lots of food for a long day

Today is the start of the Massive Technological Project that will consume my evening, will require going into the office tomorrow and working until late, working all day Saturday (on what will be our first 80 degree day of the year ::sadface::), and possibly part or all of the day Sunday. I expect to be eating dinner late tonight, hence the larger box for lunch and the large snack/breakfast box.

pink "Natural Lunch" box:

• half of a banana (still in the peel to keep it from browning)
• an orange
• most of a Pink Lady apple
• blueberries as gap fillers

bunny & moon box:

• black forest ham, colby slices, and green leaf lettuce in a spinach wrap, with a spinach leaf tucked around to add to the wrap
• dill & vinegar potato salad
• celery sticks
• honey glazed sweet potatoes
• honey peanut butter dip
• dark chocolate and yogurt covered raisins <--(I should just create a macro for this phrase to save myself some typing)

bin delivery ftw!

Broccoli, peaches, apples, oranges, pears, zucchini, HUGE fava beans, a whole massive bunch of asparagus, a glorious bouquet of basil, shallots, fennel, radishes, and what is possibly the most beautiful head of green leaf lettuce I have ever seen. I didn't get around to making my lunch until late (did work for my website clients like a good little worker bee) and was originally going to just stick random stuff in there.

But that bouquet of basil was calling me and I just had to do something with a bit of it. Thank heavens for my Italian heritage husband, who considers pasta, olive oil, garlic, sea salt, and balsamic vinegar to be staples, so that even at 11 PM, I can throw together a mighty fine meal with a minimum of fuss.

• 4-flavor pasta (regular, beet, tomato, spinach) tossed with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, shallots (sauteed in a bit of olive oil), fresh basil, and sea salt, with some radish slivers for garnish
• chicken basil sausage, with some julienned carrots and cucumbers for garnish
• Rainier apple slices, garlic dill cheese curds, dark chocolate and yogurt covered raisins

hoping for good news

bunny & moon box:

• egg scramble wrap: eggs, broccoli, green onion, and basil in a flour tortilla
• steamed broccoli
• heirloom tomato (1st of the season!) and fresh mozzarella pearls with basil...kind of a caprese sort of thing
• dried mango slices, yogurt covered raisins, dark chocolate covered raisins

We're nearing the end of this course of antibiotics with Hobbes, so I need to get him in to the vet tomorrow or first thing next week if I can. He seems to've responded to the treatment, so I'm really, really, really, REALLY hoping that it's another indicator that he just had a really bad infection and that it's not cancer. It may mean more antibiotic for a little longer if the infection isn't completely gone, but that's nothing.

Keep your fingers crossed for us and for him, kay?

back from vacation and i need another one

Whew! Home after a long (but awesome, relaxing, and productive) weekend with Cat. I went up Friday morning, came back last night, and in between, we holed up in her cozy condo with WAY more yummy food than we could possibly eat, talked, worked on edits of my manuscript, talked, watched movies, talked, discussed possible home improvement ideas for her kitchen, talked...oh, and talked! It was a great, great weekend and the only downside was missing Sally and the kitties. But we are definitely doing that again.

I took the afternoon train, which meant not getting home until evening, and that meant rushing home to get the kitties fed in time, picking up dinner on the way (since I had more work to do for website clients and no time to make something for dinner), putting away the organics bin (which was waiting for me on my front step), getting at least some of my unpacking done, and all those niggling little tasks that by themselves don't take long but add up quickly.

Needless to say, there wasn't a whole lot of time for packing today's lunch. Nothing glamorous here but it'll do.

• PB&J sandwich (peanut butter and marionberry jam on 9-grain bread), cut to fit into the box
• carrot sticks and sweet pickles
• Fuji apple slices
• yogurt and dark chocolate covered raisins

monday? again?

Back at it after a busy (but lovely) weekend. Went down to Salem Saturday to spend the day and night with family (Sister, Guy, and the Fabulous Miss M) and as usual, had a great time together. Sister wrote me earlier last week to say that Miss M had asked if she could come to Portland for a picnic with Aunt Bitty, at which point I melted all over the floor, and had we not already had plans to go down there anyway, I would've dropped whatever I was doing and immediately driven right down there and whisked her away for a full picnic at the park, replete with every treat and confection I could cram into a wicker picnic basket. Because obviously.

