Sandwich Wrap Bento Lunch

I wanted to share the lunch I made for my daughter. I made a of sandwich wraps using leftover chicken, jazzed up sour cream, lettuce, and shredded cheddar. Once they were finished being filled, I rolled it up on both ends to look like a burrito, and cut it in half. The bento box pictured has a heart-shaped silicone cup, so I cut the wrap diagonally, then flipped the top half over the bottom so that the points of the wrap looked like the bottom of a heart. I place the heart cup (just a silicone cupcake cup) in the far end of the bento box, and then slipped in the wrap. There was a little room left inside, so I put in a cherry tomato. The lunches were really yummy, and fit inside the box beautifully.

The silicone cup squished together a bit. Oh well.

Sour cream dressing (taste as you go method)
Sour cream-small container
Minced/crushed garlic in jar (about 1tsp)
Seasoning salt
Extra virgin olive oil (about 1 tsp)

Reading is Sexy

Click photo for the link!

We love reading so much, we thought it would be fun to share a few reading inspired things we love over at cafepress.com. Above, there is a funny magnet with a librarian on it. This one happens to be on sale right now for just $2! This would look super cute on any fridge. The shirt below is adorable, and it shows how sexy reading can be. How cute is this pinup?!

Click the image to find where this can be purchased.

This particular shirt comes in different colors and sizes, and is reasonably priced. There is also a swearshirt and duffle bag with the image on it. Cute stuff!

Up next, there is an adorable Reading Rainbow inspired t-shirt that is fun! It looks like a vintage tee from the 80's!! "Take a look, it's in a book"...

Click the image for the link!

There are even cute kids t-shirts available! This one is great. Oh, and it is made with organic cotton!

Click photo for the link!

These are great ways to reward your kids and yourself for reading books. Enjoy being an appreciative reader!

Pizza Dough Toss

I said I would record myself attempting to toss a pizza, so this video is fulfilling that promise. I am really, really bad at properly tossing pizza dough, but it's a start. So far, I have managed to put a lot of holes into the center of my crust, so I am hoping that with practice, I can stop doing that. I've been making pizza from scratch for years, but the crust never seemed to taste the way it does at restaurants until now. When pizza dough is tossed in the air and caught properly, or in my case rudimentarily, the dough is automatically made thinner in the center and slightly thicker on the edges, just like pizza requires. Also, the exposure to air causes the outside to dry out a little, while leaving the inside soft and pliable. This is good for a crunchy outside and chewy inside once the pizza has been baked.

I use a pizza dough recipe from 29 Minute Meals, by Robert T. Teske and Carol R. Guthrie, which is a Working Mother book. Don't ask me what Working Mother is, I have no idea. Other recipes can be found online very easily. I recommend allrecipes.com for finding specific recipes because the recipes are reviewed and are rated by those who try them out. I feel really silly for not attempting the dough toss sooner. When I think about it, I was worried about dropping the dough...which amounts to only a few dollars' worth of supplies. This is what changed my mind, and got me to just give it a try. Heck, if it falls on the floor, it can be picked back up and practiced on again and again until the skill is picked up and simply thrown into the trash! Eventually, I hope to not look like a total idiot while tossing the dough, but for now I am happy with not being afraid to try.

Chicken Quesadilla Bento Lunch




Today I needed to cook up some chicken that was in the fridge, so with the request from my daughter to have tortilla's for lunch, I decided to make some quesadillas. They were super easy to make, so I figured it would be wonderful to have saved myself the trouble of making lunch tomorrow if I made bento box lunches with the leftovers. Since bentos are so small, I decided to play with the shape a little. I sandwiched my cooked chicken (sauteed in olive oil and sprinkled with seasoning salt) and cheddar cheese between two wheat tortillas and carefully placed it into my skillet.

On medium heat, I lightly browned both sides. I pressed them flat before I flipped them because I wanted to make sure the cheese acted as a sort of glue for keeping it together.

Once they were done, I cut out four circles with a biscuit cutter and sat the circles aside for the bentos. My daughter devoured the rest of the pieces.

The bottom tortilla was a bit harder to cut through than the top.

I placed the circles into each bento box and added a container of salsa. These containers were actually easter eggs with neat patterns along the sides. They were food safe and closed decently, keeping the salsa properly contained.

These eggs had enough space for the right amount of salsa.

Next, I added some containers of sour cream. These don't have tops, so I used dividers to top them.

The sour cream on the top edges helps the divider sheets stick on.

I finished the boxes with some sliced cucumbers. Both bento boxes turned out beautifully!

I think my daughter can have the elephant one.

This cute bear one will be mine tomorrow!

Dim Sum Dumplings...Mmmmm

I decided to try making dim sum dumplings. Now, I had never eaten a dumpling like that before, but after watching the video I posted much earlier in another post, I was curious. The recipe for dim sum wrappers in Asian Dumplings by Andrea Nguyen and Penny De Los Santos was easy enough to follow, so I whipped up a batch. I ended up with 16 wrappers. For the filling, I used a few things I had on hand and ended up with some delicious dumplings.

