People, let me tell you how good life is tonight. I’m sitting in my comfortable recliner, my favorite spot in my living room. There is a TV tray in front of me and on it is a laptop. On my television set runs my copy of the Sex and the City movie. And as I soak in the bliss, I write this blog post featuring today’s bento not glued to my desktop PC away from my dogs and my favorite parts of the house. This wonderfulness is granted to me by a new addition to my household: a wireless router. OH MY! How I love my Internet life tonight. If there is can addiction I an admit to, one that I don’t plan to give up any time soon, it is my Internet loves: my blog, my iGoogle, my Flickr, and [reluctantly admitted] my Facebook page.
Today’s bento included the last of the vegetables I sauteed up with some more soba noodles on Saturday night. I have really, really enjoyed this dish. Not only am I feeling so much better with getting back onto my bento track, but I’m finding I am developing a deep and abiding love for soba noodles. I’d love to find more ways to use them!
Today’s bento lunch included red peppers, red onions, broccoli, and peas sauteed with minced garlic, salt, and pepper in a small bit of olive oil. It was mixed together with the soba noodles and topped with pine nuts. A hard-boiled egg and 2 of the vegetable spring rolls I found at Whole Foods completed the meal. OH YUM! People, this has been great.
Now, here’s something that I have to admit to as I’ve reread Yvo’s Meat Hiatus blog posts yet again and have been experimenting with these meatless dishes this past week. These simple ones I’ve tried are super simple, no real thought required. And a quick and easy thing to whip up when one comes home late. Nothing to defrost, nothing to mix with seasonings and bake or fry up right now. Granted, I know this is over simplification, but what I’m doing is overly simple. Take tonight for instance. Busy day at work, family stuff to deal with when I came home, a wireless router to set up, dogs to feed, etc., etc. About 8:30 p.m., I realized I had nothing leftover in the refrigerator to eat for lunch. Just as I thought, “Well, I guess I”ll have to eat out for lunch tomorrow…,” I realized I could whip up some more black beans for tacos tomorrow. Open can, simmer, done. Things will get more difficult possibly as I explore all of this more, but for now, life is good.
Yvo, if you’re reading this, thank you. You did good girl!
The best thing about wireless… you can go outside with your laptop. Or take it to the kitchen to look at a recipe while you’re cooking.
Hehehehee, all things I’m looking forward to finding out!
Congrats on your remotivation! I haven’t posted any bento pics lately – I’m still packing my lunch most days, they’re just not often cute enough to post.
Don’t know if you like peanut butter, but I LOVE soba noodles coated in a peanut butter sauce. Just mix the pb (crunchy or smooth – I prefer the former) with some soy sauce and maybe some red pepper flakes, then add reserved water from cooking the soba until it reaches the consistency you’d like. This is really good either plain or with some meat and veg added in. I think it tastes better cold. Here’s a link to a pic of one I made with snap peas, parsley, and sesame seeds! http://lh5.ggpht.com/_vM_EtZKs1l8/SIUpqMtfvTI/AAAAAAAABxw/irgqpNq7SNI/s640/IMG_0913.JPG
Mmm peanut butter soba, I can’t do that cuz I tend to go crazy with the peanut butter and it ends up fattier than I “should” be eating…
Soba is great for salads – it’s definitely a cold noodle kind of thing. This might sound a little bit weird, but I had a salad at Pizzeria Uno’s once that was called a chicken noodle salad or something. It was a bowl with lettuce on the bottom, random veggies scattered around (cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, whatever, maybe corn, too), then a mound of spaghetti on top of that, and cut up chicken fingers on top. Ranch dressing. I thought the spaghetti was weird but when I started eating it, it was really good! Great for cold weather. I’ve been wanting to copy that but keep forgetting (and the weather here isn’t stable enough for that just yet).
Anyway, you could probably do the same with soba, though I’d switch the dressing to something more Asian or light – like a vinaigrette made with soy sauce, a dash of sesame oil (that stuff is potent!) mixed with olive oil, sesame seeds, garlic if you’re inclined, basically the same as the soba salad, lol. But adding in the lettuce or Romaine lettuce (I prefer Romaine to iceberg, but suit your own tastes, obvs) would fluff up the whole thing and keep you fuller and I think it’d be even healthier than the soba salad already is.
PS Thanks!!! It was really great having your encouragement along the way. I think you were one of the very few people who were like “I totally understand how hard this is for you, and I’m rooting you on” – not like most people were “You can’t do it” but closer to “So what/that’s easy/I already do that/it can’t be that hard” etc. And a LOT of people were just like, what’s the big deal, who even cares? <333
I think the thing there is that I knew where you were coming from with that. I saw alot of myself in your challenge. So <333 back atcha.