Move in day!

I have a new home for yet another year! Sometimes being a college student is really annoying...especially when you can't seem to stay in the same house for more than one year. However, after this house I am never going to want to leave. Too bad I'm in my last two semesters.

Moving in came at a really bad time though. All I want to do is design and decorate my room, but instead I need to be studying for my Japanese final. The joys of school work.

End of training means zero work hours.

Trying to grab bus routes before someone else is practically impossible. As a result, I have had way too much time on my hands, and no money to do anything with the time. It seems like most of what you think about when working is vacation and days off. When you actually have those days off...well they are only nice until the money stops flowing and you go broke. No more restaurants and movies for me. As much as it hurts me to say this, school really needs to start up again. I need to work.

On a happier note, I tried to make a picture with my bento today:

The bottom part is supposed to be something like the sun coming up over the trees. I thought it was kind of cute.

おべんとうはたのしです。
おべんとうを食べていますか。
わたしは おべんとう を作っているのが大好きです！

Antipasto.

Summer is almost over! Where did it go? I feel like it just started, but now August is almost here and school will be starting all over again.

I have this posted on the wall in my room. It's just a little reminder that I like to look at every now and then :)

べんとう！

今日のひるごはんはパスタサラダ！

Today's bento came from the left overs of last night. My sister's delicious antipasto salad is one of my favorites. I added in some green grapes with a walnut cup in the middle too. It was a good thing I have such small bento, otherwise I would have probably packed the entire container of pasta for my lunch. It is so good!

Long weekend!

I am running on less than four hours of sleep. What is wrong with me? I guess it is just something about summer and being in college that makes me follow through with poor decisions like that. Most people have really crazy stories behind nights where they were out until 4:30, but not this girl. It was just a relaxing, fun five and some odd hour conversation with a friend. I made snickerdoodle brownies, we watched a movie, and just kept talking after that.

Have you ever had nights like that? You only plan on being out for a couple of hours to finish the movie, and then suddenly time has flown by and it is barely an hour from sunrise. I was tempted to just stay and watch God's work, but since I needed sleep before going to church this morning, I decided it was best to head on home. It is fun doing random things like that sometimes.

I tell you what though, the message hit me hard this morning. I love it when I a sermon is convicting. I don't know if you think that is weird or not, but I just think it helps me to realize the path I am on, and how far it may have strayed from what God has planned. So amazing! We went to lunch after church, and I got to talk to a girl who just got back from six weeks in Turkey. She had a heart for the people and God allowed her to do something about it. We talked a little about her experience, and then got in to my desire to serve at a coffee shop in Tokyo. We'll get more in to that another time. I love talking about it, so I could go on forever.

Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the brownies that I made, but the recipe I used was from a blog called My Own Sweet Time. They were really soft and yummy. Give them a try when you get a chance ;)

White Russian anyone?

I absolutely love going dancing! Especially when my friends come to visit...they actually know how to two-step unlike most of the people who are still in town for the summer.

Yesterday was definitely fun, and we ended up at an Irish Pub to enjoy a good Guinness. Although I do not know how my friend can think any Guinness in the US is good after having tasted multiple glasses from Ireland. I would have been spoiled. Anyway, prior to the beer, I ordered a White Russian. If you have not had one, you should check it out. They are really good when made by the right bartender.

On that note, I have a recipe for those of you who are 21 and up:

White Russian Cupcakes and Kahlua Buttercream
(I got this wonderful recipe from Baked Perfection)

Cupcakes

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup sugar

6 tablespoons butter, softened

1 large egg and 1 egg white

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup milk

1/8 cup Vodka 

1/8 cup Kahlua, divided

Preheat oven to 350F. Line a cupcake pan with paper liners.

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. In a separate bowl, beat together the sugar and butter until combined. Add egg and egg white, one at a time. Then add the vanilla, Vodka, and Kahlua. Gradually add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the milk in two additions, ending with the flour mixture.

Bake 17 -20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of a cupcakes comes out clean. Remove from pan and cool completely on a wire rack before frosting.