Once I made the wrappers, which was really quick using my food processor, I rolled it into a rope and cut pieces of it out. With each piece, I rolled a ball, flattened it a bit with my palm, and stuck it into my tortilla press sandwiched between two sheets of a cut up Ziploc bag. They pressed out beautifully and easily.

Squish!



Perfect circles every time!

Once the wrapper was pressed, I removed it from the plastic and filled it with a teaspoon of filling. Then, I folded the wrapper in half and pressed the dough together to make a crescent shape.



The seam, once the dumpling is pressed into a crescent.

 Once it was pressed together, I worked on pinching it to create the fanned edge. It made the dumplings look so pretty!

Working on the pleats from right to left.

Ta da!

I lined a cookie sheet with foil, sprayed it with nonstick spray and placed half of the dumplings on it and then in the freezer. The other half were laid out on a plate covered in foil sprayed with nonstick spray until they were fried up. This dough stuck to the plate...which is something I figured out after I transferred the dumpling in the picture above! I added some oil to the pan and fried the dumplings, turning them to each side as they browned on the other. A plate with paper towels laid on top was waiting for me to rest the finished dumplings on. After that, they were ready to be eaten! Mmmm.

I served these with rice and made my first ever egg drop soup!

Oh, and since I had a couple of extra dumplings left over after dinner, I made some bentos up for lunch the next day.

The filling was made with the following ingredients in the taste as you go method of cooking:
Ground beef 1lb
Shredded carrot
Shredded zucchini
Finely chopped onion
Finely chopped garlic
Frozen peas
Frozen corn
Extra virgin olive oil (to saute in)
Sesame seed oil (added to the EVOO)
Salt
Pepper
Worcestershire sauce
Soy sauce



Homemade Tortillas Made Easy

I bought a tortilla press from amazon.com, and decided to give handmade tortillas a whirl. I originally got the press to make dim sum, but I figured it would be fun to use it for its intended purpose as well. Surprisingly, there are only two ingredients for making them: masa and warm water!

I followed the recipe on the bag of masa, and made the dough. Then, I divided it into twelve balls. With each ball, I flattened it a bit with my palm. A Ziploc bag, the edges cut off, makes a great non-stick surface (also blissfully food safe) to place your patty, sandwiched on the top and bottom of it. I had an oops moment and forgot to slip the plastic on top of the patty before I pressed the tortilla, and it stuck to the press!

It's helpful to put the patty slightly off-center. The tortilla press works surprisingly well to flatten out your corn tortillas. Once pressed, the tortilla is gently removed and heated on a griddle at 475-500 degrees, 30 seconds on each side, till it reaches the desired finish. I like mine to puff a little, so I flip it one extra time, for an additional 10 seconds. My griddle isn't that hot, so I had to use a nonstick skillet on the stove top, set on high.

I have to say, I have never been a huge fan of the corn tortilla, but wow, these are good! They are completely different than store bought tortillas, and taste like heaven.

A Classic Golightly Moment

My big thing lately is trying some hairstyles from this amazing book called Vintage Hairstyling by Lauren Rennells. I must say, she wrote a fantastic book, and it inspires me to try some fun tangents of my own with retro styling. I am still learning, so the process so far has been fairly slow and at times almost more frustrating than it seems to be worth it. Still, I am having fun in the process. Really, the biggest draw for me is that I am hankering for yet another makeover, and I just don't have it in me to make a drastic change such as cutting my hair or choosing a new hair color. This book provides me with lots of new styles to try out, which are temporary. Believe me, temporary is good for me. I get makeover madness about every four months or so, and I hardly ever stick with a new look once I've acheived it. At least I know I'm not the only one who does that!

The Golightly is pictured second from the top.

After searching through the book, I came across the Golightly style . Like many people, I have always admired Holly Golightly's style in Breakfast at Tiffany's, so I figured it would be fun to give her signature hairstyle a try. I recently bought some hot curlers because it's a tool mentioned in the book, so I brought them out and used them for this hairstyle. I burned my fingers. I did it again and again. My verdict: it's totally not worth the trouble. However, it did give my hair the body and slight curl at the ends that I needed to pull this off.

Next, I sectioned off my hair like the books said to, and after about six failed attempts at my small victory rolls, I decided that I needed to alter the part in my hair to pull it off. Success! Really, the victory rolls were the most difficult to pull together, and after that, the whole thing came together beautifully, and scream free. Naturally, I can't reveal all of the steps to complete this style, since I am not a thief, but I can show you how my hair turned out!

It doesn't look exactly the same in the front because I have bangs.

That loop sticking out at the back is just one of the curls pinned down.

The bottom half has a french twist to it. Pretty.