25.

mine, finally!

Top: Tangerine slices, apple chunks and half a kiwi
Bottom: Cream cheese/ham sandwich pinwheels, string cheese chunks, craisins

I felt like having a whole bunch of fruit today. Mostly because if I had veggies, i'd have to cook them [ which was more work than I had time for this morning ] or eat them with ranch dip, and i'm trying to eat healthier. And the ranch dip we have is made with mayo, a ranch packet, some milk and a bit of lemon juice. That's not exactly calorie-free.

Note to self: Do NOT, WHATEVER you do, drink Coke Zero EVER AGAIN! Especially without food. It will fuck up your stomach and your brain and give you the nastiest headache EVER.

I had to go and buy subway just to calm my stomach down since there wasn't enough food in my box to keep my stomach from going crazy and the room spinning. This is not a good sign. Never again, my friends. Never again will I drink that crap. And diet/calorie free sodas are worse for you than regular sugary sodas. It's so horrible.

So my dad still has a lunch for tomorrow, since he went out surveying instead of staying in the office today, so he's just going to have it for lunch tomorrow! And, he's even coming home for lunch to eat it, since he's working about 15 minutes away instead of an hour away. He also won't need one for Thursday since he's working out of the office on friday as well.

twenty-five.

another for my papa.

Left to Right: Salad with bleu cheese, grape tomatoes, and bacon bits. Rolls of roast beef for sandwich, salt for sandwich, pepper for salad. Mayonnaise in the third dixie cup for sandwich. Shepherder bread, kiwi, craisins, string cheese. Bleu cheese dressing and apple.

So, when my dad started taking his lunch to work [ vs. going out to eat every day, cheaply of course since this damn economy sucks ] my mom would make him a sandwich, an apple, and a cookie for his lunch. And that was also his dinner, but he'd snack on some pistachios or something after he got home if he was hungry. And then I volunteered to start making his lunches, and he appreciates it every day that I do. So this is somewhat of a spin on what my mom would make him.

I mean, the same thing for lunch every day gets a little boring after awhile, doesn't it? I know it does for me, especially since I pretty much did the same thing throughout middle and high school. It sucked.

bento 23 today (:

for moi ;D

Lid: String cheese, my cute clickety click fork! (:
Sidecar: Tangerine slices, ham rolls, banana oatmeal to go bar
Sealable container: Pizza mac+cheese

Okay, so I threw this quickly together this morning since I kind of woke up late [ well late enough for me to rush make my bento and try and get out the door to catch the earlier, two-car train ] I dumped the pizza mac+cheese onto a plate that i used to cut the ham up on for the ham rolls, threw in the microwave for a couple of minutes and sprinkled some extra cheese on top [ it was melted by the time I ate it 45-50 minutes later ]. This was the last thing I did before I went upstairs to shower, and honestly, it wasn't too bad slightly cold/room temp.
I threw the ham, tangerine and oatmeal bar together while I was making breakfast, so that wasn't too bad. Wondering how I made that pizza mac+cheese?

Pizza Mac+Cheese:
1 box kraft mac+cheese
1 can diced tomatoes [ I used petit diced tomatoes. They're basically just cut into a smaller dice ]
1 can sliced BLACK olives
2 heaping tablespoons [ okay, more like 4 heaping tablespoons, lol ] ricotta cheese
some hamburger, cooked with garlic salt, broken up
small handful of parmesean cheese
a couple handfuls of some sort of shredded cheese [ I used a Mexican 4-cheese blend, its what we've got ]
Butter according to mac and cheese box
milk/cream according to mac and cheese box
italian seasoning [ like, a half-tablespoon or so, just throw in however much you'd like ]

Ok, so while the noodles are cooking, pre-cook the hamburger with some garlic salt and maybe a bit of onion powder, if you've got it. Once the hamburger is almost done, cook the noodles however you like, and drain, finishing the hamburger and then turning the pan off while you prepare the other stuff. Leave the stove ON [ unless you've got a gas stove and can reheat the pan easily ]. Throw in the can of diced tomatoes. and let cook down a bit. Throw in the italian seasoning and stir. Throw in the parmesean cheese and the cooked hamburger. Stir. Put the butter in for the amount of mac+cheese you're cooking, and then put the noodles back in the pan [ the stove is still on, make sure the noodles don't stick though ] and combine with the tomato/hamburger mixture. Throw in your can of olives [ or if you don't like them, find something else! ] Add the milk. I personally start out with heavy whipping cream, as I like mine thick and creamy, and thin out as needed with milk. Dump the cheese packet into the macaroni mix and stir in until it's mixed in. Add the ricotta cheese and mix in until nice and creamy and all melted and stuff into the mac mix. Then put the shredded cheese in and mix until combined and melty.

