today's bento! Panko chicken, with Bulldog sauce on the side, and ham and cheese rollups, and 3 color dango/mochi. For dessert: the other chocolate cornet from the Japonaise Bakery. I definately needed more sugar in the dango, but I ran out last night when I was making them! Agh!

Porter Square, Cambridge MA

Trip to the Porter Exchange!! I was in the area, otherwise it's a trip out there, at least 45 minutes on the train in.
We started off by going to Kotobukiya, the Japanese market, but I'll get to that in a bit.

After the market, we went to the Japonaise Bakery! Yum!!



I got a chocolate cornet for then, and another for lunch today, and for breakfast today I got a custard-filled bun! They were sooo good! I also got a cold Jasmine tea.

At the store, they have snacks and stuff up front, and some instant ramen and such. Along one side there's some fridge stuff, and along the back is the frozen, the fish market, and the fridge section where I know they make onigiri, but every time I've been there...THEY'RE SOLD OUT! Every. Single. Time. Agh! One day!! *shakes fist* Going around the corner, there are cooking ingredients. Plus, more snacks! Past that, there's a Japanese movie rental in the back.



Here's what I got! Up top, is mochiko, or sweet rice flour! The two buns are maple flavored buns. I got a small Bull-dog sauce! Plus, the hard to find okonomi sauce, for okonamiyaki! Below that is bonito flakes and seaweed, red beans, and some more rice because I was out.



I also found some taiyaki hanging out in the freezer section! These are red bean filled, fish shaped cakes.

I got home, and was chilly still, so I made some soup to warm me up. Made up some udon and made some miso, mixed it, and yum! I didn't have any regular seaweed, so I tried breaking up nori as substitute. It was still good, but you could definitely tell that there was a bit too much salt because of that.

*yawn*

So tired... but! Last night, we were going into Boston, and I knew that we were going to be in for a while. So I made Kelley and I bento!



They were both the same, just different bento boxes. I made sandwich roll ups, mine was ham and cheese, and Kelley's was bologna and cheese. I put in sliced cucumbers around it, and then we had Crazy Bugs organic mac and cheese. Yum! Kelley liked it! :)

Ghetto Bento

There's nothing quick to put together in the house!!

So, I made stuff up XD



New correct-ish portion bento. Kinda.... ugly. *shrug* But it works! 3 jellys, one regular, 2 yogurt jellys, and 2 koolaid. The shotglass is sauce for what's inside, I had nothing else. :(



Inside! Front is provolone wrapped salad. I really had not much lol. Next, sliced pickled green tomatoes. My mom made them over the summer, they've been pickling since abouttt... June? July? Possibly August/Sept., I can't remember. Last is cold soba. The sauce is to dip the soba in. I know it's a summer food, but It was all I had!! TT_TT

Party!

Last night Kelley and I had an impromptu inaugural party! Happy Obama Day, the sequel! (The 1st was when he won the election.) So I decided to play bartender and cook. (No pics, sorry, was too busy!) Picked up some stuff at the supermarket, and got to it!

First, I made mini pizzas. I had bought some dough premade, so i took little balls and spread them out on a pizza pan, and added sauce and cheese. Popped them in for 8 mins, and voila! Took a max of 30 mins, most of it prep.

Next, I made 3 tamagoyaki rolls. Cut them up into slices and stuck toothpicks into them. They were gone within an hour or two. I had a request to make more!! :) (By the way: my recipe is- 3 eggs, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 tablespoon veggie oil, and a dash of sea mineral salt. I put half in the pan, and add a broken up slice of cheese. Let it cook thoroughly. Push to the side of the tamagoyaki pan, and add the rest of the egg in a sheet style. I will add pictures later! Let it cook most of the way evenly, pushing the egg around and such, until there's only a liiiiiittle left on top that's not cooked. Roll the egg into the roll shape, and let cook on either side for a little bit, to make sure it gets heated. Slice and enjoy after cooling!)

A little later, I whipped out my sushi mat, and made crab meat, cucumber, and carrot sushi. Those were gone in 10 minutes.

After that, I made homemade chicken, lettuce, carrot dumplings. They had to cool down, but it was still very quick for them to leave the plate, maybe 15 mins.

