Usually I do not take a bento to with me on Wednesdays, but the weather simply gave us no choice.
With a very unusual warm Fall in Japan this year, we are bound to be assailed by typhoon-like downpours. The bus was going through sheer curtains of water along the road. I found out that we got drenched with 100mm of rain in a single hour! Mind you, it does not compare to what the Philippines had to go through recently.

In such an emergency the Missus usually comes with some kind of sushi and plentyof vegetables.

Today’s sushi style was te-mari zushi/手丸寿司, a style very popular in the Kyoto area.
The rice balls are small, round and prepared by wrapping them in a piece of cellophane paper and then topped with various neta/ねた (toppings).
She made two kinds:
the first one with a salad consisting of surimi, shredded lettuce, capers, sesame seeds and mayonnaise. She placed them inside lettuce leaves for easing handling and supplemetary Vitamin C (!).

The second type which could be called Italian-style te-mari zushi as they contained cheese and were topped with Italian raw ham and Italian parsley (!).

As for the salad side dish on a bed of cress (grown in Shizuoka) she placed boiled brocoli, sliced radishes, plum tomatoes and a dessert consisting of rainbow kiwis (grown in Shizuoka).

Very healthy! I wonder if I should welcome the rain!

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I finally got my laptop back last Wenesday, but I was still left to deal with a big problem: a mail box overloaded with spams.
It took me hours to first download more than 100,000 spams (yes, you read right, one hundred thousand critters), 99% coming from only two single bots (spam robots)!
It took me half an hour to erase them just to sse them coming back!
I was seriously thinking of changing my mail address, a bothersome affair if there is any. Luckily I do have computer-wise (the old geezer isn’t) friends who told me to consult my provider directly. Which I did.
The company taught how to deal with a Japanese language filter box (their services are in Jpanese only), but it still took them almost half an hour to clean my mail box!
Anyway, I’m a bit wiser and cleverer now, and I can resume my blogging activities in tranquility!

Since she also needed to be careful about her own weight, the Missus has decided to maximize the veg part and minimize the high-calories items in my bentoes from now on!

She steamed the rice withn vegetables including mushrooms and carrots that she mixed later with small pieces of fried chicken.

As for the garnish, on a bed of lettuce (grown in Shizuoka) she placed plenty of renkon/lotus root slices fried with black sesame, whole red radish (with their stems) and simple tamagoyaki/Jpanese omelette.

As for the salad cum dessert, on bed of shredded veg she placed a cople of plum tomatoes, pieces of jiro kaki/squat persimmon and some walnuts. She also added some lightly seasoned potato and cucumber salad for supplemetary calories.

Very tasty and just enough to hold on until dinner!

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As of November 2nd, the Kojima Company had not called me back yet to announce that my laptop was finally ready for me to collect. I had been without it for 11 days by then and for all the time suddenly found to write and read, I was really beginning to suffer from hi-tec retrieval!

I had requested the Missus to prepare a musubi/rice balls bento that time.
She came up with four different balls:

-One with Japanese-style pickled cucumber
-One with hijiki/sweet seaweed, sesame seeds and cheese
-One with pickled ginger and sesame seeds
-And the last one with umeboshi/Japanese pickled plums.

The tamagoyaki/Japanese omelette was of the plain variety. Just sweet enough.

As for the salad/dessert side dish she rolled wedges of jiro kaki/squat persimmon inside raw ham and place dthem over a bed of lettuce, cress, walnuts and black olives.

Very healthy!

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My PC (laptop) having crashed for the third time in the last four years, these bento reports are a bit late. This one was due on October 26th!
The PC being brand new at the time I purchased it and still has great speed. I’m reluctant to part from it, but I might soon be forced into a painful reconversion (Microsoft to Mac?).

Therefore I will call this particular lunch box the “PC Crash Bento 1”!
The same bento was consumed on a heavy rainy day to compound my misery, but I must say the meal lifted my spirits somewhat!

For all her grumpiness on that day, the Missus did not disappoint me:
After steaming the rice, she mixed it with hijiki/sweet seaweed, green peas and roasted sesame seeds.

