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Part of this lunch is typical-for-me fare - omurice and steamed broccoli with Spanish cheese. The coconut mochi is a chocolate-infused part of yesterday's batch. (Chocolate was not part of the recipe, but anyone who knows me would be surprised if I didn't try it anyway.) But between those are some experiments.

The first is steamed taro roots. They're potatolike, but the taste and texture is different enough that I wasn't sure how I'd cook them by themselves.  What flavors compliment taro root? So I cut two of them into 1/4" discs and steamed them about 15 minutes until they were tender enough to eat, then tried them with various seasonings. Salt, ketchup, garlic powder, butter... surprisingly, the best one I found was okonomiyaki sauce, so that's what's in the little blue container.

Surrounding the mochi are a few French garlic bread soldiers. The last batch of French bread I made came out kind of weird - the dough was wetter than I intended, making it sticky and very elastic, and I got distracted and let it rise for much too long. However, because of the added elasticity the dough didn't collapse; it just spread out into a wide, low loaf. Hmm. After I baked it I found that the bread was lighter and airier than usual, and in fact reminded me of the garlic French bread at Jason's Deli. Hmmm! So I buttered and garlicked up a piece, toasted it over low heat, and it's pretty darn close! So, I packed a few long, thin strips - "soldiers" - into this lunch box.

Wanna talk about it?