Who doesn’t love ginger? Freshly cut ginger always smells so fresh, crisp, and clean. I’m half tempted to rub it behind my ears. ^_^ But, for as wonderful as it smells, it can get a bit overpowering when you use too much. This ginger beef had just the right amount of ginger flavor but without too much of the ‘heat’ that fresh ginger gives. The trick is cutting the ginger in large chunks and cooking it in the pan with everything else. Then, just before serving, pull the ginger pieces out of the pan. If it isn’t quite enough flavor, do what I did, and put those cooked juicy ginger chunks through a garlic press to extract the juice. It’s like liquid gold.

Hubs is still on his “I don’t like rice” kick. *sigh* So I paired the ginger beef with wild mushroom couscous. But please, don’t let anybody know it came from a box. Haha! For lunch, I added blueberries, a plum tomato, and marinated mozzarella.

I’m so impressed with how well the Happy Birthday giveaway is going! If you haven’t entered yet, you still have 5 more days to do so! Here is the giveaway link. I’m raffling off 2 bento starter kits! Oooh it’s so exciting!

Mother’s Day is coming up this weekend. Do you have any special plans?

Happy Bento-ing!

Tags: bento, lunchbots, couscous