Bento #112: Fish Salad

Though We strive mightily to be vegetarian, sometimes We crack.  Our love of delicious fish supercedes Our desire to eat low on the food chain and to live and let live.  Thus, this fishy salad was born.

Here is lettuce, tomatoes, miniature bell peppers, carrots, pea pods, and lightly pan-fried mahi-mahi with a honey-mustard vinaigrette.  Yum.

Bento #111: Hummus and Rye Crackers

Citizens, We love hummus.  And gosh, but We love those dang rye crackers!  You know the ones--they're fiber-tastic.

So here is hummus, rye crackers, carrots, plum, and a cookie that both neatly fills the little space and fills the dessert-shaped hole in Our soul.

This is Extra-Garlicky Hummus:

• 1 can chickpeas, drained, liquid reserved
• 1 1/2 T. lemon juice
• 1 1/2 T. tahini
• 1 T. soy sauce
• 1 T. olive oil
• garlic, grated finely.  As much as you can stand!

Put everything but oil and garlic in a blender.  Put oil in a small saucepan and heat.  Add garlic and let it sizzle for about a minute.  Keep a close eye on it.  You want it golden brown, but not burnt.  Burnt garlic is Very, Very Nasty, citizens.  When it's golden, immediately dump it over the cool ingredients in the blender to stop the cooking process.  Blend, adding reserved bean liquid if necessary to make it process.  Eat your lovely garlicky hummus.

Bento #110: Chutney and Cheese

Nothing exciting to see here.  Sandwich on Kingdom bread, carrots, apple.

The sandwich innards are chutney and cheese.  Mmm, chutney and cheese.  One of Our favorite combos, to be sure.

We are so overcome by Our love of chutney that We meant to give  you the recipe for the plum chutney, but We cannot find it!  Oops.  So instead, We give you the most common chutney We make for sandwiches: Tomato-Pear chutney.

Tomato-Pear Chutney:

• 2 1/2 cups large chunks of tomatoes
• 2 1/2 cups diced pears.  Diced here means like 1/4" cubes; larger than that and your chutney might be sort of chunky.
• 1/2 cup golden raisins (can use regular, but won't be as attractive in color)
• 1/2 cup green bell pepper, diced
• 1/2 cup chopped onion (We sometimes use more)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup vinegar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon dry ground mustard
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne (this will not make the chutney spicy.  For spicy, use 1/2 to 1 tsp.)
• 1/4 cup pimiento or other similar mild pepper (optional, or can use more bell pepper, etc.)

Put everything in a saucepan and bring to a boil.  Simmer 45-60 min, or until fruits and veg are softened and chutney is thickened.  This chutney tends to be a little on the chunkier side.  If using pimiento and using canned, add this in right at the end.  For immediate use, pack in a jar and place in fridge.  If wanting to store, pack in sterile 1/2 pint jars and process. Makes 3-4 1/2 pint jars.

Now you, too, citizens, can make your very own chutney and cheese sandwiches!

Bento #109: Krabby Quiche

Ah, yes, citizenry, it is that most perfect of pie devices: quiche.  This quiche features a host of veggies: onions, greens, peas, and tomato as well as feta and fake crab meat.  Oh, how We love krab.  It is a Major Weakness--along with other processed seafood items, like fishsticks or those fish balls that show up in weird asian soups.  Yum.

Alongside the lovely quiche, We have carrots with some sort of dipping sauce, a plum, and a tiny yellow pear tomato.  Delicious!

Bento #108: Random Junk from the Fridge

Citizens, this is a weird one.  Our fridge was full of random stuffs, and We had not been shopping in a while, so here is a Very Strange Lunch.

The left tier has kind of a deconstructed California roll: sushi-seasoned brown rice, fake krab sticks leftover from something else, and avocado.  The right tier has greek yogurt, frozen blueberries, and plums.

This is not Our best lunch, citizens.  We admit to a certain lack of planning and forethought.  Fruit salad doesn't really go with fallen-apart sushi.  This is also not the most nutritionally sound lunch either, somehow.  Something is off.  We are somewhat shamed.

Bento #107: Squash Soup

Hello, citizenry!  Here is today's delicious soup-and-a-sandwich lunch!

The soup is a roasted-squash-and-apple type of soup.  It is crazy delicious.  Basically, you get a squash, an onion, some apples, and then you cube everything, throw it in a roasting pan with olive oil and anything else you think will make for delicious, and then you roast it.  Put it in a soup pan with some stock, hit with an immersion blender, season, and call it a delicious day!