Kahlua Buttercream 

1 stick of butter, softened

3 cups powdered sugar

pinch of salt

3-4 tablespoons Kahlua

Beat butter until creamy, then add salt. Add powdered sugar 1 cup at a time, beating until combined. Add Kahlua 1 tablespoon at a time until you reach desired consistency.

You should try this out as soon as possible! Irish Car Bomb cupcakes are great too. Maybe I will have to post those up here soon. And I promise I do not usually  have nights like that one :)

Busy, busy, busy!

These last two weeks have been really busy for some reason. However, I am finally done with my first session of summer classes! Thank goodness. The second round starts tomorrow, but this time it will just be Japanese to go along with my job. Let me tell you, driving a bus is a lot more fun than I thought it was going to be. Every time I get back in my truck I feel tiny though. It's weird.

I went to visit my friends at camp this weekend! I love going to see them, but things are definitely different this summer than last year. I suppose that is pretty typical though. Anyway, here are some snapshots of the weekend:

Summer Sunflowers in Oletha, TX

Pistol! - My riding buddy

Sunset on our evening ride through camp.

A mug from the best diner in Van, TX - The Dinner Bell

After the weekend I had to come back and scramble to study for my final while writing a paper, but it was worth it.


Oh and I made another bento for lunch on Monday. Be warned though...it is really sad looking and plain. I wish I would have spruced it up a bit more, but I am short on supplies at the moment. Never fear, one day soon I will have more colors to put into my bento again!

 Green beans on the left, Ramen and a fried egg on the right. The best part is the panda face. Everything else is just sad. Oh well, you work with what you have right? Hopefully the next one will be better.

Be looking for some discussion about grape jelly too. My mom made a batch, and one of my friends made some too. I was allowed to benefit from both, so you might see some photographic evidence on here soon.

Get out of the fish bowl!

I love weekends. This one was particularly fantastic because I got to spend it with some friends that I haven't seen for months. Oh and there was dancing and horses involved. If you have never participated in a good Texas two-step, then you are seriously missing out. Find a guy/girl that knows what they're doing and get on it. The experience is so much fun with the right person.

I also got a bit of good advice from a speaker on the radio when I was driving home.

"Let God take us from our fish bowl and put us in the open ocean."

Get out of the fish bowl!! The speaker was talking about how a fish can only grow as big as the fish bowl he lives in. When you put him out in the ocean though, he has room to grow as big as he was intended to be. I don't want to be confined to a fish bowl...do you? Think about those poor fish they sell in little cups. How confined is that life? No thank you.

 Oh! And I made cupcakes last night :)

 Mint Chocolate Cupcakes (adapted from the chocolate recipe here)

 2 cups sugar 

1 3/4 cups flour 

3/4 cup cocoa 

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder 

1 1/2 tsp. baking soda 

1 tsp. salt 

2 eggs 

1 cup milk 

1/2 cup oil 

1 1/2 tsp. peppermint extract 

Mix the first six ingredients together. Then add the eggs, milk, oil, and peppermint. Mix well.

Preheat the oven to 350F and bake cupcakes for 20 minutes. Let them cool and then frost them.

Chocolate Frosting

12 Tbsp. butter, softened

5 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 cup cocoa

2/3 cup milk

2 tsp. vanilla

Add butter to bowl. Cream.

Then add about 1/3 of the powdered sugar. Mix well.

Then about a 1/3 of the milk and vanilla. Mix well.

Next 1/3 of the cocoa. Mix well after each addition and scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Repeat until all is added.

 

Even though I am not a huge fan of mint chocolate, I really like these cupcakes. The original recipe calls for vanilla in the cake instead of peppermint, but my cabinet could not supply me with the needed ingredient at the time. Thus the mint was added.

Where is the bento?

There has been no time to make lunch on the go this week. I have been so busy between my actual school work, starting my job, and hang-out time with my friends that this week just disappeared. Honestly I cannot believe that I went out as much as I did. This summer is full of new experiences for me and I am definitely happy about most of them. I say most because the bike crash was a new experience, but it was not an enjoyable one at all.

I have not been able to make up any bento the last few days, but I did cook a pretty decent lunch yesterday. The picture is not very good, but it does get the point across.

