Big Shiny Bento

Lunch today is the culmination of a few days work for me. It is pork filled wontons with shanghai bok choy and rice.

The wontons are the big deal. A few days ago I started preparing a batch of ground pork filling before I realized I had no bean sprouts or bok choy! So after adding and cooking the pork, carrot matchsticks, onion, and brown rice I set it aside until yesterday. Then I diced, cooked and added the shanghai bok choy to the mix and fried up the wontons - around 30. I think I had the oil up too high as they browned a bit much, but no burns. Best of all they get 4 thumbs up so far!

(Now to figure what to do with the other 3/4 of the pork mixture.. eggrolls here we come!)

Here’s a fast and easy idea for a nice lunch.

Make up a pack of ramen noodles, no sauce yet. Drain the water off after well cooked.

Microwave some eggs (not in the shell!) and when done, dice them up small. 2-3 eggs should be about right.

Combine noodles, eggs, sauce powder, hot sauce, soy sauce, and anything else you’d like (herbs, diced veggies, etc).

Enjoy! I didn’t add any veggies since I’m at work with limited resources, but its good!

A couple nights ago we made ‘chow mein’. That involved cooking a large pack of chow mein noodles, and cooking diced chicken, mushrooms, and okra in water garlic and soya sauce. Then drain the noodles and toss with oil so they don’t stick. Drain the sauce off the meat and veggies, add oil to a hot pan with some green onions. After a minute add the meat and veggies, and some soya sauce. After another minute add the noodles back in and toss everything together. Add a touch more oil if you like.

It was good, but next time I’m going to make fewer noodles. Anyway, thats lunch!

I’ve been trying to change my eating habits towards regular meals over the last little while.

To this end I’ve started making breakfast at work, so there is no excuse not to have it. And I have hit upon a pretty tasty combination - my own version of the egg macmuffin.

Toast the muffin and lightly butter it. While that’s toasting, take a clean mug and pour under a cm of egg beaters into it - I’m using cheesy chive! Put that in the microwave for a minute, taking it out and stirring every 20-30 seconds. When its done take a knife around the edge of the egg and it will fall right out onto your muffin. You may want to take a knife and trim the egg so it sits more level on the muffin, and then season to taste - salt,pepper,catsup,etc.

yum!

Today again is leftovers. Sheppards pie (ground beef, peas, corn, and potato) mixed together with tomato sauce and wooster sauce. The potato mixes until you don’t know its there and the end result is sort of like a meatloaf. I had an apple on the side for some more healthy stuff.
I guess in the future I can use mashed potatoes instead of bread crumbs - thats good to know!

No this doesn’t involve lottery tickets.

Its plain white rice, with part of a can of fiesta chicken chunky campbell’s soup with some mixed beans. Due to a busy weekend and a busy lunch hour at home, this was it.

I’ve found if you’re in a real hurry, the bigger cans of chunky soup on top of noodles or rice make a pretty good meal. Plus it has veggies! Throw in a salad and its close to healthy! (Don’t look at the sodium though..)

Remember that chicken? Well today we have a leftover rice omelette with pieces of chicken and topped with teryaki sauce. On the side are some cucumber slices. Not a big lunch, but not bad when I add in a bowl of instant miso soup.

Well, 2 small children, a new house, and super busy at work is a formula for no spare time. This inspired me to try out the pre-cooked and pre-sliced chicken from Costco.

Just got it today. Its just chilled, so we can divide it up into meal sized containers and freeze it at home which is good. It should speed up meal prep a lot. It might even give me time to get back to bento!

Keep an eye open for this new ingredient in upcoming bento.