vegan chicken salad...

wasn't good. My daughter likes their dumplings but not this salad.

Here is the rest of this week's lunch.

-red beans and rice

-vegan chicken salad (from micro vegetarian, tasted like ice cream..) and spinach and carrot, dates

-Aunt Gussie's gluten-free cookie (gussie...)

-Sea Chips

The red beans and rice this butch was good. I'll share my recipe soon. Even born in New Orleans husband said fantastic. Yay!

-brown rice with nori

-kinpira carrot

-sesame garlic tempeh

-boiled broccoli

Kinpira is sweet and soy saucey, Japanese favorite flavor. (especially kids)

(for 2 people's bento)

1 carrot -cut into fine strips

sesame seeds

a bit of sugar

a bit of soy sauce

a bit of water

pan and rid

1. Sesame seeds in a pan, over medium heat. Roast a bit.

2. throw carrot strips in the pan.

3. Stir fry about 1 or 2 minutes

4. Pour about 3T of water and put rid on to steam until the carrot is tender . The water will be almost gone, I think.

5. Put about 1t of sugar.

6. Put about 1T of soy sauce.

7. Taste it, and add more soy sauce or maybe sugar.

You might already notice, I didn't measure...

-wild rice mix

-boiled broccoli

-coconut curry tempeh

-spinach saute with garlic

-chips(from wholefoods, it's non-GMO!)

-salsa (from a bottle, Green Mountain Gringo)

Taking a picture is difficult.

Today's lunch :

-curry pilaf with tempeh and spinich
-cumin and mustard seed potatoes with cashew from last night
-nuts and dates

-3 slices of apple
-half of coconuts bread muffin

Monday dinner is Indian food. I recently decided. So Tuesday's bento is curry kind of flavor.

She has eating all her lunch lately, so the muffin was a little treat. Other half? I ate it, of course. I eat left over's left over every lunch, I should deserve it. We don't eat wheat much any more other than my bread, so it's special.


I took two pictures of today's lunch. One was too dark, almost brown, one is this one. Plastic wrap got all the light...

stink bug

I got information about the stink bugs on our screen doors and windows.

They are trying to get warm.

The global warming is making different cycle for stink bugs. Summer now is just long enough for them to reproduce another generation. The stink bugs on our screen door are trying to survive from cooler temperature.

I'm sure there are more lives around us that affected by the global warming. Where is the toad that I saw last year? How about the turtle? I hope they are happy somewhere safe and also hope human can make better decisions for them to live too.

Today's lunch.

-quinoa

-left over from Saturday night's steamed kale with Greenlife dumpling sauce, hot and sweet and sesamy.

-sunshine burger

-garlic sesami tempeh

-bit of shredded beets

-one baby carrot

-two baby leave of spinich

6/30

yesterday's left over (spinich and potato w/vegan cheese)
Earth Fare Almond Grain Burger
Kuma-san Maki (Bear roll..) from COOKPAD --this is NOT vegan...it has fish.


Carolina Wren(?) made a nest in my husband's birthday present. The plant isn't well..., but the nest is getting bustling~

Art Camp

My daughter started to go to an Art Camp on Monday. She is really enjoying it:-)

onigiri with sesame seeds, carrot frikake, and bonito flake
boiled broccoli
gardein chicken nugget thing
Earth Fare Almond Grain Burger
carrot and onion kinpira

field trip

My daughter went to a field trip with her dad:-)

They learned about forest resources. They saw how paper is made from a tree. My daughter seemed enjoy the paper part a lot. She is not great fun of exploring woods in spring and summer. There are bugs all over her...

5/5

quesadilla
broccoli
carrot
apple

I made and ate quesadilla first time in my life, and I loved it:-)

This is the cheese that I used for the quesadilla. It's vegan, and it's really good. Protein 1g...

Daiya Vegan Cheese

one month

garlic rice with Morningstar Farms Crumbles
jerk tofu
vegetable stir fly
apple
dates+oats thing

I tried the jerk tofu first time, and it was delicious(for me, my husband wasn't a fan of it). I didn't put jalapeno peppers because I didn't have it, but it turned out well. The cayenne was enough for us;-)

I got the Jerk Tofu recipe from here.

One month makes a huge difference. My backyard got wild! It still growing greener.

4/7:

4/15:

today:

I pulled poison ivy today where I can reach...

4/20

daughter's :

I made fried soy bean with sweet and sour sauce. It is tasty for a bento box. It's hard to eat with chopsticks...

How to make fried soy bean:

1. cook soy beans (or can soy beans drain).

2. coat the soy beans nicely with corn starch.　*better not put liquid with cooked water or from can for "nice" coating.

3. fry with a generous amount of oil (doesn't need to be deep fried). *don't use anything to stir up, shake the pan instead.

4. drain excess oil on kitchen paper.

5. mix soy sauce, sugar, and rice vinegar(2:2:1 works well) in a microwave safe bowl, and microwave it until the sugar is dissolved(about 10 sec. I think...).

6. put the fried soy beans in the sauce.