Baked Panko-crusted trout with stir-fry. The fish could have used a bit more flavor, but overall I was very satisfied with the result.

 How do you like to cook fish? I was almost wishing I had just pan-seared it instead of baking it. Hind-sight, as they say is twenty-twenty.

Speaking of fish, the first sushi restaurant that I went to in college has now been reduced to a sake bar only. Now my only option is to pay too much money for my fish. Hooray.

Moving on. We went over some new grammar in class today. Locations are fun when you get to draw pictures with it.

いすとテレビの間にねこがいる。

- There is a cat between the chair and the desk -

I am going to be so sad when this class is over! Adams-sensei is so hilarious. I don't think there has been a day where we haven't laughed for at least twenty minutes. It makes me really happy :)

I am going out of town this weekend to visit a camp that I used to work at (finally), so there will be no bento again. I will just have to make up for it later I suppose.

Have a good weekend! またらいしゅう！

Ouch!

Today was the day that the inevitable bike crash tore across my body. Picture this: two sidewalks, a large area of gravel and dirt between them, and two crowds of what appeared to be corps members in training taking up the entirety of each sidewalk. What is a poor cyclist to do? Unfortunately I cannot tell you the correct response, but I can certainly tell you the incorrect one. DO NOT swerve off of one sidewalk into the gravel and expect to make the turn across to the other. It will not work. A road-bike (even a cheap one - no, especially a cheap one) will not operate effectively when not on concrete. My right leg, knee, arm, and cheek are proof of that. Most of the scraping is very minor, but my knee looks pretty banged up. I refuse Hydrogen Peroxide though. And alcohol. No thank you. I just cleaned it with water and doused it with some tripe antibiotic ointment. It looks nasty.

Now with the possibility of a grotesque, road-rash image in your head, we'll move on to the bento.

Congratulations, it's soup!

It may not be homemade, but if you leave some of the seasoning out, store bought ramen isn't so bad. The flavor is good enough to get by on, especially with as cheap as the packages are.

I also put in some strawberries, peach slices, grapes, and a couple of the Fudge Babies I made. They are already almost gone! I want to make more, but I feel as though I should move on to the next recipe. I will certainly becoming back to these soon though! You should try them too.

Oh, do you like my little yellow owl timer? A friend of mine bought it for me randomly, and I love it. Now I can stop using my phone as a food timer.

What a weekend!

As you probably know, this past weekend was Father's Day weekend. I had great plans to hang out with my dad on Sunday, but events of the previous days refused to allow that to happen. My mom and I took a trip to Fredericksburg on Friday to do a little shopping and some peach picking. Everything was going great through Saturday afternoon. We had visited a museum, eaten at a German restaurant (the food was not so great), and had done plenty of window shopping. On the way to go peach picking, however, things changed.

Our first mistake was to follow a GPS. As usual, it lied. While continuing to follow said lying piece of technology, my mom's car experienced a blow out of rubber and we were forced to stop the car and inspect the damage. It turns out the rubber had torn apart, but the tire was (currently) still inflated. I have experience with changing tires, so I figured we could work it out. Well...my mom forgot the emergency brake, so as I was raising the car, it slipped and rolled back a bit. The jack came out of place and the tire hit the ground only to finally pop and nearly explode our eardrums in the process. At this point, we were both pretty annoyed, but God decided to be gracious like He usually does, and He sent us the only people who lived on the road where we were. The man came back, gave us some water, fixed our tire, and entertained us with great conversation while he worked.

It is amazing how differently people can react to a situation based on where they come from. Not everyone would have stopped to see if we needed help, but that man did. I am so grateful for it too.

The process of getting everything situated took a lot longer than we expected though. Walmart was the only tire shop open that late on a Saturday, and they were really busy. We had to stay another night, get to the store right when they opened on Sunday just so we could get new tires. It ended up taking about three hours from the time we got there to the time we left. Needless to say, we missed Father's Day because of the mess.

I will definitely be taking a trip home soon to make up for it.

This is the National Museum of the Pacific War that I visited with my mom. For some reason, wars in the Pacific have always intrigued me. World War II is especially fascinating and terrible all at the same time. They had a Japanese submarine that held only two people, a plane from the Doolittle Raid, and a lot of other parts from different Pacific Wars and fights too.

