As promised, I present my JLPT “study-friendly” bento full of raw goodies. For those of you who are not familiar with JLPT, it is actually the Japanese Language Proficiency Test for foreigners. If you get Level 2 or 1, you can work in Japan.

I was sitting for Level 2 again (the first time was so gut-wrenchingly awful) but I don’t really expect to ace it. I know it sounds rather negative but this test is notoriously hard and most people pass it only on the 3rd or 4th or even 5th try. I swear I studied my Kanji Master textbook of 1,000 kanji words but I didn’t know the ones that came out in the test. I know the individual characters but the combinations were new to me….

Anyway, back to the food. I made a huge batch of tabbouleh so that the non-raw fiance and I could share it (he got his own carnivore bento). For dessert, I threw in some blueberries and drizzled almond butter on top. And to bulk things up, an avocado to go with the tabbouleh.

We only really had 30 minutes to devour our lunches before we had to head back into the exam room.

I had to rush through my salad and couldn’t finish it. I think it was a mistake to tote along such a munchy meal. Perhaps next year I’ll just bring a raw soup which I can down in less than a minute. I made a point to eat all raw too because that just keeps my head clear and focused. I had a green juice and chia pudding for breakfast and it was too light for me because the break came at 230pm and I had to will myself to ignore my growling stomach.

You know, these Japanese exams are really like running a marathon — learning a language is something you need to practice regularly (no amount of cheating will get you anywhere); the level of commitment is high and your patience has to be enduring; there are always hills and valleys; you gotta keep fine-tuning the formula till you find your groove.

We’re supposed to blog at least 5 times a week, if not daily, but I’ll see how it goes because I’ve never blogged daily and it does seem challenging.

So I’m going to open with a bento post for Vegan Mofo…naturally!!

The night before the Ogano half-marathon race two weekends ago, I packed dinner into bentos so we could have a nutritious meal at the onsen hotel. We were going to arrive late, around 930pm, so we would have missed out on dinner which ended at 8pm (countryside schedules are super early).

I’m still not sure if eating a lot of carbs before a long distance race helps because I read that our bodies can only store up to an hour’s worth of carbohydrates. In fact, I find eating a huge meal at night keeps me from feeling fully rested. So I went for the middle road.

I made my own bean sprout kimchi which is actually a raw take on Korean marinated bean sprouts, Kong Jang. The bean sprouts are meant to be blanched in boiling water for a minute but I figured that raw bean sprouts wilt very quickly with a touch of acidity, I could rawify Kong Jang. In fact, some recipes call for vinegar so I was confident I could wilt raw bean sprouts in a jiffy. This batch was made two days before so no preparation was needed for this bento.

Recipe (marinate for an hour):
3 cups raw beans sprouts
Juice of 1/4 lemon
2 tbs shoyu
2 tbs Korean red pepper flakes
Dash of sesame oil
2 tbs raw sesame seeds

I wanted to fill up the other section of this Totoro bento so I chopped some cucumber and poured leftover sauce from the bean sprout marinade.

I had to somehow transport the contents of this salad bowl…And did so with two ordinary plastic containers. Big salads don’t stuff well into teeny tiny cute bentos – lol! But we needed our salad, dammit!

I whipped this one up on the spot…creamy parsley dressing:

In a high-speed blender:
1 cup soaked cashews
Handful of flat-leaf parsley
1 clove garlic
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Sprinkle of nutritional yeast
Dash of sea salt
Pinch of black pepper
1/2 water

I couldn’t decide if we needed snacks or dessert so I just tossed in whatever was available. Chocolate truffles and pistachios were devoured on the drive up.

For my main, I packed an Asian brown rice pasta stir-fry.

I paired it with this homemade fiery chilli sauce that is raw.

In a food processor:
1 cup small red chillis
1 clove garlic
2 dates
1 tsp olive oil
1/4 cup water

I managed to spot red chillies at my local supermarket a month ago — this is extremely rare as they only usually stock non-spicy green chillies. I didn’t know what I was going to do with them but I nabbed them all the same. I can’t tell you how much I miss these overly spicy make-you-cry tiny red chillis, or chilli padi as we call them in Singapore. I decided to make a garlicky chilli sauce to pair with noodles or rice dishes. Whoo….!

A heart-shaped pot of diabolic elixir that is the path to any Singaporean’s heart.

The non-raw fiance had a bento of stir-fried chicken and brown rice but it’s not pictured here. I think I was too hungry by the time we arrived at our onsen hotel in Ogano so I hoovered all my food and was feeling pretty stuffed — so much for the middle road! But an improvement from pre-workout dinners/breakfasts many moons ago when I inhaled heavy cooked food like sweet and sour tofu, lots of meat, rice, bananas, and broccoli at 4am in the morning! Craziness! Now I just make one of these smoothies two hours before a race.

I couldn’t sleep well unfortunately. In fact, I felt fine two hours after we ate; I was sleepless because I was apprehensive. I need to learn how to take a chill pill…I think I suffer from too much excitement haha… I had a fabulous time, though. I hope to do more of these trips again.

It’s been a while since I posted a bento photo here. This was made for a wedding picnic I went to two weekends ago. I didn’t want to buy chips or other junk food but I also didn’t want to bring “hardcore” raw food to the party, so I made Vietnamese veggie spring rolls (recipe here).

In the little heart-shaped container was a large scoop of ra-yu, a chilli infused oil with pickled veggies, to act as a dip. The oil is definitely not raw but I was in a screaming hurry and I thought it would be something familiar for my companions if they should so try my food.

Ra-yu is the latest culinary craze in Tokyo, by the way. There are many combinations of chilli oil products — from garlic chips to minced meat — in supermarkets. Anyway, I checked the ingredients for the bottle I bought in Nagano and the list was pretty much oil, salt, vinegar, sugar, pickled veggies and chilli. Big yum!!

