Polenta Bento

This one is a mishmash of stuff we had at dinner, including the polenta that made an appearance on my toast in the previous post. I think TinySprite would prefer a box filled completely with sausage; she's a definite meat lover🐖🐮

😊❤🍱

Mini Sandwich Bento

The schools in our area have all closed for the next 2 weeks at least, so we will be at home isolating and socially distancing ourselves. I might therefore be experimenting with snacks and lunches; brace yourselves.

I always wanted to try making mini sandwiches. It would take a ton of these to satisfy my kids though😆

On the upside, look at these super kawaii sushi and green tea picks from Modes4u.com! I love these!

They are exquisitely detailed with cheerful cute faces, and sized perfectly for bento or tiny sandwiches. Can't wait to try it with sushi!

😊❤🍱

Domo Meatloaf Bento

I forgot where I found this meatloaf recipe but it calls for a whole container of silken tofu to be mixed with 1 pound of ground turkey and 1 pound of ground beef (or pork). You wouldn't notice the tofu except that this meatloaf comes out very moist and with a lighter texture; not as dense as a regular meatloaf. It's pretty good, and I'm thinking healthier too! 

And of course, rectangular brown food must be transformed into Domokun. I think it's a bento rule.

😊❤🍱

First Bento of 2020!

Hello bento peeps; anyone out there?
It's been almost a year since my last post (!) but one of my goals for 2020 is to revisit the blog, revive the inspiration, reinvent the passion, rearrange the way I'm preparing lunch, snacks and meals.
MisterMan is 16 now, and TinySprite is 12 (and taller than me so not so tiny any more) and they are well on their way to developing their own bentomaking skills. But today they both happened to be on school field trips and as I looked at their boxes sitting here at home I thought: I wonder if I still remember how? 🤔

Surprise! I can still put out a couple of good bento lunches. I threw these together in a half hour, using leftovers and stuff already in the fridge. It took way longer for me to remember how to upload the pics and insert the codes😑
But I am determined. I'm bringing bento back😊

Top: TinySprite's bento in stainless steel box, similar to this one.
Bottom: MisterMan's glass Pure Bento from Smart Planet Home.

Happy Easter Baby Chick Bento! 🐣🐰

It's not Easter yet, but one of my kids is already on school break. The other one's break is the week after Easter. Seems so late! How about your kids?

So anyway, here's my bento for the occasion. Had to make the baby chick egg, of course! If you do this, try to keep the yolk in the center. It really makes the carving much easier! My yolks were way off center so it was hard to cut neatly through so much white. In fact, the yolk was so low in the first egg I tried that I didn't even reach it at all -_-

Inside our Ecolunchbox Solo Cube: ham-spinach-tomato-enoki-furikake rice onigirazu, Okinawan sweet potato cherry blossoms, sweet baby peppers stuffed with edamame, tomato and berries.

Inside the Eco Dipper: soba, lettuce, hard boiled egg.

Happy Easter, friends!

🌱Saladbook For Lunch Bento!🌱

 Getting our greens in early this week! 🌱🌱🌱🥗🥗🥗

I got inspired by all the beautiful grain bowls I saw this weekend flying through my instafeed so decided to pull out the Smart Planet Home Saladbook and pack one of our own. This box is perfect for tossing together whatever your favorite salad fixings might be and making them look appetizing in this shallow round box. It looks like a ton of food but it's really only about an inch deep. What's great is you can go ahead and put the salad dressing on if you like since the lid is leakproof. Nice!

In our Saladbook: quinoa/millet/buckwheat, romaine lettuce, cucumber, red onion, mushroom, corn, tomatoes, egg, kimchi, and a drizzle of homemade oil and balsamic citrus dressing. Instant healthy lunch!❣😊💚🍱🥗🌱

BB-8 Bento

Happy Star Wars Day, or May the 4th Be With You!
A little light bento for TinySprite includes her current favorite polenta made with cornmeal, corn grits, and millet; steamed Okinawan sweet potato, little quail egg BB8, tomato, pickled cucumbers, lotus root, daikon and carrot; raspberries and mandarin.

Chef Bento Noodle Contest Results

Wow - so exciting and incredible to place first in the final 10 (of 172 worldwide entries) at the Bento & Co contest! Thank you, friends, for voting for my bento! I really am appreciative and honored! 😘❤🍱

Totoro Soba Saladbook Bento!

Hello from Totoro! Yup, it's another Totoro bento. It may be true that we are in the midst of Fall, but we are still digging the cold noodle bento these days. This one is a soba salad, with chopped romaine, shredded carrot, fishcake (kamaboko), nori, grape tomatoes, and steamed Okinawan sweet potato soot sprites. I poured tsuyu directly on the noodles because the lid is gasketed and advertised to be leakproof. Spoiler: it didn't leak! This is a new lunchbox called SaladBook by Smart Planet. It's only the first time we've used it so we'll reserve judgement until we use it again. Stay tuned!