On the side is bread with cheese for sopping up every last bit of delicious soup.  Then there are carrots.  Must always have carrots.

Snackbox: Mr. T's Cookie

Friend of the Kingdom T, who when his full name is in usage gets called Mr. T___, which is funny now for Reporting Purposes here, makes these cookies.

Mr. T is a gluten-free kind of guy.  He also does not eat rice.  These cookies, which are huge and hugely caloric but very tasty, are therefore made up of all kinds of peculiar flours: tapioca, coconut, etc.  And oatmeal and chocolate chips.  Being caloric but sweet and delicious, they make an excellent snackbox for a day with a hard workout ahead, something endurance-y and calorie-torching, like the ashtanga series.  Your King hates nothing more than feeling as if she is going to faint dead away mid-vinyasa.

Bento #106: Everybody's Favorite Lunch

That's right.  It's fried rice. 

This appears to have been a fridge-cleaner.  We see bits of carrot, leftover greens, and--bell pepper?  Peas?  Something else green.

Exciting times in the Kingdom, citizens.

Bento #105: Shamewich

Here you see a veggie burger on shame bread, with ketchup, deli mustard, and, if We recall correctly, smoked cheese. Holy crap, that's a lot of processed food! Not a single unprocessed ingredient in there. Yikes. Check it out:

Backing up the shamewich is an apple, celery, and dried apricots. At least the fruit and veg is unprocessed.

We know, We know, that eating lots and lots of processed foods is bad for Us. But dang, those veggie burgers are hella tasty.

Bento #104: Must Eat Greens

Lunchtime!  We should not post Our previous lunches so close to Current Lunch Time (it is about 11:30 in the morning) as it is making Us very hungry.

We went (are still going?) through a bit of a "greens" phase.  So here you see the King's basic cooked greens, some steamed carrots, a square hard-boiled egg, and a bit of daikon pickle.  In the back tier is plain short-grain rice with furikake.  In the coffee mug is tea, and there on the left is a chocolate.  One of Our officemates was given chocolates by a student, and he was kind enough to share the love.

So.  First, let Us talk about square eggs.  The square egg was made via a square egg mold, which was given to Us for Christmas by the Dear Friend of the Kingdom, L.  The square eggs are charming and do indeed take up less lunchbox room than an ovoid egg!  Hooray!  Dear L also gave Us Baconnaise, which is both delicious and dangerous and We think that We will have a hard time living without it now, as Baconnaise and egg sandwiches are almost too good to be believed.

Now, let Us talk about greens.  We love them mucho.  Here is how We make them:

• About 1 T. olive oil
• 1 large sweet onion, diced
• Greens, washed and sliced.  Anything sturdy: kale, collards, chard, etc.  Spinach is too delicate for this.
• soy sauce--a couple tablespoons
• rice vinegar--also a couple tablespoons
• red pepper flakes--under about 1/2 t. doesn't really make this "hot," just flavorful.  If you want perceptible heat, by all means, chuck in tons.
• optional: broth, mushrooms, kombu, sweet pepper, sesame oil, anything else that adds umami

Heat your oil in a pan large enough to hold all your greens.  Chuck in the onions and saute.  If you're using anything else that needs softening, like mushrooms or whatever, throw them in now too.  When all your crunchy things are softened, chuck in everything else.  If your greens aren't freshly washed, you may need to add a bit of water or broth.  Steam for about 10-15 minutes if you like them with a little heft left to them; longer if they're overcooked.

Our hands-down favorite way to eat these greens is this: put either some brown rice or a couple of slices of toast in the bottom of a bowl.  Meanwhile, cook an egg sunny-side up.  You're looking for a very runny egg.  When the egg is done, scoop a bunch of greens w/ their broth over your rice/toast, then put the egg on top.  The yolk should run into the greens broth should run into the base and make everything slightly slimy and v. delicious. 

If you use toast, it's kind of like a weird hot greens commerical--which is awesome, as one of the things We miss most about not eating meat, freakishly enough, is the hot commerical, which is delicious and regional to Our childhood and thus carries a huge nostalgia value.

Update:

Blogger is giving Us fits, and We cannot post a comment on Our own blog. #wtf  So here's Our response to Lisa:

That message board was hilarious! And did you note, it mentions Our very own small hometown? Much love for the birthplace of the king! And we can indeed confirm, despite what that one Very Officious Person on the message board says, that Mike's Cafe in Marshall, MN does indeed offer both hot beef and hot turkey commercials. Our very own Queen and Queen Mother eat there about once a week, and they often get the half-commercial, as a whole is quite a lot of food.

