Bento Meals: 7/23/10

I haven't been making bento lunches the last few days. I had 2 packages of different types of bau (stuffed buns) and leftover bulgogi dolseot bibimbap (a korean dish of rice topped with vegetables, marinated/grilled beef, and an egg). As you can see, I was pretty much covered with food. Then yesterday, we also had a free lunch from Costco, though I enjoyed the last of my bibimbap over the items they brought in, of which I am glad I only took a small sampling.

Today's lunch bento, which I hope to start devouring soon, has a main dish of ojinga bokkeum (spicy stir-fried squid). Anyone who followed this blog for a while (or looks into older entries) will see that I am obviously a big fan of this dish. This time, my husband made it. We use Maanchi's recipe as a base (click here for her recipe) and it is always a win! That doesn't mean we don't plan to try other people's versions too, just to see what suits us best.

This time, we used squid slices that were already scored. My husband found we were low on green onions, but this wasn't a huge concern given all the other veggies I was going to have him add. We were also out of white sugar, so my husband added brown sugar. We added carrot and zucchini matchsticks; the zucchini pieces were salted and squeezed to remove excess moisture. The sauce turned out a bit thin, which we've never had happen before (but wasn't surprising), so my hubby added some tapioca starch. This concoction turned out very well, though I prefer our usual ojinja bokkeum.

Our son ate more of this new version than I remember him ever eating our regular version. A nice way to get him to eat more veggies given that he's still in that stage of veggie-pickiness. The squid was a lot easier to eat because of the scoring and the veggies toned down the spiciness. Still, the flavor was missing something, but I'm just happy my son ate the entire amount we served him within a short period of time (rather than his long period of pick-while-play method).

On to the bentos:

Lunch Bento

ojinga bokkeum (spicy squid stir-fry w/ extra veggies) topped with furikake

white rice

broccoli, lightly cooked

quicky dipping sauce (gochujang, soy sauce, sugar, salted green onion and garlic, and sesame oil)

Snack Bento

cantaloupe (musk melon)

celery

natural peanut butter w/ brown sugar