Using Bento Boxes for lunches.

spinnerdell wrote: »

Long time lurker here with a carrot suggestion: Some grocery stores sell carrots in 25 pound bags for horses or juicing, and these tend to be larger and less tapered than "premium" carrots, but still very tasty. They keep well, cost less, and provide a bonus workout from store to car to refrigerator.

We can get those bags in Oz, but I don't think I could go through the bag before the carrots went off. I like the idea of a carrot bag grocery store workout though

Friday protein overload bento: 3 egg tamagoyaki, 100g chicken breast marinated in soy sauce, veg, rice. Around 580Cals:

sparklyhippos wrote: »

Mangrothian, I noticed that you marinate a lot of things.. What else can you marinate other than eggs and chicken? And is there any other marinade that you use that does not have sodium? (i.e. not soy sauce or fish sauce)

Most marinades will have a decent sodium component to them, as it's a main component of what helps break down the meat structure to make it tender. If it's not salty, then it's going to be sweet or alcoholic, as those are the other two components that help tenderise and flavour the meat; things like mirin (sweet rice wine), sake or white wine could be used, but they're rather bland on their own. There's also red wine and herbs, but you could only use that for stronger flavoured meats. Honey also works as a meat tenderiser, but it usually needs a salty flavour with it to make it palatable.

If you're trying to drop your sodium content, you can drop the amount of soy by half or a quarter, and make it up with mirin/wine if you're so inclined, or a nice vinegar even. You could technically use fruit juice, but I wouldn't guarantee the flavour. Chicken marinated in pineapple juice sounds kinda good though.

You can also remember that when you marinate, hardly any of the marinade itself actually ends up in the food. I checked it once for mfp logging purposes. I weighed the meat and measured the sauce, and when I was done after an hour only about 4ml of the marinade had soaked into the 100g of meat from the 4 tablespoons that was in the bag.

As to what else you can marinade, the sky is the limit; any protein, including tofu can be marinated quite easily, but you need to use stronger flavours with darker meats. Hell, you can even marinate potatoes before you bake them, but I don't know if that would go down well in a bento you see me mostly marinating chicken because it's a cheap lean protein source that I can fit in my Calorie goals. If I was eating more, you'd probably see a wider range of proteins in my lunches.

Afura wrote: »

mangrothian wrote: »

For snacks, a tub of peaches in grapefruit juice (94 Cals) and a packet of rice crakers (68 Cals)

That container says pears.... you've been leading us on!

bibliobetty wrote: »

Second attempt! It's Thug Kitchen 5 spice fried rice with mushrooms and siracha in the sandwich sized container with a teeny orange, an egg, and snap peas with tsatziki. The snack containers are raspberries and pineapple and olives, pickled onions, half a dill pickle and a babybel in the other. All in all about 700 calories for the whole day.

Thug Kitchen! I bought my friend that cookbook. If you like sriracha, take a look at Epic Meal Time's Deep Fried Sriracha Balls. I make them without the deep frying, and they can be made tiny. Zippy tasty and freeze well.

I shall perform a dogeza in front of my pantry in way of apologising to the last container of said pears, imploring them to forgive my wickedness in misnaming their flavourful goodness. Then, I shall do the same to the peaches in my fruit bowl.

On another note, I keep damn bloody forgetting to take pictures of my bento's. Today's was a serving of Skillet Chicken with Orzo and Olives.

ETA: I just looked at Thug Kitchen's website. Insta-subscribed. I'm soooo having brunch tamales this weekend.