Fried Green Tomatoes Bento
It was a somber weekend as I watched along with the rest of the world the photographs and footage covering the devastating earthquake and tsunami coming out of Japan with increasing sadness. Even though I was born and raised in the United States, my family always instilled in us pride in being born Japanese-Americans, so watching this unfold somehow feels closer to home than it usually does. Add in the fact that my blog centers around something that originated in Japan and I’m one short little woman feeling just as helpless as the rest of you.
Thankfully, my Yum-Yum Bento Box co-author Maki and her family are okay, and so are the friends we know there. This week, I will be putting up several items on eBay GivingWorks to help raise funds that go towards GlobalGiving’s Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Relief. You can view my auctions throughout the week to see what I’m putting up for sale, including some of my used bento boxes and signed copies of Yum-Yum Bento Box. I tried to buy 10 copies from Amazon, but they would only let me buy 8, and now apparently I’m just not allowed to buy any more because there’s a limit. ?!? I had Mr. Pikko buy me the rest.
This was my lunch yesterday that I just never got around to posting last night. I find that I’m so freaking backed up on Learn 2 Cook stuff that I have drafts and drafts saved and just need to get around to putting the finishing touches. If only I had 48 hours in a day or something! That and I’m reading a book and books tend to hook me in for days, sapping all my time. This lunch includes something a bit odd for me, fried green cherry tomatoes!!
I wish I could say they tasted awesome, but parts of them weren’t fully cooked so they were pretty tart. So tart that my throat burned after eating them, hahaha! I cooked them though, so I figured I had to eat them. I used some of Hawaiian Kine’s Pineapple Glaze dressing as a dip, which has a bit of spicy kick to it and that tasted pretty good. You can read my reviews for Hawaiian Kine products so far.
On the side there’s some purple kale (which isn’t bitter, by the way), a wild tomato, broccoli, rice with pink and white sesame seeds, and some true baby carrots. The carrots were grown by Mr. Pikko! I know they look small, but they weren’t all that tiny, just a few of them. It’s just that when we were letting Bigwig run around the yard back in January, he would go and munch up all the carrot tops before we could stop him. These little carrots never did get back on their feet as well as the others.
We’d picked three the day before, so this wasn’t all of them, but dang it, aren’t they gorgeous? I’m growing oodles of carrots now because my new addiction is buying vegetable and fruit seeds to grow in the yard. I’ve started some alpine strawberry plants in a planter on the front steps. I’m hoping that by summertime they’ll look respectable. Right now they’re so tiny that little sparrows kick them down just by walking in my dirt. 🙁
I’ve fallen a bit off the WW wagon lately, so once I get everything back on track, I’ll start posting my points again. Weight today was 145.7 lbs, so I’m totally stuck right now!
Don’t forget to keep checking my auctions for more stuff and telling people to help raise funds by bidding! I submit 100% of the final bid price to eBay and MissionFish, who then takes a small processing fee and then passes the donation on.