Salad Nicoise Bento

I just received my prize from the Food Ninja contest ("It's a Major Award!") and I am thrilled with it. It's a ManPans frying pan with a lid. This puppy is really well made and heats up super fast. I decided to break it in with a Martha Stewart Everyday Food recipe and it came out really well. I made steaks with baslamic dijon sauce, boiled new potatoes with herbs, and steamed green beans with lemon and butter. Today's bento uses leftovers from that meal (not the steaks, we scarfed those down).

In the large container: a hard boiled egg, tuna in oil, boiled new potatoes with herbs, and steamed green beans. In the smaller container: a mandarin orange, walnuts from the Santa Rosa Original Certified Farmers Market, and a Ghirardelli chocolate. The bento boxes are from a set of four that I picked up at Border's Books.

Here's the ManPans frying pan in action. It heated up really fast and kept the heat well. Normally my burners have cool spots in the middle, but this pan heated up evenly across the surface. And the sauce came together in a flash.

Here's our dinner. This sauce was really tasty and super easy. I recommend checking out Martha's Everyday Food section for easy dinner ideas. And big thanks to La Fuji Mama, Bella Limento, and Salty Seattle for hosting the Food Ninja contest.