Secret Ingredient* Pasta Salad

Secret Ingredient* Pasta Salad

1 cup cooked pasta cooled
1 Tablespoon minced white onion
1 Tablespoon capers
1 1/2 Tablespoons chopped roasted red bell peppers
12 black olives quartered

Gently toss all ingredients together.

In a separate bowl (I use a small Mason jar.) mixed together

1 Tablespoon mayo
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 splash white wine vinegar
3 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/4 teaspoon oregano
ground pepper to taste
*plus 1 1/2 teaspoons V8

Shake like crazy and pour on pasta. Cool and serve.

Rawh! Bento Box Love.

I'm thinking I might have to change the name of this blog. Or maybe start another new one all about bentos. I've been bit by the bento box love.

Normally I don't eat breakfast. If I'm home, I will start to snack around 11am. However if I'm at work, I generally bring a lunch. [The restaurant food in the town where I work is not the greatest. (No place-naming please.) Yes I like the pizza place, but I am a nibbler. A bite every hour or so, and pizza gets kind of gross if it sits around for 4 hours without a fridge (even with a fridge).] So I usually bring my lunch.

The photo above. Clockwise top left: Roasted panko chicken drumettes and pickled beets, vegetable nommies with hB egg and apricots, fruit, and peanut butter and butter STAR sammich.

Here we have "I'm Late" lunch on Wednesday. This was fun because I tried so hard to be organized. Wok the pork, zuch, and red bell pepper, fresh streamed rice with gomasio, soy egg. and other stuff, but most importantly oranges and chocolate. Guess what I ate first?

Here's my darling - but of course. Bunny bread cut outs with butter and peanut butter and chocolate ears. I ate the ears and put together the bunnies for a sandwich. Dates, apricots, pickles, red bell peppers, and hB egg. Hello Kitty!

Order Up!

My birthday is just around the corner, and I must say I'm getting to like them these days. I took a week off from work. 

Judy's Birthday Week! 

You know the funny about taking vacation is everyone wants to know where you are going. Since I'm not going anywhere, I plan to make up a different story for each person that asks. 

 

I'll steal from the web, of course. "I had fabulous time in Cancun! Thanks for asking!" Um, then why aren't you tan? "Zinc oxide, you silly bean!" OR "Oh Yeah Baby! The pubs in Thailand are to kill for!" Really? I heard they serve rat, cat, or bat. "It's all in the spices, Darling!"

Just keeping it real, people. Really fake!

 

What really happened last week: I was putting in an order to Williams-Sonoma because I gots to have me these Master & Commander wine glasses. And I have been wanting a deli slicer forever. So on the off hand chance The Mister might be giving me these things,  I wandered out to the kitchen and asks him. 

"Oh Damn!" He said. (yay! I smile to myself.) "It's supposed to come on Thursday." (yay! I'll get before my b-day!) "How do you do that?" He asked. Me: "I don't know." (yay! I am totally gifted!)

So happy Sunday (third day into my vacation) I make a Pastrami Sandwich on Sourdough Rye with Dill Pickles (and plenty of Dijon mustard). Yes I used my new deli slicer with 30 degree tilt for gravity feed to cut the hunk of Pastrami, and then I thinly sliced up a Filet Minon (cooked yesterday) for his sandwich. 

This is my lunchbox (that I take to work.) (I know I act like an eleven year old.) (So Be It!)

with my sandwich, and that's lime juice in the wine glass, in case you were wondering. 

And this is...

My fantastic deli slicer.

To Go Ware

I'm trying to get away from my plastic habit, so I purchased this from a shop online. Seeing the packaging here though it looks so 1950s. Or let's go camping. Or something.
Kind of wish it came with someone to make gourmet salads and sides, and someone to clean it afterwards.