Bento (56) - My Excuse for Not Bentoing

Sorry for the decrease in bento posts - just when I thought I had everything under control and was ready to get back on my 3 times a week (or more!) bento kick - my neko-chan (cat) turned up very ill. It's a repeat of some mysterious illness she had last year around the same time - and the treatment involves stuffing pills down her twice a day and catching her THREE TIMES A DAY to give her 1 and 1/2 eyedroppers full of antibiotics (yes - this means you must catch kitty (who is already pissed about the pill), squirt antibiotics in her mouth, let her go for a refill, and then try to re-catch a kitty who is totally pissed that you just stuffed an eyedropper down her mouth). The antibiotics have to be given every eight hours . . . which means there is a 1:00 a.m. dose. YAWN! (::rocking:: Only nine more days. Only nine more days.)

And yes, the vet has officially confirmed my kitty has marshmallows for brains. I think the technical term was "slightly neurological" - but they mean the same thing.

Drama aside - I attempted a few new recipes out of my Asian cookbook - including a bean sprout salad. I dutifully bought my 4 cups of bean sprouts, I put them in my collander and rinsed them with cold water, and then I read the recipe. Step 1 - remove heads and tails. SAY WHAT?! There's 2,000 friggin' bean sprouts in there!!! (Have I mentioned I'm stubborn? Occasionally I get a wild hare to do the recipe exactly as they say - so I can tell the difference if I change things later.) Prep time 10 minutes my butt. An hour later, I finished deheading and detailing my sprouts. But look at my salad! Look at it! BEAUTIFUL.

I then paired it with the tofu chowder I made the night before (yes - the one that chased me out of the kitchen with oil/rice wine fireworks) and cooked some of my premium rice (thank you Bob!) and topped it with beef in sweet soy broth. Not the best presentation ever . . . but I'm not arguing with the flavor!

All right - onwards to the bentos. Sometime this week - before the blurry 1 a.m. kitty dosing began . . . I created the following bentos out of the leftovers from my nummy asian dinner.

T.'s bento is fairly-self evident (green and yellow are peas and corn). Mine had a soy bunny sitting on edamame . . . a very pissed off soy bunny . . . . I think it's channeling my cat. The pink heart is a commercial jelly.