Erratic Eats

Leftover Birthday

2008-07-22T16:47:00.001-07:00

These are leftovers from my husband's birthday dinner. I just packed the box as I was putting stuff away. The Citrus Marinated Shrimp Cocktail is really yummy. I got the recipe on Epicurious. I tucked some corn in next to the shrimp. On the bottom are bread slices with Dubliner and Maytag blue cheeses. I gave him a do-it-yourself strawberry shortcake with pound cake in the silicone cup and sweetened cherries and cream in the little containers. BTW - the pound cake is supposed to be Elvis Presley's favorite pound cake.

Birthday Bento

2008-07-21T18:23:00.001-07:00

Today was my husband's birthday. I made him a mini-layer cake by cutting out two tiny circles of cake. I filled it with apricot preserves. It's hard to see, but the cheese hearts spell out HAPPY BIRTHDAY. He got his favorite peanut butter celery, some pickled cucumber, and some nice big shrimp with cocktail sauce. I nestled a little frozen fruit custard in between the shrimp to keep them extra cool.

Food on a Stick

2008-07-18T08:43:00.000-07:00

Food on a stick is fun! I was testing teriyaki skewers for a baby shower we're throwing this weekend. Shown here are the beta versions that my husband gets to eat. I was at Michael's yesterday and picked up a few bento goodies - the cute little picks and a set of miniature cut-outs. I used the pics as mini-skewers for his grapes. He's also got cheese hearts and flowers, a mini zucchini bread, peanut butter and celery, tiny heart and flower toasts, and a few cherry tomatoes. The yellow container has some dark chocolate Raisinettes held in with Glad Press-n'-Seal.

Lemony Bento

2008-07-17T08:34:00.000-07:00

More chicken! I made lemony bulgur and poached some chicken breasts in the same pot. The chicken was a little bland, but the bulgur was yummy. I decided it would hold up fine as a room temperature "salad." My husband does not use the microwave at work, so I make sure all his food can be eaten at room temperature. I do include some miniature ice packs that I found at Daiso. I took a tip from Biggie at Lunch in a Box and microwaved the bulgur for a few seconds to improve its texture. If you're looking for Bento tips, please check out her site. The mini-loaf is a zucchini bread that is just OK. This is the second zucchini bread recipe I've tried, and I still haven't quite found what I'm looking for. Fortunately there will be lots more zucchini for further experimentation. I made him a single deviled egg for variety. It's very easy to make just one deviled egg and it is always a welcome treat. I usually sprinkle it with paprika, but in my sleepiness I grabbed the wrong rectangular container. So this one is sprinkled with Old Bay Seasoning. It might work. I also gave him some baby carrots and celery sticks with a packet of ranch dressing. Oh... and of course tiny grapes.

Peanut Butter and Celery

2008-07-16T08:07:00.000-07:00

My husband's very favorite bento item is peanut butter and celery. No nuts of any kind show up on his meal plan, so I'm going to have him check into that. They list bacon as a fat but not peanut butter. Grrr. So anyway I took some liberties today and used just a scant amount - 2 teaspoons. I went out into the garden and after hunting through the tomato forest managed to find a few ripe ones. It's going to be tomato city around here soon, so expect to see lots of those. I quartered up a few of those pickled onions he likes so much. The rest is a fish-shaped egg missing his tail, grapes, cherries, and lemon cucumber. I tucked in a little container of salt. Oh, and there's a pretty pretty nasturtium because I saw someone else do that and thought it was a great idea. I doubt he'll eat it, though.

Hungry Girl's Squash-tastic Shepherd's Pie

2008-07-15T12:20:00.000-07:00

Have you checked out hungry-girl.com? Lisa Lillien is great! My husband and I both subscribe to her daily emails and have tried a bunch of her recipes. I highly recommend the Green Tea Crème Swappuccino. I found this book at Raley's and just had to have it. It's maiden voyage was the Squash-tastic Shepherd's Pie. My husband cannot tolerate ground turkey and ground chicken wasn't available. We settled on very lean ground beef. It was very good! I forgot to drain the water out of the squash, so it turned out a bit watery on the bottom and didn't quite crisp upon the top. Not a problem for husband and 15-year-old nephew who both went back for seconds. I think Bobby was secretly delighted that it wasn't summer squash from the garden again.

