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.

#83: Breakfast for Lunch

Oh, faithful readers (Hi, L!). We are sorry for the way We have treated you.  Neglectfully.  Without consideration.  We have been a Rude King.  Sneakiness, yes, but abandonment?  No!  That is not the way of the Kingdom!

Sans camera today, We thought to Ourself, well, a crappy phone photo is better than no photo at all.  And so We took a phone photo.  Then we thought, Self, We can e-mail that to Ourself, and then post it for the citizenry!  And that is what We have done.  So it is Our hope that you will enjoy it despite the questionable quality.

Today, We are sickies.  We have some sort of aggravating head cold thing.  The Royal Nose leaks (and is now dry and scratchy and scabby on the outside).  The Royal Head is full of heavy and hurt.  The Royal Limbs are listless and pasty. 

So We brought comforting lunch.  Gentle, mildly sweet foods.  All the components came in separate little cute tubs, and then were added together when We remembered to take a photo. 

In the red panda bowl on the left is vanilla lowfat yogurt and frozen blueberries.  We almost never buy the yogurt w/ sugar in it, so this was appallingly deliciously ice-creamy!  The blue bowl is 1-minute oats (not the sugary instant packet crap, just regular oats--albeit the instant, not-as-good-for-you kind), walnuts, and cinnamon.  After it was rehydrated We put sliced banana in.  Yum.  We feel nourished and able to go teach a second class!

Er, mostly.

Fall Roundup: Lunches #65-82

It's been a busy time here in the Kingdom, kids.  Your faithful King has been editing, teaching, grading, running, singing, and just generally trying to keep Her bizniz going.

As the lunch photos stacked up on Our camera, the process of pulling them off became, for some reason, a more and more daunting task.  Each additional photo meant We wanted to do it less.  For some reason, while We love taking the photo and We love posting the photo, the in-between process--the finding the camera cable, the sorting, the tiny bit of editing, etc. became too much.  We despaired.

So finally, in an effort to remedy the problem, We pulled all the photos from the past month and a half.  At once.  Right here.  So, We proudly present you with the Awesome Fall Roundup Extravaganza!

First, the Identical Salad Photos:

This is a delicious salad that We ate frequently while the weather was still hot.  Its basic components are cottage cheese, tomato, cucumber, peas, salt, and pepper.  Delicious and protein-y.

This lunch also had an apple!  So much fiber, so little time.

The gold standard.

Just the peas, please.  We believe that Our fridge was very empty and that We were in a serious hurry that morning.  This is not enough lunch, We know.  Still, better than nothing.

Our friend, M, was having a rough day this day so We walked over to her building and brought her a Diet Coke (which We do not usually drink) and some Combos (which We do not usually eat).  Naughty!  So We finished the Coke with Our lunch.

This lunch, taken at home because transit would surely have shaken up the pretty little pattern, is in a new box the Queen sent Us in the mail!  What a great random gift, Queen!  We love it.  We used it four times in the first week We owned it.  It's a Fit and Fresh sandwich box, with the gel-cool in the lid--but it really comes into its own as a bento box, b/c it's the perfect size.  Hooray!

And now, the Parade of Sandwiches:

Fried egg on Kingdom bread with a banana.  Not very much lunch, but at least it's got protein and whole grains for staying power.

Tofurkey on Shame bread with mayo, mustard, spinach, and tomato.  This was part of Our Vegan-Except-For-Eggs-And-Also-Only-Whole-Grains-Plus-No-Caffeine-But-Tea Cleanse.  It was very effective, and We felt much better about two days into the program.  Sandwich is backed up by apples and carrots.

 The innards!  Gosh, looking at that makes Us hungry.

Just can't get enough stunt meat.  Another Tofurkey on Shame.

We were particularly pleased with this lunch.  The salad is spinach and tomato with a little orange tulip of Newman's Raspberry Vinaigrette.  The sandwich is a fried egg on Kingdom with mayo and mustard.  Then there's an apple.  The cup is green tea--We were at Starbucks, grading.  We were suprised and pleased that the baristas did not get all up ons for Us bringing Our own lunch.

Here is a peanut butter and blackberry preserves on Kingdom, with baby carrots, blueberry yogurt, and a banana.  There is tea in the Santa mug.  Because We are on a serious running training program now, We find that We need food almost constantly or We start to fall down.  So some of the beefier lunches are a result of that.

Now, Rice is Nice!

Ah, rice is nice.  Here's brown rice w/ ebi furikake, tamagoyaki, apple slices, and instant miso soup.  Oh, and a BC Powder, because We had things to do.  And Our head was bad. 

Check out Our not-very-good rolling skillz.  Who cares?  It was delicious.  Check out the Thirsty Bat hovering over the lunch.  Bat want nomz?  Well, too bad!

This lunch was so good it was almost unholy.  Spinach, onion, and tofu stir fry with brown rice and green tea.  Why was this so delicious?  We do not know, but it was one of the most satisfying lunches We had made in a long time.  Bonus: vegan!

Ah, what would the Sneaky Kingdom be without fried rice?  Also, check out Our homemade daikon pickles.  We think We did an okay job.  We will tweak the recipe later.  We also made some righteous pickled garlic, but that is far too pungent for lunch!  It is available only in the Royal Castle, where We will not offend the citizenry with Our Fire Breath of Doom.

Fried Rice and Fried Rice Alone day!

And, the Lunches of Less-Commonly-Used Device:

That's right.  Lentil soup.  Yum!  With a homemade biscuit, apple slices, and coffee candy.

More of the same!  But also with some carrots in there.  We love how the little mushroom guy on the lid of this bowl is so enthusiastic.

This was a weird choice.  We made a squash stuffed with apple slices one day during the Vegan Cleanse.  It was good, but would have been better with butter.  To back it up, there was a hard-boiled egg and some carrots.  This was a little awkward to eat at Our desk, and We got olive oil on Our pants, and then had to teach with Conspicuous Crotch Blots.  The shame!

Okay, there you go, citizens: the King's Fall Lunches.  We hope that you have enjoyed this glut of lunch, you hedonists!  We hope to resume regular posting soon, now that this backlog is no longer hanging over Our head, so please do not think that We have abandoned you!

Bento #64: Eggs and Fail

On the day of this lunch, We had baked banana bread and brought it in for Our colleagues.  Fellow teachers, we thought, should enjoy a tasty breakfast treat.  So We were pleased to have a carbohydrate component of lunch already in place, and brought just two hard-boiled eggs with a mixture of mayo, salt, pepper, and smoked paprika in the little bear, for spreading-on-eggs purposes.  There was also a plum.  We wore a happy yellow sundress and were so pleased to be of use. 

This plan all went to hell when no one wanted our banana bread.  Very few takers.  We were forced to bring a nearly-full plate of banana bread back home.  We foisted some off on Our friend, M, in order to process the unexpected overload.  What's wrong with people, anyway?

Bento #64: P, B, & PB sandwich

This sandwich was great.  It was a peanut-butter, blackberry preserves, and mooshed banana sandwich.  It's excellent.  You should try doing this, seriously.