Mediterranean Life Without Plastic Bento

There's actually a theme to this bento, kind of, instead of just a hodgepodge of miscellaneous foods, for a change! It's also vegetarian. I was going to make a bento grain bowl, but then I realized I could use one of the dividers in this Life Without Plastic container to keep the fruit separate. So now it's a ¾ bento bowl. The cauliflowerettes and purple carrots are roasted with olive oil and whole garlic cloves over lentils and quinoa topped with halved cherry tomatoes; cumin-spiced crispy chickpeas; and a beet-yogurt romaine salad. The kids like these beets because of the vinegary honey yogurt sauce. Also, I told MisterMan that beets are a natural stamina booster, so he asks for it on P.E. days now!

The cut fruit are a variety of orange-fleshed honeydew called Golden Dewlicious. It's pretty good but not as sweet as cantaloupe. I think the summer season for melons might be drawing to a close pretty soon. We'll have to take advantage of the last remaining fruit while we can. So sad! Has Fall arrived yet where you are?

Crispy Spiced Chickpeas

• 2 (15-ounce) cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed 
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon chili powder

Method:

Toss chickpeas with olive oil and spread in skillet (you can also roast in oven instead),

Fry (or roast) over medium heat until crispy, about 20 minutes.

Sprinkle with spices to coat all chickpeas.

Experiment with your favorite flavors, such as garlic powder, curry powder, cayenne pepper, Chinese five spice, Japanese togarashi - anything you like!

Beet Yogurt Salad

• 3/4 pound beets (2 large or 8 small), trimmed
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 teaspoons sherry vinegar (or red wine vinegar)
• 1/2 cup Greek yogurt
• 2 tablespoons honey, or to taste

Method:

Wash and dry beets, place in foil wrapper, and roast at 450F until fork tender, about 45 minutes, depending on size. When cool, rub off skins and slice into half rounds or smaller. Whisk together oil, vinegar, yogurt, honey, salt and pepper. Mix in beets - they turn the dressing a pretty shade of pink! Eat as is or atop salad greens of your choice.

Chicken Teriyaki Onigirazu and Makizushi Bento

Hi friends! This is my first attempt at onigirazu. Onigirazu is like a rice ball (onigiri) except it is square in shape and flatter, like a sandwich. In this way, you can have more fillings than inside a round or triangular ball. Onigirazu molds exist, just as they do for regular onigiri, but I didn't have a mold so I freehanded it - placing rice, chicken teriyaki, lightly sauteed asparagus, then more rice on a nori sheet. Then I folded it, wrapped in wax paper, and cut in half so it would fit nicely inside the Eshly Deli Box. I filled out the rest of the box with purple carrot flowers, tomato, broccoli, and a melon sampler. Have you been eating as much melon as we have? It has been a great summer for sweet watermelon, honeydew, and cantaloupe!

I thought it came out pretty well, and MisterMan seemed to like it. There are lots of possibilities for fillings, and it is a good way to use up refrigerator leftovers easily (ham and egg, tuna salad, tomato bacon lettuce, smoked salmon cream cheese, steak, hamburger, whatever!).

I decided to make TinySprite's chicken and asparagus inside a makisushi roll. I thought it might be easier (and more fun) for her to eat this way. And they fit nicely inside the LunchBots Clicks box, alongside some Dapple Dandy pluots and a sweet strawberry. This stainless steel box comes in a couple sizes and is great because not only does it have a leakproof lid but the lid is translucent so you can see what's for lunch! I love that effect a lot. So there we have a couple of nice cool bento for a warm summer day! Hope you are all enjoying your last bit of summer!

Tacorice Bowl Bento

Tacorice is perfect for bento, especially if you have a bowl-type bento container, which we happen to have shown here. If you don't, a regular box will suffice as well, of course. I like this apple-shaped box because it has a separate top layer where we can put fruit and extras. The lid screws on to the bottom and has an attached handle. It's not super secure (or watertight) so I always remind the kids to support the bottom when they carry it around. It hasn't spilled yet.

Over rice: ground beef with taco seasoning, chopped lettuce, tomatoes, shredded cheddar, cilantro. You can also add avocado and salsa of choice; even tortilla strips or chips. Top layer: mandarin orange, blueberries, and steamed Okinawan sweet potato. Ultraman fork😊

New Bento Box Review: Life Without Plastic

More summery bento! And a new bento box! 

There's a brand-new (to me) new lunchbox in town, and it's pretty cool. It's called Round Stainless Steel Airtight Takeout Container with Dividers. I was intrigued because I've used airtight stainless steel containers before (Lunchbot Clicks) and divided stainless steel containers before (Lunchbots, Planetbox, and Ecolunchboxes) but I was always wishing for a bento box container that combined those three highly desirable qualities: stainless steel, airtight, and divided.

\

Finally, there is one!

The two dividers fit together loosely so the four sections may not separate completely; just enough to keep most of the foods from touching each other and mixing together. If there is any liquid in any of the sections, however, it will probably leak into the other sections.

There is a gasket that fits snugly underneath the lid, though, ensuring a watertight seal once the three latches are secured. So any liquid inside the container should theoretically not leak out into your (or your child's) lunch tote or backpack.

The inaugural bento I made in this container is something we've been eating a lot of this summer:

somen salad!

