Hello Bento Friends!
Hope your summer is going swimmingly! If you're like us, you've been making sure you enjoy every last bit of summer vacation before it's gone -- and it's always gone too soon, isn't it? I sometimes feel like we're actually busier during summer than during the school year. Is that weird? Anyway, one of my summer goals was to make sure to try out some new bento gear and develop some new lunchpacking ideas to put in use for the upcoming school year. And I am starting on that project now!
The first new bento box I want to show you is a knockout stunner of a beauty. It's called
Eshly Deli Box and it's manufactured in Berlin, Germany from European Ash wood; each round box from a single piece of wood.
This is the interior: the box comes with two removable interlocking pieces which divide the box into four sections. I've also used one of the pieces by itself to create two sections, and because of slight variation in the wood, the piece can wedge into position in certain locations and it works fine.
The craftsmanship is delightful. The lightweight wood is smooth, splinter-free, and the grain and color variations add to the natural good looks of the box.
The loose-fitting lid is grooved on top to allow the elastic band to secure the box snugly without moving around or accidentally slipping off.
Here is my inaugural bento in the Eshly Deli Box. I placed the food inside silicone cups because I was anxious about staining the brand new wood! I need not have worried, though. The product designer assured me that although the wood may take up color from certain foods like beet or berry juice, over time it will fade just like wooden cutting boards. I packed ume soba with halved grape tomatoes, chopped green onions, scallions, romaine lettuce leaves and a tiny bottle of tsuyu as a deconstructed soba salad. I also included homemade roasted five-spice chickpeas, carrots, and lightly steamed corn on the cob. A tiny mandarin and a black apricot round out the meal.
My lunch looks like summer in a box! I found the Eshly box to clean up easily with damp wiping. It is fine to wash with soapy water if necessary, as long as you promptly dry it completely. I imagine the care should be the same as that taken with unvarnished Japanese magewappa wooden boxes as well.
Overall I was very pleased with the performance of the
Eshly Deli Box. It is lightweight, well-made, comes with a secure elastic band dyed with natural dye, and is very practical with removable section dividers. I love the fact that it is made of natural and ecologically sound hardwood, of a variety that is more elastic, more resistant to abrasion, more easily bent and less subject to splintering than most other kinds of wood (taken from company info sheet). Furthermore, and perhaps most of all, it is beautiful. I might not send it to school with younger children (not for any reason except the possibility of dropping and damaging), but I'm sure middle schoolers and up will have no problems caring for this box. I love this box and you can be sure I will be packing many more bento in it in the future!
For more info on this box, you may contact the company Atelier Britta Knuppel at www.brittaknueppel.de or on Instagram @eshlyberlin.
Today I decided to make a cute bento for my toddler; what's more, I remembered the quail eggs I bought earlier this week and decided to use them. First, I hard-boiled the eggs. Peel them carefully, so as not to get too many nicks and blemishes. It's best to do this with a dry egg. For the ears and arms I cut radish shapes with my plastic cutter, and inserted the ears into the head after cutting small slots into the egg with a small knife. The facial details are cut from nori. The carrot is a tiny triangle cut from a real carrot, and the carrot top is a bit of cilantro (this will not be eaten by my girl, which I know from experience). Bunny sits on a bed of soba, which she loves. Noodles of all kinds are a big hit with her. Perhaps you can see a failed egg under the soba as well. In addition, she gets a sweet potato and a golden beet flower, and various summer fruits: blueberries, Bing cherries, golden raspberries and strawberry. Finally, I decorated with snips of fresh herbs from my garden: rosemary, mint and lemon verbena (my favorite). It is a fragrant and happy bento for my little girl, for sure!.JPG)
You should cook soba (buckwheat) noodles for only 4 minutes, then rinse quickly in cold water. They should be nice and slippery, and kind of al dente.
You can blanch a whole bunch of spinach in boiling water for less than a minute, and it will shrink down to a tiny log that you can smush in your palm! Try to get all the water out. Keep it in this log form so that it will be easy to chop roughly.
You can use premade sauce, but it's just as easy to make your own. Here is what I put in my sauce: rice vinegar, mirin, shoyu, lime juice, sesame oil and grated ginger. It's tangy and fresh. You can toss everything together with the noodles, or you can arrange the spinach and green onion (and surimi) on top for a beautiful presentation, and then drizzle the sauce.
