Chili & Sandwhiches

Hope everyone had a great weekend! Sorry for the boring bento, but it has been a super busy work weekend for me. I actually made this friday, and haven't had time to post it until now. It was a pretty simple bologna, swiss and mustard sammie with clemintine, soft cheese, and chili! It's not a traditional chili by any means, it is more like a spicy vegetable soup but it was super yummy through all this cold weather!

Steamed bun recipe!

Okay, since I can't figure out how to neatly place my photos around my text I apologize if the pictures are out of order. My recipe is not exact either, so you may have to tweak it yourself at home. Recipe: 1 cup of Hungry jack pancake mix, (Extra light and fluffy is what I used) add about half a cup of water and mix until it looks like pancake batter. Then add a pinch of salt, and get some all purpose flour out.  You are going to want to add AP flour until you get a nice firm non sticky dough. I don't know how much it took, but it should look like the roll in the first picture. Knead for about ten minutes to get all the lumps and bumps out. This also helps give you a uniform color.  Roll into a baguette shape and cut into four peices.  I didn't take photos of me shaping any buns, sorry! I also want to explain the tin foil in the pot. I don't have a proper steamer, but to keep the buns from sitting in water I just balled some tin foil up. Set it in the pot and it keeps them elevated and the steam can get to all sides. 

                                                       

I filled the buns with a chicken and brocolli mixture and let them steam for about 20 minutes. I did cook the chicken through before steaming, just because raw chicken in dough could cause some serious contamination. I shaped them into a hedgehog, pig, bear and one was a traditional pleated bun.  Its really easy, like working with playdough.  Sorry the recipie isn't exact! But working with the pancake mix cuts out the need for yeast and letting it sit 2 hours to rise. There are several really great recipies online, but this is my own quick and easy version. If you try it out, let me know! I'm sure you can use any other kind of pre packaged pancake batter, but the light and fluffy seems to work the best for me. Hope you are all having a great weekend!

What weird looking onirgiri...

Using my new bento box! Two bologna and cheese "onigiri" sandwhiches, grapes, banana chips, and carrots with ligh ranch in the cup. Hope all is having a great day, the snow if finally melting here so everything is back in full swing around my town. Made some steamed buns today, will post up recipie tomorrow. It was quick and simple, and tasted amazing. Definitly something worth making everynow and then. Hope you all have a great day!

New bento goodies!

I got a package today! I was waiting patiently (okay...so not very patiently) for my new bento box to arrive. Last time we got a bad winter storm the USPS was not running and our mail was about 3 days late. So, considering hubs was off today due to bad road conditions I was a little bummed about the chances of my box arriving but it did!I also took the time to take some shots of my ever growing collection of bento boxes, and etc. Just a few pictures showing the size and how the box collapses and goes up.

When the box is collasped it's a little bigger than the bottom teir of a normal sized bento. You then unfold the sides up, and inside each corner is a ridge where you snap the box together. I tried taking a picture so you could see how it snaps together. Once it's expanded it's a little larger than my urura box.

Putting pictures up behind the break so it's not so time consuming to upload!

Snow and penguins?

So, since I've been seeing a bunch of penguins around I decided to jump on the bandwagon. We have a larger penguin made from bread, nori, carrot beak and bologna and swiss inside, The little baby pengu is made from a dried prune, leftover swiss and carrot beak. There is dried apples, carrots, banana chips, black berries, and grapes filling in everything else. I surely felt like a penguin coming in from playing with the dog outside in the 6 inches of snow (and still coming) She had so much fun in the snow.  Hope you all are having a warm, and wonderful saturday!

Please excuse my terrible southern accent, and my goofy voice talking to the dog.

Waiting on the snow bento

Well, while the whole town was buzzing about our expecting snow storm I unwillingly drug myself to work. I knew it would be a long slow day at the salon so I packed a snack also to ward off any snicker bar temptation. No one seems to know what to do when they call for snow except fill their grocery carts full of milk, bread, and eggs and rush the pumps for gasoline at the last minute. Luckily I was ahead of the curve and did my shopping earlier this week. As we speak the snow is drifting down quite swiftly and my yard is covered in a soft white sprinkle of fluffy snow. So! onto the the food shall we? Black berries, grapes, carrots, dried apples and banana chips were the raw fruits and veggies I packed. I also threw in some ham and swiss cheese rolls and cooked up some edamame, potatoes,  and shrimp in olive oil with abit of sea salt. Nothing fancy, but delicious on a cold day. In the snack is more banana chips, and two clementines.  Hope everyone is having a great night, and I will see you all tomorrow with pictures of the snow.

attempted egg sheet fail!

Well today I was attempting to make an eggsheet in the mircowave...and it turned out terrible. I think maybe because the plate got stuck at one point it made the edges bubble up and out and the center was almost completely void of egg.  So I rolled it up and tucked it shamefully in the corner of my bento. Also packed in some bacon chedder chicken paninis, dried plums and apples, and edamame. The bottom teir has obviously baby carrots, black berries, and grapes. I finally restocked my fridge and cabinets mainly because of the storm they are calling for in my area tomorrow ( 6-12 inches of snow!) That's a lot for my area and I'm sure we will be off work if we do actually get any accumalation. So I may be making some snow day bento! Hope everyones having a great wenesday!