Once again I ended up with four bentos this week. Only this time it was due to an unexpected company lunch, resulting in a delayed bento and no need to make one the next day. If they ever do that to me on Friday...well it's not like it's ever hard to find something to do with good food. I had my leftover copy of the shirataki noodle dish for dinner Friday as it was.
Sunday night I think I took ill, but had already overcome the shivery fever symptoms by morning. I wasn't too sure what would happen next, so I went with a fairly bland bento. I don't know if the carrots are already starting to show their age (the one horrible disadvantage of pre-cut baby
carrots) or if my taste buds were off, but half of my carrots tasted horrible. The rice and kidney beans is approximately what it sounds like when you just put them next to each other like I did. Nothing special. This bento isn't really one I'd recommend unless you do want something bland.
I'd picked up these noodles a while ago. They're really convenient, since they don't need any additional cooking, they don't have a strong flavor so they can go with anything, and they're just ready to go even after a week in the refrigerator. Just drain them, cut them down to a manageable size, and enjoy. And don't forget to cut them.
I can barely remember Wednesday of last week; I think the interesting news on Thursday must have wiped it out of my head. However I do remember this bento. I was tired of rice, and far too interested in whether making lentils in the rice cooker would work out correctly. So I tried. It does. Next time I just need a better plan for how to use said lentils.
No bento today - the company sprang for pizza. It's good pizza, but it's not bento. And by that I mean it involves waiting in a line to get to the pizza, which is infinitely inferior to having your food ready when you want it. But tasty and free is worth the wait. And tasty bentos are worth the wait; see today's bento tomorrow:
This was yummy, even a day late, and a bit more chilled than I'm used to. It seems that my holy trinity combination of flavors is the soy-sauce, mirin, rice-vinegar, miso combination I keep using. It goes really well on chicken, tofu, probably even on fried rice but I've not tried yet. A teaspoon or so each, maybe as much as two teaspoons of soy sauce, provides much needed flavor, and works as well at room temperature as it does hot.