Boston Bento

Here is a quick bento I made the other day after really enjoying some cod fish cakes at my mothers. To make these a bit more friendly for everyday eating, I baked them rather than frying them in a pan. Other than that, they are simply a mix of tuna, breadcrumbs, seasoning, and an egg to bind them together. Think meat balls only with tuna. I added some spicy mayo sauce to make things interesting anf finshed off the bento with some roasted squash. Not too shabby.

For my first recipe and post from my mother’s recipe file, I decided to start easy.  And by “easy,” I mean a recipe from the Recipes Children Can Make section of the cards.  After a careful perusal of all my delectable choices (sorry, I can’t even type that with a straight face), I chose the following:

True to my word, I followed this recipe line by line, regardless of the fact that I was suspicious about simmering a pork chop for what ends up being 40 mins. Also, there were no vacuum-pack sweet potatoes to be found and I didn’t want to use canned. I solved this issue by cooking some potatoes in advance and using those for the recipe.

I added some roasted brussels sprouts to the plate and here was my result:

Verdict: I WILL NEVER MAKE THIS GOD AWFUL SWILL AGAIN! As we ate, I was forced to apologize to The Boy and pull him through the trauma with promises of pepperoni pizza and curries. The poor pork chops were dry and tough. The onion was, well, I plead the fifth on this one because I believe I might have blocked that one out in order to reserve what is left of my sanity. The only edible part of the dish were the potatoes. While not great, the spiced orange cooking liquid went okay with the sweetness of the potato. The brussels sprouts, on the other hand, were awesome! But those have pretty much nothing to do with the recipe card.

I sincerely hope that next time, I choose a bit more wisely. But then again, where’s the fun in that?

Oh, and for those of you who are glutton for punishment, I’ve photographed the recipe. Cook and eat at your own risk.

This year I participated in my second baking competition.  My local comic shop decided to revamp their earlier cookie competition and since I found myself award-less in their first event, I decided that my approach could also use some revamping.

In order to participate, each contestant is asked to participate in three categories: chocolate chip, bar cookie, and wild card.  The last go round, I can’t even tell you what I made.  All I remember was a few sleepless nights filled with a ton of quality time with a hot oven and a wooden spoon.  And yeah, that last sentence sounds much dirtier than I had intended.  But the point is, I waited until the last minute and ended up miserable.

This year though, I had a plan.  There was even test baking and an odd friendship made with the guy who restocks the baking aisle at the supermarket early Saturday mornings.  That’s right people, the secret ingredient was effort.  And, for the chocolate chip category, a little special chocolate from a local company called Taza.

Taza makes incredible chocolate.  It’s  chocolate for people who like their chocolate dark and complex.  There is no milk involved and the chocolate is almost gritty due to the fact that it is stone ground.  They make several varieties of chocolate (as can be seen on their website), but my absolute favorite is their Salt and Pepper chocolate.  Yeah, it sounds kinda odd, but you are going to have to make my word on this one – it is so so good!

I knew that using this chocolate would be risky.  It would certainly make me stand out, but that isn’t always a good thing.  The judges were either going to like it or not, so I decided to follow all those various cliches: go big or go home, nothing ventured..blah blah blah.  And if it was gross, at least it would be something to talk about.  So I chopped up my precious chocolate and even added some extra course  sea salt and freshly ground pepper to the mix as well.

The result?  Third place,  bee-yotch!  Right behind a professional baker and a friend who I consider to be one of the best non-professional bakers around.  Not too shabby if you ask me.  Not too shabby at all.  In fact, I already have an idea for what I am going to do next year.    Look out fellow bakers, I’m coming for ya next time!

I realize this blog often lacks a sense of focus. I kinda post about whatever I feel like regardless of all my promises to focus on western-style bentos with an Italian-American twist. Yeah, yeah, it does sounds pretty neat when I put it like that…but considering I can sometimes have the attention span of juvenile ferret with a coke habit, sometimes we just have to learn to make do with what we have. See that? I’ve already stopped making sense.

Anyway, my friend Sara recently celebrated her birthday. Her one request was that her friends take a moment to spread the word about her blog, The Ink and Pixel Club.  Sara is well versed in her field and quite the writer to boot. I myself have pretty much been obsessively reading her blog for the past two weeks. If you have any interest in animation as an art form or even in film studies in general, this is a great website to keep under your cap.

Did I mention that Sara is also an expert on Muppets as well? Yeah, so all 10 of you who read this blog, get ye over there. Just don’t forget to come back here from time to time.  I can get lonely.

The idea lately has been to simplify. It just makes things more *drum-roll please* simple. Yeah, you knew where I was going with that one.

