Okay, so it's a bit more like "Last Week in Bento," and a rather short week at that, but if you've been reading you know that I've been home from work with a darn back injury. Yesterday I actually got out and did a little bit of something (went to the farmers market, got some burgers and drinks while watching football), but neglected my weekly bento update. But better late than never, right? It's been hard to keep track of what day it is anyway, since when you don't have a work week the weekend doesn't stand out as much. I managed to make a few bentos for Steve this week though, so here they are!
September 8
Months and months ago I made mole sauce from scratch. It was extremely labor-intensive and time-consuming, but luckily, it was also delicious! I froze the extra sauce, and Steve and I recently pulled it out of the freezer and made some chicken enmoladas (that's an enchilada made with mole sauce). Here's a bento featuring them in all their glory, with some sour cream and cilantro to go with! A little avocado half is in the corner (hint: I recently read that spraying the exposed surface of an avocado with oil keeps it green.. and it works quite well!) and some orange and red bell pepper slices are hiding next to it. For a little sweetness, there's some cut mango and a slice of starfruit. I don't think I've had starfruit since I was a kid, but I found some at our local Latin market the other day and really, this fruit is made for bentos! If you've never come across it, it's literally shaped like a star that's stretched out. When you slice it, that's what it looks like.. a beautiful, perfect star! Neat, huh?
September 9
This is a good example of a bento using lots of different colors! Remember that beet carpaccio from last week's post? Here's the last of it. You can probably tell that the candy-stripe pattern is almost completely indistinguishable by this point. It's a bold pattern when they're raw, and cooking them diminishes the contrast a bit, and apparently it almost completely disappears after a few days in the fridge. But, fear not, they're still really tasty. The salad here is composed of red onion, beets, pistachios, radish microgreens and blue cheese (instead of the feta in my original recipe since I used all of that up for the spanakopita). The little piggy-shaped bottle has the tarragon dressing inside. In the back is sliced pork chop over parmesan polenta. Those colorful chips are vegetable root chips... if you've never had these, you're missing out! There's that starfruit again, and some chocolate chips are in there for dessert.
September 11
And finally, a rather luxurious bento to end Steve's work week! He made some fantastic peppery steak with sautéed mushrooms and a rich, red wine sauce the other night, so I rewarded him with his own efforts by packing it into a bento! The steak is sitting atop some creamy polenta. What do you know? There's a caprese salad in there too, but no need to adjust your monitor if those tomatoes look weird. They're called kumatos, a variety of tomatoes with brown skin and a deep red flesh. They have a classic, very tomato-y taste. And way in the back corner is some peanut butter fudge I made. What a meal, right?
Alright, another bento recap done. It's looking like I'll probably (hopefully!) be back at work later this week, so hopefully I'll have a lot more bentos in the near future!
Have a great week, everybody!
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