Neuer Job, neue Bentos / New Job, new bentos

Es ist ewig her, dass ich Bentos gemacht habe. Nachdem mein Arbeitgeber an einen neuen Ort gezogen ist, hatte ich plötzlich sehr viel weniger Zeit. Zuerst wurden meine Bentos unkreativ, schließlich gab ich es ganz auf. Auf der Arbeit gab es eine kleine Küche und ich aß meistens Fertiggerichte. Da gibt es hier ja glücklicherweise eine Firma, die brauchbare herstellt.
Meine Bentoboxen verstaubten also und die Zutaten wurden anderweitig verwendet. Ein letzter Rest Furikake hat bis heute überlebt (obwohl der auch gut als Notfall-Nudelsoßengewürz taugt).
It's been ages since I last made bentos. As my work moved to a different place I had much less time every day. First my bentos became boring. Then I gave it up at all. At my work was a little kitchen and I mostly ate bought food. At least there is a company which makes decent convenience food.
So my bento boxes got dusty and the ingredients were used up for other meals. A bit of furikake ist still left (even though it's pretty good as a spice for noodle sauces). 

Ich war eine zeitlang arbeitslos, da war auch keine Gelegenheit für Bentos. Nun habe ich einen neuen Job. Ich habe zwar auch wieder eine lange Fahrtzeit und dadurch unter der Woche kaum noch Freizeit. Aber dort gibt es keine Möglichkeit zu kochen oder Gefrorenes zu lagern. Ständig etwas bestellen geht auf Dauer zu sehr ins Geld und wird auch schnell langweilig. Mal davon abgesehen, dass man keine Kontrolle über die Zutaten hat. Also nehme ich das jetzt als wunderbare Gelegenheit, wieder in die Welt der Bentos zurückzukehren.
I've been unemployed for a while. Now I have a new job. I have a long commute again and not much free time left. But a the new workplace is no kitchen and no chance to store frozen food. Ordering food every day costs too much and would get boring very soon. And you never know, what ingredients they use. So I take this oportunity to come back to the world of bentos.

Meine ersten Versuche sind noch ziemlich unspannend. Ich kam noch nicht dazu, meine Boxen zu waschen oder irgendwas zu planen. Ich hatte auch keinen Dämpfer mehr. Also gab es erstmal nur schnelle Gemüse-Nudeln.
My first meals weren't exciting yet. I hadn't washed my boxes yet and couldn't find the time to plan anything. I also didn't have a steamer anymore. So I just made some quick noodles and vegetables.

Gnocchi, Rote Bete, Möhren, gelbe Bohnen und Sellerie. Dazu eine Soße aus Tomatenmark und Frischkäse.
Gnocchi, beetroot, carrots, yellow beans and celery with a sauce of tomato purée and cream cheese.

Gnocchi, Möhren, gelbe Bohnen, Zucchini, Kürbis und Würstchen. Wieder mit Tomatenmark und Frischkäse, dazu noch Furikake. Ja, die Box ist zu groß für eine Portion, aber das war die einzige, die ich gerade griffbereit hatte.
Gnocchi, carrots, yellow beans, zucchini, squash and sausage. Again with tomato purée and cream cheese, and a bit of furikake. The box is too big, but it was the only one I had at hand.

Sobanudeln, Möhre, gelbe Bohnen, Zucchini, Kürbis und Würstchen. Die Soße bestand diesmal aus Streichcreme (Paprika-Chili) und Frischkäse.
Soba noodles, carrot, yellow beans, zucchini, squash and sausage. This time with a sauce made of vegetable spread (bell pepper - chili) and cream cheese.

There's a bug in my bento

I had the idea for this bento some days ago when I cut the beetroot. A round piece with a nice pattern that looked almost like wood grain. But I didn't have a place to put the ladybug on and I was in a hurry anyways, so I postponed it to another day.
Yesterday someone told me that my bentos look too cute to eat. There were just two cheese hearts, that's not too cute o.O So today I had to make a cute one XD
The ladybug is made of beetroot, nori and cheese. It is sitting on top of rice and millet in front of a cheese flower with sesame seeds. There's more cheese and half of a fish patty in this tier, too. The other tier contains cooked squash and beetroot, sautéd king trumpet mushrooms, swede and zucchini and the other half of the fish patty.

25.11.10

I cooked rice today and froze 4 batches. The last one went into my bento box. I mixed all types of rice I have at the moment (broken jasmine rice, normal jasmine rice, sushi rice and brown rice) and also added a bit of millet.
I decorated the rice with swede and beetroot. The other tier contains zucchini, swede, carrot and squash (Muskatkürbis/Muscade de Provence, I can't find an englisch translation).

The weather forecast said "snow" again. A look out of the window told me "not here". It started snowing as I went out of the house, but just a little bit. Just some snowflake floating around. Nothing that would last long. The snow became heavier as I drove out of the village. There really must be some magical weather barrier or something o.O

Bento, birds and garden pictures

Nothing special today. Lettuce, parsnip, rice and nori in one tier, hokkaido squash, brussel sprouts, mushrooms, green beans, zucchini and prawns in the other.

I tidied up the balcony room this weekend, so I can store my plants in it when it gets too cold. It wasn't too early. On sunday evening the temperature sank under 0°C (32°F). Freezing. Not that much yet, the plants still are ok. The next nights will be over freezing temperature, so no need to take them in yet. But maybe I'll have to soon.

