Sesame Omelet with Shrimp (203)

I had this recipe in some little Japanese food cookbook at home and had been eyeing it for a while. The recipe itself made little sense to me though, asking for 2 large eggs, 1/4 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper. Do you have any idea how much salt and pepper that is?!?! Either the "large" eggs I buy at Foodland are like Japanese people to mainland people or this lady really loves pepper in her Japanese food. The recipe is called Sesame Omelet with Shrimp and I modified it a bit by cutting down the mayo. (it asked for 3 tablespoons)


I messed this up in many ways, as usual. First of all, I actually listened to what she said and added 1/4 tsp pepper. Maybe fresh ground pepper is less, but I added the already ground one and holy bob damn my mouth lit on fire when I tasted a piece. Then I used a pan that was too small, so my omelet was thicker and smaller than it was supposed to be. I also didn't have watercress, so I used broccoli, which turned out to be very difficult to roll.

I rolled it up, put it in the fridge to set, then sliced it into nice sushi-like rolls. I'll have to modify it and try again, maybe tomorrow since I still have lots of shrimp. I know it's weird to have a shrimp roll and then shrimp on the side, but I really wanted to eat some with cocktail sauce, which is in the little yellow container. It didn't look colorful enough to me, so I tucked in a couple slivers of carrot in the middle. The edamame was pre-cooked and frozen, so I just defrosted it in water and placed them in nicely.

Shrimp & Asparagus Pasta (188)

This past weekend Baby Girl won two passes to an advance screening of Penelope. Since it was enough for 4 people, we made a Girl's Night Out of it and she and I went with my niece and Grandma J. We got there way too early, so we went to the nearby shoe store to buy sandals. The movie was really cute, I liked it! James McAvoy was really hawt, but then I went to look him up and found that he was that creepy fawn from the Narnia movie. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and adored Mr. Tumnus in the book, but he was just so icky and badly cast. So my advice to him is to stay away from fawn roles and stick to hot-gambling-addict-with-a-heart-of-gold roles. I found it amusing that this movie takes place in what is obviously London, but none of the main characters had British accents.

I didn't have a bento yesterday because we had our free lunch at Hanaki. The food was good, but I ate too much. :( Back to healthy business today...


I had to come up with something to use up the assloads of shrimp I STILL had left in that neverending salad from Costco, so I thought this up last night while falling asleep. I sprayed Pam into a pot (I'd used it to boil the noodles and didn't feel like using two dishes) and threw the shrimp in, then the asparagus, then put in some garlic salt. I added olive oil and the noodles, tossed them around, and voila! An all Core pasta bento! The noodles are whole wheat spaghetti, which is allowed on the Core diet as long as it's just one serving. The olive oil is a healthy oil and you're supposed to eat a teaspoon or tablespoon a day on Core. I couldn't remember if it was teaspoon or tablespoon so I decided it's better to go with the lesser amount... I cut a little grape tomato in half to decorate it.

I put my name into one of those boxes at a smoothie store and "won" 30 free day at 24 hour fitness. I had to squeeze into a tight schedule of what sounded like several other "winners" to meet with the membership hustler tonight. I had a membership once long ago but was too intimidated by the place. I figure if I get a free month I should check it out again.

Shrimp Cocktail (187)

Allakhazam.com has been under constant DDOS attacks this past week and it has been a very frustrating ordeal for the employees and the users of the site. I wish there was some way to help, but all I can do is get whatever work done offline that I can. It's so frustrating!!

As I mentioned, my bridesmaid dress came in so this is a reminder to me that the wedding is coming up really soon. I need to shed these last 8 pounds as I'm back up to hovering around 128 lately. I'm sure if I put my mind to it, I can get it done. I just have to get back to my constant healthy snacking instead of the constant junk food snacking I've been doing while at work. To help kick start this I've brought a cold bento with all core items in it!


I have more washed shrimp here from the shrimp salad I mentioned. I put them on some nice colored skewers. I sliced an avocado I bought last week. I had intended to make some KCCA salad, but every time I go to Foodland the deli is closed. ; ; I've got cocktail sauce in the little container, tomatoes, orange, kiwi, and half a boiled egg.

