Features: BBQ chicken, rice, Japanese-style egg, broccoli, and Medjool dates.

This bento was really a treat. The BBQ chicken was simple: just brush on the BBQ sauce (a simple kind bought from the store) and grill on my Hamilton Beach Indoor Grill, flipping it over after 5 minutes to repeat the process. The Japanese-style egg just adds sugar and soy sauce and I wisk it all together until there's a few bubbles on top; I then cut it into strips instead of rolling it. I love bentos which include chicken on a bed of rice, which is probably why I love places like Yokohomo Rice Bowl and Panda Express (although I can't eat there often since they're food is usually fattening -- but mine isn't!).

Now to take a moment to mention the dates. I love dates. I grew up with dates, my whole family would munch on dates and mangos if we wanted a dessert and the inclination has stuck. Medjool dates are easiest to find and most grocery stores will carry them when they are in season. Recently, my university has been trying to promote a farmers market on the campus every Friday and one of the vendors totes farm-grown, organic dates!! I didn't have any money the day I first saw it, but next time, I plan on buying quite a few.

Features: Garlic teriyaki chicken, rice with black sesame seed furikake, broccoli, carrots, and pig container of soy sauce.

*sniffle* It's so pretty! :wub: The garlic teriyaki sauce is Kikkoman's brand and I highly recommend it. I found it at Albertson's and I marinated the chicken overnight. It was delicious and went perfectly with rice. I simply grilled the chicken in my Hamilton Beach Indoor Grill, but the directions on the bottle suggest baking. Next time, I'll try that. ;)

Sorry for the lateness of this recipe, but I've been uber busy. University's started again, after all, which means my free time has been seriously reduced to near-zero levels. :(

Anywho, this is such an easy recipe and with practice can be done in 30 minutes or less. Plus, spam is cheap and tasty. ;) The original recipe that I changed a bit for convenience can be found here. I've changed the amounts and some of the ingredients for my own preferences; for example, I tend to like less saltiness in my foods, and since I'm making this for a bento, I cut down the rice to 1 cup. However, I did not cut down the ingredients for the spam, so if you find there's too much sauce, simply use more spam. I like to make a little extra anyway because then I can put the extra, marinated spam back into the fridge and use it for a side dish or a main dish for another day. :)

Spam Sushi

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Short-grained (sushi) rice
• Spam
• Cucumber, skinned and cut into thin circles
• 1/4 cup Japanese rice vinegar
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• 1/4 cup soy sace
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup mirin

1. Wash and cook the 3 cups of rice. I simply wash it and then throw it into a rice cooker. Make sure you add enough water so it won't dry out the rice, you want it nice and sticky! The rice should be handled hot, but not hot enough to burn, so while it reaches this temperature, combine the sugar and salt into the rice vinegar until it dissolves. Then, season the rice with the rice-sugar-salt mixture and stir gently.

2. Add the soy sauce, sugar and mirin in a small saucepan. Bring the sauce to boil, stirring gently, and then add the spam. Cook for 2-3 minutes.

3. Cut the nori in half. Put a half of it down and pile some rice on top. Shape the rice into a rectangle with your hands (to keep the rice from sticking to you, you can use a bit of oil on your hands, or a bit of ice water with salt mixed in). My rice was no more than an inch thick and about the same dimensions as the spam. I then put a slice of spam on top of the rice, and two circles of cucumber on top of the spam. Finally, I wrapped the nori around the sushi and snipped off any extra.</div>

If you use this recipe, change it, or have any suggestions, please leave me a comment. I'd love to know what your experience with it was. :)

Features: marinated spam, rice balls, salad with dressing, and kimchi (pickled cabbage).

Today's bento features rice balls! I originally meant for it to be spam sushi, but the containers were too small. :( So, with a quick roll and tuck, I turned them into more ball-shapes. However, I realized one weakness: the rice is more sweet while the spam is more salty and therefore balance out when they're in a sushi, but seperated like this made the spam seem salty to me. Next time, I'll be better with my container planning and won't seperate the two.

(For the Spam Sushi recipe, click here)