Bento: Taking It Easy

Good morning!
I cheated with lunch today, as I'm feeling pretty lazy this morning. My breakfast was even mostly pre-made: yogurt, oj, oatmeal and a cinnemon muffin.

I made muffins yesterday so they're showing up everywhere. I brought a few to share with co-workers so at least I can share the delicious wealth with others.

Cheater, cheater (pecan) eater.

I had a coupon for Tyson's Ready to Grill chicken, so I purchased some to have to throw into stuff right from the freezer, to the skillet, to my belly. I ate one before I tossed it on my salad and they're A+. Then I toasted some pecans and sliced fruit and wham-o, cheater lunch.

Lunch is a simple toasted pecan with chicken salad, Special K bar, Granola bar, cinnemon muffin and grapes and strawberries. I need to use up my strawberries FAST since they're going to be going bad.

I'm really excited because the weekend of the 16th South Windsor has a strawberry festival! I hope to take lots of pictures and post them here.

Anyway, happy bentoing!

Bento: Breakfast!

I don't know about you, but I find breakfast to be the most comforting meal of my day. I have a set morning routine: Wake up, have a  bowl of cereal, fruit and orange juice, and read blogs each morning before work. It's a nice break from rushing about and the alone time is always nice.
So today I put together a breakfast bento for lunch tomorrow!
It's has turkey sausages, mini pancakes, fried potatoes, scrambled egg, french toast (leftovers), and a fruit medley of kiwi, strawberry and grapes. I love fruit with breakfast, do you?

Do you SEE these noms?!

So as you can see I've been using my Chinese take-out containers instead of bento boxes. I've realized most of the boxes I have are *Far* too small for the amount of fruit I try to shove into them, so I need to get some new boxes soon!

I'll proably head over to Ohayo Bento and get some new boxes soon. But for now, take out trays ahoy!

Back to Bento

After a long hiatus and some things going on in my personal life, I'm glad to be back to doing bento!

Tomorrow's lunch is a bit of leftovers and very...green! I didn't even realize it until looking at the picture here. I even used a green silicone cupcake holder. Must be the summer getting to me.

Anywho, tomorrow's bento is egg fried rice w/ veggie, with some octodogs, tuna cakes, sauteed bok choy, steamed broccoli, hard boiled egg and a strawberry. It's nearly time for farmer's markets here in Connecticut and I'm really excited!

Also below the picture of my bento are some photos of my Monday night special "nerd" dinner with the boyfriend. :) He set up our computers, food and candles so we could eat while playing on our computers. He's so adorable!

Back to having a normal lunch!

Alright, so maybe I cheated on this lunch quite a bit. It doesn't mean it wasn't tasty, though! Top left has a salad of hard boiled egg, bacon, cucumber and salad greens. Right top has a sliced kiwi and some strawberries. Bottom has a bologna on rye sandwich, sliced apples, Quaker yogurt bar and Special K bar. The bars are for when I'm a bit peckish during the day. They help a lot when I need a snack at work! Hopefully I'll be cooking again soon. We'll see when that happens!

My first stab at kinpira and *another* WW bento

So I'm an avid reader of Just Bento, and I saw that Maki posted her parsnip kinpira recipe and I've been dying to try it since. I love parsnips and I was *so* happy that these were flipping delicious. I had to stop myself from munching all of them down before I could get them into tomorrows bento box!

You'll notice that I do my bentos the night before. This is because I honestly do not have the mental coherence in the morning to put together a lunch, nevertheless wake up early enough to cook for it. I have a lot of time the night before, so that's when I make my morning easier by packing lunch, getting tomorrows clothes ready, etc. It's easier for me.

Tonight I made my own Turkey Sausage with Peppers & Onion recipe, which was super simple and came out flipping delicious.

Open-faced omnomnons, say what?

So I had that for supper and made my bento for tomorrow!

Bento!

It's a super simple one. Strawberries in the far cup, on the left there's the kinpira, quail egg, greens and whole wheat croutons. On the right was the leftovers of sausage and peppers. I know it's not a super colorful lunch but it will be delicious tomorrow!

I also have an extra bag of strawberries because I stay late for meetings on Tuesdays so I want something to snack on during the conference call.

Hope everything has a wonderful week!

Start of a loooong month bento!

So Monday marks the start of a month of a six-day work week. With Weight Watchers, I'm going to be needing to bring my lunch even more so than I did before. Instead of bringing in large portions of take-away food or anything like that, I'll be bringing in some of my WW cooked meal mixed with 0 point food or Power Foods! It's a good thing I find all this stuff delicious!

I wanted to make quinoa to put into this bento, but I have a ton of leftover basmati rice from when boyfriend and I went for Indian food on Friday. So Mondays bento is Tex-Mex Chicken [w/ zucchini], basmati rice, strawberries, and a salad garnished with a quail egg and homemade whole-wheat croutons.

I'm looking forward to posting more of my bentos for this week. I hope holding myself accountable here will help!

Sunday Dinners, Weight Watchers and 2012!

Whew! I better blow the dust off my blog!

So 2012 has started off pretty well. I have a wonderful boyfriend, a job I like and life is just nice in general. It's so different being in Connecticut rather than Brooklyn, but I must say I'm pretty pleased with how things are here.

The only downside to moving to Connecticut is that my walking has been almost all cut out. Aside from the running around I do at work on a daily basis, I don't do the same walking that I had time for in NYC. An hour lunch break makes a huge difference when you're trying to eat and be active during your only free time.

So I've gained a lot of weight in a small amount of time! Last week I decided to join Weight Watchers, and tomorrow is my first weight in! I'm a bit nervous but I think I've stayed the same if not lost a little bit. I hope I haven't gained.

I've found that my bento are barely ANY points! I finally found quail eggs here and that's 0 points (compared to 2 points for a hard boiled egg), plus all the fruits and most of the veggies are 0 points as well. I haven't thought to take a picture but I'll snap one of my lunch on Wednesday.

I did snap a photo of what I made tonight, though! Tex Mex Chicken with Zucchini. YUM!

Omnomnomnom.

Boyfriend has been working Sundays lately, and it kinda sucks to be frank. We work opposite shifts so the rare occasion we can eat dinner together is always special. I've decided that Sunday dinners are especially important.

While boyfriend works I make dinner (Weight Watchers meals now!) and have it ready and hot when he gets home. It's nice to play housewife sometimes ;) We sit at the kitchen table (which never gets used except for Sunday dinner and Dungeons and Dragons) and discuss the week and watch some television. It's a nice time and it's important family time that we need together.

So enough gush about this stuff. I hope to start posting my bentos again this coming week and that I get great news when I weight myself tomorrow!