So there it is. The guys got to it before I could photograph it in all of its orangy glory, but that's OK because you can see the layers. She reports a points value of 4 per serving, but I'll probably have to recalculate it for ground beef. I think I'll get the old meat grinder down and see if I can't do my own stinking ground chicken. We'll definitely be having this again.

Bobby's bento for the day. The tuna salad is an adaptation from one I got on eDiets when we were doing South Beach but didn't have the presence of mind to save. It's not that hard to recreate. It's crispy chopped up vegetables mixed with drained tuna and a lot of balsamic vinegar. That's pretty much it.Today I used onion, celery, and cucumbers. It doesn't look pretty, but it tastes great. It was a little wet, so I packed it in this lunch box from Target (thanks, Biggie!). Bobby doesn't like these boxes because people can see his food through it, but it just couldn't be helped. I put in some whole wheat pita chips, some grapes, and a few Raineir cherries. The brownie is No-Pudge Fudge Mint using the single serving direction and baked in a tiny silicon baking cup in the microwave. That single serving recipe is the best. It's easy enough to make but not sooo easy that you'd want to dash off and make yourself another one. A nice warm brownie in a little ramekin with a half scoop of sorbet is a pretty classy dessert for company, too.

Turkey Leg Soup

2008-07-14T16:17:00.001-07:00

This recipe is not from a weight-loss book, but we're off to the gym in about an hour and I don't feel like going to the store. So out from the freezer comes turkey leg bean soup! This was a stroke of genius if I do say so. We visited the Alameda Fair and you know the best thing about fairs is turkey legs. We got ours wrapped up to go intending to eat them for dinner. While snacking on them that night I got the idea that they'd be great in a bean soup. So... I opened up Yahoo, typed in "turkey leg bean soup" and voila! Cooks.com had an excellent 8 Bean Soup using turkey legs. I already had 2 cups of dried mixed beans so I just used that instead of buying and measuring out 1/4 cup each of 8 different kinds of beans. We'd consumed portions of our turkey legs so I added both of them for safety. Once the cooking was done I pulled the meat off the bone and added it back in. Yummy! Best of all, I got some for lunch the next day and still had enough to put aside for another night like tonight. So the next time you go to the fair, don't forget your turkey leg! When I ran it through Weight Watchers' Recipe Builder I got a points value of 7 per serving. Not bad for a main dish meal. I suspect it's a bit less than that since I didn't even put in the skin. Cooks.com lets you print your ingredient list as a word search puzzle. That's weird.

Garden Fresh Bento

2008-07-14T11:10:00.000-07:00

OK so this is the very first post and I can see I'll have to get my husband to teach me how to take nicer pictures. This is his bento for today. I'm off for the summer so I won't need bentos for at least a few more weeks. This is a garden fresh bento! The grapes, lettuce, cucumber, parsley, and lettuce were all picked fresh this morning. I'm about as experienced a gardener as I am a cook, so we're a bit overrun at the moment. Heck, I'm just having fun with it. He's got a nice little chicken salad (red lettuce and chopped cucumbers underneath the chicken and carrots), a peeled and quartered lemon cucumber with a little container of salt, whole wheat sourdough toast, and a pickled onion. Mr. B hates parsley so I tucked that bit of garnish in there as a joke. What are husbands for if not to torment? This is my first attempt to follow the meal plan he's been given. 3 proteins = chicken. 1 fruit = grapes. 1 carbohydrate + fat = toast blessed with the faintest bit of margarine. Not pictured is a convenient little packet of salad dressing from Kraft - only 25 calories! He'll get his dairy in the form of a sugar-free iced coffee from the Golden Arches. He eats these bentos for breakfast and the plan does not incorporate veggies for the morning meal... so I took some liberties. OK, and the little fruit custard does not technically fit in there. Avert your eyes! Focus instead on the lovely tomatoes and the attempt at carrot polka-dots.