I had intended to eat an entire boiled egg sliced in half but my kids saw me peeling it and immediately turned into Egg Zombies, bouncing up and down going "EEEEEEGGGGG MOMMMMMY EEEEEGGGGGG!". So I cut it up hoping to make a chickie, but got lazy and just left it like that. For snacks I brought raspberries, strawberries, cantaloupe, and baby carrots. I need to go buy me another big box of Smart Pop. Hopefully by now the stock at Costco is popcorn without that nasty chemical in it.

Ebi Curry Noodle (186)

I heard a really cute joke last week on Leahey and Leahey Live that I forgot to tell.

What did the rice say to the spam?





Let's get nori.

LOL!! OMG, I think that joke is so cute. I guess you'd have to either be from Hawaii or love spam musubis to get it, but I find it hilarious!

My weekend was okay, nothing much happened, but it wasn't completely boring either. I got a good amount of moat carps turned in (92!) which put me at around 3,400 for my Lu Shang's Fishing Rod in game. Girl's Day is coming up soon and so I have to think about what to do for that bento. I think a pretty bento for Baby Girl is in order! I'll definitely have to do the pink sakura tamago again!


I bought a new kind of salad I from Costco on Saturday which was a shrimp salad with tomatoes in it. All it really has is shrimp with celery and mayo so it didn't have much taste so I ate a lot of it with cocktail sauce. It was a $13 salad and contained massive amounts of shrimp. I ate this for two days straight and then used some for this Ebi Curry Noodle pack that I had forgotten I still had in the freezer. I washed the mayo off to fry it for this noodle dish though. I fried some asparagus so that I have more veggies and don't waste the pack that I bought.


This is the box I used today. It was a gift to Baby Girl from her teacher at school. Which reminds me, still no Hello Kitty Online access!! I got some e-mail saying I have to make a video explaining why I should get into beta. I made one, then went back to check the tutorial on how to add tags, and the tutorial opened in the tab I created the video in, erasing it. MAN I was pissed!! I still haven't made another one yet...


I've got a big round Pooh tupperware full of fruit to go with today's lunch. Baby Girl nagged her way into me buying a tub of tropical fruit, so I've got watermelon, cantaloupe, and pineapple in here to help us not waste it all. I also bought strawberries and raspberries again. I still have like 10 kiwis left to eat too, gah!! And danjou pears... and apples... and oranges... and blueberries... When it rains it pours!

I went to cut my hair on Saturday and was pretty bored so decided to get some highlights. I've never colored my hair before and am pretty happy with the way it looks. Mebbe next time I'll dye my hair dark red or something. Next week marks 6 weeks with my piercings, so I can go out and buy earrings this week!! :D

My bridesmaid dress came in and it's a size 12... I have to exchange it for 6 or 8. How fun is that?!? :D A year ago I'd have fit in that dress!!

Teri Hamburger Patty (179)

Today I'm using a new bento box but I forgot to take a picture of the outside of it. It's a two tier box with a cute froggy on the outside. It even comes with a matching fork! ^_^

Today I'm eating a teriyaki hamburger patty with leftover shrimp fried rice. I was trying to eat this for lunch during my radio show on Sunday but didn't get much eaten for fear of making too much noise. I really have to remember to eat before showtimes. The rice looked great with the peas so I decided to leave the shrimps on the side next to the patties. The piggy bottle has soy sauce in it for the rice because it wasn't the tastiest of fried rices and I'm one of those people that thinks soy sauce makes everything taste better. The little food dividers were a gift from one of my blog readers, Stephanie. I finally got a chance to use them! So cute! Thank you again!

I'm a little upset that I didn't notice that open space next to the piggy. I hate having open spaces like that. ; ;


In my bottom tier I packed a lot of fruit. I have two sliced kiwis, some raspberries, and then a little silicone cup of blueberries. The cup is from a set of cups that I got from Nizdaar in the Allakhazam Secret Santa exchange we did. They're so tiny and a perfect size for the shallower bento containers I have. I have the regular sized silicone cups and they're only useful in my taller boxes. This set came from Amazon and the set contained lots of different colors. A great bento item since you can use them over and over!

I noticed yesterday that the Hawaii Chair video got removed, so I edited the post to display a new video!