One of my evening primroses has buds which are almost blossoming. I hope the frost didn't damage them.


I also tried to take photos of 'my' birds. They aren't that shy. Sitting in the trees, maybe 5m away from me, watching me or looking for food. But they are to far away for my camera. The pictures aren't sharp enough.


And at last, a picture from my garden. Well, actually not much of the garden, but one of the borders. There's a stream called Hardau. Usually there isn't as much water as now, but it rained a lot in the last weeks.

Gyoza Bentos

I totally forgot the gyoza which I bought two weeks ago. The best before date was november 2nd, so I really had to eat them. I had 1 and a half packages left, which meant gyoza for three days.


#1 contained king trumpet mushrooms, zucchini, parsnip and carrots. I had some space left which I filled with peas and corn. There also is some of my last parsley. Only such small leaves.

#2 containedcarrots, brussel sprouts, a fish patty, cauliflower, green beans and bamboo shoots.

#3 contained green beans, carrots, brussel sprouts, parsnip, king trumpet mushrooms, prawns and zucchini.

Japanese National Sushi Day and #twitterfoodparty

#twitterfoodparty is an event on Twitter, where everyone who wants to participate cooks something fitting the theme. The first theme was tacos. Reading the posts was fun, but I don't really care about tacos, so I didn't participate.
The next theme was pasta. But it was on the day after my birthday, on which I wanted to make breakfast for my colleagues, so I didn't participate again.
Today was the next party. It's national sushi day in japan, so ... it's #TwitterSushiParty today.
I wanted to make sushi for some time now. But it takes some time and I usually get up too late, so I didn't make any. But switching back from summer time helped a lot with getting up early.
I forgot to buy salmon and cucumber, so my sushi is a little odd. It contains zucchini and carrot.
The rest of the big tier is filled with carrot. The other tier contains zucchini with black sesame, tamagoyaki (which looks a lot better than my last one), bean sprouts and bamboo shoots.

Bentos from thursday and friday

Usually I stay in bed until 6 am, but on thursday I managed to get up a little earlier. I didn't go to work earlier thoug, because I spent too much time on my bento. I sautéd squash, a little more squahs with soy sauce and parsley root and fried a potatoe dumpling. The zucchini and carrot were steamed as usual. The lettuce is homegrown. I seeded it early in august, so it didn't grow much. And this are the last leaves. It is already too cold and rainy.



On friday I wanted to eat mushrooms, but I found a little mould on some of them, so I had to throw them away :(
The bento contains gyoza. They contain glutamate, so I don't like them that much. But I wanted to try gyoza, so I bought them nonetheless. They taste better cold, so I'll use the rest in my nex bentos.
I also made tamagoyaki. The pan was too hot so the last layer didn't stick. I have to make them more often. The first ones I made looked a lot better ^^; These are filled with black and white sesame.
The rest of the box is filled with broccoli, carrots, squash and parsley root and decorated with a parsley root cloud and squash leaves.

Halloween Bento

Halloween bentos wherever you look. So I made one too.
Halloween isn't that popular around here. When I was a child, all I knew about Halloween was, that Charlie Brown is afraid of the great pumpkin. It gets more and more popular, but there are still few people who celebrate it.
The top tier contains a Jack o' Lantern made of hokkaido squash and nori, a nori cat with cream cheese eyes and a parsley root mouth on top of rice.
The bottom tier contains king trumpet mushroom, zucchini, parsley root and a piece of squash which didn't fit in the other tier.

Half of the bento contains things I've never eaten before.
I bought hokkaido squash because I've seen it in other bentos and wanted to try it. It smells a little bit like honeydew melon, which really surprised me. And I like it. Have to try out more.
I also didn't eat king trumpet mushroom before. It isn't sold in stores and you rarely see it at the farmers market also. I actually wanted champignons, but I was late and there weren't many left and they weren't lookking, well, like they would say 'buy me'. I wasn't in the mood to look if another seller hat better ones and the seller also told me that shiitake and king trumpet mushrooms have a special price this week so I took those.I really don't regret it. They taste good ^.^ I just fried them in sesame oil and didn't add any spice to have just the taste of the mushrooms.
Instead of the parsley root I wanted to get parsnip. But it was already sold out (did I mention I was late? ^^;). Parsley root looks the same, just a little bit smaller so I took it instead. I thought it tastes the same, but it doesn't. The inner part of a parsnip is a bit hard and doesn't taste that good (but maybe that's just true for the ones I got last time?). The inner part of parsley root is much bigger (maybe you can see it in the picture) and not ligneous at all. And it was somehow sweet. I like parsnip, but I like parsley root a lot more.

Edit: I almost forgot this month's B.O.M.B.

Octopus bento

Another bento with nothing from the freezer, except for the rice. Steamed mushrooms, zucchini, carrots and spinach. The zucchini are from a local organic farmer. Zucchinis bought in store taste like nothing compared to these ♥.♥
They also had parsnips this time. I had never eaten them before, so I took two with me. I sautéd half of one with a little bit of soy sauce. They look and taste a little bit like potatoes. And a little bit different. I'll definetily buy them again :)
The protein part of the bento is a wiener. And what are wieners usually made of in bentos? Yes, octopusses *g* I just wish their legs would stay curled when they cool.
My colleague saw them and asked "what's that, fingers?" "No octopusses. They even have faces" She couldn't help grinning back at them.