Jill’s Jumble

So after a period lacking in creativity when it came to food, I’ve picked up on being adventuresome! I’ve been craving some easy summer salads that would work well as a meal. The last two nights the salads have had a quinoa base. Leftovers work well in bento!

This bento contains cut up baked chicken thighs, soaked and cooked quinoa, and steamed broccoli, asparagus, and carrots. I also had a side of soy-ginger dressing. I was attempting a bit of a landscape theme so you would see a cliff of chicken “rock”, a sky of quinoa, and a forest of veggies.

Of course I then had more veggies so the forest overgrew the rocks!

The weather lately has been just gorgeous! We’ve been taking advantage of it a lot. Sunday we had a lovely dinner out on our deck.

The nicest thing about this meal is how quick it is the prepare! While you are melting butter in a pan, slice up a couple of chicken breasts so they resemble chicken tenders (or just use chicken tenders). Once they are in the pan cooking, cut up some romaine lettuce and any other veggies you like. Actually, in this case, you have your husband cut up the lettuce then add cucumbers. Apparently he hadn’t noticed that I’d snuck in a few snowpeas while he was still cutting up lettuce!

Here’s a close up:

I just used the melted, browned butter as my dressing. My husband added bottled dressing and croutons to his salad.

We’ve also been taking advantage of the new grill we just got. Lots of meals lately have involved sausages of various kinds. Last night my husband let me know that he’s not really fond of sausages unless they are hotdogs! Further inquiry resulted in the statement that last night’s smoked bratwurst were okay, but regular bratwurst isn’t. The pesto romano sausages I had in my first bento was also okay, though I recall he only ate one of those. Too bad I’ve got regular brats in the fridge I can’t wait to have because I love them. There’s very few sausages I don’t like.

I made a bento in a hurry yesterday that even features some mini sausages. But because I was running late, no pics were taken. It contained the mini sausages, cucumber, and celery with some PB to dip it in.

Tonight we’ll have steak and the second bell pepper with cheese, but on the grill this time!

Last night I went to a friend’s birthday party.   Knowing that I would most likely be allergic to whatever was served I brought a Bento dinner.  It features spring rolls I made by modifying this recipe.

A couple of strawberries, carrot, and snow peas round things out.

There’s been one other bento I didn’t post about.  Most of the spring rolls stuck to the cookie sheet I cooked them on so they weren’t nearly as pretty.  Some of the broken ones plus some cucumber went to work with me on Friday.

As I’ve been exploring the way I now need to eat to accomodate my allergies, I have run across bento. I’ve always loved Japanese food so this is ideal for me! So to celebrate the beginning of this blog I give you my first bento!

It contains a number of naturally gluten free foods. Cucumbers, mustard, polenta, and meat. Granted you may want to be careful of what mustards and prepared meats you buy, but generally these foods are gluten free.

It’s nothing spectacular as an example of bento but in good bento tradition I’m using up leftovers!