Spring Fruits Bento

Bleh, Blogger weirded out on me, so check the next post to see who won my One Year Anniversary giveaway!
I picked up some spring fruits at the Santa Rosa Original Certified Farmers Market yesterday. Yay! Neufeld Farms, who sell lots of dried fruit and are based in Tulare County, are one of the first vendors to have cherries and fresh apricots. I was a little wary to see if they were flavorful, but after trying a sample I was convinced! So nice to have this fresh spring fruit in my bento box!

In this bento box: pork patties from my freezer stash, clove scented jasmine rice with slices of garlic scapes from Middleton Farms on top, half of an apricot from Neufeld Farms, 4 cherries from Neufeld Farms, and edamame.

Beverage Pairing Suggestion: Pyramid Brewery makes a really yummy Apricot Ale, which is a hefeweizen flavored with apricots. The fruit flavors would mirror the spring fruit in this bento and also be a great contrast to the spicier pork patties and clove scented jasmine rice.

Sonoma Bento Blogiversary Winner!

Sorry this is a little late in posting, the weekend was jam packed and I am still recovering. Garden tours, food and wine tasting, and a hootenanny - and that was just Saturday!

There ended up being 46 different entries in the contest, so cool!

Without further ado: congrats to WYOWOMAN! Kristin has a fun blog called From My Little Corner filled with scrapbooking, cooking, thoughts, and other fun stuff.

Kristin, you have won this fun prize pack! You can continue your bento adventures with fun picks, chopsticks, a pink bento box, a nori punch, an onigiri mold, and an onigiri felt strap.

Thank you so much for all of the great responses, especially those who shared which bento tools they enjoy the most. Cutters seem really popular, and I can see why. They make cute really easy!

Today's bento uses leftover clove scented jasmine rice with homemade chicken and potato curry which is topped with scallions and garlic scapes from Middleton Farms, a wedge of lime to squeeze on the curry, an apricot from Neufeld Farms, baby carrots, and a few slices of cucumber. I love this round bento I got at Daiso. It's got two containers inside, which work really well to separate saucy stuff like the curry.

Have a great day bento pals!

Friday the 13th Bento

Not sure what is up with Blogger. It seems that it ate yesterday's post, and also deleted a few entries in my contest. So if you entered in the past few days, be sure to check to see if your comments are still there.

There's still time to enter my 1 year blogiversary giveaway! Click here and leave a comment to be entered in the drawing. And the contest is open to everyone on the planet, so if you live outside of the U.S. you can enter too! (If you live on Alpha Centauri, you cannot enter, sorry.) I will stop taking entries at midnight tonight (that's 12:00am Pacific Time May 14th, 2011).

So here's my fun bento for today: Jason from the Friday the 13th movies!

In this bento: fried rice, Jason's mask (made from provolone and nori), tamagoyaki omelette slices, baby carrots, cherries from Neufeld Farms, edamame, and an apricot also from Neufeld Farms.

Here's the spring fruits bento that Blogger ate (hope you enjoyed it, Blogger!!): pork patties from my frozen stash, clove scented jasmine rice topped with slices of garlic scapes from Middleton Farms, half of an apricot from Neufeld Farms, cherries from Neufeld Farms, and edamame.

Here's the goodies you could win in honor of my 1 year blogiversary! A cute bento box with a handmade bento box felt strap (made by me!), animal shaped food picks, chopsticks, an apple shaped nori punch, and an onigiri mold.

Click here to leave a comment and be entered in the drawing. Thanks for following my bento adventures!

Fava Bean Bento

Fava beans are now in season at the farmers markets in Sonoma County. They do take some effort to prepare, but they taste so good that I will usually give it a go a few times each spring.

In the top tier: fava bean and ricotta cheese puree with a fava bean butterfly on top, garlic crostinis, an apple rabbit, and walnuts from the Santa Rosa Original Certified Farmers Market. In the lower tier: pulled pork wrapped in a red lettuce leaf from Triple T Farms, cucumber slices, baby carrots, radishes, and a yakionigiri from Trader Joe's.

Preparing fava beans requires shelling them from their pods, blanching them and quickly cooling them, then removing the outer skin from the bean. Then you still have to cook them. So it's a bit of an effort. But super delish, and the essence of spring! I bought these favas from Triple T, but lots of vendors at the Sonoma farmers markets have favas right now. I also used a garlic scape (another amazing spring veggie) from Middleton Farms in this recipe.

Fava beans in their pods from Triple T.

Garlic scapes from Middleton Farms.

