Mochiko Chicken Bento

A lovely visit to the Santa Rosa Original Certified Farmers Market yesterday means I can now fill my bento lunches with local veggies and fruits. This bento has items from a few different local farmers.

In this bento: lime mochiko chicken, a hard boiled quail egg, slices of armenian cucumber from Redwood Empire Farm, orange cherry tomatoes from Ridgeview Farms, padron peppers and a mini Pink Pearl apple from Triple T Ranch and Farms, and a yakionigiri rice ball from Trader Joe's.

I was super excited to try these gorgeous apples from Triple T Ranch and Farms. The interior has a bright blush of pink extending from the skin towards a white interior. Larry of Triple T helped me pick out a few small apples perfect for bento. Some of the apples in this photo have apple scab, which is just an outer flaw on the apple, it doesn't extend into the rest of the fruit. These are tart, juicy little apples. I just love them!

Pasta Bento with Lychee

I made this pasta dish last night for dinner, and the leftovers are perfect for bento. You'll also see something I rarely include in bento: fresh lychee fruits! I found them at Trader Joe's. Yum.

In this bento: pasta salad with red onion, tomato from The Patch, basil and armenian cucumber from Redwood Empire Farm, carrots, and shredded chicken. Also a hard boiled quail egg, a mini Gravenstein Apple from Redwood Empire Farm, edamame, and lychee fruit.

European Food Store Bento

My hubby and I stopped by the European Food Store in Santa Rosa yesterday. I've been curious about checking it out, as I heard it has various Russian, Polish, and Eastern European food stuffs. I bought some delicious sunflower seed bread, some tea and coffee, and this fun bottle of mayo-mustard spread from a company called Zakuson. Upon closer examination, it looks like the company is based in Toronto. But the label just cracked me up. The guy looks totally crazy! The spread is pretty mild, nothing special, but it works well on this sandwich.

In this bento: baby carrots, a mini Gravenstein Apple from Redwood Empire Farms, and a sandwich with sunflower seed bread from the European Food Store, slices of tomato from The Patch, sopressata, mayo-mustard spread, and butter. Насладитесь вашей едой!

Bruschetta Bento

I realized that despite having a farmers market open almost every day of the week in Sonoma County (it's true!), I wouldn't be able to attend one until Sunday. So yesterday, I swung by a farm stand in Rincon Valley. Redwood Empire Farm has their own farm stand on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, and so I scooted out there for some zucchini, armenian cucumber, basil, and mini gravenstein apples. It was fun to see Jeff and his sister Theresa selling their products right next to where they are grown. Here's my bento made with lots of local produce.

In this bento: bruschetta with tomatoes from The Patch, basil from Redwood Empire Farm, and fontina cheese, a fresh fig, a hard boiled quail egg with nori face details, slices of armenian cucumber from Redwood Empire Farms, a mini Gravenstein Apple from Redwood Empire Farms, and two baby carrots.

Here is the face punch that I picked up at Daiso on my recent trip to Seattle. I do like it, but I still want to get the awesome face punches for sale on J-List. Sigh... we'll see.

Here's a pic of the cucumbers for sale at Redwood Empire Farm stand. There's a mix of both slicing cucumbers and armenian cucumbers (which are actually an asian melon). If you can find the aremenian ones, give them a try!

Waking Up At 8:30am Bento

I've named this bento after what happened today, which after the last month, really seems like a miracle. :-) For almost a month, I have been covering for one or another vacationing co-worker on the morning news show. That means rolling out of bed at 4am, being coherent enough to write news stories at 4:30am, and then having enough brain power to talk without stumbling over my tongue at 5:30am. And I also had to do my own regular job in addition to covering the morning show. Ouchie. So this is really a celebration of the fact that I got up at a reasonable time today, and had the energy to actually make a bento. This is a small one, but I need to take baby steps while getting back into bento.

In this bento: yakionigiri from Trader Joe's, slices of peach jam-glazed pork (peach jam is from Dry Creek Peach and Produce), a fresh fig, baby carrots, and slices of Early Girl tomato from The Patch. I'm going to Party on the Plaza in Rohnert Park tomorrow, so I will have time to do more market shopping then... gotta restock for delicious summer time bentos. I missed you, bento buddies!