Chinese Leftovers (135)

So as you all know, I had a very good girl Core lunch yesterday and everything was going quite well and then suddenly, the CHINESE TAKEOUT DINNER OF DOOM struck! Before I saw an article in the paper about the intense calorie content of Chinese cuisine I'd always looked at Chinese food as one of the more healthier types of foods. Now that I know better I get so scared because not only is it full of calories, but it's so damned good too!

But fear not, I was good. I ate very little noodles and focused on broccoli and ong choi. I ate only until I wasn't hungry too, rather than stuffing myself until I felt full. So hopefully day 1 is not completely lost. There was a ton of leftovers so I felt obligated to take some. I took all veggies and a little bit of the noodles then added some rice that I cooked this morning. I've gone back to my old WW Core breakfast of scrambled eggs with sweet onion, bell pepper, and lean turkey slices and it was nice to be back to eating a hot breakfast again. I've been eating cereal every morning for about a month now and at least this way I'm fuller longer and it doesn't cost very many points.


From left to right I have white rice, broccoli, ong choi, and then the noodles in a cup on the right side. On the bottom layer I have:


This is the last of the shrimp I bought on Sunday. I have to use it up before it goes bad! The cocktail sauce is in the pink Hello Kitty cup. I have more tofu and then some edamame topped with a carrot flower. There's a little soy sauce bottle for the tofu. :D

I really really have to find the time to do my Dreamland again. I've been working so hard on Allakhazam while at home plus I've been trying to do more Pikko Pots updates so that by the time Fan Fest rolls around, I have a nicely updated site to show off. Then there's my costume and booth work... ugh. I really don't think I'll be able to find time to use all my spiffy tools and toys until after Fan Fest. This is just sucking so much of my time.

Core Bento (134)

After two days of sickness and a weekend of last minute naughty food gorging, I'm back today on the Core diet to lose the last 10 pounds to reach my goal.


On the left side I have some shrimp and in the little yellow container there is cocktail sauce to dip them into. I didn't get to photograph the egg too well, but this is from one of the new egg molds I mentioned last week. Next to the egg I have cucumber kim chee, then some small carrot sticks, and two small blocks of tofu. I've got a fish with soy sauce for the egg and the tofu, but now that I think about it I should have brought a piggie cause the fish isn't much sauce. Guess I'll eat the egg with salt!

I've also got a kim chee crab and avocado salad. I took a picture this time since it's been a while and people may not know what it is when I say KCCA. Foodland sells at their deli Kim Chee Imitation Crab and since it's spicy I use that along with avocado and romaine lettuce to make a dressing-free salad.


I'm starting this new phase of my diet at 129.5 pounds, so let's see how well I do by the time Fan Fest rolls around!

P.F. Changs (129)

Last night Mr. Pikko and I went out to dinner and a movie. I picked P.F. Changs down at Ward Center because it sounded like a fun place to eat and was right by the theater. We started off with the chicken lettuce wraps and although they had shiitake mushrooms that I had to pick out (allergic) they still tasted really, really good. We made the silly mistake of ordering noodles, fried rice, and "duck in bun". So we had three starch dishes, like idiots. Next time we will definitely skip the fried rice, which was decent, but very unnecessary, and get a meat dish instead. The Singapore Street Noodles, which I have for lunch today, was really good.


This was the first noodle dish I've had with tomatoes in it and it fit surprisingly well. We didn't use the lime at dinner, so I'm going to squeeze it over the noodles for lunch. Yum yum! In my lower tier I packed edamame and fresh tomatoes, which I'll probably eat with the noodles. The edamame was difficult to pack because a lot of them were freezer burned. I don't think it can be avoided though, cause they came looking like that straight from Costco. They still taste good though. We have some soy bean seeds to plant, so hopefully once I get off my lazy ass and buy more pots, we can have fresh edamame from our garden!

After dinner we went to see The Kingdom. I wasn't really expecting much, but I thought it was pretty good. Interesting plot, good character setup, good action, and to boot, a touchy political subject. Plus, on the way over to the theater we got sucked into Ben and Jerry's. I'm pretty sure any movie is made better having just eating Chocolate Brownie ice cream!