And as We understand the history of the commercial, it was meant as economical but filling lunchtime for working dudes, and therefore is supposed to be a lot of good, cheap food for, say, a construction worker. It's an open-faced sandwich where bread is on bottom, then roasted meat, then mashed potatoes, and gravy over all. Generally comes with a side of veg.

Bento #103: Fruit Salad

Here We see a lovely summery fruit salad made of yogurt, frozen cherries and blueberries, and underneath, apple and banana.   Alongside there's a nice warm mug of tea. 

Yogurt, it must be said, has almost miraculous properties.  Yogurt is an excellent device for repopulating one's innards with Charming Helper Bacteria after any sort of illness.  In fact, with certain digestive illnesses, dear yogurt can head the bad guys off at the pass, prevening some of the more unfortunate effects.  Our Royal Physician assures Us that yogurt, eaten regularly, helps prevent certain Lady Problems by reinforcing the Lady's own resistance.  Yogurt is an excellent Protein Delivery System for those who do not want to consume the Creature from Whence Yogurt Springs.  And, it must be said, that in Sunny FL, sometimes it becomes Very Diffiult to consume actual food, what with the heat and all, and dear Fruit and Yogurt Salad becomes invaluable at such times.

As summer rapidly approaches and the heat begins to build, Your King is bracing Herself for the time when she begins to live entirely on mangoes, yogurt, and fruit-juice popsicles while lying on the Castle Floor in Her underwear and Weeping Piteously.

Bento #102: TMT on Shame

Here, citizens, is the first part of this lunch: TMT on the end of what appears to be whole wheat shame, carrots, celery, and apple.

And here is the second: yogurt and frozen blueberries.  Well, not frozen anymore.  Ah, delcious yogurt.

Dearest citizens, We are sorry that it has taken Us so long to post more springtime lunches.  What can We say?  We were busy. 

In this semester, We stupidly assigned Ourself way more grading than We could keep up with.  We also went to Vegas to visit the Royal Family, We picked up running again, and We have been trying to nail out this prospectus so Our advisor does not light Us on fire.  All of which is to say, that Our dear little lunchtime parade has been neglected.  But this is good for you, as it means We now have a backlog of lunches to show you.  And this is the first.

Bento #101: Burger Time!

For this post, today We have a delicious burger-based lunch!  Along with the burger, which We will detail shortly, We have the eternal apple and carrots.  The water in Our bottle is cloudy because We have a shameful weakness for the Propel packets of powder that you chuck in a bottle and thus produce sports drink.  However, We put them in a full liter of water instead of the ridiculous 16 oz. they recommend.  That would produce a hideous thick syrup. 

Every now and then, We get a craving for a burger.  However, do We want actual animal product?  Clearly not!  So what is it We are missing?  The device, naturally!  So here is a stunt meat burger--We believe it's one of the Amy's ones, but We are not certain--on shame bread.  Underneath the burger is a nice thin layer of Rhinegeld, one of Our favorite grainy mustards.  On top is cheese that failed to melt, ketchup, and sweet pickled daikon radish.

Now wait a minute, you may say.  Sweet pickled daikon?  Isn't that stuff stinky and thus bad for burgerdom? Yes, dear citizen, it surely is stinky.  And it is also delicious, with a nice bitter/sour/sweet edge that, strangely enough, is perfect against ketchup.  As you will no doubt remember, there is a vast and abiding love of pickled items in the Sneaky Kingdom.  Frankly, if you soak anything in either salt or vinegar or both, We will probably eat it with joy.  And so We do indeed make many of Our own pickles, because honestly, the store thinks the only thing that can be pickled is cucumber.  Fools!

Bento #100: In Which King Asher Did Not Plan An Awesome Celebratory Lunch

Here is TMT with green onion, carrots as a nice little barrier, Irish soda bread, and an apple.

The soda bread is indeed homemade, but We think it is an error.  We made it because We wanted bread, stat! but did not want to have to knead or fuss about with biscuits.  The result: the world's biggest, heaviest biscuit.  It was okay, but deeply, profoundly dense.  And unfortunately, because of its crumbly-biscuity texture, cannot be sliced super-thin, which is what one does with super-dense bread.  So big hunks of too-dense bread product.  Kind of gross.  Kind of shameful, We think.

TMT, however, will never let Us down.