The first German restaurant that we went to was pretty bad, but this place was actually fantastic. Rathskeller's was small and low-key, but the food was good, and they had live acoustic music too. If you are ever in Fredericksburg, TX you should check it out.

And finally, the bento! I feel like I haven't posted anything about bento in a long time. Maybe that's just me though. The most exciting thing about this box is the little brown balls in the top. They are called "Fudge Babies" and they were created by Chocolate Covered Katie. She is completely vegan, so her blog is great for non-fattening desserts that still taste really good. She even has a lot of single-serving options in her recipes.



Fudge Babies

• 1 c walnuts (120 grams)
• 1 and 1/3 cups pitted dates (220 grams)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/8 plus 1/16 tsp salt
• 3-4 tablespoons cocoa powder

Toss everything in a food processor and zap it. When it is all chopped, shape the mixture into balls or bars depending on your preference. They are a good option if you want a quick, healthy chocolate fix.

Have you ever eaten a date before? I know I hadn't, but they make these chocolate balls really great.

I want to start taking more pictures and not limiting myself to one post a day. I might start posting pictures with captions and then come back later to make an actual thought post. We'll see what happens.

Have a wonderful day!

Got Joy?

I decided to take my lunch on campus today instead of riding over to the church coffee house. The weather was almost too hot, but I pushed through it. I really enjoy just sitting outside and watching people walk across campus. Maybe that is weird, but I can't help it. There were a ton of people with their parents today too. It must be a new student conference week for the little fish that will be joining our ranks in the fall. Hearing bits of their conversations is very entertaining. They don't know where anything is, but sometimes the kids play it off like they are incredibly knowledgeable about a place they have never been to. I just sit and laugh to myself. 

Anyway, my lunch for today was pretty simple. I had fruit (half of an orange, half of a nectarine, cherries), baby carrots, and a peanut butter sandwich (one slice of bread). I thoroughly enjoy my organic bread, but I wish it wasn't quite so expensive. I guess that is just the way it is for healthy options though.

The Academic Building - my view for lunch.

Riding a bike gives me a lot of time to just think about everything. I think a lot of people use walking and running for the same thing, but I really enjoy my bike. I do take walks on occasion, but running does not happen. I like being able to breathe.

As a result of all this thinking time, I have discovered that life has been really fantastic lately. I have a part-time job lined up, and I am doing well in my classes. It is so amazing to step back, look at your life, and realize how much has changed for the better. There are many things that are still the same about me from high school, but being in college has certainly made me a new person. I fully believe that I am better off because of it too. God is so great! When is the last time you took a look at what the Lord has been doing in your life? He takes things away and adds other things in, but it is all for a purpose. His purpose.

Can you see His purpose? I love looking for it. It makes me feel better to know that, even though I can make my own choices, there is always someone there to turn to for guidance and help.

Have a wonderful day!

Monday Blues?

I am not feeling the usual Monday slump that everyone seems to get stuck in every week. Today was a great day. Did I do a lot? No. That doesn't matter though because I still feel rather accomplished about the day. Do you ever have days like that? The sun goes down and you just feel good. God is great that way. Every day is His day, and we are lucky enough to be a part of it.

I hope that you made good choices about what to do with your time. I for one, have not done a single bit of the homework that I needed to get finished today. Of course that just means that I will either stay up late tonight to get it done, or I will try to wake up a little bit earlier tomorrow morning. It is a toss up really. I have been known to do both. I am not typically a morning person, but there are just some times when I cannot keep my eyes open a second longer so I have to adjust my wake up time. In that instance, it is much easier for me to fake being a happy morning person than it would have been to slur through my work the night before.

I think tonight is definitely going to be one of those where I just pass out merely by seeing my pillow. Sleep is really fantastic in my opinion. You can't get enough of it.

Do you have odd sleeping patterns?