Came home yesterday afternoon to the house in disarray thanks mostly to Hobbes, whose freakouts at the least little change are now apparently SOP at Hall House. Sigh. (Yes, I need to get to the pet store to get some Rescue Remedy. It's my last best hope, so everyone who reminded/recommended, keep your fingers crossed for us that it actually works miracles. Otherwise my next purchase will be a kitty-sized straitjacket....)

But! Once that was dealt with, I plotted out our vegetable garden layout, then Sally, that lovely man, did the actual planting so I could squeeze in a bit of writing time. Everything's now in the ground, juuuuuust in time for a late spring cold snap that's supposed to roll in tonight.

Anyway, it was a beautiful day and evening, and very warm, so we fired up the grill and whipped up dinner together. Then watched a movie while we ate and had chocolate gelato later for dessert. Not bad for a random weekend.

Bunny box, bottom tier:

• grilled chicken from last night's dinner (marinated first in a concoction of Worcestershire, garlic, oil, red onion, leek, dijon mustard, and sea salt)
• homemade potato salad (red potatoes, hard boiled eggs, leeks, red onion, yellow mustard, whole grain dijon mustard, red wine vinegar, oil, sea salt)
• carrot sticks and sweet pickles

top tier:

• kiwi slices and supremed orange sections
• "stripes" of yogurt raisins and dark chocolate covered raisins

Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Bento:

• in my pink strawberry sidecar (which I ate for breakfast before taking a picture) was vanilla and almond granola, a mini sidecar of Greek yogurt and strawberry preserves, and Braeburn apple slices

odds 'n ends

Can you tell that I haven't had time to cook in, like, weeks? At some point I really will have regular meals, or at least the leftovers of regular meals. And not the leftovers of something that my husband made, but something that I actually cooked, for myself.

Bottom tier:

• rice mixed with an orange-ginger Thai sauce surrounding a hard-boiled egg
• rolls of herb-roasted turkey slices on forked picks (toted in the chopsticks compartment and stuck in afterward)
• baby carrots cut up and tucked in, and steamed broccoli for gap fillers

Top tier:

• kiwi slices alternating with orange sections
• dried cherries and dark chocolate-covered raisins with dried mango slices as baran

and i never even watched that show

I think that if you guys could see what I start out with sometimes before I get one of these packed, you would be muy impressivo at my bento-fu. AND, I think some of you who sit there on the electronic sidelines thinking to yourself, "That's nice and all, but I could never do that" -- YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE -- would realize that you, too, could totally do this. Srsly, if you saw just how little I had to work with in my fridge and pantry, at midnight, with every dish/pot/pan/utensil/glass in my kitchen in need of washing...

I'm saying, the thought crossed my mind to just punt and eat out for lunch BUT NO I DID NOT CAVE TO TEMPTATION AND LOOKIT HERE I HAVE A SEMI-NUTRITIOUS LUNCH AND I AM ONE TOTAL BADASS MOFO THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKIN 'BOUT.

• tuna sammie SEMICIRCLES* -- tuna, mayo, sweet pickle relish on 9-grain bread; romaine leaves for the sandwiches; cojack stars for decoration and dairy
• hard-boiled egg (that was lucky to get boiled at all, nevermind trying to mold it, and which broke as I was putting it in the water); sweet pickles to fill the gaps
• peas and carrots; dark chocolate covered raisins

And yes, I realize there's a high proportion of chocolate in ratio with everything else, but a) MY CUPBOARDS ARE BARE Y'ALL, b) raisins totally count as fruit, c) ANTI-OXIDANTS HELLO, d) if you knew the kind of day I was facing today, you would wonder at my restraint.

* Because my little rounds wouldn't fit in the box with the lid on. So I cut those bad boys in half and do you see how I am like the MacGuyver of Bento?

concoctions from yesteryear

Finally got some sleep Tuesday night, and then some naps yesterday and a little bit of sleep last night. I'm not better yet, but feeling less pitiful than I was a couple of days ago.

The pantries at Hall House are looking rather bare these days, which makes coming up with something for lunch a bit of a trick. There's soup, of course, but I went almost the entire day without eating anything yesterday (and even when I did, had to make myself do it because I wasn't actually hungry) and I'm thinking that I need more solid food right now if I'm going to get better.

So today is a bit of an experiment, with breakfast food as an inspiration.