As for the garnish, it came in all kinds of ingredients and colours:
She deep-fried (shallow-fried would be a more precise term) pork fillets sticks she had dipped in batter and then coated with broken fried soba (the soba was purchased fried, then dried and cold in package). She placed the pork atop lettuce and shredded greens.
Hand-made pickles (carrots, ginger, pimento) were added for the vinegary part.
Fresh plum tomatoes for the Vitamin C and the decorative note.
She boiled a few “sato imo”, a kind of sweet tuber typical of Japan. After peeling them, she fried them for a while in sweet sauce and seasoned them with black sesame seeds. Finally, a slice of orange for the finishing touch.

The dessert consisted of jiro kaki/squat persimmon wedges grown in Shizuoka and mini red-haert kiwi fruit, also grown locally.

Certainly a hearty lunch!

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The Missus turned to “Sandwich mode” for today’s bento!

Above pic shows how it was packaged.

Above pic shows it came out of the package.

Above pic represents the biting end of the sandwich.
The sandwich itself was at least 15 cm (6 inches) long and thick!

As for the sandwich, the Missus used soft-style (very Japanese!) French baguette she toasted first.
She then fried a whole confit duck leg and shredded it into large enough chunks.
She fried some potato chips in the duck confit fat.
She added lettuce and French pickles for the finishing touch.

Today’s salad consisted of veg sticks and their dip:
From right to left-red and green soft pimentoes, daikon, carrots, violet cabbage and cheese.

For dessert in-season Asian Pear/Nashi and Squat Persimmons/Jirou Kaki.

It certainly took me quite some time to eat it all!

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We are witnessing a very mild, if not hot Autumn in Shizuoka which promises to be long and pleasant.
This also means more access to local vegetables and local food in general!

Acually, the rice part was only part local.
The Missus steamed the rice with chopped konbu/seaweed.
It is certainly more practical than steaming it with a large piece of konbu as the seaweed itself is not only edible but add great taste to the rice.
This time she mixed in canned smoked oysters (this is the “unocal” part).

After keeping two whole oysters for the topping, she vut the rest small enough and add chopped boiled string beans and sesame seeds before mixing the lot together.

The main box was a combination of veg, meat and eggs.

The Missus placed them on a bed of lettuce, cress and thin slices of apple with cut plum tomato.
The tamagoyaki/Japanese omelette contained cut and fried pimetoes and was seasoned with a little Thai sweet and hot sauce.

The meat part was represented by thin pork slices rolled around thin enoki mushrooms and srting beans fried Japanese style.

Good variety and very tasty, I must admit!

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After a long week-end (yesterday was a national holiday) spent cricket-umpiring and visiting all kinds of museums in Mishima City (where I found an organic restaurant), it was back to usual today.

A Japanese home-style bento with a few twists!

The rice itself is a Missus’ specialty. She had simmered finely cut mushrooms with thinly cut aburaage (fried tofu pouches) the night before. She heated them again in their soup before adding and mixing them (with some of the soup) with the freshly steamed rice.

The garnish came into two disntinct parts:

Pork belly sliced from a large block and fried with yuzu koshio. She fried okra, scallions and red soft piments in the juices.

Tamagoyaki/Japanese omelette, plum tomatoes and mitsuba/trefoil and sesame seeds salad.

For dessert Asian pear/Nashi and Square persimmons/Jirou Kaki (originally raised in Shizuoka Prefecture!)

Plentiful, tasty and healthy! I must say the Missus was in a fairly good mood today!LOL

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Today’s bento was definitely “The Day After Bento”!
Invited as I was lats night by a student of mine, I only managed cycling back home at 2 a.m. to wake up at 7 a.m. and go to work an hour later with a “slight” hangover….

A Working Man’s Lunch!

The double decker sandwiches were actually pretty big:
The first tier was mainly egg sandwich, a Missus’ favourite.
The second tier was a bit more sophisticated with home-made chicken ham, British chutney, French pickles and mustard.

Big salad, too, most it made with local ingredients: shreddedcabbage, leaf vegetables,　plum tomatoes, green asparaguses and black olives.

Grapes for dessert. All in all, it proved lighter than it looked!

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A big typhoon being upon us, Number 18, I had no recourse but to give up on going back home for lunch and “ordered” the Missu to concoct me a quick and healthy bento.

