Onigiri (Rice Balls) and Jingle Jim's Swag

I wanted to try something new a couple days ago so I made onigiri! Onigiri just means rice ball. They can be in most any simple shape and usually contain a little bit of some traditional filling like pickled plum, flaked salmon, fish flakes moistened with soy sauce, etc. I didn't have any of that so I made onigiri with garlic powder in the rice, filled with a little bit of caramelized onions. They were pretty tasty!

I wrapped them in plastic wrap so they wouldn't stick together in my lunch. The only issue that I'm surprised to say: they needed more salt! I hardly ever salt food. I salt eggs at restaurants (at home, I put garlic powder and red pepper flakes in) and that's pretty much it. I'm really sensitive to it but these needed some.

I thought lunch turned out really pretty! I had strawberries, cucumbers, onigiri, pistachios and almonds. LeAnn's lunch was pretty too but the colors aren't from nice fruits and veggies.

We're running into the issue of her having to eat it in the car on her way to Lexington to teach. So nothing that requires utensils, unwrapping, heating, or putting together. Her lunch today was full of good fruits and veggies. I'll put up pictures later.

Went with the green bento. Yay!

This past weekend, we trekked up to Cincinatti to stay with Tricia and we got to go to Jungle Jim's! It's a huge and awesome international market/mall and I got some tasty treats.

Miso paste! I love miso soup and wanted to try to make my own and to try out some recipes that call for miso. This isn't exactly like the kind I'm used to but we'll see what I can do with it.

Soy Wrappers. LeAnn really wants to eat sushi but she can't stomach anything that is remotely related to the ocean so she can't even eat veggie sushi because of the seaweed wrapping. We found soy wrappers though that take care of that problem.

And then the regular seaweed wrappers for me. Yum! I'm resisting the urge to just eat it like potato chips.

Probably my most important find was spring roll wrappers. I found a recipe for summer rolls that I wanted to try but I couldn't find the wrappers anywhere. I tried these out last night and they were perfect. I'm very excited to try out a lot of different flavors in my summer rolls!

And then Somen noodles which weren't really what I was looking for. I wanted rice noodles (also called cellophane noodles) and I went by the picture instead of the big text that says Somen. Whoops! They're still good though so I'm looking for Somen recipes.

I'm having a bunch of fun trying out new recipes and trying to eat a ton of veggies and fruits. I think LeAnn is happy that someone else is cooking, though she's not happy about the ridiculous amount of dishes I make. :)

Also, I'm proud to say that I lifted weights yesterday while standing on my little balance circle board thingy and I'm sore as hell today. :)