As the owner of three blogs, my camera and desktop are constantly overflowing with photos. I stumbled upon these photos of a bento I made in early May — before my aversion to nut pates. At the time, this bento was pretty yummy. I don’t have a name for it, so maybe “red pepper macadamia”…

Recipe in a high-speed blender:
1/2 red bell pepper/capsicum
1 cup soaked macadamia
1 garlic clove
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 cup water
Sea salt to taste
Dash of nutritional yeast

I wonder if you guys ever get sick of looking at Raweos in my bentos? I put in some prunes and blueberries for variety. The crackers are Lydia’s Organics Green Crackers, I think.

The bento didn’t transport the nut pate very well — it dribbled onto the crackers so they were a bit soggy when I ate them. But this was certainly a great snack to have while I stomp all over Tokyo to teach Japanese adults.

I used it as a dessert and fruit bento: a raweo and dried cherries, plus blueberries and half an orange.

The orange made it look more attractive and scrummy.

I also toted a marinated broccoli salad with mushroom “scallops” in the Totoro bento.

Awww… look at the sleeve — chooo kawaii (veeery cute)…

The recipe for marinated veggies is here and the mushroom scallops are really easy: marinate slices of king oyster mushrooms in apple cider vinegar, olive oil, and shoyu for two hours. These slippery discs tasted so good with the veggies.

Unfortunately this bento was a little too light for lunch. It lasted me only for two hours, and if you look at it, there aren’t any heavy foods in there. Will pack an avo or some flax crackers next time.

I’m happy to report that eating a high-raw vegan diet has helped my aches and pains melt away faster than when I was on a cooked diet. More on that later in a separate post. Even though I’m feeling so busy, I still love coming in here to talk about one of my fave topics in my life: raw food and bento-making!

This bento was made in March when I had the non-raw fiance’s mum visiting. I had a full day of teaching and pushing out orders for my small online business but I didn’t want to give into store-bought onigiris on the run.

I slapped together a quickie bento in less than a minute: leftover raw tabouleh and flax crackers on the side. I like the way tabouleh marinates and oozes with flavour by the time I take it out to eat.

I sometimes get comments about how bentos seem too small for an adult-sized appetite but I think choosing a larger container will solve such a problem. The other tip I would like to dish out is that you should choose dense, filling foods that are compact and therefore easy to tote around, eg. flax crackers, raw granola, avocado, and hemp seeds (you can sprinkle this on a salad to bulk it up — these babies are power-packed!).

Perhaps it also has to do with individual needs — I wouldn’t have been able to be satiated with one bento (double-layered) full of raw food when I first started out 18 months ago. But now, my body doesn’t need so much food all at once to feel okay. Please don’t think I eat like a bird, too, because I find that I’m someone who eats small meals, but frequently. You can read what a typical day in my diet is like here.

I packed some leftover raw coleslaw, an avocado, and a few frozen raw chocolate truffles. I usually tote along a small knife wrapped in a hand towel to slice up the avo. It was a filling late morning snack — much needed because I only had a green smoothie earlier on.

Recipe for raw mayo for coleslaw (in a blender):
1 cup soaked pine nuts (soak for one hour)
1 clove garlic
Juice of half a lemon or 1 tbs of apple cider vinegar
Salt to taste
½ cup water

Drizzle over chopped cabbage and shredded carrot. Such a simple salad but one of my all-time faves.

Even the chopsticks match!

And look at the sleeve…awwwwwww…..

I made a lot of raw pad thai (click here for the recipe) for lunch one day so I packed the leftovers for a bento the next day.

For a while I was hooked on blueberries and almond butter so I had to tote a little container along.

Prep time: 2 minutes

I’m a little annoyed with my stainless steel bento because it leeks very easily. I put this in a plastic bag but it had a little tear on the side so pad thai juice oozed all over my bento sleeve and stained my bag. Argh!

Was yummy anyway and had this under the sun at Hibiya Park.

As I mentioned previously, I’m finding it difficult to digest heavy portions of nuts and seeds, so I haven’t been chowing on raw crackers as frequently as before. Carrot sticks and cucumber slices are what I use when I make a dip.

One of the fastest raw dips to make is a pine nut based one because it only takes an hour of soaking for it to be ready. Other nuts like cashews, macadamias, walnuts and almonds take 6 – 8 hours to soak and I definitely need to plan in advance if I want it for a certain meal. You can find the recipe here for the sundried tomato pine nut pate I made for this bento.

I had some baby tomatoes that needed to be eaten so I threw those in too.

Another fave is Lydia’s Organics Lemon & Ginger bar that is made of sprouted buckwheat. I enjoy Larabars but they can be a bit too sweet as they’re 50 per cent dates and 50 per cent nuts or other fruit.

My token raw dessert is always a Raweo but they are so friggin’ good and small enough for bentos.

I’ll be going to San Fran again in late April so I hope to discover new raw treats to bring back to Tokyo. Can’t wait!

I had a new pate lying around in my fridge so it was perfect for a super fast bento for a super busy day out.

Recipe (in a food processor):
1 cup soaked cashews
A handful coriander/cilantro
Juice of half a lemon
Pinch of curry powder
Salt to taste
A touch of water

This is not an original recipe of mine and I took this from The Raw Freedom Community. Unfortunately I can’t remember who came up with this but it sure is yummy if you like the taste of curry and coriander.

Baby carrots are perfect for scooping up raw pates and there is no chopping involved! Of course, I had to tote along two luscious Raweos that the non-raw fiancé bought for me on his last trip to the US. He may not subscribe to “raw philosophy” but he is still sweet in that he buys me raw food that is not available in Tokyo.