Spice's Bites » bento

Bulking Up

spiceaholic — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 00:40:11 +0000

My lunch, that is.

I go through phases where I buy frozen meals for lunch at work. I am currently in the middle of one of them. I learned a long long time ago, that unless I add extra veggies to those meals, they won’t last me long. I’ve also learned to not eat out of the trays, since it’s so depressing to see how small that meal really is.

I decided on a double-whammy today: add veggies to the frozen meal AND have a salad along with it.

So to get myself in a salad mood, I broke out one of my Laptop Lunchboxes.

How can you not want to eat fruits and veggies after looking at that? Strawberries for dessert, carrot matchsticks and a Campari tomato, cucumber and basil pesto vinaigrette in the little container, green leaf lettuce, and some baby spinach for my frozen meal.

Once everything was heated and plated:

Note to myself — do not buy this meal again. They must have changed the recipe or something, but I don’t like it. I had to do some serious spiking with crushed red pepper, Cajun seasoning, and hot sauce.

At least it looked okay, right?

Pimp my lunch

spiceaholic — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 00:22:41 +0000

Lunch is so much more satisfying when it’s visually appealing. You eat first with your eyes, as they say.

I go through periods where I find myself relying on frozen meals more than I’d like. One of the problems I have with them is that they just look so pitifully skimpy once you’ve heated up your meal. Luckily I’ve got some good tricks up my sleeves to not only make them look more appealing but to make them more filling.

First, the tricks of the trade:

My handy-dandy Laptop Lunchbox! I packed one compartment with fruit, one with baby spinach, one with baked chicken, and one with sliced turkey which I used at breakfast.

Next, the before:

The baby spinach, chicken, and a Smart Ones frozen meal.

Now, the after:

Hello, lunch! I cooked the meal according to the directions, and after the first round where you stir it and put it back for a minute, I dumped it in a bowl with the spinach and chicken. Some crushed red pepper poshes it up a bit more. That looks so much better than eating it out of that tiny plastic black tray. Someone even asked if I’d made it. No, but I made it look better.

Here are some other lunches I packed this week, since I was too lazy to post each day.

Couscous, chicken, broccoli, and fresh berries. I steamed the broccoli at work and added the couscous and chicken towards the end to heat them up.

Pretty much the same lunch except for mixed fruit instead of berries.

Even though these lunches look blah and boring, just they way they’re packed makes them look more interesting. And plenty of seasoning helps take care of any blahness while eating!

Chicken, spinach, and Gouda sandwich bento

spiceaholic — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 01:24:03 +0000

I decided it had been way too long since I used one of my collapsible sandwich bento boxes!

The past few weeks I’ve been making sandwiches with “real” bread like sourdough and rye, as opposed to the “light” breads I usually eat. There’s no denying the real stuff tastes better, but the calories do add up faster. So I went back to the lighter stuff but still intend to treat myself once in a while to the real thing. Or else I need to figure out how to feel full on 1/2 a sandwich made with real bread.

Today’s sandwich is made with Nature’s Own Double Fiber bread, Sargento Gouda, some sliced chicken breast deli meat, Dijon mustard, and some baby spinach. I packed cherries in the box as well and brought some SunChips and sugar-free Jello pudding to round out lunch.

A Simple Supper

spiceaholic — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 01:42:53 +0000

Well, well, well. Look who finally showed up!

I hope you guys are all doing well — I have lots of catching up to do in Blogville!

Trying to get back into a routine, for eating, working out, and blogging. It feels good to have a schedule of some sort.

I finally admitted to myself that my breakfast sandwiches aren’t quite the same when I use sandwich thins. They just don’t fill me up as much. So I finally went back to using light english muffins.

Here’s what I packed for lunch in one of my Laptop Lunchboxes:

Leftover grilled chicken, some mojo marinade to use as a sauce, broccoli, and fresh strawberries.

I had some brown rice at work that I heated up with the chicken and broccoli to make a nice and healthy lunch.

For afternoon munchies, I packed a snack-sized bag of Sun Chips, which I forgot to take a picture of, and a Nutrigrain bar.

After work I made myself go to the gym. I’m trying to get back in the habit now before fall tax season gets here. Which is next week — we’re supposed to start working at least 50 hours a week. Suckage.

Dinner was very very simple. I find that when I’m trying to eat healthier, my food tends to be simple. It’s like I choose separate items as opposed to a recipe, if that makes sense.

Baked potato topped with shredded cheese, steamed broccoli, and a chicken andouille sausage.

Not bad and I’m not really in a dessert mood either.

Here’s a Chloe pic to end the night!

