Innie or Outie

This local vendor’s version of tenpura is a thick-batter deep-fried selection of fish, squid, string beans, and assorted vegetable mix.

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To accompany the tenpura, we selected miso soup, rice with seaweed mini-wraps dipped in soy sauce, and a small salad of Hubby’s homegrown greens with cherry tomatoes, herbed croutons, and cracked taosted seasame seeds topped with a creamy Italian dressing.

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Although most people would not think of a croissant as a snack item, this particular type of the pastry being sold by a local convenience store chain is small (about 3 inches by 1.5 inches) and extremely flavorful. It can be eaten on its own or filled with some on-the-go ingredients.

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Another of the local bento boxes with pork, sausage, hamburger, potato salad, potato croquette, pickled veggies, rice, and kamaboko.

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When we grill, I usually help with the food prep. Hubby decided to give me a day off and did all the prep and cooking on this dish, Papa’s Grilled Foil-Wrapped Sausage-Liver Penne:

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The pasta was precooked on the stove. Then topped with spicy sausage, smoked liver, mushrooms, and rosemary that had been grilled in a foil wrap on the BBQ pit. He added a simple salad made with homegrown greens from his first patio garden boxes. The greens were mixed with iceberg lettuce and cherry tomatoes and dressed with a balsamic vinaigrette.

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This version is in the Bento#12 group, but has goya chanpuru as the main dish.

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We finally had a few good days of weather and a break in our schedules. So we decided to give a try to a new outdoor dish, Papa’s Grilled Almost-Seafoodless Paella:

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For this version Hubby used rice, olive oil, Italian sausage, cherry tomatoes, bell pepper, clams, onion, chicken, garlic slices, oregano, parsley, white pepper, saffron, chicken broth, thyme, bay leaves, and lemon slices.

“D” is for donut. This one is from a local grocery store and comes in a pack of five.

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Hubby’s in the mood for local food again, Papa’s Eggless Fried Rice:

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Hubby used sesame oil, spam, mushrooms, garlic slices, bacon, and spring onions for this version of fried rice. He didn’t use eggs because they tend to upset my stomach on occasion.

Hubby is trying another delicious chicken dish, Papa’s Lemon Chicken with White Wine Sauce Penne Dinner:

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Hubby arrived at the idea by combining two seperate recipes. First he a sautéed the chicken in olive oil, then added garlic, butter, lemon, oregano, and white wine. After plating the penne, he topped it with the chicken and then sprinkled with some parmesan cheese. To accompany the dish, hubby made a small salad of iceberg lettuce, arugula, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, and bacon bits with creamy dressing.

This is a creation of one of the local bakeries.

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