Winter means that we can get a lot of Snow Crab/Suwagani/諏訪蟹 on the markets.
As I did some shopping last night for the Missus, I bought a big batch of them. Most of it went into a “nabe dinner”, Japanese pot-au-feu, but some was kept for our bentos today!
As for the kiwi fruits, I had the pleasure to interview the owner of the largest individual kiwi farmer in Japan, namely Kiwifruit Country Japan in Kakegawa City (report coming soon!).

The Missus prepared sushi rice and mixed it with snow crab, thinly sliced cucumber (Shizuoka-grown), pickled perilla seeds and chopped Italian parsley.
She topped the lot with more snow crab, olive and lemon.
A bit extravagant, I must admit!

As for the salad, she included mini-tomatoes and cress (both grown in Shizuoka City), with some celery leaves, chopped carrots and walnuts.
Plenty of fibers and Vitamin C!

For dessert, the kiwi fruit!
She peeled and sliced one of each of the 3 varieties grown by Mr. Masatoshi Hirano (he actually grows 80 of them!):
-Kousen/光線, yellow with a red center
-Kouryoku/香緑,beutiful green
-Tear Drop/ティーヅロップ, beautiful yellow

These are packed with Vitamin C and many other great nutrients!

Healthy, healthy, healthy, and delicous!

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The Missus is still obsessed with my weight and girth (although I would never be called “fat” back in France…) and is trying hard to reduce the calories I ingest.
Mind you, I don’t mind a bit, as the bentos she makes still turn out to be very much of my liking! LOL

So she was back with another favorite of hers, “te-mari zushi/small sushi balls”.
She made three kinds all started from the same steamed sushi rice:
-One with smoked salmon topped with capers and lemon. For this one she had mixed the rice with finely chopped Japanese cucumber pickles.
-One with home-pickled daikon called “beni kessho/red make-up (as for lipstick)” cut in very thin slices topped with violet kawairedaikon/daikon sprouts and with sweet umeboshi between the daikon slice and the rice ball. The rice this time was mixed with black roasted sesame seeds.
-One with raw ham. The rice was mixed with small pieces of processed cheese.

As for the “garnish box” she filled it with vegetables sticks for a dip sauce made of cheese mayonnaise: cucumber, carrot, beni kessho daikon, celery and small tomatoes.
Wedges of red and yellow apple for dessert.

I was very hungry come evening but it was a delicious bento!

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The Missus disagreed technically with the term “oyakodon” as she sid it should be a sort of soft omelette in one piece. She didn’t agree either with the term”Soboro” as it is fine and sweet omelette powder.
She just called “Chicken and Eggs”! LOL

What she did was to first fry the small chicken pieces in sauce before steaming the lot with the rice with the chicken on top. She later mixed the lot and added home-pickled Japanese pepper seeds.
She then added scrambled eggs.

For a closer view. She added tiny slices of home-pickled daikon for tatste and looks.

The “Garnish box” was kept healthy and simple:
Spicy fried burdock roots chips salad.
-Rape blossom plants/Na no Hana/菜の花 and carrots salad with gomadare sauce/sesame dressing.
-Shizuoka-grown kiwi fruit slices and tomatoes!

Healthy and simple, I said?

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It seems that after all, that cold of mine (ours) is going to leave me alone soon.. I certainly have the appetite to prove it!
The only problem is that the Missus keeps badering me on my waistline!
Anyway the colors in today’s bento seem to point out that she was in a comparatively better mood!

For the staple dish she prepared an easy sushi rice seasoned with finely chopped japanese pickles.
She made two tiers with each layer covered with boiled shrimps (without the “tails” om the first tier), small cubes of avocado and cheese and, thin bits of lemon and Italian parsley.

Plenty of colors again in the “garnish” box:
Boiled broccoli with walnuts and sprinkled with chestnut powder.
Red radishes and soft-boiled egg.
Salad of thin slices of red and yellow apples and cress.

Tasty and refreshing!

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It seems that the Missus and I cannot get rid of our cold and coughs (orginally the Missus’!) although it has started improving. But with all these people falling under the curse, one is not careful enough.
That is when you need a hearty lunch!

Some ingredients are actually useful against colds, especially wasabi.
The other day I had brought a whole root with its stems and leaves and the Missus was more than happy to make pickles with the stems and leaves.
Accordingly she prepared plain rice and spread plenty of wasabi pickles over it.

We are very much in the season for durock root/goboo/牛蒡 and we naver can get enough.
The Missus make thin chips out of them.
After preparing chicken balls of her own (secret) recipe (fried and broiled) she placed them on a bed of budock root chips with some more on top of the chicken balls with black roasted sesame seeds.

As for the “garnish” box, plenty of vitamin and natural health food with a salad of raw yamamimo/yams, pimentoes, konbu/seaweed and sesame seeds, another salad of potatoes and violet sweet potatoes and fresh cress, Boiled broccoli on a mayonnaise bed, a half boiled egg and honey core apple.

I must admit that the Missus is trying hard getting us rid of those colds!LOL

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Why did I call this bento “crabby”?
Well, the Missus was “crabby”, meaning she was in a slightly foul mood! LOL
The other reason is that she did use you crab in her bento!

After steaming the rice she prepared simple balls of rice mixed with a few capers inside cellophane paper.
She unwrapped them, made an indent in their middle by pressing the ball with her thumb, filled the indent with mayonnaise and placed some crab in the middle.
All the crab came from frozen boiled pincers!
She then placed the balls inside the bamboo fiber box individually wrapped in lettuce.

As for the “Garnish” she included a salad of carrot tagliatelle and mixed boiled beans in one half and fresh tamagoyaki/Japanese omelette with lettuce and home-pickled radish.