She has this obsession with plastic bags and loves licking them. She stuck her head in one to lick it and ended up sticking her head through the holes and made herself a cape. Super Chloe to the rescue!

Strong start!

spiceaholic — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 00:53:25 +0000

I love it when Monday goes well — it seems to set the tone for the week.

Breakfast was a no-brainer:

It makes things so much easier when I have a go-to to-go breakfast!

I made sure lunch was tasty so I wouldn’t be tempted to go out:

These are actually lunch and afternoon snack packed together. I had a sandwich made of turkey, low-fat provolone, Dijon mustard, lettuce, and sourdough. Sun chips and berries to round out lunch.

I packed one of my semi-whole wheat muffins, some lemon curd, and a peach for a snack. I ended up not eating the peach and had some hot Earl Gray tea along with the muffin.

I ended up joining the gym in my building, so I went after work and did about 30 minutes of walking on the treadmill. Yay me! In honor of their first anniversary, the gym is doing some special seminars and stuff and I signed up to go a nutrition one tomorrow.

After I got home I was more than ready for some dinner — thank goodness for leftovers!

Dal, turkey kababs, brown rice, and some spinach. I was really hungry and ended up having some more brown rice and dal.

Considering some dessert, but waiting to see if I really am hungry for it.

Good night!

An eggs-ellent start

spiceaholic — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 01:24:44 +0000

It is so much easier to fall out of a habit than to get into one.

A little over a month ago, I was in a good groove with getting up early to exercise, photo-journaling my food, and blogging. I’m hoping I can get back to that soon!

Before the eats, I have to share a few pics from Saturday, when a group of us went to the Dogwood Festival. Along with live entertainment and food galore, there were lots of arts and crafts stalls. This particular one featured different Humpty-Dumpty themed sculptures.

Aren’t those awesome? There was quite a selection and the artist definitely had a warped sense of humor, which appealed to me. I kinda wish I’d taken more pics of the Dogwood Festival while we were there, but there’s always next year!

Anyway, on to the eats!

In keeping with my egg theme, here is my latest egg-in-a-mug creation:

Shredded baby spinach, turkey bacon, and 2 eggs ready to go.

All ready to eat, with a curious kitty lurking in the back.

This was all washed down with some light chocolate soy milk:

Now that tax season is over, this is when everyone starts cracking down and getting back into the eating healthy and exercise routine. A couple coworkers and I have decided to form our own little support group so we can encourage each other to eat better and work out. We’ve even decided to go walking after work once a week.

After the last few weeks of eating out, having lunch brought in, and random frozen stuff, I was very excited about packing a lunch for myself.

I packed a sandwich made with thinly-sliced Italian bread from the Publix bakery, rotisserie-seasoned chicken breast lunch meat, and dill-flavored Havarti cheese. There was some green leaf lettuce and a Campari tomato to go with the sandwich, along with some carrot slices and some grapes for later. This was all packed in one of my Laptop Lunch boxes.

I also ended up grabbing a can of soup to have along with my sandwich. Having the soup before my sandwich helped me feel full, but I think next time I’ll just have half the can instead of the whole thing.

And finished off lunch with some sugar-free Jello.

My afternoon snack was spread out over a couple hours — I had the grapes from lunch and a pepperjack cheese stick, which went unpictured.

I actually started making dinner yesterday. I was experimenting with a yogurt marinade that I plan to tweak some more before posting. I took plain fat-free yogurt, added ginger, garlic, and some spices and marinated some bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs. When I got home from work, all I had to do was preheat the oven to 400 degrees and bake away for 45 minutes.

While the chicken baked I made some Basmati rice to go along with it. I figured with the veggies at breakfast and lunch it would be okay to be lazy and not make any for dinner.

I can’t end the post without a pic of Chloe!

Bento, deconstructed

spiceaholic — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 01:28:44 +0000

Thanks again everyone for your supportive words the other day, they were a great comfort to me. I think I’m in one of those funks and whining about my weight is the easiest thing to dump it on. It’s a constant struggle and I’m tired of fighting it. Anyway, I’m sure I’ll talk about it plenty more.

Change of subject.

I know it’s been a while, but I finally have a bento post for you guys!

We ordered in some Chinese food the other night and of course have enough leftovers for quite a few meals. Would you believe me if I told you how excited I was to pack this lunch? I’m such a nerd!

I decided to use one of my Laptop Lunch sets. This one is black with red containers, so it has that Japanese restaurant bento feel to it. Perfect for Asian food!

I packed leftover beef and broccoli, some lo mein, broccoli slaw in lieu of rice, and some carrot slices for color and crunch (they come diagonally krinkle-cut like that). I decided to pack more of the veggies and less of the lo mein — just enough for the taste.