Fava Bean and Ricotta Puree with Garlic Crostini

a little over 1 pound of unshucked fava bean pods

olive oil for sauteeing

1 tablespoon minced shallot

1/2 tsp italian seasoning

2/3 cup whole milk ricotta cheese

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 garlic scape, chopped

salt and pepper to taste

1 baguette, sliced thin

1 garlic clove, sliced in half

2 tablespoons olive oil

fresh goat cheese (optional)

Prepare the favas as described above. Reserve a few fava beans for garnish. In a sautee pan, heat about 1 or 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Sautee the shallots for about 1 minute, then add the fava beans and the italian seasoning. Cook the favas for about 15 to 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. While the favas cook, arrange the sliced baguette on a cookie sheet. Rub each slice with the side of the garlic clove. Discard the clove. Brush each piece of baguette with olive oil, then broil until the edges of the baguette slices just start to turn golden. Remove bread from oven and set aside. Remove the fava beans from the heat and allow to cool for about 2 minutes. In a food processor, combine the favas, ricotta, olive oil, and garlic scape. Pulse to combine. Use a spatula to push the mixture back down (without the blade running!) to make sure the favas and cheese are well mixed. Turn the mixture out into a bowl and season with salt and pepper. Top garlic crostinis with fava mixture and an individual fava bean. You can also put a small bit of goat cheese on each crostini. Makes about 30 crostinis.

Delish with a nice chianti. Ffftftffftftfftftf....

DON'T FORGET: You still have time to enter to win my fun bento kit in celebration of one year of Sonoma Bento. Enter now by clicking here and leaving a comment! Drawing is on lucky Friday the 13th of May. :-)

Garlic Scape Pesto Bento

Wow, life sure got interesting! Sorry for no bento posts in a while, I ended up with a new job here at the station, and I am slowly but surely getting the hang of it. A side effect of my new two-hour daily talk show duties, is that I am hella tired, and don't have time to make bentos. But I was determined to get back to it this week.

I made a lovely pesto with garlic scapes, walnuts, and parmesan cheese, and tossed it with this penne pasta. There's also arugula from Ridgeview Farms, and a sugar snap pea and radish "tulip" from Crescent Moon Farms.

In the lower compartment: slices of white nectarine, cherries, carrots, and fresh cucumber from Crescent Moon Farms.

I made a trip last weekend to Seattle for my best friend's wedding celebration, and also to see my mom. Of course, no trip to Seattle would be complete without a stop at Uwajimaya! I went a little crazy there and bought a few bento books, as well as two new bento boxes. And then as we were leaving Uwajimaya, I noticed that there was a Daiso store right across the street. Bonus! So I spent some time there and got a few fun things, including this cutie-patootie Bunny felt band for my bento box. Look closely and you can see a few strawberry Pocky sticks tucked away in the upper compartment of the bento box. Stay tuned for more of the stuff I scored while in Seattle!
Recipe for Garlic Scape Pesto
1 cup roughly chopped garlic scapes
1/3 cup olive oil
1/4 cup walnuts
2 ounces finely grated parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Combine the garlic scapes and olive oil in a food processor and pulse until finely chopped. Add walnuts and pulse again to incorportate walnuts. Remove pesto from food processor and stir in cheese and seasoning. You can freeze this pesto (I lined an ice cube tray with plastic wrap and froze the pesto in cubes!), or put it in the fridge and use it within 10 days.

Hot Chicks

Hot chicks (made of steamed sweet potato slices) about to kiss! Hotsie Totsie! This bento box lunch also sports garam masala spiced sausage slices, grapes, and garlic scapes cut into claw-type shapes. In the lower compartment are portabella mushroom raviolis with nori flowers, baby carrots, steamed broccoli, and a few slices of red bell pepper.

Hapa Bento is using flowers as this month's B.O.M.B., so this bento box lunch qualifies with its cute nori flowers, although I may go for a more obvious flower themed lunch and enter again.


I put this lunch into my favorite Hello Kitty japanese lacquer bento box. It's so elegant! By the way, the garlic scapes are from Middleton Farms in Healdsburg, and the scape season is pretty much over now, although I am seeing green garlic still available at the farmers markets.

Mini Chicken Pot Pies

On Mother's Day yesterday I took advantage of the fact that my husband was working, leaving me with a day to do whatever I wanted! Instead of laundry (yuk!), I watched two movies and made these adorable mini chicken pot pies. They almost have a curry flavor, since I used garam masala spice and fresh cilantro in the seasoning.

I made 11 of these mini chicken pot pies, and they will freeze well, so they should last about a month. The filling I made was way too much for the amount of pie dough I had, so me and hubby had larger versions with crescent dough toppers for dinner last night.

I bought Rocky the Range free range chicken from Petaluma Poultry. It has a much better chicken flavor than the grocery store variety of chicken, plus no antibiotics!

In this bento box lunch: mini chicken pot pies, carrots, grapes, a few slices of kumquat, edamame, red bell pepper, and radishes.