Bento #99: Split-Pea and Garlic Cheese Bread

Here We have a delicious soup lunch!  Every now and then, We get a freakishly intense craving for split pea soup.  And no surprise.  It's a delicious, protein-and-fiber heavy, warm food to eat during the sticky-cold FL winters.  So here is a thermos of homemade split pea soup, which We make in the Crock Pot, some of the ubiquitous carrots, and a super-delicious bread that We made when We and Our friends had a Sherlock-viewing party. 

Have you seen Sherlock?  It's this fantastic reboot of the Sherlock Holmes stories, but the gimmick is that it's not set in Victorian London, but modern-day London.  So instead of sending Watson aggravating notes, Sherlock sends him aggravating texts.  Ha!  It's charming.  Watson is the dude that was Arthur Dent in the Hitchhiker reboot, which is very pleasing; We love that actor's attention to body language.  And Holmes is played by--wait for it--Benedict Cumberbatch.  Isn't that the Best Name Ever?  Benedict Cumberbatch.  It's absolutely unreal!  And the dude does indeed do a wonderfully creepy/endearing Holmes, which We think is one of the benefits of the newer Sherlock versions--in the stories, Holmes is an utter jerk. Says the most awful, condescending things, besides being an addictive personality in about four different ways--which alwyas produces charming folks.  It's why House works so well--they demonstrate the jerky side of Holmes and the enabling side of Watson.  The Sherlock plots are new but full of fun easter eggs for people who are well read.

Here's the bread We made for that party: Garlic-Cheese Bread .  It was really, really tasty.

Bento #98: PB&J

We were a bit pressed for time at this point.  Here is an almond butter and jam sandwich on kingdom bread, a banana, and carrots.  There is tea in the cup and honey in the tea from the little bear.

Sometimes, it's hard to get out the door in the morning.  We explain this lunch thusly.

Laziness Roundup #2: Bentos #85-97

Citizens, let's talk lunches.  Here's another slacker roundup--all the lunches since the last roundup, actually.  Again, organized by device for your convenience.

First off, because it is cold outside, the Soup Device:

We believe this is borscht, with sour cream and carrots.  In the back, notice Gary Snyder, a poet who We have a love-hate relationship with.  No nature, indeed--but less in the way you mean it, and more in the way Timothy Morton means it.

This is chili, with what We believe is shame bread and an orange.  Behind Our shame is the Thirsty Bat of tea or something, and behind the orange is the rose bowl of chocolate eyeballs We had on Our desk all Halloween and post-H season.  Hooray bowl of eyeballs!

Here is lentil soup, kingdom bread, and the awesome power of pineapple rings.  Meanwhile, there's a cup of tea from Starbucks with a coffee-cup-protector-warmer-thingy We made on it.  The tea was a disaster.  The obviously-new barista charged Us the  tea-latte price, even after We told her that tea was usually around $2.  She argued that Starbucks only sells tea lattes, not just regular hot tea.  So We had to physically make her turn around and look at the price of tea on the board above her head.  And then she was all, "We don't have black tea."  So what do you have?  "Green, mint, Earl Grey, blah blah blah."  Rather than fight, We took the Earl Grey.  Someone else can see to her education.  We do not mean to be mean--but We were polite at first, and then when she told Us vehemently that We were wrong, We gave up.  The moral: the tea came out too strong and was some sort of super-bitter tea concentrate when We got here, so that We took about a half-cup of tea sludge, cut it with water and honey, and reheated it in Our microwave.  Not shown: the 8 Advil We took over the course of the day while drinking the Tea Disaster.

As an aside, in Our attendance book, you can see all the student absences.  Blue highlights are absent days.  So much missed class!

Next device: Pie!

Here is veggie quiche, with leftover sweet potato hiding behind it.  Just peeking out there on the right is a bottle of water.

And more quiche, with the omnipresent carrots and apples.  Dunno what We'd do w/out carrots and apples.

Next, Crackers and Sandwiches!

Beloved rye crackers, apples and carrots, and hummus.  Woo.

PB& with apples and carrots. Woo.  At least it's kingdom bread.

In case you do not know what the inside of a PB&J looks like.  (We suspect this was so We would remember the sandwich contents.)

Man, We are boring sometimes.  Desk, desk, sandwich, putter.  Gah!  New device, quick, before We are suddenly 75!  Bring on Salads!