After that! I was done haha!! I went to bed!! :D

I also was bartender for the night haha. It was clear my drinks were the best, as they were all finished, and I was walking around picking up half finished drinks that had been made too strong by my friends.
Trick: Juice tastes better than cheap vodka. XD Mixing well is a drinksaver, as well.

Umeboshi onigiri

My onigiri! Finally got the hang of it. :) Today's are filled with pickled plum, umeboshi. What I did was cut open an umeboshi, took out the seed, then spread it out in between clumps of rice, then formed it in the mold. (Does that make sense?? Rice, umeboshi, rice. I confused myself x_x) Actually, cuz they're so small, I did 1 1/2 umeboshi to each onigiri.



And the morning snack was 2 mini Jellys, that have bits of lychee in them. I think. I'm not entirely positive about that.



I had made a bento for today, but my dad came in and said "You wanna go to lunch with us? Good, let's go." Lol, no choice for me! x_x;;;

Leftovers

Last night/this morning I was exhausted... so it was a very slapdash bento.



The balls are basically mashed potatoes with some corn and peas mixed in. They were in the manga cookbook, so i decided to try them. I'd like them better warm lol.
Tamagoyaki, and in the other box leftover mac and cheese and more potato balls. (I had lots of leftovers haha.)

*yawn* I'm still so sleepy....

Breakfast!

Today's breakfast is a bento! Normally I don't have that much time to do a breakfast. Pretty simple, closest is a mini cheese omelet, next is a piece of marble pound cake in half to fit, and last is vanilla yogurt with some strawberry sauce on top! I got to use my new spoon and fork with it! :D Surprisingly filling.

Monster Bento!!

This thing is huge. I knew this when I opened up the packaging last night. So the top I made like a breakfast type thing with a piece of pound cake with strawberries, and a couple slices of leftover apples.



For the lunch part, I made tamagoyaki with my new pan, and it came out awesome!! Sliced it up nicely after it had cooled. Put them on a small bed of rice, and filled the space with some salad.



Last, the main meal portion is homemade dumplings! Inside them are leftover chicken, chopped carrots, and some lettuce!

Kam Man shopping

Spent too much last night, but still, total, only $70. For everything, food and otherwise.



Woo! OK, 1st, the supplies. Top to bottom this time! Up top, there's a 3pack of cooking chopsticks, a new bento that holds a looooot more than it seems like it can, a tamagoyaki pan, 2 spatulas, yakitori skewers, and ravioli molds! The tamagoyaki pan I was very happy with, its quite thick, and nonstick (Very very nonstick. It's quite slick without any oil added.), and although it can't be seen well right now, one end is curved inside to help with the initial rolling. Plus in the background I got a bargain book from Borders! ^_^



Cute new lunch utensils!! They are all mini! The chopsticks have little chickies on them. The spoon says love & peace on it. The fork is actually kind of purple-y. (The pic didn't come out well.)



Food market side! Let's see, left to right, somen and udon, dumpling wraps (for today's bento!!), fresh udon, cooking sake, milk tea (for today's bento as well), dashi miso, red miso, moon cakes (they were...not appealing to me. Ugh. >.<), and last, umeboshi for my onigiri escapades!!

Curry

Today's bento: Veggie instant curry over rice, rice burgers, carrots, and failed tamagoyaki. For a snack, a red bean mochi!



The curry is Golden Curry brand, pre-packaged, mild curry. Yummyness! This is my 1st time having it. I might try putting it in the bento a different way, or try putting some color on top next time.



The rice burgers I got from a recipe from my new Manga Cookbook, and it worked out well, I was just rushing so one fell apart. haha! They have cheese and cabbage in them. Plus some carrots for the veggies!



Last: the failed tamagoyaki. I need to alter that recipe, cuz the one in the book was kind of... not good. Ugh. So, I got fed up after 10 mins, and just cooked the eggs haha. They're really good, I like the little bit of sugar in the recipe. Just how to get them as a roll was the epic fail part. The book uses aluminum foil to roll it while theyre still slightly runny. Yea, no. Bad idea. The eggs stick to the foil, and don't finish cooking all the way. Next time, I'll probably just cook them very thin, then roll it up and slice it.



I love that brand mochi. It's nomtastic.

Snack

Today I didn't make a bento lunch, but I did make a snack!



