As is usual with June, I become absent at Not Exactly Bento as work becomes super busy.  And super busy it has been.  But so fun.  With mid-July, I’m finally finding a bit of time to come back and say hello.

I didn’t even worry with packing bentos in June too much.  It was a mainly eat out month with a few spots of eating at home.  I packed a few bentos just so I wouldn’t “lose my touch” so to speak.  Though this first bento leaves alot to be desired.

When so busy, it is sometimes hard for me to think of quick things to cook.  In came Albertsons to the save this past month.  They have pork chops and steaks they will pre-marinate for you.  During June they ran a big sale on these, and I stocked up.  And they become my meals in June.  I brought them all home, cooked them that weekend, and then froze.  Popped one out for lunch or dinner when needed, and voila, near instant meal.  Was so easy and helpful.  In bento 303, a pre-seasoned pork chop is paired with Pasta Roni (herb variety) and some steamed vegetables.

Bento 304 was better planned.  A box of black beans and rice made a tasty side dish to the pre-seasoned pork chop along with grilled zucchini and hard boiled egg.  I also packed orange slices a bit of chocolate and a salad.  The only problem with this lunch is that it was WAY too much food.  I didn’t end up eating the salad portion.  I brought that home for lunch along with the orange slices.  A review of the black beans and rice will come on a Tuesday in the not so distant future.

Last Wednesday, I had my last scheduled day to eat out this month as part of the monthly meeting at work I’ve mentioned before.  And as usually happens in the middle of the month I became extremely busy with professional and personal obligations that normallly leave me feeling harried with little time.  This is always when I fall off of any goals I have set for myself.  This time, I did much better.  I ate at home: sandwiches, quickly made hamburgers from frozen- pre-made-by-me-patties, and cereal.  I didn’t pack a bento, didn’t take pictures.  That’s the only part I regret, but I figure one step at a time.  One of these days, I’ll learn to manage my time better.

The next two days I have off from work, and I’m looking forward to accomplishing a little cooking.  Today for lunch, I really wanted something featuring no meat in the meal.  After a week of ham & cheese sandwiches and hamburgers, I’m sort of meated-out at the moment.  I get like that sometimes.  But if I eat all vegetarian meals, I get bored too.  It’s all about finding that right balance for yourself.

The biggest obstacle I have to vegetarian cooking for myself is that I have a hard time finding recipes that read like something I might want to try.  The last 2+ years of this blog has been all about expanding my food repetoire.  And while I’ve made great strides, there is still alot I’m just not willing to try again.  Sorry tofu…I still have problems with you.  The only thing I ever made with you that ended up being something I was willing to eat over and over again were the vegetarian wontons.

Recently, I mentioned going back through my old issues of Everyday Food by Martha Stewart and finding that there are things I’m willing to eat now that I wasn’t willing to eat two years ago when I had a subscription.  Today, I had a hankering for black beans with Spanish rice.  Off to Everyday Food’s website I went.  I like this magazine.  My friend Kim, of Passion and Art blog, introduced me to this magazine back when I first started to cook for myself back in 2007.  It has been a godsend every since.  The simple recipes are just what a struggling cook like me needs.  However, I tend to forget to go back and look at the little magazines or the website most of the time.

So instead of thinking about it or talking about it on the blog, I decided today was the day to do something and actually find a couple of recipes and try them out.  Spicy Black Beans and Spanish Rice were copied and made in my humble little kitchen.  And per usual, things turned out not so bad, but with a few flaws.

The spicy black beans weren’t really all that spicy.  And the red pepper flakes used to give the beans their spiciness wasn’t quite the spiciness profile I was hoping for.  Now granted, I’ve said before I’m a wuss on the spicy scale, but sometimes I like a wee bit of a kick to my food. I used the lower amount suggested in the recipe, 1/4 tsp of red pepper flakes, and didn’t really taste the spicy flavor all the way through the beans.  I think when I try this again, and I will try this again, I might opt for a jalepeno pepper diced up well.  Now, that’s being adventurous (for me).  Another big issue I have with this recipe is that it tastes like beans, with a wee bit of red pepper.  There is no depth to the flavor.  Maybe that’s just growing up Louisiana.  I expect more from the seasonings.  I’m going to have to figure out how to season these better.  Spices are needed; I’m just not sure which ones.  A big plus to the beans though were my own addition: mashing several spoonfuls up halfway through the cooking process.  This made the beans thicker and quite good.  However, next time I’m also going to add a bit more water to have a little soupier, thicker broth/sauce that the beans produce.  I like to mix my beans with the Spanish rice.  The mixing just didn’t go as well because the beans didn’t have enough liquid.

