Gender Bento

I am finally using up the last of the bread, bologna, and cheese from our camping trip last weekend. These two happy sandwiches are hanging out with red pepper slices, cherry tomatoes from the Sebastopol Farmers Market, steamed romano beans from The Patch in Sonoma, two cherries, and a few blueberries, also from the Sebastopol Farmers Market.

I had a great Fourth of July celebration with friends, complete with BBQ and pool time. I brought along these steamed green beans topped with a lime infused olive oil and basil dressing. They turned out great!

Recipe for Green Beans with Basil-Lime Olive Oil Dressing

3 pounds of green beans, rinsed and trimmed

1 cup lightly packed fresh basil leaves

2 garlic cloves, grated

1/3 cup lime infused olive oil (I used Stonehouse Olive Oil, based in Berkeley)

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

Steam green beans for 7 to 10 minutes. Run beans under cold water to stop them from over cooking. In a food processor, combine basil, grated garlic cloves, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Blend dressing. Spoon dressing over beans. Serves 10 as a side dish. *If you don't have lime infused olive oil, use regular oil and add a bit of grated lime zest and a tablespoon of lime juice.

Patriotic Bento

Today I worked on a live broadcast from a demo kitchen and they made yummy burgers to celebrate the Fourth of July holiday. It certainly does not suck to work with professional chefs! But because I was working, I didn't have time to do a really elaborate bento for the holiday. I made half of a bento box lunch for my step daughter, but I did manage to put some patriotic touches on it.

In this lunch: vanilla yogurt with blueberries and a raspberry, red pepper "fireworks," carrot "flames," mini star bologna sandwiches, a bit of broccoli, and some enoki mushrooms for "sparkle." I didn't have time to fill a second compartment for her. But I did stay up late last night to do these patriotic fingernails:

Have a Safe and Happy Fourth of July weekend!!

Hello Kitty Onigiri

I am sooooo excited about today's bento. When I was in Seattle, I had a chance to shop at Uwajimaya. It's like the mecca of Asian grocery stores. I bought a Hello Kitty popsicle mold there, thinking that it would work great as an onigiri mold. Tada!

The onigiri (rice ball) is decorated with nori (toasted seaweed) and takuan (pickled daikon radish). This is my first time using takuan, and I tasted a bit of it while I was assembling this bento. It's kind of stong, but not bad. Perhaps it will grow on me. :-) Also in the bento box: carrots, a salad of quick pickled cucumbers topped with a few pieces of red pickled ginger, and enoki mushrooms. In the lower compartment: cherries from Hamlow Ranch, chicken nuggets, and a few cheese flowers. I love my new food cutters from Amazon! Here's the set I used for this bento: Stainless Steel Vegetable Cutters #K8444 "100% Made in Japan!!"

This is another one of the new bento boxes I got while on my trip to Seattle. This one is from the Japanese dollar store called Daiso. Everything in the store is generally $1.50. Including this bento box! It's got a few dragonflies on it, and that crazy brand name: Lube Sheep. Huh...?

The lettuce that I use to line my bento boxes and use as "baran" (decorative partitions), is from a great farmer at the Santa Rosa Original Certified Farmers Market. Reenie and her daughter Sarah sell wonderful quality produce from Ridgeview Farms based in Healdsburg. Look at this gorgeous lettuce!

They have lots of varieties as well. I love their french radishes, and when the season is here, their pears. They also sell very tasty arugula.

And It Stoned Me

Weird title for the post, I know. I am referring to the Van Morrison song, not because there are any psychotropic drugs in this bento, but rather because it has stone fruit in it, some of the best stone fruit I have ever had! There is a great fruit vendor at the Santa Rosa Original Certified Farmers Market called Hamlow Ranch. They are out of Stanislaus County and have the best stone fruit (cherries, nectarines, peaches) right now. I picked up two varieties of nectarines, and a few of the last cherries of the season.

