Holiday Special - July 4th, 2010

I have some pictures of Obento and treats. Here are some of my recent creations.

July 4th - Holiday Lunch

Let's start with today's special lunch - July 4th, 2010. Celebration of the holiday and Iowa summer produce! We got some beautiful and fresh Iowa produce from a Farmers' Market yesterday. I cooked most of our purchased produces for lunch.

• Burgers with home baked buns: I baked fluffy buns last Friday. Cooked grass-fed ground beef with graded onions, carrots, and ginger. Add egg, Japanese panko bread crumbs, a touch of soy & mirin for seasoning. Made patties - boiled once to remove excess fat and cooked in a pan. A slice of fresh Iowa tomato and lettuce leaf.
• Iowa corn!: Boiled with salt.
• Iowa new potato with fresh dill: Boiled, tossed with extra virgin olive oil, with salt & pepper for tastes. Wonderful alternative to the mayo-based potato salad.
• Asparagus with corn: (sorry, forgot to take a picture) boiled asparagus and corn tossed with 10-year aged Balsamic vinegar, extra virgin oil, salt & pepper for tastes.

Too bad that it was raining, otherwise, we could be in our back yard patio. Anyway, lunch was delicious!


Treats - Baked Goods

Some treats I baked last month when our friends from Ohio visited us for dinner. I packed these treats for them so that they can eat as dessert or breakfast next day :-)



Custard cream rolls



Chocolate - Mocha cream rolls with chocolate chips



Cinnamon rolls - Croissant style



We also tasted these treats. They were soooo good :-)

Here are Stan's Obento pictures from last week.

June 28, 2010 - Chicken sandwich Obento in our home office

He was working at home. I make a tray of lunch and brought it to a study room where he worked.

• Organic Chicken sandwich on Ciabatta bread
• Carrot and Red pepper sticks
• Potato chips
• Beets, cucumber & artichoke salad
• Green grapes
• A glass of roasted barley tea (Mugi-cha)

June 29, 2010 -Potato Croquettes "Potato Korokke" Obento
I used left-over mushed potato to make some potato croquettes. Added boiled cod fillet. Mira loves it - so do we :-)

• Fried rice (chicken and veggies)
• Potato croquettes
• Mini-tomato
• Cucumbers
• Pickled ginger "gari"

July 1, 2010 - Soko's tender Teriyaki-chicken Obento

• Japanese steamed rice with Furikate-topping
• Tender Teriyaki-chicken
• Sauteed vegetables with fish sausage
• Cucumbers
• Mini-tomato

Last words for today - This morning, I baked my first Bagles. They tasted great! I made them "soft" not too hard & chewy for Mira. As a result, they came not too attractive looking :-(
Did not take any pictures. I'm going to some research and practice more...stay tuned for my bagle baking.

Happy Holiday Weekend!