Win a Zojirushi Ms. Bento!
Happy Earth Day everyone! I guess it’s fitting that on Earth Day I try yet again to give away the Stainless Steel Bento box from Life Without Plastic. Don’t misunderstand, I don’t think the first two winners just don’t want their prize, I think I just got eaten by their Spam filters. Hopefully Hotmail likes me better than Yahoo.
My third attempt has brought up Bridget. Bridget pledges to replace her rice paddles with bamboo ones and also pledges to pay off all her credit cards as well. (a little joke from her, haha!)
As I bring that giveaway to a close (I hope!), I start a new one. While many bentoers love a good, cheap box, there’s always that one pricey bento box that you one day hope to get for a gift or find on sale. For me, that box used to be the Zojirushi Mr. Bento
While I also have a Mr. Bento container to give away, I decided to split the Bentos up and hold separate giveaways for them. So today begins my giveaway for the Zojirushi Ms. Bento
I have no bento of my own today because the office is being treated to lunch for Admin Appreciation. I’ll be having some Thai food today. Anyway, entering this giveaway is easy. Simply comment on this blog post planning the first meal you’ll pack into your Ms. Bento. Please be sure to leave your name and an email that you check on a regular basis so that I may contact you should you win. I will accept entries until May 1st, 2009, so get cracking on that meal plan!
Ms. Bento is a thermal lunch jar and comes with three round containers to carry your food in. One container is great for keeping hot soup in. With an Amazon value of $49.99 and a retail value of $60.00, this is definitely a giveaway you don’t want to miss! From the entries I receive, I will draw a random winner sometime around May 2nd, 2009.
I wasn’t around yesterday because I went to have some delicious ramen with Mr. Pikko at Sumo Ramen.
I went with the Mochiko Chicken Curry Ramen with their thin noodles. The mochiko chicken came separately because it wasn’t done at the same time as my ramen. Oh so yummy, but I still miss the onoliciousness of Kiwami Ramen. :d
I’m part of the Foodbuzz Tastemaker program and received my first product to review last week. I had replied to the initial announcement but hadn’t heard any type of confirmation afterwards, so I was a bit surprised to get a call from Grandpa J saying that a box marked ‘Perishable’ had come from Foodbuzz. He asked if he should refrigerate it and I gave the OK to open the box.
When I got home, he told me he’d put it in the freezer and I was like, “Aaahhh! That’s fresh pasta!” I ran downstairs to get it and luckily it wasn’t in there long. However, when I opened it up, I found a disappointment waiting for me:
I’m allergic to mushrooms! *sigh* Well, at the very least the rest of the family could help me do a review. We ate this last Friday, preparing it how the package recommends, which is to gently boil for 4-6 minutes and then eat with some olive oil.
My first criticism of this is the appearance. As soon as I put it into the dish I told Grandma J they looked like Venus flytrap heads and she cracked up laughing. I mean really, they just look weird. We sat down at the table and I moped while they tasted. Finally, someone remarked that since I’ve been able to eat nametake mushrooms lately, I should just try a bite and see what happened.
I finally caved and took a flytrap. I took a bite.
It tasted pretty good. I didn’t swell up, so that was even better. Comments from everyone else were:
Grandpa J: It’s pretty good, but I don’t know what I’m eating.
Mr. Pikko: Good, I guess.
Grandma J: It’s good, I can only slightly taste the mushrooms, though. I can taste the cheese a lot more. I think it would be better with some kind of sauce.
Me: The mushroom flavor was very light, while the cheese flavor was much more prominent. It tasted good.
The filling was nowhere what the packaging made it out to look like, so they weren’t “generously filled” in my opinion. While one can argue that’s usually the case, the fresh pasta I’ve seen in Costco usually looks like the ones in the photo. Since it wasn’t completely filled, the pasta on the outside was very thick and therefore very noticable when eaten. I prefer pasta to be a soft outer coating than a big flat piece that I have to eat by itself if I didn’t happen to bite it at the same time as the filling.
The way it was cut was very unattractive and in my opinion it needed more than just olive oil to eat. The edges reminded me of that jagged fancy scissors that I got in a craft scissors pack, the jagged one being the one I never liked to use because it looked funny.
Still, it tasted good. I just don’t think I’d buy it on my own. The best that came out of it was that I know I can eat those types of mushrooms now! Woohoo! Maybe my mushroom allergy has finally vacated my body!