Well, I have no idea what you were up to on this wonderful Monday (月曜日), but I spent a good amount of time in the kitchen conducting experiments. I follow a vegan blog that is full of healthy versions of classic (and unique) desserts. Naturally, I wanted to try them because they're supposed to be better for you. If I can get the same enjoyment out of it as the original sugary, fat-filled version then I am all for it.

I found that I need to expand my pantry. However, that means spending money at the grocery store that I do not currently have. I just told myself I was going to wing it, and pressed on from there.

By the end I have successfully made two desserts, and failed on about three or so. It happens. I did discover the only good microwave fudge cake I have ever had though, so hooray for vegan! The best part about most of the recipes is that they are single-serving. That way you get your sweet tooth fix without having a million cookies or cupcakes left tempting you in the kitchen. I always cave. They just call to me and beg me to indulge again and again. Ridiculous.

Anyway, I made a really cheap lunch today for my bento!

It is the last of my pistachios and cashews, half of a granola bar pack (pecan), black beans, brown rice, and half of an Ezekiel bread wrap.

I put part of the beans and rice into the wrap, so it was like a little make-shift burrito. I really love black beans. However, I have not mastered the art of cooking brown rice properly. For some reason, every time I make it, the rice comes out gummy and gross. I don't understand. The same brand of white rice works just fine. What am I doing wrong?

Tomorrow is going to be a good day too. I might go for some hummus and a black bean burger. I will definitely be using one of my successful desserts though. It is vegan, so it is completely allowed for lunch. Thank goodness!

Life.

There comes a time in life when you get sick of moving around and not being settled into a single place. I am at that point. I keep seeing all of these cool things that I would want to do to decorate my house, but I don't have a house to decorate. Being in college limits you to rental properties, and I have lived in a different place every year. There is no stability in it. Living in a place of my own would be so great. Unfortunately the time for that is a long way off. For now, I am forced into the confinement of what my landlord will and will not allow me to do in their home. The "not" list is usually a great bit longer in my experience. Does anyone else have that problem? There are some rentals that wont even let you use thumbtacks on the walls. Thumbtacks! Tape doesn't hold everything up you know.

I'm rambling, so I will move on. I don't have any pictures today, but hopefully I will be back to the bento tomorrow. I actually haven't been to the store in a while and my supplies are low, so they may not be too exciting. We will see! I have been admiring some other bento blogs and they are all pretty impressive. It seems I have a long way to go to build up my creativity and skill.

I would also like to report that my wonderful roommate made a lemon cake with black tea frosting when I got home today. I would recommend looking up the recipe because it was delicious. I swear she is trying to ruin everything that my small amounts of healthy food achieve. I am such a sucker for cake though. It is just too fantastic! I have to find the restraint somewhere to limit the intake, but it doesn't always work. Such is life though I guess. She is just too good at what she does sometimes.

Butter Beer expedition!

I just want you to know that butter beer is great. There is a coffee shop in town that serves it with ice in glass mugs. How fantastic is that? I don't know what all they put in it, but I know there is cream soda. They give it a really good cream that sits nicely on the top too (and taste great when you mix it in). Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture, but hopefully I will get one the next time I go.

Earlier today I was sitting in the coffee house/study area of my church and I met this awesome older lady. I don't usually get the opportunity to talk to people like that, but I think our conversation lasted for an hour or so. It was so amazing to hear how she looked at life, and to get her opinions on the mission work I want to do after graduation. Church is such a wonderful place to get life advice!

I am still in the process of trying to pass my tests at the DPS office. However, I would rather not dwell on that this time. It is a bit annoying. Instead let's look at the bento for today:

Not very aesthetically pleasing, but I did not have much to work with today.

Top: pineapple, grapes, orange slices
Bottom: peanut butter on Ezekiel bread, homemade granola

A couple of notes:
     1. That was probably the most difficult orange I have ever tried to peel.
     2. Ezekiel bread is really good. It is all grain and organic (or something like that) and it keeps for a while because it stays in the refrigerator or the freezer. It is the same brand as the tortilla wraps from a few days ago.
     3. I have decided it is time for a new bento...but I have no money. Also it is a bit pathetic that this fact makes me sad. Oh well.

Have a good day!

