Bro’s birthday dinner July 30, 2008

Some different foods we made today for Jason’s dinner.

Baked Italian style eggplant sticks. Marinate eggplant in Italian dressing, roll in seasoned bread crumbs, and bake.

Udon noodle stir fry with faux crab, cucumber, pork, and egg.

Teriyaki spam musubi. First time making it! Yum. Couldn’t eat the spam by itself though, waaay too salty.

Something my dad bought from Chinatown. Pinecone? Squid? No, it’s fish. O_O You’re supposed to dump a sweet and spicy sauce over it.

A lovely bento made with leftover spam musubi, broccoli, wasabi peas, mini marshmallows and peach slices.

Boring Bentos July 29, 2008

More bentos made for today from leftovers. Pics are kinda sucky because it was dark already. =/

Rice with oven fried chicken drumstick (recipe will be posted later). Yogurt with craisins and banana slices. This was for my brother. Today’s his birthday! Will post the awesome cake later. You MUST see that post.

Sister’s lunch of spaghetti and meatballs.

Sister’s snack box of same yogurt and some sliced grapes.

My simple box of spaghetti, a chocolate covered bananas and ovaltine doggy cookies (see recipe below).

Leftovers lunch box and snack box July 26, 2008

Dinner leftovers of rice, thinly sliced store bought marinated pork, bok choy, fish paste stuffed peppers (peppers from my garden!). Top layer has vanilla yogurt, strawberries, bananas and granola. And of course, the yummy soy milk. Box made by my sister for her lunch.

Here’s the snack box I made for my self since all I do is bum around at home. Same yogurt and fruits. Other layer has baby carrots, homemade hummus (which tasted bad!), and mixed nuts with golden raisins. Yum.

Curry Dumpling Bentos and Apple Pie July 20, 2008

I had some frozen curry dumplings on hand so this was the theme of these bento boxes. One was for my sister for lunch on Thursday and the other was for me even though I had no where to go. The dumplings were made following a tutorial from lunchinabox. They’re delicious pan fried.

Also in the lunches were chickpeas in lemon, olive oil and Parmesan cheese, celery sticks with peanut butter in the cute case, salad with homemade ginger dressing, and the chocolate chip oatmeal cookie I made a while back.

I made apple pie again! I used recipes from allrecipes but I’ll include them here for reference.

Grandma Ople’s Apple Pie

Ingredients:
* 1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie
* 1/2 cup unsalted butter
* 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
* 1/2 cup white sugar
* 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
* 1/4 cup water
* 8 Granny Smith apples – peeled, cored and sliced

Directions:
1. Melt butter in a sauce pan. Stir in flour to form a paste. Add white sugar, brown sugar and water; bring to a boil. Reduce temperature, and simmer 5 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, place the bottom crust in your pan. Fill with apples, mounded slightly. Cover with a lattice work of crust. Gently pour the sugar and butter liquid over the crust. Pour slowly so that it does not run off.
3. Bake 15 minutes at 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Reduce the temperature to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C), and continue baking for 35 to 45 minutes.

Changes I made: I only used 1/4 cup butter and left out the water. I also mixed the apples in the sauce before putting in the pie but only because I had much less sauce than the recipe actually made. I’m deathly afraid of watery pies. In retrospect, adding the water wouldn’t have hurt if I let the pie cool overnight before cutting into it.

Basic Flaky Pie Crust
(makes only 1 crust)

Ingredients:
* 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 cup shortening, chilled
* 3 tablespoons ice water

Directions:
1. Whisk the flour and salt together in a medium size bowl. With a pastry blender, cut in the cold shortening until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Drizzle 2 to 3 tablespoons ice water over flour. Toss mixture with a fork to moisten, adding more water a few drops at a time until the dough comes together.
2. Gently gather dough particles together into a ball. Wrap in plastic wrap, and chill for at least 30 minutes before rolling.
3. Roll out dough, and put in a pie plate. Fill with desired filling and bake.

I only made one crust because I had a store-bought frozen one on hand

edit to add:
mini apple pies! made from the leftover materials.

Two bentos and Tempura Jalapeno Poppers July 11, 2008

My sister and I made bentos for lunch today. She made one to bring to school and I made one for our younger brother. It took quite a while but it was fun. They came out quite pretty I think considering this was my sister’s first time making a bento box.

My sister’s box:
Contents: bottom has ham and cheese flying pig on bed of rice and cucumber and carrot garden; top has dried cranberries, plum slices, cucumbers, chicken strips and a piece of chocolate.

Here’s the one I made for my brother.
Contents: bottom has two mushroom caps with cheese, dried pork tamagoyaki (i make it with soba sauce and sweet soy sauce), and chunks of cucumber; top has cubes of colored and plain rice, ham, cucumber and carrot sticks.

Close up:

I went to the Sunrise Mart in Soho for the first time today. Sunrise Mart sold tons of Japanese groceries, snacks, drinks, cookware, bento boxes, prepared sushi and bento boxes to eat in store or for take out. It was great, the prices were cheap but they were reasonable. They even had prepackaged onigiri in different flavors for only $2 a piece! I highly recommend a visit. Check them out on yelp.com here.

So after having some spicy tuna sushi and a strawberry Calpico yogurt drink with a good friend of mine, I walked around and bought a tempura batter mix and panko (Japanese bread crumbs). I knew there were several jalapenos in my pot-garden that were ready to be eaten. So I went home and made jalapeno poppers – tempura style.

There are two eggplants in there because I had extra batter left.

I didn’t measure anything but here’s what I did. I cut four large jalapenos in half after removing the stems and removed all the seeds and membranes with my BARE fingers. Unfortunately, I forgot this fact and touched my eye for the briefest of moments. Instantly I felt like my eye was on fire. My stupidity didn’t end there because while tearing up in pain, I removed my contact with my fingers instead of asking someone else to do it. This resulted in 100 times more stinging and pain. I had to stand with my eye pride open under running water for almost 15 minutes before it stopped burning. So this serves a warning to you.

Anyways, after that scenario, I mixed together about 4 tbsp cream cheese, 1/4 cup of shredded cheddar jack cheese, 1/2 tsp garlic powder, 1/2 tsp onion powder and a dash of salt. I filled the jalapeno halves with this cheesy mixture, dipped them in the tempura batter made from the mix, dredged them in panko and then fried them in oil until golden brown. I probably will make this again soon, maybe with different fillings. It was really good.