Oven Baked Chicken (128)

The great thing about sleeping early, not doing cutesy bentos, and being lazy is that I've actually been able to put together my bentos a lot faster now. I seem to have fallen into a groove where I just plop things in and bingo I have my lunch in about 20 minutes. It may not be my best work, but I end up with a decent looking lunch in a small amount of time. Lately, this has been important with things at work.


I took one of the oven baked chicken thighs my MIL made last night and cut it in half for easier display. I'm not 100% sure I'll eat it because I forgot to put it into the fridge when we got home last night. I had a little discussion with a few other Allakhazam admins on the safety of this chicken thigh and got two thumbs up and one veto from a former butcher. I think perhaps I will eat the other stuff and then go down to this lunch cart that I've never seen before just outside the office building. They sell ham sandwiches and such. When I made the bento, I'd decided I was going to eat it after all, but now I'm on the fence again!

Fan Fest is now 36 days away! I reeeeally have to get cracking on my costume again. *sigh* I'll probably be going to Disneyland on Thursday, yay! Will be a short day as I have to help set up our Allakhazam booth, but fun anyway I'm sure! I haven't been there since I was like 12 or something. If any of you are going to FF, please be sure to find me and say hi. ^_^

Rice with Shrimp & Peas (126)

Last night we ate at Kim Chee for dinner and I overate a little, so I suggested we go to Foodland so that I could buy some things to cook for bento this week and so that I could walk off the food a bit. I find that this helps get rid of that overate feeling quite quickly and pushing a wagon of two kids around for over half an hour has to be decent exercise right?

Since I had no shopping list I ended up buying some shrimp for fried rice. This morning I cooked rice according to a recipe from Harumi's book simply called "Rice with Peas". The picture shows a bento box filled with this simple but yummy rice (I tasted while packing) so I decided with the shrimp I put in, I didn't need to pack anything else with it. After I cooked the rice according to her instructions, I fried it together with sliced snow peas, frozen green peas, and chopped shrimp.


Along with this I brought carrot sticks, sliced strawberries, and an apple banana. I'm porking up again, so I won't be eating any rice for dinner tonight. With the Fan Festival only 38 days away, I've got to start shaving pounds again, not gaining them. Sadly, no new progress on my costume this weekend.

My tomato plants have gone crazy! I pick like 10 tomatoes a day. I don't even know how they're all producing this many but I have a container here with me at work today with about 50 tomatoes so that I can take them to my MIL's house for salad consumption. It's awesome!!

I didn't have the energy to do my football food and it was just as well since the football game was a total soaker. We were lucky we decided to buy ponchos before the game because it was on and off pouring all night. I was pretty sad to see Colt off yet again after someone stepped on his foot early on and then even sadder to see him down on the field after a tackle. On the other hand, it was wonderful to see Tyler Graunke step up and show all the people that had booed him previously that he was more than worthly of playing for Hawaii. I hope that shut them all up for good. We're now 6-0!

Keep voting for Biggie!

Brown Bag Meeting

Today at work we're having a "brown bag meeting" where we meet over lunch we bring. We ate chili last night and that doesn't make for a very pretty lunch so I started from scratch this morning and made a pretty decent Core bento.


On the left side I have some small shrimps that I bought at Foodland on Saturday. Inside the little orange dog is some cocktail sauce to go with it. On the right side starting from the top left going clockwise there is: Carrot sticks wrapped in turkey, kim chee crab, avocado, two slices of boiled egg, a mini Babybell cheese, grape tomatoes, and cucumber kim chee.

In total it comes out to 2 points for the cheese. Lately my weakness has been in desserts. We had two birthdays last week which meant I kept eating cake day after day (leftovers) and plus I tend to excuse eating candy too. I've decided that I have to limit myself to 2 desserts per week and I eat a small chocolate Riesen candy to appease my sweet tooth on days I'm not eating any dessert at all. This morning I was 127.8 lbs so hopefully I can keep up with my Core bentos and stick to small dinner portions. That's another bad habit I've been feeling myself falling back into: larger portions simply for the taste. I can feel my stomach being full and yet I still eat, which is totally against what Core is about!

