Category Archives: japanese

bento, japanese

: : Bento #3 ~ Getting slightly easier but harder too : :

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3rd bento box is done but some technical problems has arisen.

-Wilthering seaweed.
-Yolk in quail’s egg has settled on the bottom. Haha!
-Wasn’t easy to cut out the shapes in the quail. Haha!
-Make sure that nori sheets are oil free!
-Use something to completely level the noodles! It’s not flat enough
-Get some cherry tomatoes or something that is red to give it the red color.
-Don’t be lazy to cut cucumbers to fill in.
-Get a smaller food container.
-DON’T USE TOO MUCH HAM!!

bento3_1

Red rice noodles stir-fried with long beans, yellow capsicum and onions. Seasoned with 2 teaspoon of Mirin and 1 teaspoon of Lea & Perrin’s Worcester sauce. Surprisingly, the veggies didn’t mix too well, or the noodles were perhaps a bit too long. Anyway, separated out the veggie into a smaller corner where I covered them with some cut-out shapes of ham and carrots.

The quail eggs were interesting to cut. The danger was that too much pressure and the egg may just burst. Also, I found that the egg yolk have all sunk to the bottom because the eggs were propped upright.

bento3_2

This was neat to do. I cut the stars in the egg and stuffed in some star-shaped carrots. Used the same mould so it stuck together well. Haha! The idea came from this Japanese Bento Blogger. She’s amazing.

I also wrapped around sheets of nori seaweed around the eggs since these were leftovers from the flower cutting. It left a very nice color combination. Better than I thought.

Didn’t fill up the entire container because I thought it might have been too much eggs by then.

bento3_3

The stir-fried veggie is underneath. Yes, ham. Ham. HAM!!! Very very salty and fatty. 🙁

bento3_4

A garden full of flowers. Tried to make the green lawn but there’s more to bento making then what I had expected. Need to find a way to make the noodles more flat. It was too uneven so the flowers weren’t completely flat. Probably better to use rice.

Ok, now all I need to do in the future is think how to avoid the usage of ham. Also, to cook fish or meat for lunchbox. Been lazy the past few weeks so it’s either egg or beans for the protein source. Else, I’ll eat only a small protein portion during dinner and put the other half into my lunchbox.

bento, japanese

: : Bento #2 ~ Getting better but still a bit sloppy : :

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Ok, getting slightly better at bento-ing but the difficulty is trying not to use ham. Too much salt is not good for Wena. 🙁

bento2_box1

The pink apple case is a jelly mould : 10 for RM2.80. 

Left mould : celery slices at the bottom. On top are carrot shape food with a slice of ham.

Right mould : A layer of tomato sauce at the very bottom with the middle layer of organic alphabet pasta (60% wholegrain).

Middle : Scrambled eggs wrapped in a mould.

bento2_box2

Both apple cases hold the same thing. I was getting worried that I wouldn’t have enough veggies so was trying to just stuff wherever I could with it. Each case holds french beans with some nori seaweed strips as well as a quail’s egg each. On top are carrots and hams. One thing about using the cookie cutters, I’m going to get a soft plastic mallet to gentle hammer the darn cookie cutters. Only a few pieces of ham so hopefully not too bad on the salt intake. Next time though, can’t have it in here. Sigh. Anyway, leftover scraps of carrots and ham went into a peanutty roast terrine at the bottom.

nutty_veggie_roast1

Tried out making a terrine with peanuts, cashew nuts, cheddar cheese, ham, onions, golden mushrooms, carrots, wholemeal breadcrumbs and one egg. Turned out better than I expected. A bit high in calories so have to be very careful when taking a slice.

nutty_veggie_roast2

Doesn’t look too bad, no? I have to check out other terrine recipes, especially vegetarians ones that doesn’t call for cheese or peanuts. Maybe have to start thinking of trying out with beans. Granny said that it’s not something that she would eat too often but she couldn’t stop eating it. Haha!

Tomorrow, have to go and buy a packet of red and brown rice from Umang’s office. Also, on Tuesday, I’ll be getting my bento sets. The cookie cutters had already arrived, now just the containers. Which will probably flipped my Granny a bit considering that there’s already a lot of plastic containers everywhere. I haven’t told her yet about my intention to goto Daiso at the Curve to check out for some bento stuff. I hope that there are still some left in there.

bento, japanese, weight loss

: : Bento Beginner : :

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Bento #1 - box 1

Bento #1 - Box 2

 Sloppy work but what the hey. First time beginner. 🙂 Egg filling between 2 honey wholemeal bread. All vegetables except for the cherry tomatoes had been steamed.

Postnote : My 2nd cousin Davin has made this interesting commentary about the 2nd picture.

Is that someone sitting on the balcony of the longhouse looking over the Mountains (broccoli) on the left and Clouds (cauliflower) on the right?

japanese

: : Bento Boxes : :

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I think I may have found a better solution to portion control than I realised. Because it looks like the Japanese have already come up with that solution. Apparently, all one needs to know is 3 parts carbo, 1 part protein, 2 parts vegetables and select the container based on the volume.

Guide to Choosing the Right Size Bento Box
Translation of how to Select Bento Boxes from Yellow Studio, Japan

So, it looks like the Tupperware lunchbox that I’ve been carrying around is the 900 ml one and what I really should be eating is a 600 ml container.

Anyway, there are lot of inspirations online. Some links are here :
Bento Challenge
Video Games Characters come alive!

Well, have ordered some bento sets from ebay Malaysia. Now all I have to do is wait for them to come but in the mean time, just use what I currently have at hand.

japanese, restaurant, USA

: : Shogun of Japan, Hibachi Steak House : :

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Hi all,

I’m trying putting up YouTube.com videos. I got myself a Sony HDD Handycam DCR-SR62 and have been having fun with it the past few days. The only problem is that Blogger doesn’t allow YouTube embedded videos until it’s link up with Google Accounts. Or so it’s been notified since Sept 2006. So, at the moment, it’s just a link to the relevant video page.

I”m currently on a business trip to Lubbock, Texas, USA. And here are some videos of the Japanese Steak House we went to, known as Shogun.

The front of the restaurant. It was very quaint. Plus, it has been 4-5 days since I last ate rice so the sight of rice was a pleasure. An added bonus was that they either used Thai or Japanese small grain rice. Yummy.

The chef’s introduction. It’s a bit blurry because there’s not enough light coming from the handycam so was having a tough time to focus on a post.

Cooking Fried Rice. Klak klak klak klak. ^_^

Meat cooking time. By then, we were extremely hungry and couldn’t wait for the food to come out.

And finally, the veggie bit that is getting cooked.

Postnote : Directions using Google Map.