🍀Happy St. Paddy's Day Bento! 🍀

Green green green!

Happy St. Patrick's Day, you guys! ☘☘☘ It's that green time of year; luckily there are lots of green foods to choose from. Too bad the protein has to deviate from the color scheme but maybe it's better that not EVERYthing is green...

Inside this cute green frog bento: stirfried chicken, baby bok choy and peas, tomato, strawberries, kiwi.

I made shamrock egg rings with green bell peppers (I looked for 4-lobed ones and sliced them about a half inch thick). You can fry the egg directly in the pepper ring and then put a lid on the pan to finish steam cooking. The rest of this Sistema bento contains: pesto spinach pasta, turkey bacon green bean rollups, a cucumber pot of pickled wakame (plus the cucumber balls), blueberries, strawberries and kiwi.

Hope you all have a fantastic St. Paddy's Day weekend! 🍀🍀🍀

St. Paddy's Day Green(ish) Bento!

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone! In honor of this holiday, I've made a "green" Lunchbots Quad bento for TinySprite: okay, maybe half green. The right half. The green part: kiwi, pasta with pesto, and green pepper "shamrock." I also nearly every green pick I own, which turns out to be quite a few. Yay! The other half: tomato, mandarin, and sausage/mushroom. Fork/spoon/knife combo utensil by Light My Fire.

Pesto Pasta Panda Bento - the first bento of 2013!

Pesto Pasta Panda Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Well, it's been quite a long time (about 3 weeks) since I've made a bento, taken a photo and posted to the blog. But I'm baaaa-aack! School started last week, actually, and that's when I made this one for TinySprite. It's simply some whole wheat rotini pasta tossed with pesto and sprinkled with parmesan. Easy! And it's usually the first kind of bento I make when we get back home and face an empty refrigerator. The top tier of the beloved panda bowl bento holds some satsuma mandarin segments, a tiny cup of blueberries, a couple grape tomatoes, steamed broccoli and Okinawan sweet potato, carrot, and a piece of homemade granola bar. So glad we had enough odds and ends around the house to fill up a decent bento lunch. Welcome to the new year, friends!

We're Back! Pesto Tomato Pasta Bento

Pesto Tomato Pasta Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

This is a bento set from the week before we left on vacation. I didn't get a chance to post all week; in fact, I didn't even boot up the laptop, heh. It was fun to take a bento-break while we visited with family in Los Angeles. The kids love going swimming and playing ball at their cousins' place, and visiting with their grandparents. We got to enjoy a real summer week of 90s temps too! It was great. For these bentos I made spaghetti with pesto and roasted grape tomatoes. I decorated MisterMan's with a colby cheese and Okinawan sweet potato "ice cream cone" while TinySprite got a Hello Kitty face on hers. They both got corn on the cob and various summer fruit like: lychee, cherries, blackberries and donut Sweet Peach Pie peaches. Cool pasta and fresh fruit make a perfectly satisfying summertime bento. Don't you think?

Children's Day Bento

Children's Day Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

Children's Day (こどもの日, Kodomo no hi) is a Japanese national holiday which takes place annually on May 5, the fifth day of the fifth month, and is part of the Golden Week. It is a day set aside to respect children's personalities and to celebrate their happiness. It was designated a national holiday by the Japanese government in 1948. (Wikipedia)

I don't know about you, but when I was growing up we called the 5th day of the 5th month Boys' Day and the 3rd day of the 3rd month Girls' Day (Hinamatsuri). So May 5th always makes me think of boys, kabuto, and koinobori. To celebrate this holiday I made a boy from a halved hard-boiled egg decorated with nori features and wearing a purple carrot kabuto (military helmet). The koinobori is made from the other half of the egg dyed with beet juice and cut into a fish shape with my small paring knife. I cut the scales with a straw cut lengthwise in half, and the eye with another straw. It's flying from the pole by rice sticks.

The rest of the bento has pasta tossed with my homemade arugula pesto and roasted grape tomatoes, steamed broccoli, carrots, strawberry and grapes. This cool bento box has a raised lid so the boy can look out the window with his carp to greet MisterMan at lunchtime. Happy Children's Day to all kids everywhere! ^_^

*for arugula pesto:
2-3 cups arugula alone, or mix in some basil if you like.
1/2 cup roasted hazelnuts
1-2 cloves garlic (depends how garlicky you like it)
Process, and gradually add olive oil (about 2/3 cup) to desired consistency.
Also add 2/3 cup grated parmesan, process until smooth.

I toss with pasta, or use as sandwich spread. Yum!