• egg scrambled with CoJack cheese and scallions
• French toast sticks* made with 9-grain bread
• Minneola tangelo sections
• smoked sausage

*I had the idea for these for awhile, with the idea that I'd have a little container of maple syrup for dipping. Unfortunately, we're out of maple syrup and I didn't want to have to pack butter and powdered sugar for sweetening them up, plus it would require reheating and I try not to do that if I can help it. So I flavored the egg batter with liberal amounts of cinnamon and sugar so that these wouldn't need any kind of sweetener. And if they still are kind of blah, I can eat them with the sausages, a concoction known at the Sheridan Best Western as the "Brittney Blanket" back in the day.

Let me 'esplain...

The summer before I went off to college, I worked at the front desk of the Best Western, which had a breakfast and dinner buffet. The shift included one meal (since you were basically "on call" even during your break) and you could eat for free at the buffet. Which is a nice enough perk, but it doesn't take long to get bored eating from the same array of options everyday. (And this was not a gourmet selection by any stretch -- all standard American fare.) To liven things up, we started coming up with imaginative creations since we basically had the whole buffet at our disposal. My creations were pretty tame compared to my coworkers', but when I worked the day shift, I loved putting sausage links in French toast slices like a kind of pig in the blanket -- hence, the "Brittney Blanket" -- sometimes with syrup, sometimes without. Sounds gross, but don't knock it. I still get a craving for it sometimes.

Bento as sanity-saver

Oh Universe, why must you give me weeks like these? Work craziness (more than usual), and on top of that, website clients (wrapped up last night), preparations for this month's Second Saturday, preparations for guests staying this weekend, bills and reconciling to be done, other website work to do (more about that soon, hopefully), and the house is a flippin' disaster. I need a personal assistant who's willing to be paid in good food and keep me from jumping off the proverbial ledge. Know anyone who'd be interested? Send them my way.

Nonetheless, I stayed strong and made my lunch for today. Considering the day I was/am facing today, that is no small accomplishment right there. But this is where the rubber meets the road, or whatever koan works for you, and though it meant going to bed that much later and being that much more worn out when I dropped into bed, I did so with a certain satisfaction that's become invaluable, and boy oh boy am I thanking Nighttime Me for taking such good care of Daytime Me.

Bunny box today:

• top tier: star-shaped egg and smoked sausages* on one side, fresh mozzarella and tomato slices on the other side, with steamed broccoli as gap fillers throughout;
• bottom tier: pineapple and raspberries on one side, Golden Blush apple slices on the other side with a few strips of carrot to fill the end gap

* I found these great little sausages at New Seasons -- organic; vegetarian-fed; cruelty-free; no hormones; casein, gluten, and nitrite free. Now if they were just calorie-free I'd be set....

One of the things I just love about these new two-tier boxes is that they each fit inside themselves to take up as little room as possible for storage. This one is particularly clever in how it goes together to collapse down, and it's kind of like putting together a puzzle box. I get as much satisfaction from breaking these sets down and putting them away as I do packing them and eating from them.

new box!

So if you missed it last night, you can find out all about my exciting new craz-itude here. If you scrolled on past for a reason, well then...I don't blame you a whit.

Too many choices, too many choices, and I'd totally been planning something a little more impressive for my first meal in each of my new boxes, but you know, life and whatever, the end.

• bottom tier: chicken breast stir-fried in a little toasted sesame seed oil and Worcestershire sauce; jasmine rice on top of peas, with beets as garnish
• top tier: more peas with mozzarella and colby cheese stars; green grapes, dried mango as baran, and dark chocolate covered raisins as gap fillers

Not only was I working with a limited array from the fridge, but also limited time. I didn't even start making dinner (and thus leftovers) until almost 10. :(  I will also blame the late hour on my lack of either a pick or one of my mini spoons included for the peas, which is unfortunate since, while I'm fairly proficient with chopsticks, my chopstick fu is not so sophisticated that I can manage peas with aplomb. Time to practice, I guess....

bento glee, baby!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA YOU GUYS YOU ARE SO GOING TO HATE ME LIKE FOR REALS OMG.

GUESS WHAT CAME IN THE MAIL TODAY HMMM I WONDER WHAT IT COULD POSSIBLY BE??????

I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS DAY FOR TWO WEEKS BUT ALSO FOR MONTHS AND MONTHS IT IS LIKE BEING SEVEN YEARS OLD ALL OVER AGAIN I AM PROBABLY GOING TO BREAK MY CAPSLOCK KEY JUST FYI.

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