Teriyaki Chicken Bento

I went to the Post Office yesterday and after a lame joke about a $5.00 late fee for picking up a box after hours from the mail clerk and a snarky remark about “another eBay gift”, I got my new $2.00 bento box and my egg molds!!! Wheeee!!! I was so thrilled that as soon as I got to MIL’s house I boiled one of her eggs for Baby Girl to eat. You’re supposed to use a large egg and she only had medium, so the bunny rabbit didn’t come out too good, but she was tickled and so was I. When we got home we boiled 3 eggs and made a fish, a car, and a bear. I soaked the bear in soy sauce so he’d be brown (so cute!!) and the fish in red food coloring. The coloring makes it much easier to see the pattern on the egg. She ate the car.

We had chili for dinner so I didn’t take leftovers. When I got home I couldn’t think of anything to make, so I ended up pulling some frozen chicken thighs out and after defrosting them, shoved them into an almost empty jar of kim chee with teri sauce to marinate. I didn’t make my bento last night because I wanted to see if I could do it in the morning, sort of like a test.

I FAILED.

First off, my Buddy alarm decided to sleep in. He usually wakes me up at around 6:15-6:30 am with a combination of hissing, laughing, screaming MAMA in my ear, or razzing my stomach. Well he decided to play around the house quietly until about 7:20, so I had to light a fire under my ass to get everything done. Next thing to go wrong was that “strange Japanese grill” I bought at Shirokiya last week. It was not in fact a stovetop grill as I thought. The circular grooves on the bottom made me think they were for putting on the stove. Makes sense right??

Well, I turn the heat up and start placing some chicken on top the grill. First thing I note right off the bat was I should not have sprayed it with cooking spray. Second thing I note is that the house is quickly filling up with smoke from the sauce dripping down and sizzling on the bottom tray. I was a little alarmed at this because I didn’t get why there was so much smoke for a little sizzling sauce. It all made sense when I finally just shut off the stove and tried to scrub it down to start over. It was then I noticed that the circular grooves were not just grooves. They were grooves with slits!! You’re supposed to put this thing on a real grill! Durrr!! The stovetop had charred sauce all over the burner, hence the assloads of smoke. lolnoob

I ended up shoving it into the oven with foil on the bottom rack to catch drippings while it broiled. Turned out fine and of course, there were no drips. Typical. The lesson learned here is that I must do the following to make morning bento:

1. Set my alarm.
2. Cook my breakfast in bulk so I can just nuke a portion.
3. Not be a complete idiot and play with new tools while in a rush.

And here it is:

Despite all the hangups, I like how it turned out. I had cooked rice last night and this morning, mixed up some with a musubi mix packet, which I think is ume flavor. Fried two stalks of asparagus in olive oil and garlic salt and added the fish egg, which still looked cool. (Baby Girl claimed the bear) I cut out a couple carrot flowers to add too. I’d learned that you have to blanch them so that they don’t look dried out at lunch, so to be fast I just heated some water in my Pyrex measuring cup and threw them in for maybe 30 seconds. Nice and quick. Added a shoyu fish for the egg and some sliced takuan. The rice will cost me 3 points, but I didn’t bring any cheese today, so I should be fine.