The Spanish rice was tasty too.  This recipe worked out much better for me, though I did have to make significant change.  I couldn’t believe it, but I was somehow out of carrots in my refrigerator!  Egads!  I’m hardly ever without carrots.  I love that vegetable.  EEK!  I’ve got to get myself to the produce stand, and quick.  Maybe that should be something I work into tomorrow’s plan for the day.  Instead, I used a vegetable medley from the freezer of peas, carrots, and corn.  It was nice, but I think I would have preferred just sticking to the carrots.  Again, the rice was nice, but a touch on the bland side, needing more spices.  I’m going to figure out which spices to use for this one as well.

Another thing I’m going to need to do for both recipes is to use more garlic!  Neither seemed to call for enough for my tastes.  And while this seems like a long list of complaints, in reality, they aren’t that bad.  Because the plate above with consummed with a smile on my face and happy-enough tastebuds.  But I’m not posting modified recipes until I can figure out what the appropriate modifications are.  Another part of the learning process here at Not Exactly Bento.

Be the bento everyone!  I’ll probably post another lunch tomorrow since I have the day off and won’t pack a bento for myself.

Yesterday, I stuck to all of my bento goals, except for posting a picture of my lunch or dinner.  There was a good reason; I didn’t eat lunch or dinner.  Every morning, I eat a little something for breakfast: an egg sandwich, half a ham sandwich, half a peanut butter sandwich, some cereal, etc.  The only thing is that I have a love/hate relationship with peanut butter.  Sometimes it loves me; sometimes it doesn’t.  Yesterday was one of the “it doesn’t love me” days, leaving me feeling blechy and a wee bit nauseous for most of the day.  Ick.  But I’m feeling much better this morning and am having cereal with yogurt instead of any peanut product.  In fact, I’m thinking I might have to start avoiding peanuts all together, in any form.  The older I get, the more I have that particular problem.

Today, I have my next bento for the month.  I picked up a cheap, thin-cut sirloin steak from the grocery store and sliced it into thin strips.  Then, I cooked it in my skillet with a bit of olive oil, peppers, onions, and garlic.  A bit of fajita seasoning helped to give everything a bit of flavor. It is paired with one of the black bean & quinoa burritos that I froze.  A hard boiled egg, an orange, and a wee bit of chocolate complete today’s bento.

Be the bento everyone!  I hope all is going well for your challenges.  Let me know how you’re doing.

This is Day 13 of the 30-Day Bento Challenge.  Want to join?  Latecomers welcome.

For several months, I’ve had alot of misses on the new recipe front.  Alot of what I’ve tried just hasn’t jelled so well for me.  The latest failure was the breakfast burrito I tried to make with chorizo, cheese, and egg.  I’d gotten the idea for those burritos from a fix and freeze concept cookbook.  You know the kind.  The type of recipe where you make a large batch of something and then freeze it.  I don’t know if it is because of the recipe or those wholegrain tortillas I used.  No matter what the true culprit was the result was a dish that didn’t reheat well in my opinion.  It was just the latest thing to hit the trash.

As a lay in bed the other night waiting for sleep to come and thinking of my recent kitchen foibles, my eyes landed on my bookshelf, and my little year’s worth of Everyday Food magazines that sat there, neglected and gathering dust.  As my cooking interests have flitted from one idea to the next over the last year and a half, I’d forgotten about these little gems.  Everyday Food helped me greatly when I first started this blog.  You can see one of the issues above says October 2007, one month after I started Not Exactly Bento.  I used these judiciously in my first 6 months of learning to cook.  Then as other things caught my interest, they sort of fell by the wayside.  I’ve always wanted to get back to them, but never have.

With a three more weeks of challenge to go, difficulty on the cooking front is an obstacle I don’t need.  And as I stared at my bookshelf I realized that it was time to bring Everyday Food back into my life.  I decided it was time to resubscribe.  However, the first issue won’t be here until May.  As I enjoyed my day of fun and visiting with Kim Monday, we stopped into Barnes and Noble where I picked up a copy of the current issue of Everyday Food.  There were several recipes I knew immediately I wanted to try, some I may not have thought to try 2 years ago.  And it made me realize how far I’ve come in the last 2+ years of this blog.  <big grins>

Today’s lunch comes from the April 2010 issue of  Everyday Food on page 72.  A bean and rice burrito is featured.  I’ve changed the recipe a bit to include black beans and quinoa with cheese.  I made them all last night and then flash froze the little burritos.  Each burrito was then wrapped into aluminum foil for safe storage in my freezer.  One came out this morning and was paired with leftover green beans from yesterday and other goodies from my fridge.  I plan to come back and post today on how this burrito tasted and if I think it will stand the test of frozen time better than that other concoction.  In all honesty, I have great faith in this one than I did in the other.

This is Day 8 of the 30-Day Bento Challenge.  For more information, see the original post.  Latecomers are welcome to join.

Disclaimer: I have no affiliations with Everyday Food, Amazon, or any of the other entities in this post.   These are simply things I use to make my cooking life easier.