Jumbo Jet Bento

Mr. Toro is off to Virginia today, so I packed him a jumbo bento to eat on the plane--hopefully it'll be better than airline food;)

In the bento: chicken seared in brown butter with heirloom tomatoes; swiss chard and beet greens tart; salad of spinach, roasted beets, and more; asparagus with olive oil and lemon juice; and roasted garlic bread.

As you might have guessed, I made a trip to the West Los Angeles Farmers' Market on Sunday, so dinner (and lunch leftovers) were chock-full-of fresh veggies.

Once again, I used this recipe for a delicious swiss chard tart. This time, I used 2/3 chard (beautiful golden stemmed swiss chard at the market this sunday) and 1/3 fresh beet greens, trimmed from the roasted beet roots in the salad. Also, I substituted Gouda cheese, just because.

The salad was amazing! I had a bunch of fresh spinach from the market which I tore into bite-sized pieces. Into the spinach, I tossed pomegranate seeds, walnuts, avocado, beets (roasted about 40 minutes with a sprinkle of salt and pepper), and cheese. The cheese was a find at the grocery store--a 'white Stilton,' meaning it wasn't made to mold into bleu cheese, with blueberries mixed in. It was creamy and sweet, and went perfectly with the pomegranate and other ingredients.

The chicken was cooked especially for this bento--for dinner we had orange roughy from the market, but I didn't think it would keep quite as well as chicken while Mr. Toro was traveling today--but it was cooked with the fish and the same way. I put about a tablespoon of butter in a hot pan and let it turn a nice caramel shade of brown. In went the fish and chicken, for a couple minutes each side. Into the middle of the pan I tossed an heirloom tomato, diced pretty small. The whole pan then went into a 350 degree oven for around 15 minutes or so. To serve, the buttery roasted tomatoes got spooned over top the protein.

Dessert last night was poached persimmon poured over vanilla bean ice cream. A dish of the poached persimmon is this bento's dessert.