For dessert she included a ponkan orange I brought from the other side of Izu Peninsula.

Simple, colourful and very satisfying!
I still have to get rid of the cold the Missus was so kind to give me!LOL

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The Missus is a kind lady: she even gives me her colds!
I certainly needed a healthy meal to help go along with this predicament!

I must she came up with a good idea by steaming the rice with vegetables including chopped red pimetoes and burdock roots with curry powder mix she later seasoned with black sesame seeds and to which she some French pickles.

A very colourful and hearty “garnish dish”!

Salad of violet sweet potaoes, walnuts and cheese with lettuce to accompany her specialty: karaage chicken/deep-fried chicken!

Semi-hard boiled egg, boiled string beans and tomato, more lettuce and lemon for extra seasoning! Plenty of Vitamins here!

Shizuoka-grown Benihoppe/Red Cheeks strawberries (more Viamin C!) and banana chips (for more nutrients!).

The cold had somewhat abated by then and I do hope I will feel better tomorrow!LOL

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I have called thios Bento “A Tale of Two Sakés because the salmon/鮭 had been dipped in Japanese saké/日本酒 !
Both salmon and sake are pronounced “saké” in Japanese!

The Missus was in a particulalry artistic mood this morning!LOL

Although the steamed rice is the same plain one, she seaoned it into two different manners, one with burdock root/gobou/牛蒡 chips and roasted black sesame seeds.
The salmon had been lightlly marinated before the Missus fried it and placed it on top of the rice.

The second part of the rice was topped with chopped pickled myoga ginger and “kingoma”/金胡麻/yellow roasted sesame seeds.
The home pickles are turnips and konbu seweed.

The Missus couldn’t help having a dig at me with her tamagoyaki! LOL

The salad part of the garnish included boiled brocoli and string beans with some red pimentoes, the whole seasoned with burdock root chips.
Plain tamagoyaki cut in a peculiar fashion….

More home-made pickles with carrot, radish and celery to accompany the lettuce.

For dessert imported grapes and Shizuoka-grown strawberries and ruby kiwis (“ruby”, not “rugby”!).

Plenty of colors and very tasty as usual!

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I called today’s bento Cereal Rice Bento because the Missus steamed the rice with a special mix of 15 different cereals!

I had been busy all day yesterday being driven for 6 hours through Shizuoka Prefecture. I’m still pretty tired today, what with all the translation work I have to do for Agrigraph Japan, and I needed a solid bento!

As I said the rice was steamed with the addition of a special mix of 15 cereals including corn and many grains. It certainly made for staple!

The Missus added her speciality, soft-boiled egg sprinkled with black sesame and a salad of boiled string beas, red pimentoes, and a dressing containing burdock root chips.

The garnish box was also plentiful!

Spagheti in peperone stle with brocoli, lettuce, prawns fritters and lime for extra taste and zest.

For dessert, imported grapes and local strawberries (the season has just atrted for the latter!)

Plenty for the day and tasty!

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A Rose Window in English, or a Rosace in French, is a stained glass window designed in the shape of a rose that you can admire in many churches and cathedrals in various countries (don’t get me wrong, I’m agnostic!).
I was going to call this bento with a more prosaic name but I had to quickly backpedal under The Missus’ opposition!…

To obtain that design, the Missus first steamed rice and arranged/seasoned it in sushi style before adding chopped Japanese pickles (cucumber et al). She then made rolls (inside cellophane paper) whith a core of wasabi cheese and German-style Lyoner Ham.
She cut the rolls through the cellophane paper before unwrapping the latter and roll the sudhi in lettuce.
She then placed the rolls inside the lacquered bento box (made in Shizuoka Prefecture) in the shape of Rose Window with plum tomatoes in the middle and a slice of pimento-filled olive to offset the symmetry.

She used the second box of the set of three with a partition to ddesign the “garnish” box according to colors and ingredients.

She filled the left-side quarter partition with a salad of boiled kabocha pumpkin with mayonnaise, cheese creamand black beans.
She filled the right-side quarter partition with a salad of cucumber and shallots slices pickled in rice vinegar and sprinkled with roasted sesame seeds.

For dessert, she filled the upper half partition with fresh red oranges and fig compote I got at Mr. Naitoh’s Garden in Okitsu, Shimizu Ku, Shizuoka City!

Great colors, plenty of satisfaction and beautiful taste combination!
(I will have to stop praising the Missus or she will become untenable!LOL)

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Why do I call this bento, “Nutritional Bento” whereas bento by definition should be nutritional?
Simply because the Missus streesed on the point this morning when she decided to mix the rice with beans, saying that her bentos should be more nutritional!LOL

The rice she used this morning is Shizuoka-grown “mochi kome/glutinous rice seasoned with matcha tea powder.
Once she had steamed it she mixed it with ready-cooked black beans.
The whole certainly made for fulfilling meal!

The “garnish” made up for a full meal as it contained ingredients both from the land and the sea!

She fried two types of “tsukune/Japanese meat patties”, one toppedwith renkon/lotus roots, the other ones with shimeji mushrooms. She then added sauce to both of them as she finished frying them.
She pkaced both on a little lettuce.
The dessert cosisted of sliced squat persimmons/jiro kaki and red-heart kiwii fruit/kousen/紅鮮/”red fresh”, both grown in Shizuoka Prefecture.

She included fresh sakura ebi/cherry shrimps (only found in Shizuoka Prefecture/we are in season just now!) in the tamagoyaki/Japanese omelette for the sea food.
She arranged it with home-pickled daikon, carrotand cucumber sticks, as well as plum tomato and lettuce!

Nutritional and very tasty!

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