At lunchtime, instead of eating out of my bento box, and since I wanted to heat everything up, I dumped it all in a bowl, hence the “deconstructed” part of the title.

I’m so used to eating rice as part of a meal since that’s such a big part of South Asian culture. I forget that I can just as easily sub in some broccoli slaw to soak up any sauce. It won’t ever replace rice, but it’s a good way to bulk up my meal without bulking up the calorie count, since I’m such a volume eater.

Time for this girl to get some sleep — I tossed and turned last night and didn’t get a lot so I’m hoping to make up for it tonight.

Good night!

Must be Monday . . .

spiceaholic — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 03:13:40 +0000

Because I wish it was still the weekend!

We had the most gorgeous weather this weekend and I took full advantage of it — my legs are making me pay today! I already wrote about how I attempted a Couch to 5K workout on Saturday. Yesterday my legs were in agony but I couldn’t let the weather go to waste, so I went out and walked about 40 minutes. Today I’m limping down the stairs, but it was worth it.

Today I had the presence of mind to pack my food for the day in bento boxes, although I didn’t bother trying to make any of it look cute. Sad but true, my bento boxes usually function as glorified tupperware.

Here we have the components of my usual breakfast sandwich all ready to take to work.

Lunch was leftovers from last night — I cooked some chicken thighs and chickpeas with a boxed spice mix and we had it with basmati rice. Today I added some extra veggies to bulk up lunch.

(this one looks way grosser than it actually was. Such is the way with Indian food.)

I finally found the Cara Cara oranges I’ve seen on Brandi’s blog.

This afternoon’s snack was a nice little treat: strawberry and Greek vanilla yogurt parfait with some Kashi Cocoa Beach granola sprinkled on top.

Dinner was quick and simple. I boiled shrimp, veggies, and Korean ramen together, then drained the water off and added the seasoning packet. Korean ramen is so hot and spicy, I love it! But obviously not an every day thing.

I am trying to get a little book-keeping experience in just in case I ever want to do it on the side, so I did a little work after dinner and am now rewarding myself with some ice cream and blog-reading.

Good night!

Lost in LOST

spiceaholic — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 02:50:23 +0000

Okay, who else watched this last night? I was intrigued, confused, excited, and sad all at the same time. That’s all I’m going to say so that I don’t spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet.

First things first.

Ameena of Fancy That, Fancy This had a fun giveaway last week. She was giving away a copy of L.A. Candy, by Lauren Conrad (from “The Hills”) and I won! I got home last night and saw that it had arrived.

Thanks Ameena! I can’t wait to read it.

After all the drama last night on LOST, I was feeling a little drained this morning and almost talked myself out of getting up to exercise. But dang it, that little voice in my head convinced me to just get up and do it and so I did. I did sneak back into bed for a little nap afterwards.

I went back to my tried and true breakfast sandwich after trying a couple other options this week. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Ran to Borders at lunch to get this month’s book club selection — we are reading Shutter Island, by Dennis LeHane. The movie comes out in a couple weeks so we’ll read and watch and compare. Once I got back I heated up a Lean Cuisine and dumped it in a bowl to make it look like an actual meal.

I snacked on some grapes and a grapefruit segment later on.

Then we had some work drama, which I can’t and won’t get into on here. But needless to say, the rest of the afternoon was shot and I snacked to make myself feel better.

Tonight the plans were to try out a recipe I’ve seen on the Weight Watchers boards for another guest post. Yes, I know the past few days have been full of me trying out things. I have 2 coming up and I finally was able to get the first one done and will be working on the second. I’ll be sure to let you know when they’re coming up so you can check them out! So this is my way of saying no dinner pic.

And that’s all for tonight!

February Fool’s Day!

spiceaholic — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 01:48:49 +0000

A high school friend of mine used to call February 1st “February Fool’s Day.”

I’m making this quick since I have to re-watch Season 5 of LOST and I still have 2 more discs to go. Who’s the fool now?

Morning workout: 30 minute WATP dvd

Breakfast:

Morningstar Italian Herb Chik patty on a sandwich thin. It was quick and I was running late.

Lunch:

I think I might have overcooked it a wee bit!

Snacks:

I love how the colors worked out here! The grapefruit was a bit sweet, which was a pleasant surprise.

Tried a new brand of Greek yogurt. I didn’t have to spike it with splenda, which means they added sugar and probably other stuff. I added some cinnamon just because.

Dinner:

no pic today. I’m saving it for a guest post. I know I keep saying it, but the other things I tried yesterday didn’t work out. Third time’s a charm, right? I’ll give you a hint to what it was — it starts with “stir” and ends with “fry.”

Okay, gotta get back to LOST!