Still packing my lunches. I didn’t eat any packed lunches over the Chuseok holidays, but I didn’t get a chance to post the lunches I did eat at school.
So.. here’s what I’ve been eating.

First lunch

Bottom: Rice balls/주먹밥/onigiri in various shapes on lettuce. Cherry tomatoes to keep everything in place. The soy sauce bunny was extra, just in case. Radish sprouts. I just threw these in because i needed to eat them before they went bad, they were supposed to be bundles but I ran out of time.

Top: Square mandoo with green onions, tofu and chick soy sauce container, Korean seaweed salad and bachelor’s kimchi (총각김치)

Chick container close-up. Awww.

Second Lunch

Bottom: The rice is purple because I added one of those grain mixtures you can buy (next to the rice) in the grocery store. I don’t have a picture of the bag…
I got the lady at the grocery store to tell me the ratio (two regular cups of rice to one cup of grains) which I think was right. I added more water than usual for the grains. I’m not sure exactly how much because I eyeballed it, but it turned out well. Pink furikake (maybe dried salmon and cod roe?) is the garnish.

Top: Peeled microwave steamed eggplant with spicy peanut sauce, boiled bunny egg, the brown things are candied lotus root (연근정과) which I bought pre-made at Kim’s club along with the jap-chae (stir-fried korean glass noodles with vegetables) I got a discount because I told the ajummas behind the counter that it was for my packed lunch/dosirak (도시락).

About the eggplant, I found an eggplant recipe on Just Hungry and tried it out when I made this lunch. I’m trying to find different vegetables to eat and eggplants were cheap. I thought steaming them would be healthier, and I like peanut sauce so I figured it would be good.

The peanut sauce was from a mix and didn’t turn out that well and I just don’t like the texture of steamed eggplant. I’ll try this again in the future, maybe with a home-made peanut sauce instead, but I didn’t enjoy it very much.

Blurry bunny-egg close up. I’ve been having egg problems. My eggs haven’t been peeling in a very attractive way.

Third Lunch

Bottom: Rice with mixed grains and furikake, cheese rabbit with ham for garnish.

Middle: Mandu (steamed dumplings) with carrot slices as separators and bunny soy sauce container. Cherry tomatoes keep things from moving around.

Top: more eggplant (yuck), grapes, Dr. You animal crackers (90 calories), and some coconut taffy type candy.

Fourth Lunch
Mmm. Cilantro! Cilantro in Korean is 구수 – which is good to know at the grocery store.
The Lotte Mart near me carries cilantro.

Bottom: Two burritos with fat free chile refried beans, shredded sharp cheddar, shredded cabbage, shredded carrot, lettuce, diced onion and cilantro. The bear container has hot sauce.

I can’t get whole wheat tortillas here, but I found some mini frozen tortillas in the foreign market section of a Hyundai department store.

Sour cream and Salsa container. I didn’t want my burritos getting soggy so I left these out on the side.

Top: Chopped pineapple, cherry tomatoes, and Sul ddeok (술떡) also known as Jeungpyeon 증편.
Sul ddeok is a kind of rice cake made with makkeolli (막걸리) which is a korean rice liquor. It’s probably my favorite kind of ddeok, mostly because it’s sweet in a subtle way with a fluffy texture. Best of all because it’s made using fermented dough it smells kind of like bread.

About the different names for this particular rice cake: Sul ddeok is the pure Korean name, and Jeungpyeon is derived from the Chinese characters – which is why the names are different.

Fifth Lunch
Same thing – packed a slightly different way. I have to eat the same foods over and over a lot because well, I’m the only one in my household. This one was tasty though so I didn’t mind.

Yup. The end.
This is the second day of school this week because of the holiday, so I have two more lunches to post after I upload the pictures.