Quinoa Bento (29)

I finally made another bento. It seems like it’s been so long since my last one.

Quinoa bento

Quinoa with crimson raisins and toasted walnuts. It would be vegetarian except that it’s cooked in chicken stock. Sweet pepper strips, cucumbers and strawberries round up the box. I think there’s too much green in this box, some darker green lining would have worked better. Or a different item instead of cucumbers. Yummy meal but it wasn’t filling enough. I should of added protein even though the quinoa has protein, it wasn’t enough.

Bento challenge wise: I don’t seem to be able to make cute bento boxes often. Sure I can make them appealing looking but I can’t seem to be bothered with adding in a cute cheese cutout on top of that quinoa. It takes too much time to think of a theme and then draw it and cut it out. Otherwise, good day today.

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Inarizushi and Walnut noodle (bento 21 & 22)

Inarizushi is a tofu pouch that’s stuffed with sushi rice. The pouch is made out of a fried tofu that’s cooked a sweet soy mixture. I can’t find this stuff in the stores I’ve been to in NY but I found them at the Japanese supermarket, Mitsuwa, in Edgewater, NY. I love these pouches because they’re sweet and easily turn into bento food. I actually tried these for the first time at Cornell in their sushi packs. Ah, the good ole days of dining hall and overpriced to-go food. Not that much has changed with the overpriced part in the city.

I stuffed these pouches with rice, eel and eel sauce and sprinkled with some wasabi furikake. Yum! I brought it to class but didn’t get to eat it till I got home since class ended early.

Today’s laptop lunch features stir fried noodles with toasted walnuts, side of greens and roast pork, hunk of olive bread, super sweet oranges, and orange Pocky. The toasted walnuts were SO GOOD.

Cantonese Style Mayo Shrimp

This dish can reliably be seen at large birthday parties or wedding parties in Chinese restaurants. It normally has candied walnuts served alongside too but I was too lazy to make those. And the shrimp is usually fried but we don’t tend to fry things in my family so we just sauteed the shrimp and mixed it in with the sauce.

Sauce Recipe:
1/4 C mayo (use kewpie for more authentic flavor)
2 tsp honey
1 tsp sweetened condensed milk
2 tsp rice vinegar
1/4 tsp salt

Mix everything together and toss together with about one pound of sauteed shrimp. Arrange with broccoli and candied walnuts (recipe can be found online).

So easy, so delicious and tastes just like the ones from the restaurants!