Almost Potato Week

I'm a huge Vampire Diaries fan. And the season 3 premiere is coming up this week. I had some grand plans, only one of which has made it to reality thus far. This bento is MINE.
I created the ribbon and blood drop out of blanched red pepper. And I added baked some Sophie's Kitchen vegan breaded shrimp (frighteningly realistic actually).
It was almost too cool to eat! TVD bento: pineapple, orange cherry tomato "vampire" (with the closest thing I had to Ian Somerhalder's signature hat), blanched spinach, steamed broccoli, edamame, vegan breaded shrimp, rice.
Ryan & AJ's lunches: brown rice w/veggies; vegan breaded shrimp; edamame; steamed broccoli; pineapple; lemon cookie; potato leek kale soup (w/side of smoked salt).

The
boys

deci-

ded

that

this

week

would

be

"potato

week"

because

we'd

gotten

lots of

local

potatoes

from

our

CSA.

Soup

yester-

day, Alton Brown potato salad today.

Ryan & AJ's lunches: potato salad; Gardein crisp tenders; green beans.

But potato week didn't quite go as planned. I pulled out these yummy spinach tofu quiches from the oven and popped in a baking sheet full of sweet potatoes wedges. Half way through, the oven promptly turned off and displayed an error code. Now, I love my new oven to bits, but according to the GE website, all error codes are proceeded by the letter "F", and all mine as showing was a red "5". Go figure. So I abandoned the sweet potato fries (yuck, half-cooked sweet potatoes? Hopefully the squirrels enjoyed them from the compost). Luckily I still had some rice in the rice cooker from the night before...
Ryan & AJ's lunches: garlic broccoli stir-fry; spinach tofu quiche w/cheddar Daiya cheese; rice.

By the next morning we'd solved the oven malfunction...by turning off the circuit breaker for the entire house (yes, we tried the individual ones for the kitchen first, but it was unsuccessful).

Ryan & AJ's lunches: mashed purple potatoes; blanched spinach w/peanut sauce; simmered shiitake mushrooms; edamame.

Adieu Irene

Hurricane Irene was

only a tropical storm

by the time it arrived

in Massachusetts last

week, but it was enough

to knock out power to

most of the state. We

were without electricity

for about 48 hours,

which was fine, except

for the refrigerator

situation! I was crossing

my fingers that we would have power back by tuesday for the first day of school so I could pack decent bentos of course! And luckily, the night before, shortly after 6pm, we were up and running again...just in time for my husband to arrive home from Seattle with no real idea of what we'd all endured over the past few days.

I managed to salvage quite a lot of the food. Since it's all vegan, and largely produce, most of it was fine without refrigeration. The hardest part was breaking the kids' habit of randomly opening the fridge to look for snacks throughout the day!

Ryan & AJ's 1st day of school lunches: pinwheel tofu salad sandwiches w/cucumber letters; cantaloupe balls; green beans.

Here are Ryan & AJ off to third and second grades, and Nate ready to head off to his first day of kindergarten! His teacher has asked that I leave a selection of non-perishable snack items in his classroom, so no bentos for him until next year! Sigh.

For the second day of school, Ryan requested he help to make strawberry cream cheese. He chopped up some berries and mixed it with Tofutti cream cheese for bagels.

Ryan & AJ's lunches: cucumber slices; fresh pineapple; roasted chick peas; steamed broccoli; mini bagels with strawberry cream cheese.

Time for some sushi! Ryan and I recently went to the new Wasabi sushi train at the local mall. It was very impressive and had him in a sushi sort of mood.

Ryan & AJ's lunches: sesame tofu & vegetable maki sushi w/side of soy sauce; tiny square of Lake Champlain dark chocolate w/almonds; apple slices; carrots; steamed broccoli; a strawberry; edamame.

I was in the mood for smoked tempeh, so I sauteed some Lightlife Fakin' Bacon. I don't buy it often because Whole Foods has increased the price to just shy of ludicrous, but sometimes I just have to treat myself.

Ryan & AJ's lunches: tempeh, lettuce & tomatoes sandwiches on toasted french bread; mini zucchini muffin; dried apricots; pickles; Tofurky & soy cheese clover garnish; carrots; cucumber slices.

Now, for the reason I

REALLY bought the

smoked tempeh strips!

I dreamed this, and I

just HAD to try it:

smoked tempeh &

artichoke heart maki.

Yes, really.

I sauteed the artichoke hearts in Earth Balance and garlic powder until lightly browned. It was

delicious. But...

...I had to fulfill the dream meal and tempura batter and fry more of them, topped with Sriracha laced Vegenaise. O.M.G. Worth every friggin' calorie. These would have made wonderful additions to a bento, but I could barely bring myself to share them at all, and they disappeared quicker than Harry under his invisibility cloak.

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