This Week in Bento: August 10-13

Hello again, and welcome to another thrilling edition of This Week in Bento!  Or, at least, another edition of This Week in Bento. The week seemed to start in the realm of Mediterranean food, and ended rather Japanese.  If only I could afford to travel to the origins of my bento inspirations.  Oh, and in this post, I'll even share a recipe or two!  See, maybe this will be thrilling after all!

August 10

The rundown: baby spinach salad with blue cheese, cucumbers, and red onion, grilled salmon with olive tapenade, garlic scape pesto mini biscuits, fancy pretzels (party favors from my friends' wedding), dried persimmon slices, and cherries.

Sometime last month I noticed Flickr user _Superrad's bento photo featuring salmon with an olive salsa.  I loved the idea, and she was kind enough to give me a recipe!  I made it with three kinds of olives, and turned it into a full dinner  For some reason, I didn't seem to take any photos of the meal, but I'll sneak in a little recipe for you here.  It's perfect for dinner, and makes one tasty bento centerpiece!

Steve was my grill cook, again (I really need to practice more with the grill.. I know it's not hard, but I'm always busy with the other stuff!)  Anyway, he says he thinks he just did a simple salt and pepper seasoning (although I just asked him, and he just woke up from a nap, so this may be off.. I'll update if he has any revelations once he's fully away.. hehe).  He does know that he oiled the fillets and the grill grates (with veggie oil), and cooked them over direct heat quickly, 2 minutes a side.  I also happen to know that we used wild sockeye fillets with the skin on, but you could use whatever.  The real star is the olive tapenade.  Here's what I did:

Three-Olive Tapenade

• Black olives, kalamata olives, and pimento-stuffed green olives; enough to have 3 Tbsp each when finely chopped (sorry for vagueness here, but I've seen so many different sizes of olives..)
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 Tbsp capers, lightly crushed with the side of a broad knife
• 3 Tbsp fresh Italian parsley, finely chopped
• 2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tsp white balsamic vinegar
• Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

1.  Mix olives, garlic, capers and parsley together in a small bowl. Slowly mix in olive oil and vinegar.  Add salt and pepper to taste. If possible, cover and let sit in the fridge for at least an hour before serving to let the flavors meld.  Stir before serving.

Nice and easy, and very gratifying!  This stuff would be great on pasta, veggies, other kinds of seafood, with bread as an appetizer.. oh the possibilities!  It was fantastic to the salmon, which really stood up to the olives. Thanks again, _Superrad, for the idea and the recipe!

Here's the bento I made for Steve that same day, with the salmon and the salad like my lunch.  That chocolately goodness in the back is called "Migas bark."  One of my friends who was staying with us last week went to Mado and brought us back some goodies, and this was one of them.  Thanks Patrick!


August 11

Here's another bento that used up some leftovers from a previous dinner!  On the right we have grilled chicken breast over a salad of romaine and tomato.  On the left are some cheese tortellini which Steve made a delicious butter sauce for using some of my garlic scape pesto that's been hiding in the freezer.  In the back is a pineapple cultured yogurt drink and chocolate-cherry Almondina cookies.


August 12

We are doing quite well on our effort to clear out of freezer (which has been packed to the brim, mostly with all those tamales, for way too long).  Actually, every day this week I used something from our freezer in my bentos!  The garlic scape pesto biscuits, the pesto itself, and here, sekihan rice!  Sekihan (or osekihan) rice is sticky rice cooked with azuki beans, which gives it that pinkish color.  In Japan it's eaten at celebrations, but for me, it's eaten in celebration of having a little more room in our freezer!  On top of it is gomashio, a furikake made with black sesame seeds and salt.  You can buy it, but it is super easy to make yourself!  Here's a link to the recipe I use from Just Hungry.  Also in this bento is an Asian-style tuna salad I like to make, which you can clearly see is dolphin safe!  ^_^  There's edamame (the last of what was in the freezer, although I'll be replacing it soon!), more of those cute pretzels from the wedding, and dried persimmon slices.


August 13

This is my lunch from Friday the 13th, which was also my and Steve's 4-year anniversary (which you should know if you read yesterday's post!).  I wish I would have made something for him, but again, if you saw our anniversary post, we definitely had plenty of food to celebrate!  Anyway, this was a nice Asian end-of-the-work-week bento.  The avocado half is filled with the rest of my Asian-style tuna salad (a wonderful combo, btw).  There's also the last of the onigiri I had in the freezer!  This one had an umeboshi (pickled plum) inside. In the back right corner is half of Japanese sweet potato with a miso-chive butter.  There's also tako chips (octopus-flavored chips that are vaguely octopus-shaped), green beans, fresh mango, and a maraschino cherry.  A colorful and balanced meal!

Alright, there's the weekly bento update!  I'm so glad I managed to squeeze a couple other posts in this week.. I'm trying!  I've been told this whole blogging business gets easier as you go... and I think I'm getting there, slowly but surely!

Thoughts? Questions? Tips? Ideas?  Leave me a comment.. I love to hear what you think and it's oh-so helpful!  Thanks, everyone!