P.S. Look for a recipe with Eggplant tomorrow! It is one of the many vegetables I have never tried, so I will be experimenting and hoping that I like the taste. Wish me luck!

こんばんわ (good evening)。

The DPS trip

Does anyone else share my disdain for the DPS office? First I couldn't find it, then I had to wait over an hour for my number to be called, then I had to go sit and wait again to finish the second half of my test requirements. Another hour! I really hope this CDL is worth it.

On a side note: I was riding my bike home from class today and I encountered one of those car insurance commercial squirrel incidents. I did not actually crash, but the squirrel had definitely planned the whole thing. He was fearless as my giant yellow tire skidded toward his tiny squirrel face, and then darted off at the last second as I did not back down. How gross would it have been to run him over though? No thank you.

Food for today was quick and vegan. I made some roasted sweet potatoes and cut up some fruit to go with it. Oh and I made granola!

おいしい (delicious)!
Homemade Granola: I don't usually make exact measurements for stuff like this, but I did use the recipe from this page as a base for my mixture. Among other things, I added pecans and cashews with the almonds.

Now we have the bento for today. I am using my panda again. かわいいです！

Left: roasted sweet potatoes (olive oil, salt, pepper, other spices to taste)

Right: top - strawberries and slices of pluot (plum and apricot hybrid - so good!), bottom - pineapple, middle - granola.





Not much else is going on, but somehow I am still super busy. Honestly I don't know what I do sometimes. We started our weekly summer Bible study today though, so I am pretty excited. Now I just need to catch up on homework.

Where did the day go?

こんにちわ (Hello)。I don't quite know how the clock managed to be at 5:45pm already. Sometimes it is just not fair how quickly the day goes by! Of course...taking a two or so hour nap might also have something to do with time flying away from me. That is not important though. What is important is the awesome cake that my roommate made last night to go with our sangria. I'll show you what I mean:

 A slice of banana cake with pastry cream, and a delicious sangria. I was absolutely miserable after this last night because we had just finished off our leftovers from lunch...and that was not a small slice of cake. There are times when I really want to rip out my sweet tooth. Then I remember how awesome cake is, and it could never be done. Oh, and I will put up the recipe for the drink too in case any of you want it.

Sangria Recipe: (adapted from aggie's kitchen)
1 bottle white wine
1/4 cup orange juice (or orange liqueur if you happen to have it...I did not)
4 strawberries, sliced
2 peaches, sliced
1/2 orange, sliced
1/2 juiced orange

Toss the pitcher in the refrigerator and let it all soak together. We waited for about an hour and then divided it into these two jars before drinking. That way everyone gets their own fruit, and if for some reason you decide not to drink it all, you can put it back in the refrigerator.

I think this will be the only class I can ever say this for and actually be happy, but I get to go do my homework now. I love it! Here is a preview:

Text book, handy white board, homework sheet and hiragana (ひらがな) note cards.

 じゃね (See you)。

Just a few things I had written down

So I had a couple of days worth of blog writing set aside as I was debating on whether or not to start this. It might be a bit excessive, but I'm going to try to upload them on today's page. Maybe not all at once...I am not sure how that would look, but here we go.

___

May 30, 2012

I have a tiny bento box bought from a blog that I follow. I think the package said it measures 5.5" long X approximately 2" wide X 2 3/4" tall. Not your everyday American lunch box size for sure. But it works perfectly for my purposes (healthy eating and maybe a little bit of weight loss if I get lucky). Bento is so much fun to experiment with! I can’t wait to build up my supplies and food stocks so that I can make cute and delicious meals on the go.
 

Here is what I packed for lunch today. My roommate and I are attempting to eat two vegan meals a day (for health purposes). After two weeks of this, I have decided that there is no way I could ever be completely vegan or vegetarian...I like to eat hamburgers and chicken way too much.


On the left is I put apples with dried cranberries, and on the right I put cashews, more cranberries, and peanut butter for the apples.

May 31, 2012

I used the blue bento again today for lunch. I don’t have much variety to work with right now, so it will most likely appear a lot. I do have a cute panda bento that will show itself from time to time though.

Today was another heavily fruit filled day.


