Bento (No.51)

 

 

Back to bento posting!

These next few bentos will be ones from a few weeks ago as I’m still on a bland (and not very photogenic) diet to sort my silly tummy out.

 

This bento consists of a leftover spicy chicken and vegetable wrap, with sides of radishes, cucumber, olives, mange-tout, lettuce and baked soy-sesame tofu.

It was such a yummy lunch (I love leftovers!), I can’t wait t have wraps again!

On a more positive note, I was nominated for two awards over the last couple of weeks. I’m still working on the posts and will get them up, along with my nominations, as soon as possible

Quick update on training for my 5k Race For Life: I ran my first full training 5k at the weekend. My running has been getting so much better and a lot easier, and I bought some new running gear (why did no-one ever tell me running leggings were  so damn comfortable! – no wind resistance, haha!) cheeky me. Running is something you have to work at, but it is so surprising how just a mile or two every other day can build up to being able to run up hills no problem (I have so many issues running up hills-silly hips), and running 5k straight off, easy peasy.

Well here’s to another week of training, being a busy bee, eating bland food and munching on Foodie Penpal delights (spoilers!)

Hows the weather been for everyone? I’ve found most days when I want to run, it’s been just right for me, not making you jealous or anything

Bad Bento, why you make my stomach icky? (No.50)

I may have made my stomach icky :S I had this bento last week, 2 days in a row (and the evening prior to the first bento) and now my stomach is out of sync

Bit of background: I have no gallbladder, so digesting high carb or high fat items is difficult for my digestive system anyway BUT I though I’d be ok. I had 3 pieces of pizza one night, 2 the next day for lunch, and the last 2 pieces for lunch the day after. Perfectly normal right? I even had salad on the side! (And garlic dip yummmmm), and perhaps a katsu ball :O don’t tell anyone!

Well those few days of ‘indulgence’ have upset the balance of my digestive system I’m not in pain but I’m not comfortable and I’m not digesting anything right :S So my mum and I checked back on the nice big list of things I maybe should avoid eating and guess what? I eat some of those things all the time

The food items I eat a lot of that are on the almost no-go list for gallbladder-less people are peanut butter, raw vegetables, dairy products, eggs and caffeine. I have definitely not been limiting my intake of these recently and, on top of the pizza last week, my stomach has staged a protest.

So now, for  a few days, I’m going to be avoiding all the ‘bad’ foods to allow my insides to reset and hopefully get back to normal. I’m also going to be taking HUGE tablets (soya lecithin) to help me digest the food I can eat.

Here’s to a few days (hopefully) of chicken noodle soup, passata, well cooked vegetables and lots of green tea and smoothies.

Bring back my comfortable insides!

Have you got any allergies or digestive difficulties with certain foods?

Late Foodie Penpal!

Oh I am terrible! 3 days late! I was meant to schedule it, but I’ve been so busy! :S bad me!!

Anyway, this month I was paired with Alex from Trending Recipes She lives over in Portugal so I was super excited to see what portuguese surprises her parcel had to offer. Her blog is full of tasty recipes and treats too, so before I got the parcel I couldn’t stop reading it (and dribbling over it)!! I sent a parcel this month to Susie from Susie’s Tummy Tales (a fellow bento blogger!!) who lives in Birmingham, but lived in Japan for a little bit :O (jealous).

Firstly, I asked Alex to send me anything that she liked and used in Portuguese dishes as I was intrigued to find out a bit more about the cuisine and foods (me being very un-travelled). She sent these lovely cork matts for hot pans and cookware that I cant wait to use (as I am always getting told off for wanting to put hot pots straight on the side).

Some portuguese pudding mixes, which I think are a bit like blancmange. I was going to make them last weekend, but I didn’t get chance so I’m thinking when the family pop round on Sunday, this will be the pudding

Sardines, white wine port and piri piri sauce! What more could you ask for I am going to use some of these in bentos in the next couple of weeks as I love sardines (and most tinned fish). I’ll be getting my dad to help me decide what to do with the white wine port (nom nom).

