November 15, 2006 A veritable smorgasboard
Left: heart-shaped tin with creamed-corn croquettes on a bed of greens; red and yellow grape tomatoes; edamame skewers; my mom's vegetarian eggrolls; fresh strawberries; a hoisin-chicken bun; a pig full of Sriracha chile sauce; and an elephant filled with tamari
This bento is so reminiscent of my earlier, pre-GF days. The yakisoba noodles and flavoring packet are made by Maruchan and can be found in the refrigerated section of Asian markets. I keep mine in the freezer -- I actually forgot to thaw overnight and just threw the frozen noodles into my wok. I added a little more water than called for and it came out just fine. The croquettes are premade/frozen -- I was kind of iffy on them, but that may just be that I am not used to creamed corn in nugget form. I heated my mom's eggrolls (must get recipe one of these days . . . but she is the type that doesn't measure anything =P ) and the hoisin-chicken bun (recipe here) straight from my freezer using my toaster oven. The gyoza also were frozen (from a batch I made a while back) and cooked via the method I outline here. Shameless plug: For all of you online holiday shoppers (or if you're an anytime/anyday shopper like me), please check out the featured links in the Shop section. Even if you don't stuff stockings with cute alien-egg themed coasters, pandamonium boxes, and CC mugs, please support Cooking Cute by clicking through my links when shopping at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, JBox, etc. etc. Many thanks to those of you that have bought items through these links already! =^.^=Tags: bento, yakisoba noodles with veggies, vegetarian gyoza dumplings and eggrolls, chicken bun, croquettes, fruit |
![[new bento box with vegetarian yakisoba and dumplings in bottom tier, veggie eggrolls, a chicken bun, strawberries, edamame, tomatoes, and creamed-corn croquettes in the top tier]](http://static.flickr.com/116/298506755_7a3d8d2b4f.jpg)
![[new kenroku jyubako bento]](http://static.flickr.com/118/298506760_aae6c0d176_m.jpg)
'Tis another new bento box. I puchased this one for a pretty penny from eBay seller tokyosamurai. The bento was way more expensive that I would have liked, but I had to have the gorgeous sakura and rabbit design. The box was billed as a kenroku jyubako - not sure what that is exactly, but it definitely is lovely, well-made, has a lid for each tier, and is roomy enough (as you can see) for a full dinner. I actually was struggling at points to fill the bento, which is about 7" square. 