Back From Hiatus...and With Lots of Bento!

Yuzu is Listening To Call Me Irresponsible Michael Bublé see related

First off, allow me to apologize for not commenting on your blogs in the past month or two. I didn't expect to be away from food blogging for so long — sorry about that! I kind'a took a little break there for a while. Went on vacation to a couple of Hawaiian islands last month and ate Japanese food almost every day (and loved it!). Work has gotten so busy, leaving me too tired when I get home to cook or take worthwhile pictures of food. But I wanted to check in with you guys real quick and post some of my recent boxed lunches from the past week.

Shrimp fried in butter, garlic & pepper fried rice, seasoned mixed veggies


Chicken cutlet with tonkatsu sauce, edamame,
steamed mixed veggies & extra sauce (in the little tomato)


Pizza, seasoned mixed veggies, edamame
(pretty much a combo of the two previous bento, but with pizza!)


Panko-breaded shrimp, scrambled eggs, sweet cherry tomatoes,
flower-shaped Portuguese sausage patties, SPAM musubi and
(hiding behind the musubi) a carrot bottle w/soy sauce

©2007 Yuzu Eats

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Lunch with the Sugarbunnies

I don't normally eat sandwiches for lunch. I usually like some kind of rice or pasta dish. But I just bought a loaf of whole-grain wheat bread last night and felt like eating some little sammiches for lunch this afternoon. I used a biscuit cutter to cut the sandwiches into those little circles. The cutter has scalloped edges, but it's hard to see that on the sandwich because of the bread's texture.

Little ham & cheese whole-wheat sammies with carrot and celery sticks

©2007 Yuzu Eats

The Sugarbunnies strike a pose with their bento box

I'm sorry I haven't been commenting on your blogs lately. I'll get back to it, I promise! Thanks for reading. :)

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Return of Obento

Yuzu is Reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban J.K. Rowling see related

It's been a long time coming, but after many, many months I've finally gotten around to making a bento post! In an effort to save money and not have to resort to buying lunch from the cafeteria, I have been packing a lunch almost every day for the past several months. I've been getting a lot of use out of my bento boxes, that's for sure. I just haven't posted any of my lunches in a while because they weren't particularly creative or photogenic. But I'm posting my lunch for today because I think it looks cute!

Spicy tuna roll, shrimp tempura roll and edamame
with a soy-sauce-filled cherry bottle

©2007 Yuzu Eats

I like it when my bento stuff matches, so...there it is.

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Tilapia Bento

Yuzu is Listening To Love. Angel. Music. Baby. Gwen Stefani see related

I cooked dinner for the family last night, and it was pretty yummy. =9 There was a teensy bit left over, and my mom said I should bring it to work. So I packed it into a new bento box I bought recently in Little Tokyo. It's a pretty, red two-tiered plastic box with usagi and sakura on it, and it came with its own matching kinchaku.

©2006 Yuzu Eats

I just love two-tiered bento boxes!


Lemon 'n' basil tilapia filet, steamed rice w/carrot & basil flower garnish


Apricot jam-filled 'ravioli' cookies I baked for last night's dessert


Pandan sponge cake (from the Filipino market)

I've been eating fried tilapia ever since I can remember. It's one of the dishes my parents often cooked when I was a kid, and still cook to this day. Take a couple of whole tilapias and fry them in a pan — heads 'n' all. Crispy and tasty! The tilapia is becoming more popular now, not just in Filipino cuisine. Now I see tilapia filets at standard super markets, and they even serve it at the café at the office sometimes. I baked these tilapia filets instead of frying them. I seasoned them with kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper, fresh basil leaves and freshly squeezed lemon juice. And I added some butter to the tops so they'd stay moist in the oven.

The recipe to the ravioli cookies can be found here.

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I ♡ Carrot Flowers

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I haven't used my Leaflet box in a while, so I decided to break it out and fill it up with delicious food. I made this food for dinner, but there was a small bit left over — the perfect amount to fit into this bento box!

