Beets and Sausage Bento

I used more of the delicious items from my weekend trip to the Santa Rosa Original Certified Farmers Market in today's bento. I roasted one of the chioggia beets from Singing Frogs Farm in a 425 degree oven, wrapped in foil, for about 45 minutes. I sliced big chunks of it and then cut those chunks with cookie cutters to make the flower shaped beet slices in this bento.

Also in this bento: beet greens, rice, Texas Style Hot Links from Franco's One World Sausages, sugar snap peas, and cherries. The little seeds in the middle of the beet are black sesame seeds.

I also sauteed the beet greens with olive oil, garlic, and shallots as a bed for the beets. After the greens were done, I squeezed a bit of lemon juice on them, then tossed them with a bit of crumbled Point Reyes blue cheese, toasted walnuts, and chopped Italian orange peel. Italian orange peel is preserved orange peel, similar to candied fruits you might find in a fruitcake. But not disgusting, ha ha. 

A big ol pile of assorted beets at the Santa Rosa Original Certified Farmers Market.

I hope you will join me on June 28th at the Sonoma Marin Fair for my bento demonstration. It will be at noon and I will show you how to pack a bento, and I will also have a starter bento kit for a lucky member of the audience. 

Pasta Bento

Today's bento is made with lots of leftovers and little bits of this and that. The Santa Rosa Original Certified Farmers Market is open on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and I usually start running low on ingredients right before the next market day.

In the larger container: penne pasta mixed with green garlic from the farmers market, tasso ham from Franco Dunn, red bell pepper, onion, broccoli, and some leftover chicken drumstick. I tossed the pasta with a mixture of shoyu, lime infused olive oil, mirin, sugar, and freshly ground black pepper. YUM! In the smaller container: slices of pepper jack cheese, a tangerine, and little crackers.

One of the items I put up for the Bento4Japan auction on eBay sold today! Woohoo! This lovely bento starter kit is still up for bids. Please click here to make your bid, the auction for this set will be over in 1 day. We've raised over $1500 in one week! Find out more about Bento4Japan and how you can help by clicking here.

I've featured today's bento in Shannon's What's For Lunch Wednesdays blog. Check out more fun lunch ideas on her blog!

Carrot Salad Bento

This past weekend I made matching bentos for my daughter and myself. She was at a church function during the morning, then we headed to a coworkers house to pick up some furniture for our new place, so I figured a colorful bento would be a nice treat during her busy day.

In this bento: a tangerine from Schletewitz Family Fruit Factory, a sweet pea blossom on a tatsoi leaf from Earthworks (a new vendor at the Santa Rosa Original Certified Farmers Market), two Girl Scouts thin mints (!), carrot salad made with carrots, cabbage, green garlic from a vendor at the Santa Rosa Original Certified Farmers Market (I didn't get their name, sorry), and walnuts from the Sass Family, plus tamagoyaki made with a Sonoma Valley egg, tasso ham from Franco Dunn, and more green garlic. The lower compartment is just rice. YUM.

Here are our two bentos side by side. There's a little dish of my first attempt at tamagoyaki, which turned into scrambled eggs. :) Not enough oil in the tamagoyaki pan.

Green garlic from the Santa Rosa Original Certified Farmers Market.

I have been keeping my eye on tweets by the amazing Maki of Just Bento, watching the events unfold in Japan. The world is a smaller place and my heart feels bigger today, making room for my bento friends and their families. Donations can still be made to help Japan in the aftermath of this tragedy. Visit your local Red Cross or try ifrc.org to help.