Marathon Posting, again :D

Gee, I've almost forgotten.. that i still have three days of bentos that i haven't post yet. :(
I'll pay it now. :D

Monday, 7th March, 2011

I made these bento-packages for Monday. Named it with 'The Yellow Tones'. I didn't realize before that they have the similar color tones. My Friend said, they look a like color pallet, with yellow tones of paints.

Well, as usually, i put the food in three different tiers.

First, as the side dishes of the plain rice (which cannot be seen here, the rice became the base for the side dishes), i made Chicken slices with coconut spice, grilled tofu, sauteed zucchini, shiitake in soyu, and sunny egg.

In the second tier, i mix curry pasta salad  (mixed of macaroni, sweet carrot--grated, low fat raisins, and apple). For the recipe, i'll share you. :)
you'll need :

1 package uncooked spiral pasta

1 teaspoon of curry powder

1 tablespoon of lemon juice

1 tablespoon mayonnaise

salt to taste

1 apple-peeled, cored, and finely chopped

1/4 cup raisins

1/4 cup chopped green onions

2 carrots, grated

(you can add crumbled tofu and pine nuts too, if you like. but i didn't)

How to:
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook for 8-10 minutes or until al dente. drain.
In a large bowl, combine the curry powder, salt, mayonnaise and lemon juice.  Add cooked pasta and toss to coat. Then add the apple, raisins, green onions, carrots. Mix well. Serve and enjoy.

Third, i put tropical fruits of  papayas, melons, and sweet ambarella. hmmm...juicy!

I feel it is important to put this photo here,

click at the picture to see it bigger

These are the "bento si ayah's tiers" for hubby with measurements. From my first posting, I've been reminded not to put too much food rations for hubby--my friends said so, my husband too. He said, he's toooo waaaaay tooooo full, and he gains 6 kilos of weight :D, and he's not feeling OK with it. So then i changed my strategy. I adhere to the rules that said: in your bento, put 1/3 part of grains, 1/3 part of vegetables, and 1/3 part of protein with fruits and or salad--to maintain the quality of weight, and healthier off course. Eat regularly, take some exercises, and DO NOT EAT YOUR FOOD AT ONCE--thus, eat the food slowly, and digest well before being swallowed.
if i want to add another rations, i have to reduce the other. so the portion is always in the exact measurement.
I had have told this many times to friends who asked. But they still questioning, whether hubby's food rations excessive or not : "gee, those are  'massive portions'. can he eat them all??".
So, i took this picture to be disclosed, to answer that question. The largest tier is only at 14cm-diameter, and the smallest is only for 10cm-diameter. I use different tiers to seal the taste and the flavor of the food, not only by using separator things (like lettuce or kyuri). Further, this separated containers, make him easier in heating the food or chilling it in the fridge--without scrambling the contents.
In these tiers, I always give him small amount of rice (at about 3-4 tablespoon), so he won't be too full after having his lunch. 
There you go. That's for Monday.


Tuesday, 8th March, 2011
Yesterday's theme is : Lazy day!
Yeah! it was :D I was too lazy to woke up and still eager to slept under my warm-blanket yesterday morning. But then i gave up :D, i thought, i have to make him his bento. Otherwise, he'll be troubled finding lunch from his office. 
So, These are the 'Lazy bento' :

Sorry about the picture. suddenly, after the bento was done, the electricity was turn off. My house is a small one. With small ventilation too. So Usually, i take the pictures from the table in my kitchen with the light's help. But yesterday, i have to brought the tiers to living room-sofa, opened the window widely, and took the picture with natural light. Still, i've done nothing to program the camera. so i've got these pictures, they're not too sharp :(

These three tiers again :) :

in the first tier, i made the egg-rice as the base again, and put black pepper-beef, and saute mushrooms ( i use champignon and shiitake with sweet carrots and corns). I didn't have any rules, any ideas, to arrange this tier. so i just put them there, and gave some kyuri and tomato skin-flower.

the second tier is his salad's section. I made "Ribbon Salad" from sweet carrots and apples. They're so refreshing. I made the sauce with : cider vinegar, small amount of salt, pepper and give some sugar too. then mix with the carrots and apples, and keep them in the fridge.

In the third one, I put a dessert of fried apples in chocolate sauce. hmm..yummie :D hubby said, it was toooooo waaaayyy tooo delicious (LOLs).
That was for yesterday :)


Wednesday, 9th March, 2011
Fyuh, this is the latest and the last post for today. :D
I'm soooooo damn tired *oops.. :D

I put the alarm-clock there, to show that i made today's bento+hawker food, form 6am this morning till 8.25am. It's about 2,5 hours. All the menus are made just now in the morning.