©2006 Yuzu Eats

Breaded chicken tenders with mini carrot
flowers on a bed of fresh basil leaves


Seasoned roasted red potatoes


Crunchy green beans seasoned with garlic salt, pepper
and melted butter...with more mini carrot flowers

Here are the recipes. As with a lot of the cooking I do, I don't really measure things exactly, so just kind of eyeball it if you try these recipes:

Chicken Tenders
1 lb. chicken breast tenders
¾ cup vegetable oil (I used 100% cholesterol-free canola oil)
1 large egg
kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 to 1½ cups bread crumbs

Heat up a medium-sized skillet on medium-high heat. Add vegetable oil to the hot pan, and let it heat up. Beat egg in a small bowl. Season chicken tenders with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper. Dip each tender into the egg wash, and then roll each one in bread crumbs, making sure to coat them completely. Place the breaded tenders into the hot oil, cooking each side for about 1-2 minutes. Since chicken tenders are thinly sliced, you don't need to cook them for very long. When they're a deep golden brown, they're done. Drain and serve.


Roasted Potatoes
6 or 7 medium-sized red potatoes
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
cracked black pepper
garlic salt
dried herbs (parsley, basil, oregano)

Preheat the oven to 425ºF.

Rinse the potatoes and chop them into ¾-inch cubes. Drizzle extra virgin olive oil into a baking pan lined with aluminum foil. Place the chopped potatoes into the pan. Sprinkle cracked black pepper, garlic salt and dried herbs over the potatoes, then use your hands to rub the seasoning onto the potatoes, lightly 'tossing' them around the pan so that the other sides get coated with the olive oil. Put 'em in the oven and bake for about 40-50 minutes until the edges of the potatoes look nice 'n' brown.


Crunchy Green Beans
½ lb. fresh green beans
freshly ground black pepper
garlic salt
1 tbsp. butter or margarine (optional)

Fill a medium-sized saucepan with water, and bring it to a boil. Snap (or chop) the tips off the green beans. I chopped them in half to fit into my bento box, but I prefer them full-length. Boil them for about 7-8 minutes. Drain immediately and place the beans into a large bowl of cold water. This will stop the cooking process and allow the beans to remain crunchy, yet cooked. After a minute or two, remove from the cold water. The beans should still be slightly warm. Sprinkle some garlic salt and freshly ground black pepper on them. For more flavor, add the butter and let it melt over the beans.

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Birthday Leftovers

Yuzu is Listening To We Don't Need To Whisper Angels and Airwaves see related

Could I be lacking any more in journal updates? I'm going to try and post more entries in July than I did this month. For starters, here's a bento I put together for today's lunch. It was my birthday yesterday, and I had a lot of leftovers from dinner. I thought it'd be nifty to make a bento out of them because leftovers from the night before can make a really yummy lunch!

©2006 Yuzu Eats

Lightly breaded chicken cutlet with lemon zest


Mashed potatoes and succotash w/red bell peppers & zucchini


A Powerpuff Girl cupcake in one of my Cup-A-Cake containers

The height of Blossom's hair bow didn't allow for full closure of the Cup-A-Cake, so I had to take it off before closing the container.

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Healthy Fruity Bento

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Happy first day of June! The weather has been so sunny and warm. I'm ready for summer! Summer is great because there are so many yummy fruits in season. Today's bento is made with fresh, ripe, fruity ingredients.

©2006 Yuzu Eats

Linguine in a lemon basil sauce with sliced grape tomatoes,
Italian parsley, lemon zest and freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano


Sweet, ripe banana slices shaped like flowers

I didn't use a recipe for the linguine, but it's almost identical to the lemon spaghetti I cooked on Mother's Day a couple weeks ago. The only difference is that I added freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano and citrus zest to the lemon juice/olive oil mixture before I tossed the noodles in it. The lemons I squeezed for this meal were picked by yours truly from a little lemon tree in my parents' backyard. They were so yellow and ripe! The juice was just perfect when I mixed it with extra virgin olive oil and the rest of the ingredients to make the sauce. The lemons also made for pretty, vibrant citrus zest to top the pasta.