In the box: cashews, watermelon, raspberries, blackberries, dried cranberries (they are good and so easy to toss in to fill up bare spots!)

Oh, I made onigiri today too! I even tried to fill some of them :)
 

The triangles are all just plain rice, but the ball shapes have a corn/zucchini/bok choy mix in them. I think they came out pretty okay considering it was only my second attempt ever. Last time I tried the saran wrap version...that didn’t come out so well. Oh well. Mata Ashita! (I forgot to mention, I just started the first course for Japanese at school, so I might be tossing in some of the things I learn along the way...hopefully none of it comes out wrong!)

June 1, 2012

Here we go, one more fruit filled blue bento. Don’t worry, I’ll be changing it up pretty soon. Since I’ll be spending more time away from the house, my mini blue wont really cut it for my daily food. For now though, this is what we have:
 

The top is filled with black olives, pistachios, and one of the smaller rice balls that I made. The bottom is just some more water melon and dried cranberries. I didn’t get very creative with this one...it’s time to go to the store for more produce I think.

June 2, 2012

Well school has definitely started for the summer. It’s Saturday, and I will be spending most of my time tucked away in the library trying to get all of my homework done before the next round comes along. I love my Japanese class, but Child Psychology online was not a good choice. There is so much reading to do! Don’t get me wrong, I’m an English major and I love to read, but not this stuff! I want to finally pick up one of the books that have been sitting on my shelf all semester. Darn you education!

So for today, I made two bentos. I can’t afford to eat out much right now (the life of a college student), and I had enough stuff lying around at the house that I was able to postpone making that expensive trip to the grocery store for another day. Thank goodness. I go crazy when I grocery shop. As soon as I walk in, I head straight for the produce. I can imagine myself drooling at that point, but fortunately it never manifests to reality. That would be embarrassing. I’m still working up to the love of all vegetables (I was an extremely picky child), but I adore fruit. In my opinion, it is the best category of food that God created for man. The only thing that might be better is fresh, homemade bread, but that takes too much extra work. Making a fresh batch does have a sort of amazing satisfaction to it though. I might have to borrow my mom’s bread maker now. Anyway, back to fruit. I’d say bananas are the absolute best. If you ever crave something sweet, but don’t want to ruin yourself, grab a banana. It works for me every time.

I’ll step away from my fruit box now. Actually a fruit box sounds kind of fun. Maybe that will be a craft that appears on here one day. Who knows. I’m moving away from the point again. Here are the bentos for today:


So I found this awesome tortilla/wrap thing in the frozen food section at the grocery store. It’s an all grain, no preservative, won't ruin your vegan lunch masterpiece. Don’t expect it to taste like a flour tortilla, but this Ezekiel stuff is pretty good. They have bread too, but I have yet to try it out. Now, I took half of the wrap, cut it, baked it and put it in my box to go with some peanut butter. Then I cooked up a couple of zucchini cakes, broke up a granola bar, tossed in some blackberries, and separated them all with a couple of leaves of baby bok choy. I know the box isn’t cute, but it’s incredibly effective and it came in a pack of two. I was willing to make the decorative sacrifice.

Now...I must introduce this next box. It was my first bento purchase and I absolutely love it.

Yes it is a panda, and yes he is a ninja. I may be in college, but that does not mean I can’t have adorable boxes for my food. Besides, I just really like pandas. And owls, but that is a whole different story.


This is the dinner that my panda contains: top - rice ball, pistachios, pecans, and olives on a bed of baby bok choy; bottom - raspberries, watermelon, two containers of dried cranberries, and the other half of my granola bar from lunch. Oh and the bento is sitting on the package from the Ezekiel tortillas I mentioned earlier.

I suppose I should grab my bike and head to the library now. It’s going to be a long day, but I allowed myself to have a little bit of fun with it this morning. Until next time!
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Well that is the end of that. Sorry to bombard you with it all at once, but I wanted to be caught up with my days. As today is Sunday, I have not made a bento, but I did manage to clean my room! There are no more boxes hanging around, and I can freely walk across the floor. I suppose that means it is time to move away from here and start on some more homework. I am working on studying a driver training manual so I can get my bus driving license. We will see how that goes.