And finally jam!! When I have oats, I love to put jam and peanut butter on top! So this is definitely where this will be used!

Thank you so much Alex! I loved the yummy package you sent me, thank you again and enjoy your weekend everyone!

Related articles

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Bento No.49

Quick post for a fantastic Bento (if I do say so myself). Had this wonderful gem yesterday and I was ecstatic the whole of the day because of it. I’m not sure whether it’s the colours, or the range of foods in it, or that I managed to fit that much food in a small bento box!

In this tightly packed sistema box, (starting from top left) I had beetroot, sushi rice with  sushi vinegar and furikake on a bed of lettuce, mixed salad with lettuce, pepper, olives, mange-tout, carrots and baby sweetcorn, crunchy cheese rounds (microwaved cheese crispy things), pancake muffin topped with grapes (cut into tulip shapes), cherry tomato and carrots.

How pretty does that look??

What super colourful meals have you made recently?

Exciting news!

First, we all need a foodie picture to start the post off with a bang

This is a lovely picture of my lunch on Saturday, enjoyed in the glorious spring sunshine. The picture is sort of to make up for the lack of bento pictures today (I had a salad again, so boring to look at!). The lunch above however, looks fantastic and tasted even better. I had carrots and cucumber with hummus (under the veg), Rivita with cream cheese (2 of them), sliced chicken, and rollmops (pickled herring) with the onions from the rollmop jar I know rollmops aren’t for everyone, but I love them!

Also, I did say I’d posts about my exciting news on Monday but I am a very bad person and I didn’t, sorry!!

Another picture for you! Cookies!

I made yummy cookies at the weekend cranberry, chic chip and flaxseed shortbread. Quite crunchy but yummy I made some for my (spoiler alert) Foodie Penpal this month, and my cousin (who’s just had a little baby girl). Not too indulgent as a replaced almost half of the sugar with milled flaxseed

So, finally, my exciting news, which may or may not be completely uninteresting for other people, is that I have signed up for my first 5k running event thingy.

Yes…run :S

It is completely unrelated to Bento, but it is starting to be another hobby of mine. And I want to share my exciting hobbies with you guys and girls And I have shared food photos with you today to make up for the extra non-bento related info

I’ve signed up for my local Race For Life event and I’m going to be running the 5k circuit. I could have signed up for the 10k, decided on a fun run idea rather than a proper run but I know I can complete a 5k and I want to push my time to the best ever This Race for Life, for me, isn’t just about fund-raising (although I am fund-raising for two charities – Macmillan and Cancer Research) its about a target date. It will be the date that I will be at the peak of my fitness (and health) and will have fulfilled all my health and fitness goals.

The date for the run is July 7th. Halfway through July last year I had my gallbladder removed. I was pretty ill beforehand and although I was only consuming mainly vegetables (due to the problem gallbladder), I was not healthy or fit. After the op, I have been improving my health and fitness in leaps and bounds and currently, I am at the healthiest and happiest I have been in my teenage/adult life (I’m only 21). We always want more though don’t we? I want to improve my fitness and health further. And the target date of the Race for Life event is a perfect goal date for me So, stay tuned for mini updates on my new health and fitness goals (I promise the next updates will be smaller!).

On a side note, I’m pretty sure that Bento has been the primary focus and drive behind my health goals. If I didn’t have the increasing passion for healthy, homemade food, the love for Japanese food, the love for creating new and exciting foods for my family and sharing my love with as many people as possible, I’m not sure that I would be as healthy as I am now. So give it up for Bento. Three cheers for the humble, but lovingly prepared lunches that fuel our day. Spread the love for Bento!

Ok, end of post now

What health/fitness goals are you working towards? And what has Bento done for you?

Bento No.48

What a cheery Friday today. Over here, the weather is mild, I had an amazing lunch, and I’m going to be doing something even more amazing this weekend (more on that on Monday!)