We're now 11 days away from the start of the UH Football season and still no season tickets in the mail! WTF? We'll go to the post office tomorrow probably (since I have a bunch of orders to send out) and see if they're waiting. They freakin' better be! Regardless, I'm really excited. Baby Girl has all her football cheers down too, maybe I'll try to take video of her doing them. So far she's got "DEE FENS!" "GO BOWS!" and "TOUCHDOWN!" all ready. I'm so proud. *sniff*

Shrimp & Avocado Salad

As I mentioned last week, we took a trip to Kona this weekend. It broke the wallet to be sure, but was definitely worth it to take a vacation and see all the family I haven't seen in forever. It probably would have been nicer if my little Buddy wasn't such a ball of terror at night, but I can't blame him for having what appeared to be a hard time sleeping in a strange place. Plus, I dragged everyone up into the boonies of Kona to go to a bon dance, so that likely didn't help, haha.

Since I wasn't home all weekend I didn't get a chance to shop for food so I ended up making a salad for today. It's just as well since I ate a whole lot of cookies and bad foods over the weekend. (we went to Mrs. Barry's Cookies) I did discover that I sure stock a whole lot of salad foods in my fridge.


On the bottom where you can't see I have finely chopped romaine lettuce, celery, and edamame. On top I have cucumber slices, radish slices, sakura shaped ham, shrimp, avocado, grape tomatoes, and sakura carrots. This is a pretty big bento box so it's a nicely sized salad and with the 3 fruits (1 plum, 1 nectarine, 1 banana) I brought along with a bag of Smart Pop popcorn, that should be more than enough to tide me over for today. All Core salad, so I'm on the right track for this week!

The bon dance we went to was at this temple called Kona Koyasan Daishinji Mission (in Holualoa, up on the mountain, basically) and it was a nice, cute bon dance. We got there when they were taking a break for dinner, which oddly appeared to be free for all attendees. Mr. Pikko says he saw some lamers leaving with plates of food. We had just eaten so we didn't take anything. Their towels were free though, so I took two of those as I like to sort of collect those. They had a small yagura tower and the drummers were at the foot of it rather than inside it. They played some great songs and the drummers usually beat to each one, making them all pretty entertaining.

I took video of a lot of it and it was a good thing too because I was able to capture on camera one of the most hilarious and hip dances I've ever seen. They had a man announcing each song and he goes, "Next up we have "Yeaaaah!" and I thought eh? Then they start up "Yeah!" by Usher and all the old ladies in kimonos are dancing to Usher and saying, "Yeah!" Once I find my Adobe Premiere cd I am so putting that up for people to see. It was their favorite song, they played it three times!

Their last song was Fukushima Ondo and sadly, there was no one there to play the flute for it. Still, I got in and danced (once again carrying Baby Girl). There was a small group of kids there that were trying to get a "betcho" started, but didn't do so well since there weren't too many people. It died out right after the first "Betcho, betcho, betcho! Yo, yo, yokoisho!". Still, I was still happy to hear them trying! My dad says he saw a special on tv about the betcho and I was kinda bummed I missed it. Hopefully I can figure out who made it and find it online somewhere.

Ebi Curry Spaghetti

I'm at home sick today but since I will be venturing out to get a safety check on my van at a place nearby, I decided to go during lunchtime so that I can still do a bento today. This morning Baby Girl was really whimpery and sad about going back to school for some reason, so I took her in to school instead of her going with Daddy. She started screaming as soon as we got to the classroom and the aide had to pry her off my leg. Hopefully it really is just the dropping off part she doesn't like and this afternoon she'll be all smiles again.

I mentioned that I'd bought some packet to make Ebi Curry Spaghetti (ebi meaning shrimp) and I tried it out today. I ate what didn't fit in the box and it was pretty good!

The whole package according to the back is 2 servings at 140 calories and 1 gram of fat, which strikes me as a little odd but I guess since the serving of noodles is so small, that would be why. Whatever, something that low fat I can definitely live with!! Still, it comes out to 4 points for lunch. Not too bad, but it means I'll have to eat a pretty strict Core dinner tonight.