You can also throw in pepperoni, sliced hard salami, whatever you'd like. It's mostly preference and what you've got. If you've got italian sausage, you could honestly throw that in too, and that'd probably be so delish!

I ate a heaping bowful of this for dinner last night and I still had 4 roughly 1-1 1/2 cup servings of this stuff, just perfect for my bento box! So it really is an awesome thing to make in advance and reheat later for quick and easy starch and protien. Although you may want to have more protien in this, since it's mostly carbs.

bentos 20 and 21

mine, for lunch today

Top: Pistachios, broccoli, grape tomatoes, ranch in lemon cup
Bottom: Shell noodles with butter, garlic salt, nutmeg and parmesean cheese, banana
Lid: Spoon, fork and string cheese.

To make the shell noodles:
My brother (or his girlfriend, most likely) a couple of weeks ago made macaroni and cheese from scratch, and they left half a box of shells, so I totally took them and threw them in the cupboard. I cooked them in boiling water with salt and some olive oil to just past al dente (I don't like chewy noodles) and then cooled them, and then put in a ziploc bag and threw them in the fridge. Then this morning, as I was making my lunch, I put some butter down in the pan, threw the noodles in and sprinkled in some garlic salt and nutmeg (I unfortunately couldn't find the whole nuts, so I used ground) and then let it cook for a minute, moving the pasta around so it wouldn't stick. Then I saw some parmesean cheese in the fridge and sprinkled that over, and let it heat up in the pan and stirred it around.
I would honestly eat these hot, since I don't have a microwave source at school, I cannot easily do that. But, tasty nonetheless.

I'm trying to eat healthier bentos (yeah, I know butter isin't really THAT healthy, but it IS healthier than margarine, ick) and I thought this was a good start to it. I got a good portion of fruits and veggies. I just need to have more meat/protien in it, I think. My mom is always complaining that I dont eat enough salads and veggies. I mean, I like them and all, it's just a hassle to prepare them a lot of the time.

for my dad for tomorrow's lunch.

Left to Right: Cake balls, salt, pears, chicken in a white wine cream sauce, asparagus and spinach in white wine cream sauce, shell pasta.

Now, for the chicken and veggies, I kind of did what I normally do when making Chicken Florentine at home. Although I didn't feel like chopping up fresh onions and garlic, I just threw some dried onions and sliced garlic into the wine and soaked it before I put the wine in the pan. I cooked the chicken (pan frying -- dredging in flour+salt+pepper -- in butter) and then took the chicken out of the pan and threw the white wine mixture into the pan, let that reduce, threw some cream in (eyeball it -- god, I sound like Rachel Ray) and let that reduce some more until you get a nice thick sauce, and then throw the chicken back in and coat it in the sauce.
For the asparagus and spinach I pretty much did the same thing, except a bit differently. I took the asparagus, cleaned them up and threw some butter into the pan, then sauteed the asparagus for a minute or two. Then came the wine. I just splashed enough in to help the asparagus cook a bit and then I reduced the wine and then added a bit of cream, and then I saw some baby spinach in the fridge, so I put a bit of that in there also and let the sauce reduce down even more into a nice thick sauce. Then I put the asparagus mixture over the chicken and noodles.
HOPEFULLY I will get a good report on this one tomorrow. It should come back empty, as per usual (since my dad will eat just about anything) and it's nice that he gives me suggestions and stuff to work on my recipies if he has any qualms with them (I think he wants me to be an awesome cook for whoever I marry, hahahaha).

breakfast - bento 17.

Yet again I needed something to take my pills with (I have to take them twice a day) and I thought this would hold me over until dinner sometime this afternoon/tonight. Hopefully it'll allow me to be fuller and not eat so much at dinner! I sure hope so, since I'm trying to lose weight. And hopefully this is somewhat healthy, so I will! (: But then again, by the time I ate this you could/should probably call it brunch.

mineeeee.

Top: Banana chunks, Craisins, string cheese chunks
Bottom: Peanut butter and honey sandwich pinwheels