Contents:
boiled chicken with sesame salt
ginger soy carrot flowers
garlic cabbage
light babybel cheese

Perhaps you remember my love of vintage recipes?  If not, please refer to this lovely post. Ok, so knowing (cause you are up to speed at this point now, right?) how much I love vintage recipes, I made the most remarkable, wonderful, bestest EVER last month while I was staying with my mother. I was digging around in an attempt to find a few recipe cards for some family favorites when I stumbled upon this:

In between my squeals of delight, Mom managed to tell me that her mother bought this for her right before her wedding. Well then, good thing an entire section of this called “Men’s Favorites.” There is no “Women’s Favorites” section because I figure they assumed we lady-types would be spending all out time eating recipes from the “Calorie Counters” sections while we make our men things like Pot Roast and Buttermilk Donuts. Remind me to thank The Boy for validating my existence. Boy Howdy! *eyeroll

Well prepare yourself to be seeing these recipes scattered into my blog posts, including the recipe cards themselves. Things this good are no fun if you don’t share!

One of my favorite factoids that I like to share about my junior high and high school experience is that our campus was walking distance away from a mental health facility.  I’m not talking just any sort of psychiatric program, I am referring to Medfield State Hospital, a location that housed up to 2,000 patients during its peak.  Self sufficient and covering about 900 acres of land, Medfield State also had the unfortunate reputation of housing patients who were so ill that they had to be in a lock-down facility. In other words, they weren’t safe to have mixing among the rest of the population.

The reason I am writing about all this today is because after its closing in 2003, the grounds of Medfield State Hospital are open to the public daily from 6am-6pm.  Why this is the case, I am not sure, but it sure does make for an interesting side trip.  Recently, scenes from Shutter Island were filmed there and rumor has it that there are still some set pieces left behind in the hospital’s chapel.  Sadly, all the buildings have been condemned, so you really just get to walk around outside.  Also, with hurricane/tropical storm Irene, there seems to be a bit more damage than can be seen in some earlier pics posted by some of those “urban adventurer” sites out there.  If you ask me, it’s still a pretty creepy place and there are a lot worse ways to spend an afternoon.  I highly suggest stopping by, taking some pics, maybe peeking into a few windows.  With renewal plans being discussed by the town of Medfield, who knows how much longer you’ll get a chance to see something like this.

There are a lot of bloggers out there waxing poetic about their local farmers markets. And you know what? They are right. Your local farmers market is magic and supports your local growers and smaller businesses. Yes, yes, local is good and important. But rather than wasting time on an issue that countless others have written about far better than I could, let’s take a different spin and focus on the yummy.

There are several farmers markets in my area, but the one I frequent the most is right on the campus of my workplace. They have a rotating list of vendors, but when Flats Mentor Farm is there, I always make it a priority to stop by their stall. Not only do they have a wonderful mission (you can read about them at their website) but they have a really wonderful variety of produce. Yes, they have the regular seasonal stuff, but they also grow and sell things that other stands don’t. I’m talking about things like squash flowers, pumpkin vines, and the ultimate in yummy-osity: pea tendrils.

Oh baby… Seriously, check out how sexy these little babies are:

And yes, they are exactly what you think they are, tendrils and newer growth from the pea plant. Usually they are only available in the early spring, but Flats Mentor Farm has them quite regulatory throughout the market’s season. My guess is that they grow them in a green house. Regardless, I am so very glad they have them because they are now one of my favorite veggies.

Pea tendrils are very easy to cook and require very little to really bring out their sweetness. Imagine if you will a tender green that tastes like a pea only with a slight bitterness you can sometimes find in leafy greens. I know this is a terrible way to describe it, but they taste very green and fresh.

Pea tendrils can be eaten raw (like in a salad or sandwich) but I prefer to saute them with a bunch of chopped garlic. In fact, this is how you can sometimes find them at Chinese restaurants. But seriously, keep an eye out for these. You’ll thank me. And if not, well…there’s always tater-tots. Everyone likes tater-tots, right?

My summer bentos have a way of leaning towards the boring side. Since spending quality time in my AC-deprived kitchen is pretty low on my list of Summer-Must-Do’s, I’m much more likely to throw a bunch of stuff in a container with some lettuce and call it a salad.

On a rather cool afternoon the other day, I was able to whip up a little something that would be pretty yummy for my lunch the next day. Little fun fact about this bento, this is the second bento I made that afternoon. The first one decided that it didn’t want to go out on the porch to have its picture taken. So rather than cooperating, it decided to jump out of my hands. Emphasis on the word jump, because anyone who knows me also knows that I am a graceful swan of a lady who would never trip over her own feet and spill the contents of an entire lunch on the kitchen floor. Nope, never. Not me. *wink wink

Bento contents:
-Soba noodles (with dipping sauce in another container)
-Shitake mushrooms simmered in dashi and soy sauce
-cucumber salad with lemon and mint

Yes, another terrible picture from my phone, but I wanted to show off this super quick bento.  While I am not always a fan of paying for pre-made ingredients, I did let myself off the hook a bit with this one.  The secret to making this bento was buying pre-made and cooked chicken cutlets.  I can’t remember their exact name, but they were some sort of Perdue baked option.  To make them a bit more special, I made my own tomato sauce and used a light babybel cheese on the top. It was super fast and made the boy a very happy guy.

Here is the pic:

Contents:

Chicken Cutlets with Sauce and cheese
Whole Wheat elbows with butter and Romano cheese
Steamed green beans