Packed into this bento: a simple tomato-mozzarella salad, roasted green beans wrapped in prosciutto, cucumber slices, and a few kalamata olives. In the lower compartment: cherries and nectarine slices.

If you get close to your computer screen, I think you can actually smell the ripeness of these nectarines. (I'm kidding, don't do that. You'll look silly.)

Wine Pairing Suggestion: Seghesio Family Vineyards in Healdsburg, CA is one of the oldest Sonoma County wine families. Their 2008 Home Ranch Zinfandel is jammy and rich, and would go well with the prosciutto, tomato-mozzarella salad, kalamata olives, and cherries in this bento box lunch.

Happy Heart Bento

Today I busted out the Magic Round Bento for a simple bento lunch. I used green beans (blanched) from Crescent Moon Farms, baby carrots, watermelon "flowers", a piece of lime, a few cherry tomatoes from Triple T Ranch, two teriyaki meatballs from Aidell's, and a heart-shaped onigiri. The face on the heart is made from black sesame seeds, nori (toasted seaweed), and a piece of pickled ginger. Hidden underneath it all are a few slices of cucumber, also from Crescent Moon Farms.

If you haven't yet, you should really check out the Santa Rosa Original Certified Farmers Market. I normally go on Wednesdays, because I work a lot on weekends. They are open year-round, rain or shine, and it's the perfect place to find hyper local food, and great artisan products. Today there was a big group of kindergarteners on a field trip. They were jumping around and just super excited to check out the market, so cute. And if you go to the Santa Rosa Original Certified Farmers Market this Saturday, you can enjoy FREE red, white, and blue shortcake! They will have mini shortcakes topped with whipped cream and local berries. YUM!

On a side note, I am trying out a few new items in my bento box lunches, namely pickles. I got some takuan (pickled daikon radish), umeboshi (pickled plum), and beni shoga (red pickled ginger). So far, I have only tried the beni shoga. I like it!

Also, I am featuring this bento box lunch on the What's For Lunch website. Fun!

An Apple A Day

No apples were harmed in the making of this bento box lunch. In fact, no apples were used to make this lunch, just an apple shaped cookie cutter. :-)

A quick bento made with leftover camping goodies. I made an apple shaped sandwich (with bologna and cheese), cucumber slices, carrots, and chive blossoms. In the lower compartment: watermelon slices (cut with my new bento food cutters! I super love these, and just got them from Amazon), slices of lime to squirt on the watermelon, and a few walnut halves.

The larger set of food cutters can be found here: Stainless Vegetable Cutter, Large, 6 Assorted Shapes, and the smaller set of food cutters can be found here: Stainless Steel Vegetable Cutters #K8444 "100% Made in Japan!!"
My coworker Danielle brought in some watermelon slices yesterday, and I also ended up seeing a gorgeous photo of watermelon chunks online with an amazing recipe for tequila soaked watermelon wedges. The watermelon slices in this bento are booze free! All of the watermelon stuff seeped into my brain and I couldn't get away from it. But do I recommend checking out this recipe. I tried it out on myself and my hubby last night and it turned out great! With the 90+ degree weather we've been having recently, this stuff is amazing. Oh, and the recipe on this page recommends boiling the alcohol in the simple syrup, but you should make the syrup first, then add the alcohol when it cools.

Don't Feed The Bears

I am recovering today from a whirlwind camping trip (one day, it was too short!) to Richardson's Grove in Humboldt County. Because of work commitments, I was only able to enjoy one day of camping, but I had been dreaming about playing in the Eel River for months, so I had to take what I could get.

After washing the campfire smell out of my hair when we got home, I thought about making a camping themed bento. S'mores really would have been fun, but alas, no marshmallows! So, since we were camping in bear country, here is a bear sandwich (filled with bologna and cheese - no bear meat!), with blanched green beans, kalamata olives, and tomato-mozzarella salad. In the lower compartment: cherries, cucumbers, and a few cherry tomatoes.

Oh how I miss the river! I'm looking forward to many more fun camping trips this summer with friends. :-)

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