Pan-fried Shrimp, Garlic & Lemon

I'll be talking about a giveaway at the end of the post, stay tuned!

I forgot to take a picture at the bento box (tupperware actually) but I took one at my plate:

It took a bit to make this because I had to peel the shrimp and save the shells for stock. Underneath there's plain rice and the vegetables came from the freezer and sauté'd.

Shrimp with skin on, defrosted.

I decided to leave the end of the shell for better presentation.

For the shrimp, what I did was:

- Heat a pan with a little olive oil and put a small dried red pepper along with whole (slightly mashed) garlic. Let the flavour come out a bit and then start putting the shrimp (which had salt and some lemon juice) gently and flip it over until it's nearly cooked. Don't overcook shrimp or it'll feel like chewing gum.

Here's the shrimp just cooked.

As you can see, I didn't peel off the garlic because I like the flavour that it adds to the rest and prevents the garlic from burning too quickly. It's a shame whole shrimp can be so expensive. We can't really afford buy this, and this one we got was from relatives that were really nice in sharing some :D

Yesterday I was running through my RSS feeds and one of them had a "Win a Tamagoyaki pan"! I immediately read the whole post and wanted to enter the contest. I have been looking for a tamagoyaki pan for a while now and there are none available in my country :(

So, if you want to join the competition and give it a try, here's a direct link to the post. Thank you Sarah for hosting this event!

Onigiri

As I was making dinner for myself, I entertained myself doing tomorrow's lunch, about the third one I make for myself:

half an egg, some sauté'd vegetables, fried shrimp with garlic and the last piece of japanese rice I had in the freezer. It was kind of...not cute whatsoever so I shaped the rice and cut some nori. Next time I'll remember to cut the nori but not to put it in there before morning! But now it's done, I guess I was in a rush to take the picture and forgot that part. I didn't fill up the tupperware because it's quite big (about 1000ml) which I don't fill for my bf, so I put in a little less for me than his usual.

Let's see if I keep the "cooking for myself" mood :D I'm quite enjoying it.

Seafood Pasta

There were some leftovers of fish in the freezer that were occupying too much space so I thought of using it this week. This is how it turned out:

 

I decided to do the seafood cooking aside from the pasta and assemble them at the end.

I used:

- fake crabmeat;

- shrimp;

- hake fish;

- Green bell pepper;

- Onions and garlic;

- (hidden) Turnip (shhh I don't think the bf noticed that or he would've complained)

I put it over the lettuce. I don't buy lettuce, this one was offered so I have to spend it somehow and the green looks good. I didn't have much time for the vegetables and since there were some hiding in the pasta I just added some cucumber. Then I made carrot flowers, which I have to thank AnnaTheRed and her blogging (http://www.annathered.com/) for her "How to" on that, and put the carrots on top of the pasta.

Bento lunch

I've been wanting to do this for a looong long time, and I didn't do so bad.

 

Please ignore the yellow broccoli, I completely forgot about it while I was cooking the rest so it overcooked

From left to right we have:

- Shrimp with tomato sauce and lettuce underneath to make a change of color from the silicone cupcakes;

- Red cabbage with a pinch of salt and vinegar;

- Tamagoyaki (without the dashi because I haven't found it in my city yet)

- Broccoli;

- Rice with carrot on top.

Also, this week I have planned all week days with food so you should expect some new posts this week. (last week I completely forgot to plan, so i had to think on the clock, it didn't turn out well)