The main in my bento today was amazing! I said yesterday that I was going to make myself some sushi rice for today, and make it I did! I mixed it with rice vinegar, a little salt and sugar and sprinkled it with store bought furikake. The rest of the bento is filled with leftover roasted vegetables (in a cool stripe pattern!). The leftover vegetables were sweet potato, green peppers (capsicum for you guys and girls across the pond), yellow and red peppers and courgette (zucchini).Yummy!

For snacks I had cherry tomatoes, a satsuma, grapes and a couple of Fox’s Crunch Creams (so good!!). I snacked on these throughout the afternoon.

Oooh, have you noticed?? This bento is in a new bento box!!! I got it the other week but have been trying out different ways of packing it before showing it off to you guys and girls. I bought a 2 pack of the Sistema sandwich boxes when they were on offer for £2.50 at my local supermarket (below is a picture of a paxk of three in slightly different colours). The colours that I got were purple with orange clips and pink with blue clips They are quite small but perfect for the size of lunch I eat. I will look into doing a bigger review for these soon.

And, as todays Friday, here’s an awful bonus picture. As I had made sushi rice the night before, I fancied having a japanese breakfast this morning! I had sushi rice, sprinkled with furikake, sushi ginger, vegetables, mackerel in tomato sauce, nori, and soy sauce. It was so yummy!!

What is your favourite style of breakfast? Western, Asian or Continental?

Bento No.47

 

 

I’m still ill!! What is this!

 

Yes it has been affecting my bento making, but only because I’ve been trying to avoid carby foods to try and load up on the vegetables to get rid of this cold!

Today I had a salad with pickled onions mixed in and a side of potato salad. Very boring, but I’m trying to fix myself! Haha! I may make some rice tonight to make sushi, as that must make me feel better As well as the salad today, I had and apple, orange, a little pack of popcorn and lots of water!

Bring on getting better!

How do your bentos fare if you are ill/ in a rush?

Bento No.46

Still feel rotten, so here’s another bento from the other week.

To start off, I love vegetables. They are amazing and I prefer them over meat/carbs anytime. So in this bento, it is mainly vegetables

In the main part I packed half a cheese sandwich (as I thought there were too many vegetables, haha, silly me!), a packet of soy sauce, rice vinegar and sesame, and vegetables! The vegetables I have in this bento are carrots, mini courgettes (zucchini), mushrooms, broccoli, peppers and tomatoes

For sides I had grapes, ham wrapped dates, a nest cake, a pack of almonds (from my foodie penpal parcel) and a pot of sweets

Hope everyones weekend is sunny and lovely!

How do you make yourself feel better when you have a cold?

Bento No.45

 

 

I have a horrible cold today so I have only eaten one boiled egg and a little yoghurt It was meant to be a fast day anyway, although I will eat if my body tells me to.

To make me feel better, I will post one of my bentos from last week

The main side of this bento (made in a Sistema Lunch Cube), had chicken dim sum (not homemade!), steamed broccoli (with sesame seeds), mushrooms (with kewpie mayo), cucumber, peppers, tomatoes and soy sauce.

And in the other side there was sliced pear (excuse the bruising, I eat them however they look),chicken slices, satsuma, nest cake and a little pot of sweets.

There, that’s made me feel better (pulls ill face). At least you guys and girls get to see a bento post regardless of my woes.

I really do need to work on my photos though!!

Do you use a camera or your phone to take blog/food photos? I can never be bothered to get the camera out! Bad me!

Fasting of Yesterday

x1 Tea with milk (13c)

150g Blueberries (86c)

x1 Tea with milk (13c)

1/2 miso soup sachet (about 20c)

100g steamed sweet potato (90c)

6 steamed mange tout (6c)

400g tinned chopped tomatoes (74c)

1 and 1/2 tablespoons Balsamic vinegar (21c)

x1 Tea with milk (13c)

1/2 teaspoon peanut butter (45c)

So, total of 381!! Not on purpose but a very good fast day mostly I didn’t have the brain power to think of eating. Do you get that sometimes, where you can’t think of what to eat, so you just don’t?

What is everyone up to this weekend?