Bento Corner

Sake bento with moon and stars.

I suppose this would have looked better with a nori ben background. But I had salmon left over from Saturday night and needed to use it up. The salmon is lightly salted, broiled and then flaked over rice. The aqua container includes mayonnaise for dipping the broccoli. The orange stars are not carrots, but yams! I thought I was buying sweet potatoes, but since they were right next to the yams, I think one yam got placed in the sweet potato bin. Yam stars with apple slices are placed next to the broccoli. And quail egg to represent the moon.

Had quite a night with hardly any sleep. Not sure what is going on with the boy, but he is certainly not allowing his parents to sleep...To top it off, we lost one hour of precious sleep with daylight savings...which also leads to bad pictures because there is not enough natural light to take decent photographs. Why hello, Monday.

Okra ohitashi from the frozen food section. Just place in the bento from the freezer and in a few hours it will defrost to room temperature.

Frozen kimpira gobou. Just like the okra, place in the bento frozen and it will be defrosted in a few hours. Oh, the convenience of Japanese food!

Mix for gomoku kamameshi. You just place the contents of this before you cook the rice in the rice cooker and voila, you will have instant kamameshi with minimal effort.

This is for clam takikomi gohan. Which essentially is the same thing as the gomoku kamameshi except with clams.

Chicken Katsudon:

How to make chicken katsu:

1 pound of chicken

2 eggs

½ cup of flour

2-3 cups of panko (can be store bought or made with plain sandwich bread and grounded in a mixer or food processor)

Oil for deep frying

Slice chicken into strips. Dredge chicken in flour, then dip into beaten egg, then dredge with panko. Fry in oil until cooked.

To make chicken katsudon:

2 cups of water

½ cup of mirin

½ cup of mentsuyu (or you can substitute with ½ cup soy sauce and 1 teaspoon of dashi no moto)

2 teaspoons of sugar (or more depending on taste)

1 ½ thinly sliced onion

3 stalks of green onion

4-5 eggs, beaten

chicken katsu

Prepare  the stock by mixing all ingredients except for the eggs, onion, and katsu. Boil the stock in a frying pan then add the sliced onion and the chicken katsu. After 10 minutes, add 3 stalks of chopped green onions. Beat  the eggs and pour ½ of the egg over the chicken and onion mixture and wait for the egg to curdle. Once the egg is curdled, pour the rest of the egg onto the pan. Cook until eggs are done. Top with shredded nori and serve over rice.