It's very small, very simple, the leftovers of my experimenting last night with my new bento stuff. 2 cabbage and celery sushi rolls, and a plain onigiri. :D The onigiri I had the most trouble with, the 1st I made too big, the second the nori strips were too small, so I ended up pasting 3 strips on to cover one. The third I got too lazy to cut more strips, and this one, the last one, I made perfect just for today's snack! Hah!

Back to Kam Man!

We took an elongated trip to Kam Man and really had a nice long look around. And lo and behold...



A wall of bento boxes.

So we did all our shopping, and this is all I came up with. So much stuff that I never saw before!!!



I will go through everything I got :)



Yay! Starting at the bottom left and working right, some dried noodles, instant udon, then up to the panko breadcrumbs, then the big round wheel is a big thing of mochi, and the little ones on top are individual red bean mochi. The bottle is soba noodle soup base, for dipping cold noodles into on hot days! (Example: Tenchi movie 2)



This is a mini sushi mat on the bottom right, instant mild curry, a lychee juice drink, on the left of the can is a small bottle of nori paste, above the sushi mat is an onigiri mold, and to the left is my new snack bento! Also, I got an Initial D dvd for $1. With english subs! Woot!




The first snack in my new bento was for Kelley, with sliced apple, and some vanilla yogurt in a cute paper cupcake holder.

And last, at Walmart (aka slave labor mart, as I like to call it), I got a new griddle, just for making yummy bento food! (But I convinced Kelley to let me get it by promising french toast on it!)

Here's an action shot! I was just starting to make fried rice on it! (It came out great!!!)



Last, I got the 'Manga Cookbook!' It has terribly corny drawings, but there are some nice recipes in there. Some are a little silly... (apples cut like bunnys... waste of a few pages, when instead something that you actually *cook* could be in there...) but others are nice. (Okonamiyaki!!)

Healthyness!

Todays bento!



First, we start with chicken croquettes. An easy and great leftover meal, made with only eggs, chopped chicken, and Italian breadcrumbs. Pan fried yum!

EDIT: Make sure the chicken is already cooked!



Next, a small 'salad' of just cucumbers, celery, and carrots. Andes mints to finish the meal, after....



The fruit salad! Cut up honey crisp apple, strawberries, and some blackberries to finish!

Kam Man market

Ok, so where I get my Asian food is usually just Stop & Shop for basics, but for the hard to find stuff, I go to Kam Man. They are, in a word, epic.
This is the front of the Quincy store.


Inside it are 48 small glass seperated stores for anything an asian family might need in the Boston area. DVD store, Cds, books, BOBA TEA!!!, a little restaurant, medicinal stuff, etc. On the far left is a bank, and a market for dishes (which are SO cheap!!!), cooking stuff, home stuff! Like a Chinese Wal-Mart. Here's some soy sauce dispensers! They also have little ones for bentos.



On the far right however, is the supermarket part.

Produce department





They have a very fresh seafood department, complete with a huge tank of fresh live tilapia that you can pick from, crabs, lots of different fish and shellfish. There is also a butcher, and a cooked food department with some tables. A very extensive produce department. And in the aisles are lots of foods, from Chinese, to Korean, to Japanese. Snacks, pastas, steamed buns, mochi, pastes, sauces, currys, ahhh so much stuff! I find something new every time I go in there!

Here's the butcher dept., and in the far back you can see some of the seafood tanks.



Last, an article from the local newspaper!
http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2005/08/06/news/news04.txt

Second Bento!!

This one was a couple weeks ago, but I got sick for a week that night that I made it, so I didn't get to eat all of it! Ah!



This time, I did some easy plain sushi, with carrots decorating the sides.




For the chicken, I still had leftover teriyaki and Ah-so chicken, so I tried to give it some color with some cut up red peppers.





And last... Yan Yan dipping sticks for dessert!!

First Bento!

Oh boy! Ok, so this was my 1st bento that I ever made, maybe about last month, I think?





This is everything... rice...

Here's the chicken!



Half is just teriyaki sauce, and the other half is Ah-So Chinese bbq sauce.



This is milk steam buns, string cheese, carrots, some nori cracker snacks, and a packet of koala cookie snacks!

Um...yea!