I had have to make 5 portions of bentos (2 were take away), plus foods for sale too. Till this article posted, my house is still look a like 'vessel rupture' (too way to mess. LOLs). But I thought, i have to write this posting to the blog, or i'll forget again. 


Three same tiers :

 First, beside the plain rice, i made singgang ayam (that's a local recipe. ummm, maybe same like, grilled chicken in spicy sauce. You can make it also, all you need are just :

whole chicken, cut it to 4 parts. (or use the breast fillet like mine)

lime juice

lemongrass

lime leaves 

bay leaves

thin coconut milk

water

salt to taste

sugar

for the spices, you'll need to mash these :

garlics

onions

red chillies

ginger

galangal

turmeric

How to :
Coat chicken with lime juice for 15 minutes. wash it, and drain. Coat it with the spices. set aside.
Saute the onions with lemongrass, bay leaves, and lime leaves. Add the coconut milk, salt, water, and the chicken. Cook well and the gravy thickens.
Put the chicken on the pan that have already coated with butter before. pour with the gravy, and oven it, done with golden-brown color.

in this tier, i also put him a macaroni-schottel as the snack. :)


Second tier is curry leaves of cassava. That's with local recipe too :) 

Friend of mine said, when he saw this on the facebook, suddenly it reminds him to the small Padangneese restaurant near his campus, 11 years ago, and he misses it. oooooow... :,)

The third is the fruit section. today, i brought him fuji's apple, with black-watermelon, and strawberries. 

aaaaand, potatoes-donut too :D Actually these donuts with macaroni-schotel are for sale menu today. Oh, i add some paprika-powder and oregano in the macaroni. I hope they'll enjoy it.

Last, this is bento-package for hubby's work-mate. He asked this from three weeks ago :D (he always asks it for wednesday, i don't know why). I didn't have much time before to do this, but, oh ok..since my hubby said that his working-mate always asking the same question : "is there any bento for me?" for three weeks lately, so he asked me to make him one this morning. This is for you, Abu.


---------------------------------------------------------
aaaaaaaah...finally :D :D :D
I wanna have some sleep this noon :D
thank you folks, enjoy this :)

Hurry up, He'll be late ! :((

Actually, i woke up earlier this morning. But most of my time runs out in making the snacks for sale. Thank god, hubby is a helping and understanding husband. While i'm with his bento, he's willing to wrap all the snacks and count them (even though he knew, that he's late for work T____T). 

Thank you sweet heart :*

Today, i made tuna steak and chicken-fillet with sweet and sour sauce. For the chicken's sauce, it should be added with pineapple to strengthen the taste--but since we both not too keen to have that, so i didn't add it. 

I have twice disassemble this tier -____-' it's because i have no idea at all how to arrange today's menu (plus--i ran out the time). So, i just put those in--with the best possible order. I put tomato-rose and kyuri as the garnish (just to make it looks better :[ ).

I have also included shoots pumpkin soup--and sweet corns as the compliment.

Then, in the other container, I put today's snacks of macaroni-fretti and vermicelli spring rolls. By lettuce, i separated them from bananas and strawberries. Oh for your tips, how to keep your bananas fresh longer at home : Cut the banana tip, and DO NOT STORE BANANAS HANGED. The skin may will be brown forward, but inside, it still fresh indeed.

These are my homemade-snacks for sale today. One of my customer messaged me, he said, "overall the taste is good enough, but less seasoning for the spring roll." 
:,(( ooww....

I didn't taste the vermicelli before i wrapped them, so that's my mistake. I'll do better next :D 

And this is how all the tiers packed. I also put mango-milky juice (actually i want to make him the real mango juice, with blender, but since he's already late, so i didn't), fresh mineral water, Fish-crackers,  and vitamin-c. 

Happy working day, hubby ! ^^v 

-------
added on what's for lunch wednesday  on bentolunch.net blog 

Bento si Ayah and its marathon posting :)

He-he...

Another marathon posting, but this time--not my friends' but mine :D

Yes, i didn't post yesterday's bento since of my laziness -_______-' Gomenasai!

For today, i'll post you the yesterday's bento and the bento that i made this morning.

