SM Organics

Stumbling into SM supermarket's organic section was a pleasant surprise. SM organics are priced well for organics and depending on the item it can be anywhere from a third to half the price of its counter part at Rustance fresh. Rustance produce keeps longer and is isn't as shocked by the change of temperatures during transport. Some of my SM organic section purchases have had a bit of spoiling or partial softening, but you can cut it right off and keep the extra savings.

They have carrots, cucumber (both white and green, the white is just a bit sweeter and crisper), bell peppers, celery, cherry tomatoes, squash cabbage, chinese cabbage, broccoli, baby corn, and lemon grass. The produce is affordably priced - the baby corn and squash is at just 17 pesos, two pieces of carrots or a bundle of celery is 20 plus pesos, a bundle of three cucumbers of either variety is 50 pesos and so on.

There is a bit more than that, but off the top of my head thats what I remember. There are herbs and bagged salad leaves right after it. Don't get tricked by bagged salads though! (more on this in the next post). There are several publications that have discussed the "dirty dozen" and its clean counterparts. Most of the dirty dozen is made available at the SM grocery stores.

Check out the dirty dozen.

SM Beef and Bento #3: Burger steak, penne bolognese, with rice and veggies

The bolognese sauce was the winner in this batch. Its easier to make pasta in large batches and just freeze the extra for the rest of the month. I added a tea spoon of herbs de provence to it and it was amazing! I got my herbs de provence from Healthy Options in Shang ri-la mall. Its a bit pricey since its organic but i think its worth it, P550 (about $12) for a bottle that lasted me a year. The also have pre-ground black pepper, its in an orange bottle and its very good too! its only P220 (about $5-6) but organic produce makes so much of a difference in flavor and health benefits.

I packed in a lot more treats than i usually do since i wanted to try a couple of new products. The meat i used is ground beef from SM super market, whil i was cooking flys were attracted to food near the meat but not the meat itself. This was not something i liked, since it probably means that the meat is GMO or genetically modified. GM foods have been linked to organ failures and a whole other pleathora of health issues so suffice to say i wont be getting ground beef from SM anymore. Dont get me wrong, they have some good products and are afford-ably priced. But affordable now, can be a long term stay in the hospital much later on in life.

Compartment a:

Plain rice, Soy rice and strawberry rice with carrots and ham. a strawberry and soy and mayo containers.

Compartment b:

Mini-Hamburger steaks

Penne bolognese

cauliflower, snow peas, carrots

mini- cupcake

a piece of candy

Bento #2: tonkatsu with vegetable rice and soup

For this bento:

My goal here was to make a nutritious meal for my guy and bentos cheer him up a lot. I tried to sneak in as many veggies as i can by adding string beans, and i used the water broccoli was blanched in to cook the rice. Traditionally for man-bentos you put the rice in the larger compartment. Here i used the smaller compartment for rice, so it has less calories. For a little treat, i added a shortbread pie i got from choto shop on sale! it was only 10 pesos! thats about $.20. It was really tasty and i wish i bought more now.

I got the tonkatsu from the SM Mega Mall supermarket, it was about 10 pesos per tonkatsu. I was quite disappointed with this buy. The breading didn't have enough seasoning (pepper in particular) and the meat is so thin! I have six left in the freezer and i really don't want to touch them.

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Bento break down:

Compartment a:

Brown and red rice with broccoli, broad beans, and salmon furikake.

Compartment b:

Tonkatsu strips

Boiled egg

Spaghetti with Japanese mayo and cherry tomato

Cauliflower and bell peppers.

Soup bowl:

nilagang baka (boiled beef with saba bananas, cabbage and potatoes)