Recipe for Mini Chicken Pot Pies

1/2 tablespoon butter

1/2 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 skinless, boneless chicken breast (about 1/3 pound or so), cut into chunks

8 baby carrots

1/2 medium potato, cubed

2 ounces peeled, cubed sweet potato

2 inch piece of celery

1 bay leaf

1/2 cup chicken broth

water

1/2 tablespoon butter

1/2 tablespoon olive oil

1/4 cup minced onion

2 garlic scapes, minced

1 stalk celery, minced

1/4 cup red bell pepper, minced

salt and pepper

1 tablespoon butter

1/2 tablespoon flour

1/2 cup reserved chicken cooking liquid

1/4 cup heavy cream

1 teaspoon garam masala spice

1 heaping tablespoon fresh cilantro, minced

salt and pepper

1 premade pie crust

1 egg white

1 tablespoon water

In a pan, heat 1/2 tblsp butter and 1/2 tblsp olive oil together over medium heat. Add chicken, carrots, potatoes, celery chunk, and bay leaf. Cook for about 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add chicken broth and enough water to cover. Turn heat up to medium high, cover the pot, and cook for 15 minutes.

While chicken and veggies cook, saute onions, garlic scapes, celery and bell pepper in butter and olive oil over medium heat until soft and fragrant. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside.

Drain chicken and veggies, reserving 1/2 cup of chicken cooking liquid. Discard bay leaf and chop carrots. Mince the chicken pieces and return them to the pot with the other veggies, and the onion sauteed mixture. In a new pot, heat 1 tablespoon butter over medium heat. Add flour and cook, stirring constantly for 2 minutes. Slowly whisk in chicken broth. Stir until mixture thickens. Remove from heat and add heavy cream, and garam masala. Add chicken mixture to the sauce and stir to combine. Add cilantro and taste for seasoning. Add salt and pepper if needed.

Use pie crust dough to line 11 to 12 mini muffin tins. Spoon chicken filling into dough, then cover with another bit of pie crust dough. Use a fork to crimp the top dough and bottom dough together. Add cut out dough shapes if you like, and be sure to cut a small slit in the top of each pie to allow steam to escape. Bake pies in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes.

About halfway through the baking time, brush the tops of the pies with a mixture of egg white and water.

Makes 11 to 12 mini chicken pot pies, with quite a bit of chicken filling left over. (You can make more pies with this leftover filling, or make a larger dinner for you and your sweetie.) Can freeze for up to 1 month.

Wine Pairing Suggestion: With a spicier, more robust filling, these pot pies would pair well with a fruity, spicy zinfandel. Skrew Kappa Napa made an outstanding version that unfortunately they no longer make. Instead, I recommend Kenwood Vineyards 2007 Sonoma County Zinfandel.

Under The Sea!

This bento box lunch is rather whimsical. I wanted to try my hand at octopus wieners, 1) because they are cool, and 2) because it is fun to say "octopus wieners." Then I had to keep the theme going with underwater creatures like fish and seastars. The wieners are cut about 3/4 of the way up the wiener into eight "legs" and then cooked in a frying pan. Their eyes are soy paper and black sesame seeds. The fish is a sauce container with some sriracha sauce inside (spicy!), and the three stars are made from steamed sweet potato, steamed purple potato, and watermelon radish on a bed of rice (painted blue!). I also used a bit of garlic scapes that I picked up at the Sebastopol Farmers Market. I cut the scape in the same way I cut the wieners, but then I put it in a bowl of ice water so it would curl and fan out.

These are garlic scapes from the Sebastopol Farmers Market. They are the stem of hard necked garlic, and they taste great: garlicky and green at the same time. They are delish in pesto.

My hubby thought I had gone off the deep end when I told him I needed food coloring to finish my bento box lunch. Yes, I "painted" the rice blue with food coloring to make a watery bed for my sea creatures. I wonder what my mouth will look like when I eat this?

It turned out great! Not pictured, but in the lower compartment of this bento box, I had some steamed edamame, a few slices of kumquat, and a mixture of dried cantaloupe and walnuts. The cantaloupe and walnuts are from the Santa Rosa Original Certified Farmers Market.

And, my brilliant friend Coco said that because this is Sonoma Bento, I should recommend a wine pairing for my bento! I love it! Not that I am going to break out the booze at work, but I think this whimsical, nautical bento box lunch would go well with some bubbles. The richer flavors of the wieners, and the spicy sriracha will benefit from the lighter pairing. And the walnuts, dried fruit, and bold citrus kumquat flavors will also pair nicely with bubbly. My go to choice for sparkling wine is Korbel Natural, made with Russian River grapes. It cuts heavy foods and works well with citrus.