Posts Tagged ‘Cooking’
Obento, Onigiri, Oh Wonderful!
January 24, 2009
I have longed to do obentos
So again, the obento topic came up, and this time around, I know I really have to do some.
An obento (or sometimes called “bento”) is a boxed meal that can be taken anywhere. Like a lunch box, or “baon” in Pilipino. It can be homemade or store-bought or ordered from restaurants. There are some rules as to how to create obentos but the basic ones would be:
- The food should be easy to eat.
- The presentation of the food must be pleasing to the eye.
- The colors must be coordinated.
Obentos were made by moms for their school kids. It takes them a lot of time and creativity to create these lunch boxes that their kids will enjoy. Thus, an obento signifies a mother’s love to her kids. Now that obentos are not just for kids but for adults also, I think this symbolism still holds true for the preparer and the receiver of the obento.
So it goes that I’ve decided that I’ll be preparing obentos for my hubbie. I had to scour the internet and our local asian stores for some of the ingredients I’ve used. I did some research on how to create them and even visited craft stores to buy cookie cutters for cutting the fruits and vegetables. I even went to Walmart and Target to look for what could pass as good obento boxes that could be microwaved.
So after days of what seemed like a treasure hunt, I had to do a trial before I made an actual bento for hubbie. Thus, one Saturday night, I made some onigiris and a fruit salad for him. I also cooked some chicken teriyaki to complete the presentation. Here is what I came up with:
Test Obento Fruit Salad
Test Onigiri and Chicken Teriyaki
My fruit salad consists of pineapple slices, cherries, kiwis and cantaloupes all cut with a cookie cutter.
My rolled balls of rice, called onigiri in Japan, are seasoned with furikake (rice seasoning) 
So what was hubbie’s reaction to all these? He had a big smile on his face the whole time we were eating and couldn’t stop saying “soooo good… sooo good.”
Hmmmm, that was enough for me 
Posted in Cooking Wonders | 
Tags: Bento, Cooking, Furikake, Kewpie Mayonnaise, Obento, Onigiri | 
8 Comments »
Some Good Food for Diabetics
May 3, 2008
Like what I mentioned during my previous entry, I was soooo excited to try out the recipes on my new cookbook by Betty Crocker. So last Saturday, with the book in front of me, I planned out the dishes that I was going to prepare based on the Carb Choice scheme. I planned on cooking some pork, some chicken, and a dessert. I also bought ingredients for some other recipes that were in the book for next weekends’ cooking.
Since I wouldn’t have time to do some serious cooking during the week due to my work schedule, I have to prepare about 2 – 3 meals all at once for the whole week. So that’s what I did last Saturday. I went to the grocery to get the ingredients I would need plus I also bought some tuna in cans, a fat-free mayo, some pickle relish to make some tuna salad and some chicken salad from our leftover chicken we bought from Sam’s Club yesterday. I promised my mother-in-law that I was going to make her some tuna salad and chicken salad for my husband’s nephew who just started working. (She prepares his lunch. Such a sweetie my MIL is
So there I was, back from the supermarket. I immediately started on the tuna and chicken salads first. Nothing special with those altho I added some slices of sun-dried tomatoes on the chicken salad that I made just to give it some extra zing.
Then I went on and cooked the “Asian Pork and Noodle Soup” and the “Cheesy Chicken Pasta Stew” from the Betty Crocker Cookbook. While I was preparing all the ingredients, slicing all the meat, chopping up the onions and the carrots and what-have-you’s, I was a little bit doubtful if they would turn out good since my impression was, diabetes cooking was going to be bland, to say the least. So, since this is my new lifestyle now, I braced myself for the “disappointment” I might experience.
But was I so surprised! They really, really, really tasted soooooooooooo GOOD! You wouldn’t even think that they were made for diabetic people because they were so flavorful. The Asian Pork and Noodle Soup tasted a bit like the Filipinos’ Tinola (due to the scent and taste of ginger) and the Cheesy Chicken Pasta Stew was to die for!
Unfortunately, due to copyright constraints, I cannot write down the recipe here. But I can probably give you the nutritional information for each of them and I can show you pictures of how they came out.
- 1 serving: 235 calories
- Fiber: 2g
- Sodium: 160mg
- Cholesterol: 70mg
- Protein: 26g
- Carbohydrate: 15g (which translates to 1 Carb Choice!)
- 1 serving: 325 calories
- Fiber: 2g
- Sodium: 440mg
- Fat: 15g (Saturated 8g)
- Protein: 27g
- Cholesterol: 80mg
- Carbohydrate: 21g (1 1/2 Carb Choice)
Posted in Cooking Wonders, Diabetes | Tags: Betty Crocker Diabetes Cooking, Cooking, Diabetes | 1 Comment »
