Adventures in bento - the first morning

Previously on Adventures in Bento - I discovered a website and cooked lots of vegetables.

Sunday night after cleaning up from my pre-cooking, I set out what I would need in order to prepare my first bento box on Monday morning.  This being the internet age (or is that the Instagram age?  Not that I actually use that app,) I took a photo for this 'ere blog.

Ah, tupperware rice cooker, I hardly knew you.
Brown rice, the rice cooker and my new box-for-bento with a lovely seal.

So, Monday morning, I got home after a morning walk (M and I are both trying to be healthier, exercise more and eat better, which is part of the impetus towards bento lunches, by the way).  I made my morning coffee and I put the brown rice into the tupperware microwave rice cooker to cook. 

At this point I need to make something clear: I know how to cook rice!  I have been cooking rice since I was... eight years old, I think.  I know brown rice is more complicated to cook than white rice, but see above re being healthier.  And it's not like this was my first time cooking brown rice, either.  Nor was it my first time using the tupperware microwave rice cooker.  We've had that gadget for a good two and a half years and used it countless times.  And tupperware is supposed to have a lifetime guarantee.

I clearly got the proportions wrong somehow.  Because as the clock counted down the minutes, the smell of the rice in the microwave began to seem - rather more than just cooked.  And when I checked it... well, disaster.  The rice was burned black.  The tupperware had melted and was sticking to the microwave plate.  The smell in the room was absolutely dreadful.

Handy hint: if you ever accidentally melt tupperware in the microwave, it comes off surprisingly quickly if you get it into a sinkful of hot water fairly soon after it's cooled down enough to get it out of there.

After that I cooked a second lot of brown rice, on the stove, while I scrubbed out the microwave.

And then I put together my very first bento.

So: brown rice, green beans in sesame layered on top of celery kinpara, sweet pepper and onion confit and carrot kinpara in the bottom right hand corner.  Maple baked salmon (put aside from dinner), and grapes.  (Photo could be lit better.)

I had it packed and ready to go.

And then, after two lots of rice, a ruined rice-cooker, singed fingers, and a newly clean microwave... I forgot my lunch at home.  Argh!!!

(Thankfully, M was home and could put it in the fridge to save it for Tuesday.  But really, world?)

Coming soon: Bento - the verdict.