Bento Box.
Made with lots of veggies.
Miso Konjac.
Curry Teriyaki Renkon Lotus Slices.
These are just a few dishes you will find in this bento box.
You can have them on a plate.
But it’s just so much fun to put them in a bento box.
Have a great weekend everyone!
Today it is well known that Japanese people eat with chopsticks.
But did you know that they “cook” with chopsticks, too?
For cooking we use larger sized chopsticks like these.
I do cook with tongs and wooden spoons, but my go-to cooking utensil is still my old chopsticks that my mom got for me.
I was in a mood for a Japanese Bento lunch.
This Bento is called “Soboro” Bento in Japan.
Typically ground meat is cooked with soy based sweet sauce and then placed on top of rice along with eggs and vegetables.
My version is 100% plant-based, so what you see here are tempeh “soboro”, sugar peas, cumin tofu, and carrots.
This is how you use the big chopsticks (called “Sai-Bashi” in Japanese).
I can’t think of using any other utensils to do this.
Voila!
The colors are so appetizing.
If you take it to work, school, or a picnic, you want to wrap it like this.
The best part of having a Bento is this moment.
It’s always exciting to open it (especially when someone else made it and you don’t know what’s in it).
Well even when I know exactly what’s in it, it’s still a fun moment (lol).
This Soboro Bento is relatively easy to make, as you can prepare some of the toppings the day before.
And it’s nutritious enough as it is, so you just need some fruit or soup to bring with.
Have a great weekend everyone!
Philly or cheese steak sandwich was never on top of my list, but it was one of Terry’s favorite sandwiches.
So I thought it would be fun to make it with portobello mushrooms.
You don’t want to be skimpy with mushrooms.
Then sauteed onion and green peppers go on top of the mushrooms.
And here is another important part of the sandwich, cashew cream, which gives another layer of flavors.
The sandwich has the rich flavors you get from the philly sandwich, but you don’t feel heavy after you finish the sandwich.
It makes a great lunch when served with fresh fruit.
Porobello Philly Sandwich
canola oil
2~3 portobello mushrooms
salt and pepper
garlic powder
onion powder
Japanese worcestershire sauce
1 small onion, sliced
1/2 green pepper, sliced
cashew cream
– 1 cup cashew nuts
– 1~2 cloves garlic, cut in half
– water
– Dijon mustard
– sugar
– lemon juice
– white vinegar
– salt and pepper
1. Sautee portobello mushrooms in oil. Salt and pepper. Add garlic powder, onion powder, and worcestershire sauce. Continue to cook for another minute or so until the sauce coat the mushrooms.
2. Clean the pan. Add oil. Sautee onion and pepper. Salt and pepper.
3. Make cashew cream. Put cashew nuts and garlic in a small pot. Cover with water. Boil and then turn off heat. Let the nuts and garlic soak for a while. Remove the nuts and garlic, and place them in a tall container; keep the water. Add mustard, sugar, lemon juice, white vinegar, salt and pepper. Add the water where the nuts and garlic were cooked in, little by little until the sauce achieves a preferred consistency.
Muffin-making happens in my kitchen on the weekend.
I had beautiful spinach, and I knew that was going to turn my muffins to green deliciousness.
Love the color!
They were topped off with crunchy crispy onion.
And they were ready to go into the oven.
Finally out of the oven, and they looked absolutely perfect!
Exactly what I expected, the color, and the puffiness.
These are sweet (but not too sweet) and savory at the same time.
So you can enjoy them for breakfast, brunch, lunch, or snack.
Really anytime of the day.
These are not only beautifully green, but also delicious!
The inside is moist and the crunchy onion topping goes so well.
I’m not a big beer drinker, but I bet these can be a good snack for beer drinkers, too.
Since I have cool lunchbox stuff (these are from 100-yen shops in Japan), I decided to quickly put together a meal package.
Isn’t it cool?
The spinach muffins were packed with fresh grapes and pickled rhubarb.
This is a well-balanced lunch, if you ask me.
There is a Blues Festival going on in our city this weekend, and my Spinach Muffins made it there, too.
It’s pretty hot outside, but the music is awesome!
The first time I tried tempeh I didn’t like it.
The second and the third time I didn’t like it either.
So I stopped trying.
I didn’t think I would ever try tempeh again, and I didn’t eat it for several years.
Then a few months ago Terry had BBQ Tempeh Picnic Sandwich at Mendocino Farms in California, and with his strong encouragement I took a bite.
Guess what?
I liked it.
Well, I actually really really liked it.
I didn’t know why first, but then I realized that this was the first time I ate tempeh when it was called “tempeh”, and not as fake meat.
In the past every time I tried tempeh it was presented to me as “fake meat”, and it has never tasted like meat, which I now think was the big reason why I felt disappointment.
So I bought tempeh for the first time.
I love its very short list of ingredients which always makes me happy.
I marinated tempeh in my homemade BBQ sauce before baking them in the oven.
This is my simple coleslaw made with cabbage, radish, and kohlrabi.
Put everything on my homemade bread as well as sweet mustard sauce.
Voila!
This was super tasty!
I’m so glad that I got reunited with tempeh.
I have a feeling that our relationship is going to last for a long time this time.
Yes, it’s okay to make your bento pretty.
To make a bento like this you place rice at the bottom and add different colored food on top.
This is a popular way to make a bento in Japan.
It’s typically called a tri-color bento because you usually have three different colors, but then I realized that mine had four colors!
For this bento I had shiso tofu, yuzu radish, sugar snap peas, and sesame carrots.
Making this bento feels like painting a picture.
I really enjoy this process.
Pretty, healthy, and tasty.
If you don’t have a bento box, you can still enjoy this meal in a bowl like this.
I usually make some extra.
These come in handy for the rest of the week, as they can be used for a lot of different things like salad, stir-fry, soup, fried rice, etc.
Hi! I'm Reiko. It's pronouced "Ray-Co". Yes, it's a Japanese name, and I was born and raised in Japan. I first came to the U.S. ...→