I think it looks beautiful in this box, and if you chill it, the salad will stay cool for awhile, which I love. Okay, I didn't make use of the dividers this time, but that's on the list next time for sure.

The container I used in the center doesn't come with the box, but if you had one, with a lid, it might be ideal to hold sauce for dipping (or pouring). I packed the tsuyu sauce in a little bottle but you could also just pour the sauce on top before packing, since it is a watertight box! I lay the somen noodles on a bed of chopped romaine lettuce, since that's how I like to eat this salad, but you could also shred the lettuce and lay it on top with the other toppings. I used halved grape tomatoes, sliced steamed Okinawan sweet (purple) potatoes, sliced deli ham, chopped green onions, julienned carrots, and sesame seeds. Sometimes I sprinkle furikake too. The box performed well, is easy to open and close, is watertight as described, and looks elegant enough for adults to use as well as kids. This one is definitely going to get a lot of use, maybe more by me than anyone else! 

Disclosure: Life Without Plastic generously provided me with this product for use without cost to me. I was not required to write a positive review, nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are my own.

      

Pork Chop Strips Bento

For this simple lunch I made pan-fried Vietnamese style thin pork chops, which I sliced into strips for the kids' bento. I marinated the meat in a mixture of fish sauce, rice vinegar, brown sugar, shallots, and cracked black pepper before cooking them in a cast iron pan. Added the sliced peppers too, and reduced the sauce. You can serve them in a lettuce wrap with pickled veggies, or over shredded lettuce, or with baby sweet peppers like I did here. A half peach and some chopped Asian pear round out the bento for MisterMan. They both love this meat, and it's a great way to get them to eat lettuce too :)

Totoro Calzone Bento

Aw, it's Totoro! You may have to use your imagination, though. I made pizzas for dinner, and always try to make some kind of cute calzone at the same time. You can see my past attempts if you do a search in the blog search bar. I know, I made his chevrons wrong. Shoots! He has a spinach leaf umbrella, and a tomato balloon. I hope he's happy! And I hope you are too ^__^

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.

Herby Chicken Lunchbot Cinco Bento

This is my first time using the large Cinco box from Lunchbots, and I was very excited to see what my middle-schooler thought of it! We are heavy users of the company's other boxes (Duo, Trio and Quad, as well as the Clicks series) and I heartily endorse the quality of those containers. I've been packing home lunch in these boxes their whole school lives, and they are all still in use after 6-7 years, none the worse for wear. I thought this larger size would be just right for my boy, who has a pretty big appetite. I took the opportunity to pack a whole chicken thigh and a serving of spinach pasta with potatoes and asparagus in the two biggest sections. That left me still with three more, smaller, sections which I filled with pickled carrots and daikon, sliced kiwi, and grapes, strawberry and tomato. He loved  it; had no problem finishing all the food. While the box is a bit larger in size than our other Lunchbots, it still fit nicely inside his insulated tote bag. I have a feeling this new box will be getting a lot of use in the coming years. Thumbs up!

Bunny Riceball and Salted Salmon Bento

Salted salmon and rice for TinySprite today. Have you made shiozake before? The method I use is one from LovelyLanvin's recipe: I salt the fish overnight, then slice into small strips before broiling. It packs very well for bento and tastes delicious cold or room temperature. It's nice to serve with plain rice because the salmon itself has lots of flavor. I decorated the rice with nori into a bunny face, and using lettuce as a liner means she can either wrap the whole thing up or eat it with a fork. This cute divided box lets me add blood oranges and grapes in a separate section, alongside steamed Okinawan sweet purple potatoes, carrots, and cucumbers. Simple, but so delicious! This is one of my own favorite meals as well. ^__^

Mini Pita Bread Pocket Sandwich Bento

These little mini pita breads are just so cute; have you seen them? But they are pretty tough to fill with stuff. I had to make 6 of them for TinySprite here. These are sardine-yogurt-pickle relish-filled (hey! Don't knock it till you've tried it; it's pretty good with hot sauce too). I put tiny lettuces in there for color, and topped off with grape tomatoes and a couple turns of fresh cracked pepper. The other side of this cute orange polka-dot bento box contains blood orange sections and steamed Okinawan sweet potato. I think I got this box at Daiso a long time ago - they came in different shapes, sizes, and colors.

Salmon Salad EcoLunchBox Bento

A non-cutesy bento, after the deluge of cute ones from last week. This is the kind that I normally make: with a focus mainly on the nutritiousness and deliciousness of the food iteself. If I have extra time, I'll add a cute detail. But sometimes, I just don't. Like today. This one is just a basic salmon salad with halved tomatoes and a few red onions. MisterMan doesn't like added dressing, but you could easily send some along with your kid if you so desired. The lower tier of the EcoLunchbox Three-In-One serves well for this type of bento. The top tier is shallower and will hold a selection of grapes, blood orange segments, and carrots. The third box has a lid and I packed some yogurt (you could also use cottage cheese), sunflower seeds, and fresh pineapple chunks. This one will keep my middle-schooler satisfied, even without the food faces! ^__^