Bento Brunch and Snack: I crave protein today

There is something you need to know about me.  I hate breakfast.

Strange for a person who is as much in love with cooking as I am, to hate an entire meal, but there you have it.  I hate breakfast, passionately.  I almost never eat it, and will usually break my fast a good 4 to 10 hours after I start my day.  It's just the way my body works best.  If I eat early in the day, then I feel sluggish and HUNGRY all day long.  I can't get any work done for eating and by the end of the day I feel huge as Sushi Cat.

On busy days like Mondays, where we get up early, harvest fresh veg at the farm and take them into town for the restaurants, I like to cook myself a bento brunch that I can eat in the car.

That way I'm not tempted to pick up some pre-fab-junkfood or worse, start munching on the profits.

Today I made rice with shio-koji chicken, fried pepperoni slices, and fingerling potatoes (all except the rice are left overs and re-fried this morning).  In the little cup I placed some spicy cucumber pickles.  Very protein and carb rich, but that's what I felt like this morning.  The pickles, especially the onions in it, really balance the heavy meal.  The other option would be to use kim chi but I hate packing that in a bento in hot weather.

This is packed in the upper half of my Eco Lunchbox.  The thing I like most about that box is how you can use only one or two sections when you don't feel like eating a whole lot of food.  Most bento boxes seem to be all or nothing and I often end up lugging around empty compartments.

For The Capitan, I made an ume onigiri and packed some shio koji in the lower section.  It's not very colourful today, which is a pity, but I was rushed for time and this snack was an afterthought.



I finally feel that I've gotten the entire 'fit as much food as possible into the small box' part of bento making down, now it's time to start working on presentation, especially colour.  Washoku cooking talks about combining different colours, flavours and cooking methods so that the meal becomes delicious and nutritious.    Although I don't have (cannot afford) the book at this time, I still hope to play around with this idea.  I'll start with the five colours and go from there.