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Italian Bento

Yuzu is Watching Gidget - The Complete Series Sally Field, Don Porter, Betty Conner, Pete Duel see related

As you've noticed from previous entries this month, I've been enjoying cooking & eating Italian food more than ever before. I thought I'd combine my love of Italian fare and bento making to create this tasty Italian bento, consisting of caprese salad and fusilli pasta in sundried tomato alfredo sauce with Italian sausage and fresh thyme, plus a grape tomato & basil flower for garnish.

©2006 Yuzu Eats

The alfredo sauce came from a jar. The bottom tier is probably my favorite cold antipasti. There's nothing quite like the combined flavors of balsamic vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, vine-ripe tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and crisp basil leaves - it's so delicious.

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Bento Fit For a Kid

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I haven't posted any bentos in a very long time. Give me some time to get back into the swing of things. I'm trying to rack my brain for some cute bento ideas. I actually have some ideas, but I've yet to implement them. In the meantime, here's a very simple bento I made for my lunch today using foods I loved as a kid (and still enjoy).

©2006 Yuzu Eats

Two little octopuses atop a bed of Kraft™ Macaroni 'n' Cheese, with flower-shaped carrot slices and parsley (for garnish). I really had to improvise with these octopuses. I have no mini weiners, so I used a regular-size hot dog and cut it in half to make two little weiners. I didn't have an octopus-shaped weiner cutter either, so I used a small sharp knife to cut the octopus shape on each weiner before cooking 'em. The mac 'n' cheese is the new Thick & Creamy variety from Kraft. It tastes so much better than the regular mac. Yummy!

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Shrimpy Bento

I love to eat shrimp. And I also love how easy it is to pack a bento when I have a freezer of yummies purchased at Costco. Here's a bento I made with tempura shrimp in the starring role:

I used the Hakoya box for this meal

©2006 Yuzu Eats

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Kitty-Face Bento

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Oh my gosh, three bento posts in a row? I guess this is to make up for last week – when the bento-ness was missing from my journal. Today's bento features a bento box I've never posted before, but it's been sitting in my cupboard for ages. This kitty has a mean ol' appetite, and he's ready to eat whatever I put in front of him (or inside him).

©2006 Yuzu Eats

This bento contains rice with furikake, grilled chicken breast, grape tomatoes and a teriyaki sauce bottle, with sweet potato manju for dessert in a separate container. I've had this bento box for well over ten years — it's quite old! I have a few old bento boxes that I used many, many years ago. It's actually hard to tell that this box has been in my possession for over ten years. I suppose I take pretty good care of my bento stuff. :) Here's proof that it's possible to own plastic things for a very long time and still keep them looking shiny & new.

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East Meets West — Bento Style

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Today's bento is all dressed up in a blue box with matching blue accessories, and it features foods that are both Asian and American. Mmm...yummy combination!

©2006 Yuzu Eats

Chicken gyoza, grape tomatoes, raspberries and a brownie


Mmm...I ♥ raspberries!

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Bento Flags

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I haven't posted any bento entries in over a week, but I'm back with another bento. Hooray! This one is lacking in food ingredients (it's just coconut shrimp and steamed rice), so I made up for it with cute embellishments.

This is the kinchaku I carried my bento in

©2006 Yuzu Eats

You're probably wondering if I cooked those coconut shrimp myself. The answer is no. My parents bought a box of them at Costco (love that store!). You just have to pop them in the oven for a while, and they're done! So delicious.

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Mikan Bouya (みかんぼうや) Bento

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I attempted to make another bento based on a Japanese character. This time it was San-X's Mikan Bouya. I used ketchup to give the rice an orange tint, and I molded it into the shape of a mikan. The eyes and mouth are pieces of nori that I cut out, and the leaft/stem is fresh mint.

I had it with grilled chicken breast and a vegetable mix
consisting of carrot hearts, broccoli and red bell peppers

©2006 Yuzu Eats

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Susuwatari (ススワタリ) Bento

I challenged myself with this bento. It was a bit time-consuming, but I think the end result made it worth the effort. If you've seen the film Tonari No Totoro, you'll recognize these little guys.

Susuwatari chicken rice balls, star-shaped carrot slices and steamed broccoli


The inside is ground chicken meat with carrots and scallions

©2006 Yuzu Eats

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