It's been quite a long time since I last posted a complete bento...but if you've read my previous posts, you know that I have a good excuse ^_^;. Well, I am not feeling too chipper, and on top of that I don't have a real kitchen. STILL. Those two situations combined have made me very reluctant to attempt any kind of cooking. My appetite is not too good either to be honest.

While I've been sidelined as the main cook in the house, The Guy (aka...the spouse, who occasionally posts around here as Guruman) has been taking care of the food supply chain, manfully. Now, The Guy is not exactly a born cook. He never really learned how to cook when he was growing up. (He was a precious and coddled only son of a couple who had him fairly late in life, in Switzerland, a nation where women only got the right to vote in 1971. Of course they've made great strides in women's suffrage since. But I digress.) He does love to eat though, and did pick up some recipes after he left graduate school and struck out on his own. He has a repertoire of about 5 or 6 dishes, which he makes very well - and often. But normally, he's in charge of doing the dishes - a critical job in any kitchen workflow.

Attempting new stuff is a bit of an issue though. Being an engineer, he can follow recipes, though the process is very laborious. He has to read and re-read a recipe several times, as if they were machine operating instructions or something, before he's comfortable enough to try it. Despite that, he has bravely decided to take on the challenge of making bentos for us for lunch at least once or twice a week. We're sliding back into the sandwiches-or-fast-food rut during my time on the kitchen disabled list, and that's not good for either of is.

So, here is The Guy's very first attempt at a bento made all by himself. The components of the bento was suggested by me.

For his first bento, I figured that a really no-fuss approach was best. So we went for the bed-of-rice-with-stuff-on-it style, which is really the easiest to prepare and pack. Only 3 elements are in this bento (plus a decorative lemon slice), but it's still fairly well balanced I think. The taste? Not bad, not bad at all.

His was packed in his favorite plain black bento box, while mine was in a white box. Despite my lack of appetite, I gobbled up the whole thing.

So, the contents:

• a bed of sushi rice (that's rice flavored with sushi vinegar). White rice yes, because at the moment one of my medications is making me not want a lot of fiber, if you know what I mean. >.< The Guy got creative and added a bit of lemon juice to the vinegar mix, which was very nice.
• Topped by lots of Salmon furikake or salmon soboro. We made it a less salty than the recipe, since the sushi rice has some salt in it too.
• Chopped up cucumber and tomato salad. Since the salmon and sushi rice was fairly salty, this was left plain, and that worked pretty well when everything was all mixed up.

The Guy only had two small pieces of salmon to work with, but he now sees that salmon furikake can be made in quantity, and he vows to do that and stick the excess in the freezer.

A very promising start I believe. It did take him a rather long time (due to the engineer-tendencies thing) but he seemed happy with the results, and I was too.

I am hoping that he will feel encouraged enough to continue. Homemade bentos are so much better in all ways that takeout or fast food. Stay tuned!