It was pretty easy to make, took about I dunno 10 minutes? That was probably because I sliced and cut the carrot flowers though. As you can see, there's broccoli to go with it. It looked pretty plain so I chopped up some carrot really fine to sprinkle on top. I have one more package in the fridge along with the rest of the shrimp, so maybe I'll try it out on the kids this weekend. ^_^

Butter Yaki

As I sit here once again in my freezing ass cubicle I am reminded of something odd I noticed about LA weather. When we were walking from the parking lot to the E3 hotel it was sunny, yet chilly too. It was like being in air conditioning outside! It was awesome! Something else odd is that no one in LA seems to use a/c in their cars. Taxis, my cousin, Matt from Square. Not that I'm complaining as I never broke a sweat in anyone's car, but it was just odd. I was standing out on the curb at the Honolulu airport for 5 minutes in a tank top and I started sweating!

As I mentioned yesterday, I made butter yaki for dinner which is basically veggies, meat, and shrimp cooked in butter in a pan and then dipped into a sauce and eaten with rice. VERY yummy. I'd never even heard of it until I met Mr. Pikko.


On the veggie side I have won bok (which was home to 5 stupid caterpillars that ate most of the cabbage), mung beans, eggplant, zucchini, and onions. I put the caterpillars into a little container for baby girl along with some of the won bok and she played with them until finally asking for them to be put outside in the grass near the car. The silly little things ate pretty much all through the head and I had very little to cook in the end. Grr!! On the meat side I have some beef and shrimp. Extreme close-up!


This box came with matching chopsticks and two side containers. In one container is the butter yaki sauce and the other contains rice and more mung beans. They all fit nicely into a matching floral zipper bag!


I've packed a KCCA salad and a nectarine as side snacks. I pigged out at dinner last night and was 127.5 this morning. My goal of 120 is right around the corner!! Notice the pictures don't look as bad now. I tried taking pics without the stove light on, relying more on the kitchen lights. Seems to look better!

Return of the Shrimp

Having just returned last night at 9:15 pm from my trip home to Hilo for my class reunion, I was too exhausted to make a bento last night. The reunion was fun, I got to see two of my good friends from high school and got my hilarious time capsule which contained letters to myself, $21 in cash, and a report card with two Ds that I obviously never gave to my parents. I wanted to go take a picture in front of BJ Penn's gym, but didn't have time. :(

So anyway, this morning I nabbed some of my freezer food, nuked it, and woot, a quickie bento. I love this freezing food thing, it's so convenient and efficient!


I threw in a lot of edamame for more veggies and packed a box of mango, cherry, and grapes. I had planned on going back on my 5 points a day Core diet again this week, but with the Fourth coming up, I know that won't fly. I'll probably try to stick to 5 on the days I can, but do 9 on days I don't feel like it. I was 129.5 this morning, so maintenance is going quite well. ^_^

My photos are getting rather bad, so I'll need to go look into getting better lighting somehow. The stove lights are just not cutting it anymore!

Shrimp & Broccoli Chow Mein

My in-laws gave us a bunch of frozen shrimp they couldn't use so I used it to make some thrown-together-haphazardly dinner last night. The shrimp is seasoned with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. The noodles were cooked with a can of chicken broth thickened with a little bit of cornstarch to make a nice sauce. Tasted pretty good for a totally eyeballed recipe!


Extreme close-up! I didn't take too much of the noodles because that would add a lot of points to this. My second layer is just all lomi salmon, which is pretty zzz by now so I didn't take a picture. If you're sick of seeing it in my bentos, trust me, I'm sick of eating it.

I haven't weighed in yet, but I'm pretty sure I gained at least a pound this week. I blame Monday's beach pig-out and the peanut butter cookies that I baked for Mr. Pikko. It didn't help that I decided to go "rogue" from Weight Watchers this past week because of the weakened start. I kinda told myself that I needed a naughty week and was also curious on my results of being on my own while trying to follow Core. Just goes to show you how easily one can slip back into old habits. Either that or Monday was a lot worse than I thought it was. This week I am back to strict points keeping. Last week I was calculating points but not writing them down, which apparently is quite bad.

But now that I've dispensed with the bad news, the good! I bought my first pair of jeans in like 7 years this weekend and was stunned to find that I can fit into a size 6 now. I still remember that sad shopping trip years and years ago where I found that I had ventured into the double digit size range. I never bought or wore jeans again. It felt good to buy them and it gave me the encouragement I needed to get back on track. My goal weight is just 10 lbs away!