Ah.  Salad, yogurt, and apple.  Love yogurt.  We know We bitched and moaned about the 0% stuff--and it is indeed still not as tasty as the other kind--but 2% only comes in pineapple.  We can only eat so much pineapple yogurt.  In fact, We are going to go eat a yogurt right now, while We finish this epic post.

Horrors!  It's back.  And in low-res.  Cottage cheese, frozen peas, tomato, and cucumber.

Some Miscellaneous stuffs:

A baked potato with hard-boiled egg and sour cream, with steamed carrots on the side.  We believe that there is coffee in that Thermos.  Which, don't expect to see it again.  We forgot it for some time, and the incredible funk that was in there meant We just chucked it out.  We felt bad, yes, but some things can't be saved.

This is an amazing stir-fry: cabbage, chickpeas, garlic, popped mustard, turmeric, and cayenne.  Yum!  With brown rice.  And an apple.  And tea.

This was, We believe, the last active class day of the semester, hence Our cobbled-together lunch of instant ramen, apple and peanut butter, carrots, and a donut.  The donut was purloined from the grad lounge, as many people bribe their students for good evals.  Or get good evals b/c people are happier w/ high blood sugar.  Either way, there are a lot of snackies going spare in the department on the last few days.  The ramen?  Was pretty bad.  Sorry, Senor McDougall.  Those noodles were unpleasant. Also, as you can see, I was too busy to wash a proper water bottle, so I'm using a mason jar--which I brought to school w/ breakfast in it, which was about 2 cups of soymilk, 2 cups of coffee, and a couple tablespoons of sugar.  Oh, the health, it practically exuded from my pores.

Later, I also ate Common Room Oreos. 

And finally, your friend and Ours:

What is life without fried rice?  Not worth living, We say.

Hope you enjoyed the roundup, and We'll be back soon w/ more entries.

Bento #84: TMT and Rye Crackers. Also, explanations

Hello, citizenry!  After a long pause, We are back!  Here is Our first lunch of the new year.

It is TMT, which you have seen before, with rye crackers to put under it; baby carrots neatly acting as a divider; a tangerine, a coffee candy, and a little dip cup. What is in the dip cup, you may ask?

Citizens, it is cold out in the Kingdom.  And it's not overly sunny, either.  In fact, for several days running it was rather the Rainy Kingdom.  This makes your King hunger for soup.  But no instant soup was to be had in the kingdom!  What to do?  Well, this.  In the little cup is miso and ebi furikake.  It made this:

The idea comes from dear Maki at Just Bento.  No need for fancy instant soup, she says.  Make your own!  And how was it?  Well, citizens, it was a mixed result.  Hot and wet?  Yes.  Were the sesame seeds particularly delicious?  Yes!  We must now put sesame seeds in miso soup all the time!  Was it, though, awesome?  It was not.  We think this may have been partially because We put in too much water, or partially because it was a very light miso--a darker brown or red miso might do better.  So not a fail, but neither is it yet a resounding success.

And now, for the explanations.  Your King has been absent not because of laziness (though that's certainly happened before, as We fully acknowledge).  Instead, your King was struck down by a Terrible and Virulent Plague!  As you know, We teach at a university.  Let it be said: undergraduates are walking cesspools of infection.  Little ambulatory petri dishes.  And the Royal Physician suspects that it is from these little disease vectors that We caught a Virus.  A terrible, rampaging Virus that has Lingering Effects.  In short, We had something in the same style as mono, where We essentially had the 'flu for about a week and a half, and then took something like 2 months to recover.  During that terrible time, We had monstrous headaches every day, had to sleep about 11 hours a day, and really only had about 5 useful hours of consciousness per day.  We were barely staying afloat, thanks to the assistance of lots and lots of Advil.  In fact, We were taking, at the doctor's suggestion, 4 Advil at a time!  Monstrous handfuls of pills.  On the positive side, We have rarely felt so very much like dear Dr. House.

And truthfully, We are still not back to absolute peak.  We are still prone to tiredness, and still require much more sleep than usual.  But We are much better than before.  We can get Our heart rate above 140 without passing out. We can walk to school, or go use the exercise equipment at the gym.  We can concentrate on something for longer than an hour.  We have not eaten a handful of pills in almost two weeks!  So We are almost mended. 

Nice, proper lunches will help Us achieve full recovery.  So it is Our intention to work extra hard to feed Ourself well, so as to encourage the best possible health.  Prepare to see these lunches!

Meanwhile, next post, expect another roundup.  Just because We were not showing lunches to you does not mean that We neglected to take photos for you.