----

Yesterday is the last Monday (and day) in February. The cold weather kept me at home--it was raining all day. I was gardening that time, when hubby had left for work. It took my concentration, cause i have to finish the work before the rain gets heavier. So, I've lost my 'blogging spark' after that :D LOLs

I made gindara-grilled with shoot pumpkin leaf-sauteed, yesterday. I know, the fish skin looks awful -____-..that's because i add sweet-soy sauce too earlier at the beginning of grilling-time.  Hubby said, my gindara was awesome and delicious--beyond compare..so joyful, but i guess he was trying to up-lifting my spirit :) though, he asked me again to grilled it for the dinner. But since gindara is an expensive fish here, i didn't make him any (ran out!) for his dinner :)
I also put some macaroni-sushi there. Actually this was my menu for sale, but since i've failed in wrapping the egg sheet, i wrapped the macaroni with onigiri instead. :)

For his fruits basket, i put starfruits, mangoes, and strawberries there. Well, those were hubby's bento for yesterday.

---------->8----cut here------>8-----------

Last night, since we don't have any gindara left, i grilled another fish. It called 'Yellow tail' here (I think it's the same with mackerel, but smaller). Hubby liked it. So he asked me again, to bring this menu as his bento today.

First, season the fresh-fish that had been cleaned, with salt and lemon juice, stay stand for 15 minutes. Then coat the fish with vegetable-oil and grill it with low heat until the flesh cooked well. Some time before you lift the fish, coat it with honey. The honey will caramelized, and give a nice brown-gold fish skin. The put the fish in a platter. Meanwhile, start to make the condiment. In my country, the condiment called 'dabu-dabu'. I don't know exactly why, but this condiment comes from eastern part of Indonesia. You'll need to sliced the red onion-thinly, add some salt and sugar, chopped some tomatoes (better if you have the green ones), chopped some cayenne pepper, add some lemon juice--and pour little hot vegetable oil on it, mix well. There you go, the condiment is compliment to the fish.
I also sauteed him some watercress and cooked him 'belancang shrimp' (i don't know how to translate this to English, so i prefer to keep using the word 'belancang'--it's a local recipe). For this you'll need :

Medium-size shrimps 

Clean them. coat them with salt and lemon juice, stay stand for 10minutes, then fry.

As the spicy, you'll need to grind these: 

red onion

garlic

red chilli

shrimp paste

You'll also need these:

Chopped tomatoes

Sweet-soy sauce

scallions

brown-sugar

and water

Saute all the spices, put the shrimp, tomatoes, add the sweet-soy sauce, scallions, brown-sugar, salt and sugar. mix them for while, then ready to serve. :)
For bento, put some rice as the base, then arrange the side dishes on the top.

oh, i also made him snacks for today. It called 'Macaroni fretti'. Actually it has the same ingredients with baked-macaroni, but in different measure. If baked-macaroni..was offcourse..baked :) fretti was fried :). Oh i made many of them for sale too :))

Here, these are for you :))

 For the fruits, i brought him Cavendish-bananas, sunkist, apple, strawberries and black grapes.

Love the color soooo much!

O, few days ago, friend of my face-book asked me, "i'm curious, how did these tiers stacked together to bring? They even have no same size".
So, i took this picture this morning :

You see, i bought a bento-bag, the small one. Made from plastic, and coated by aluminum sheet, inside. The size is compact-able, it's only 30cm wide. So, you just put the tiers and the compliments here. For today, i brought him apple-drink, mineral water, fish-crackers and vitamin c. Oh, to extra-keep the bento's warmth, you can cover the tier with aluminum-foil before you close it--and plastic wrap for the fruit's tier.

That's all, i've done my 'marathon posting' :)) hope you'll enjoy it.

Simple Thursday

Another simple bento.

Few days ago, we went for some sushi hawker. One of  the menu was sushi that using rice as the cover and nori as the filling. i didn't know exactly the name, but those cute sushi captivated me. So, i made them for today's bento. But since i didn't make any preparation for this, i didn't cook the sushi-rice today. I'm using the regular rice--that make the cover not as smooth as usually.
I gave zucchini and smoke beef besides the tasty-nori (i use squid-taste nori) as the filling and caress the rice cover with chili powder.

I only made four, and those sushi were minis. ^^
See the yellow mozzarella above? that's the topping of my homemade pizza. And the golden brown flower behind the sushi (the one with the green rocket pick) is a chicken-souffle (also baked this morning for him). Both pizza and souffle used carrots as the side ingredients.

For today's salad cuisine--i only mixed lettuce with fresh tomatoes and non-fat raisins. As the dressing, i mix plain salad with sweetened condensed milk. Actually i want to add some cheese and lime juice too, but i ran out those things, so the salad dressing is a very simple one.

And gave him extra vitamins from these fruits of black-grapes, apples and strawberries. He also asked me to brought him a pack of berries yogurt (but i didn't photo it). 

So, these are hubby's bento menus.. aren't they lovely  :)