It was very healthy indeed!
She boiled udon and cooled them under cold running clear water.
She topped it with home-made chicken ham, boiled eggs, cress, finely cut cucumber, sliced radish, pieces of shiso/perilla leaves and cut plum tomatoes.

Side view of the bento!

Soup/dressing I added to the lot later at the office!

Asian pears/Nashi and plums are still in season!

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Onecould call today’s bento “Another Typhoon Bento”, as after almost 12 weeks of drought the rain is back with a vengeance! The notion of typhoon notwithstanding, the weather pattern are absolutely identical to that of the rainy season/tsuyu in June/July!

The beno the Missus prepared his morning was a very classi one, reminiscent of what children and students can expect from their mothers.

After she had steamed the rice, she mixed still hot with rice vinegar and other ingredients including white sesame seeds to make it sushi rice.
She fried minced chicken with finely cut mushrooms in a comparitively sweet sauce before covering half the rice with it.
She covere the other other with Japanese-style scrambled eggs and separated both with some freshly cut mitubs/trefoil making for an appetizing and colourful dish.

The salad consisted of shredded vegetables, smoked salmon, plum tomatoes, French pickles and black olives. I seasoned the lot with dressing kept in my fridge at work.

For dessert grape jelly.
Very healthy indeed!

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Today’s was also a “Working Man’s Bento”, and the Missus, grumpy as she was (rain outside and so on) certainly couldn’t help pointing it out (she is working, too…)!

It was pretty voluminous, too. I wonder why the Missus is always complaining b\about my bulging waist,…

Not only did she steam the rice this morning (complaining I was just lounging around,…) but she also deep-fried fresh Tonkatsu made with pork fillets. Tender and succulent. She topped the tonkatsu with sauce that helped give flavour to the rice, too. The same was underlaid with some shredded cabbage and white sesame seeds.

The salad part was the same as yesterday: potato, cucumber and egg salad with plum tomatoes on a bed of lettuce.

The dessert was the same as yesterday, too, but I’m not to complain as I love those Asian pears/”nashi” and ripe plums, both seasonal and so sweet and juicy!

Did I mention before that the grumpier the Missus, the better?

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I would call today’s bento/box lunch the “Working Man Bento”!
Simple, hearty and healthy!

Three large o-nigiri/rice balls made of freshly steames rice mixed later with umeboshi/Japanese pickled plums and aka shiso/red perilla leaves furikake/seasoning and wrappe inside large green shiso leaves (the latter are also caleed “ooba/large leaves”)

Meat garnish was chicken and mushrooms fried in tomato sauce, slightly spicy-style. Actually the Missus made a whole batch of these. I can expect to have some more for dinner!

The “salad” consisted of a bed of shredded veg topped with cress and plum tomatoes and a potato, cucumber and egg salad.

The seasonal dessert was fresh (and peeled) figs!

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I could with different names for today’s bento:
“Holiday Bento”-Today is a National Holiday, but I’ve found myself working!
“Leftover Bento”-This particular bento has been made up mostly with yesterday’s food cooked by the Missus!

Yesterday the Missus had made “kakuni/stewed pork”. She had added beans and chili pepper during the second cookin.
I inherited the leftovers with boiled brocoli (also prpepared yesterday and a little pasta, the whole in the middle of freshly steamed plain rice.

The salad included yesterday’s curry potato salad to which she added crumbled boiled egg, mini tomatoes and mixed samll leaves.

Simple dessert with cut plum and Asian pear/nashi.

Must admit I felt full and contented!

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The Missus was a “bit grumpy” today.
“Don’t take a photo of that!” she said…
It was a typical, if simple, Summer bento, more aimed at stamina than anything else.

The broiled unagi/eel bento in short!

The unagi had been bought ready-made at the local supermarket.
The Missus coorected the fishy taste by havin the broiled unagi rest in matcha tea for a while.

As for the broiled eel and steamed rice, they were laid in a two-tier style, very popular in Japan.

Plain tamagoyaki and home-made cucmber pickles for garnish.

(Shizuoka grown) cress, mini-tomatoes and walnuts for the salad, plums and grapes (grown in Yamamshi Prefecture, our neighbours) for dessert.

Simple but hearty!

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