A Bento discovery

During my recent jaunt to Auckland, I stumbled upon a magnificent store on Queen Street.  The $3 Japan store had all I could dream of.... and more.  I was disappointed with myself for finding it so late in the evening, so my purchases had to be made at speed, before my bus arrived, but I felt good about my haul.  I managed to find a terrific headband, hair ties, origami paper, pens, a book, and then my bento goodies.

I managed to get a red 2 tier bento, a one layer yellow bento to match a 2 tier one I have, 4 bear silicon cups, and a set of picks. 

On returning home, I discovered that the store has a website.  Though it seems to be limited at present, I hope they get the bento supplies uploaded for purchase before too long.

$3 Japan store website

Muffin Tin Monday ... errr.... I mean Thursday

I blame jet-lag... or New Years Idiocy.... or something.  But here is my really last minute, feeble effort for the week.

1.  Fresh peas in pods from the garden
2.  Mini crackers with swiss cheese feet
3.  Orange segments
4.  Carrot sticks
5.  Hard boiled, free range egg
6.  Cucumber, also from the garden

I call this "Stuff I had on hand" and the picks were ones I bought the other day in Auckland, so I wanted to use them. 

Nouvelle-Calédonie.... bon appétit

Wow!  After a wonderful trip to New Caledonia, I am inspired to eat!

Sort of.

There were a couple of things I discovered early on in my journey. 

1. I can read French reasonably well... better than I had even imagined possible.
2. And the worst part, the French don't really do much for vegetarians.

This second realisation meant that I was put into a smaller category of people who remove ham from bagettes, or people who eat things covered in chocolate.

I love chocolate.

I did however discover some wonderful French dainty desserts.  Yummo.

Raspberry and Ginger tartlet

Coffee filled almond topped donughty thing

One thing I did learn was portion sizes.  French portions are TINY!  Bagettes were huge, but sparing on things like cheese.  The sweets were so rich, eating more than one was a challenge in itself.  But I am so glad to be home, where I don't have to point and gesture, or try to add large numbers in my head (Pacific Francs are crazy to work with, a bagette was like 350 Francs, a can of "Solo" was 280 Francs, and my ability to count aloud in French is to 20.......)

So, getting back on track, thank you Nouvelle Calédonie for a magnificent time.

Wordless Wednesday - Nouvelle Calédonie

New Years Resolutions

Happy 2011 bloggers!

This year should be fantastic, but don't they all sound brilliant at the start of the year.

After a totally busy November writing, and December traveling, it is so time to get my gastronomical life back on track.  So here are my New Years Resolutions for food:

1. Cook one new recipe a week.
2. Eat better (more fresh food and less junk)
3. Watch my portion sizes

As well as this, I do hope to keep this blog updated more frequently than in the last 2 months!

Enchilada's and Waffles

Okay, so the combination sounds all kinds of awful.... but other than seeming very yellow and red, was mucho tasty.

The bottom layer has 2 enchilada's (second added after photo was taken) with refried beans, carrots, and onions.

The top layer has waffles with strawberry jam, and 3 fruit leathers folded into circle holders, carrying dried apple, a sunsweet prune, mini chocolocate mint cookies and some almonds.

Waffles are fast becoming a favourite of my lunches- but stopping my classes eating them has become an issue!

Blogging and Bagels

With NaNoWriMo done and dusted, I can once again get back into blogging. YAY!  (And my novel is now completed.  Yes.)

Here we have an avocado, lettuce and tomato wholemeal bagel..... lettuce fresh from the garden.
Bottom layer has fresh strawberries (from the garden also), almonds and ginger.  Noms.