Food Update: The Working Man's Lunch

Hey hey hey hey hey hey ehey. I have been cooking alot, I've gotten a bit lazy about documenting it all here, plus my camera tends to lose pictures of my best work.
October has taken a serious turn for the better. In fact, it's turning into one of the best I can remember. But after spending a week in a foggy, zenned-out daze, today is to be spent taking care of business-smogging my new car, paying the rent, doing odd jobs around town. A working man's day.
Luckily, a gorgeous woman was graceful enough to give me some fresh herbs and vegetables. It's been awhile since I had such ingredients to work with, it's nice to be overwhelmed by the quality of your stock, makes cooking very easy. So I set out to make a working man's lunch-hardy, nourishing and light enough to keep you moving.

A return to form for me, classic tofu saute. But here the fresh basil and rosemary from her garden really transformed the dish. A nice, spicy bitterness to compliment the exceptional sweetness of the tomatoes. I added a bit of the Benedetti's own Secret Goop (legendary stuff in our circle). I had never cooked with it before, but the buttery flavor of it is a cheap way to enrich the brocolli. The brown rich here was not my usual kitchen-sink, throw everything else in style, but plain instead. Kept it light, worked great with the herbs. I am a lucky man, no doubt.
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I want to tell you about the other projects the camera lost. We've been making the most of pumpkin season. A trip up to Fambrini's farms on 1 gave us a brilliant cooking pumpkin, whose seeds toasted up to total perfection. Never had any like them before. The rest of it went to a prototype Pumpkin-Ginger soup. A bit too creamy this time, not enough pumpkin. I'll revisit it soon.
One of my best audiences for trying out dishes is my friends at the local dinner I used to work at. In a fit of inspiration, it hit me-a homemade Bento box lunch for my Japanese friend. Never mind it was more of a brown bag affair, and I'm beyond white and near clueless about Japanese cuisine. No matter!
A little pumpkin soup, some fresh toasted seeds and seaweed and hummus with pine nuts, garlic and nori (more toasted sea weed). I was damn proud, especially the nori, which has been the odd item out in the pantry. Good to find a use for it.
Sound good to you? Want a bento delivered to you huh? Are you an adorable asian lady? Yeah? Ok, let's work something out.