I put sesami seeds, fresh green onions and fried green beans(same way with the soy beans).

Yum!

4/12

husband's :

onigiri
baked tofu
salad from garden
banana & almond better
apple

daughter's : I didn't have time to put fruit for her. . only husband, today.

onigiri
salad from garden:-)

Today, I cooked the rice with this ↓

It was OK.

4/2

the day's bento :

fried rice (I put carrot leaf furikake too!)
broccoli and carrot
Boca -meatless chik'n nuggets

I use Boca -meatless chik'n nuggets and broccoli A LOT! They are good bodies.

6:45 wake up (I'm hoping to wake up 6:30, but it doesn't happen usually...)
6:55 start to make breakfast and lunch
7:00 wake daughter up
7:15 daughter comes to table (she is hoping to wake up earlier, but it doesn't happen like me...) / let her eat and continue cooking
7:25 putting all the food in a lunch box, and take a picture of it
7:30 putting daughter's lunch bag in her backpack, and brush my teeth and tie her hair and...
7:40-45 leaving to school

My super heroes, the nuggets and broccoli, are awesome for this harebrained schedule.

4/1

I put same things for both, husband and daughter :

rice with furikake
spinach and kale from the community garden
purple potato
hijiki-ni (a kind of seeweed)
Boca -meatless chik'n nuggets

The vegetables include, hijiki(one kind of see vegetable)-ni*, are all leftover from last night. I like that they(especially I can) eat several variety of food in one meal, like buffet:-)

*"ni" means simmered(boiled).

3/31 ; Six Piece of Sand

husband's(he likes rice better) :

onigiri
stir fry with kabocha squash
LIGHTLIFE -smart dog




daughter's :

sandwiches with soy butter
same stir fry
apple

I erased a sentence from yesterday's page, because my husband told me that he had no idea what I was writing about...
That sentence was, "I have some bread but I have nothing to sand," or something like that. I thought "to sand" meant to fill the sandwiches with filling. In Japanese we use the borrowed English word "sandwich, " but we often shorten it to "sand." We also use the shortened word "sand" as a verb to mean "put something between two other things." My husband says that we use the word sandwich as a verb in English, but he doesn't think people use it as a verb to mean "put filling between bread." . . .Confusing!

I made a sandwich and cut it into six pieces, then I need to think it's one sandwich? Or six sandwiches? Six pieces of sandwich? Never ending confusion. . .

3/30 ; onigiri

husband's:

stir fry
apple
onigiri(rice ball)

daughter's:

pan fried rice ball -I imaged four leave clover which I found yesterday! First one in my life!
Junko's tukemono(Japanese style pickled vegetables)
miso-teriyaki koya tofu(dried tofu)
fried sweet potato

About Onigiri

I think a lot of people in the U.S. think that Japanese often eat sushi, but not really that happen. Sushi is for celebration or when a family get together, like Thanksgiving or Christmas here. Onigiri is more familier than sushi for me and I believe for other Japanese people.

Good part of onigiri is easy to make and carry, and ready to eat without chopsticks or utensils. Japanese eat onigiri for lunch, picnic, a snack, and etc.. Almost all the stores which you can buy food carry many kinds of onigiri. It's like sandwiches here.


Here is How to make Onigiri.

Today's bread:-)


This is going to be tomorrow's lunch~

3/29

husband's:

roll with tukudani
edamame
LIGHTLIFE -smart dog
Boca -meatless chik'n nuggets
broccoli
strawberry
apple

daughter's:

rice ball and roll with tukudani, egg, carrot leaf
fake sausage and edamame
apple

How to make carrot leaf furikake

3/26

rice with nori, umeboshi, nori-tukudani, shiso-furikake
fresh vegetables
Boca -meatless chik'n nuggets
LIGHTLIFE -tofu pups

I wish I can use less processed products for lunch. I don't like to throw the plastic packaging away. How can I do?

3/25

husband's bento:

norimaki -sushi roll with tukudani(sweet and salty seeweed)
Boca -meatless chik'n nuggets
stir fry
cabbage gyoza(gyoza is like chinese dumpling. Chinese is the original, steam them, Japanese fry them in a pan. )

daughter's bento:

left over blue berry pan cake with soy butter
stir fry

3/24

multi grain rice with dried carrot leaf and umeboshi
stir fry
steamed broccoli
egg
strawberry

Today, I had a leftover fake sausage, so I put it in the stir fry for protein. I need to think more about how I can put more protein in a lunch box.
Barley, millet, quinoa, and sesami seed in the rice. I cooked the rice with a rice cooker which has a timer, so I put all the grains in the rice cooker just before I went to bed last night, and tada~! it was ready in the morning:-)

3/23

Fried rice
Boca -meatless chik'n nuggets
Apple

9/25

Today's daughter's bento

• onigiri w/nori and frikake
• broccori
• apple
• nuts and animal cookie

Today's husband's bento

• Andrea's lentil soup
• Vegetable and Gardenburger flamed burger stir fry
  
• Nuts mix
• Pear