healthy blog recipe night

last night i had my friend jeannie over for dinner; we planned in advance to cook healthy recipes from some of the blogs i’ve been obsessed with lately.

the butternut & white bean patties are adapted from healthy happy life‘s “toasty pumpkin chickpea fritters” recipe, and the baked apple is pretty faithful to for the love of kale‘s version.  both recipes turned out AMAZING, and it was such a fun night!  (disclosure: two bottles of red wine were also involved.)

click-through for my cooking notes and the nutritional information…

red riding hood bento

tonight’s bento features a few new goodies i got in the mail today from a bento friend — aren’t those packages the best?!

the entire theme was inspired by the cute red riding hood baran.  love it!!!  to go with her, i made a wolf onigiri (the wolf’s face is ham, with kamaboko ears and nori eyes, eyebrows, nose and whiskers).  the second onigiri has an awesome pre-cut nori shape from a packaged set that i have coveted FOREVER!  my bento pal was kind enough to send it over, yay, thanks again you-know-who!

in the “red riding hood” tier of the box, i have carrot sticks, crinkle-cut cucumber slices, a little bit of pickled carrot, daikon and lotus root salad garnished with cilantro (in a yellow food cup), a few takuwan flowers, half of a vietnamese spring roll, and some cherries.  rounding out the “wolf” tier of the box is some cabbage, and the onigiri are stuffed with tofu and peanut sauce.  before i closed up the box and stuck it in the fridge, i wrapped the onigiri in saran wrap, which will help keep them from drying out, and help keep the wolf’s face stuck on there!

here is a close up of the predator and his prey:

in the next few days i may be implementing some changes to the layout of this blog, to better accommodate the new ad banners.  please be patient if things look a little funky!