Bento Lunches

one of my lunches during the week. not very colorful though. :(


contents: yaki-udon (with tofu, lettuce and carrots), 2 chive dumplings, 1 sardine, 5 cherry tomatoes with butterhead lettuce underneath. 

 

My 3 yr old daughters bento dinner:  corn carrots green beans.  Right: breaded fish lettuce and tartar sauce
Bento has certainly helped with my daughters eating habiits.  She eats more than what she used to (which was barely anything) and tries new and healthy foods.  YEAH For bento!!!!

Here are my lunches from the rest of this past week!

Wednesday -- Bento #5


Bottom tier (left): 1 package of wheat Melba Toast (5 crackers), tropical dried fruit mix, and chipotle salsa in the little container.

Top tier (right): 3 mini spinach frittatas with fat-free quark, fresh French beans, and fat-free cottage cheese.

Thursday -- Bento #6


Bottom tier (left): 1 light rye Ryvita cracker (hidden by the beans), French beans, tomatoes, dried apricots, and dried cranberries (hidden by the tomatoes)

Top tier (right): 2 more Ryvita crackers, 4 mini spinach frittatas (hidden by the crackers), and frozen mixed berries (they were no longer frozen when I ate them, and rather soggy and goopy, although not bad).

Friday -- Bento #7


Bottom tier (left): 1 package of wheat Melba Toast (5 crackers), fresh carrots, and dried cranberries.

Top tier (right): Curried hummus and a cucumber and tomato salad.

Blogged here, with the hummus recipe.

Hey all! This is my first post here, though I've been a member for a while. I've been in grad school for a couple of years, but only started taking my lunch to the office a few months ago--and only started giving a crap what my lunch looked like more recently.



( More photos under the cut )

My bento box finally arrived in the post, yay! So this is my first ever bento in a proper box.


( Description and more photos under the cut )

Yesterday's lunch for AP was an egg and potato salad with a sprig of basil, cherry tomatoes, blueberries and a hijiki and edamame nimono.



Nimono is a main or side dish that has been simmered in a seasoned broth. The broth may be flavoured with dashi, miso, mirin, sake, soy sauce, salt, ginger or other condiments. I used some of the dried hijiki seaweed that I bought from Boston, frozen edamame from Bird's Eye, and sliced carrots. You can also add sliced shitake mushrooms and/or sliced aburage (fried tofu). It can be served hot or cold and will keep well in the fridge for a few days. Great as bento fillers! Recipe over at Soy and Pepper.

This weekend I'm going to the Green Festival at Chicago's Navy Pier. Event halls are not noted for having great food let along vegan food so I just finished packing this bento to take. As you can tell, I have a thing for red foods.:

Bottom Contents: strawberries, kiwi, cashews and dates stuffed with peanut butter

Top Contents: tomato and kalamata olive skewers, Soy Deli brand hickory flavored tofu and lil’ chunks of Teese Mozzarella

1. Yakisoba noodles

2. Star-shaped hard boiled egg

3. Fruit salad: cherries and orange slices

( Second lunch behind cut )

Recently a few of you have had the pleasure of one of my comment on the posting guidelines.

To avoid repeating myself over and over again I would like to remind you of those guidelines (you can also find them here, to check that I'm not making them up ;) ).

1. All entries must present bento boxes that were prepared by or for the person posting.

That means that if you have a recipe, a comment, a complain or anything else to say (as long as it's not a question), it would be nice to post your bento at the same time. 
It also means that this is a community for bento and lunchboxes, not for posting food in a plate. I'm quite certain there are plenty of other communities out there to post your food experiments. If you want to talk about food experiment, why not put it in your bento, show us that picture before the cut and then post the experiment under the cut ? 

2. A photo is strongly encouraged for all posts, with the exception of question posts.
If you post a photo:
- Please keep one representative photo of your lunch outside the cut and any other pictures behind a cut.
- Please try to make sure the photos you post are focused, well-lit, and a reasonable size and resolution.

I think this is self explanatory.

3. The following must be behind a cut:
- Multiple pictures of the same lunch
- Recipes
- Unfilled or closed bento boxes

I know we are all very proud of our cute lunch box/bento box, but those picture of  closed boxes should be under the cut, not before. If you have a box that you want to show, put it under the cut, even if you only have that picture to show.
I'm sure I'm not the only one not even clicking anymore when a closed box is shown first. You want more comments ? Show your open bento ;)


Add your tag and that's it !

3 (three) posting guidelines to follow, with even a few exception, I think everybody here can at least try and remember them ;). I know I would be grateful if you did.
This community and the people in it are fantastic and original and interesting, but it also has a lot of daily traffic and I, for one, am getting tired of having to remind others of those three simple rules.

If you are new, please read the full post I linked to above, being new is great, being new and respectful of others is even better.


Not to be a hypocrite, here's my own bento for today ;)



Above box : Cherry tomatoes and salad (carrots, avocado, orange pepper, lettuce, cucumber, red onion, vinaigrette and lemon juice).

Down box : Naan bread and Fried ground beef.


Thanks for your time and patience :) 

I've been on a couple of communities now where I see people are cross posting (putting the same content on two different, but similar, communities).

An example of this is that I am in multiple bento communities:

eat_my_bento
bentolunch
my_bento

Click here for instructions on a good way to cross post

Lo ^^ First time poster, long time reader! This isn't my first bento, but rather the first one I've felt happy enough with to post. I'm a final year art student and when I go on to do my postgrad studies next, I plan to bento it everyday to save on the extra money I'm going to be spending travelling to and from central London everyday.

Anywho, on to the bento!



In the bottom tier I have avocado sushi (which I'm getting a lot better at making), sesame green tea soba with mushrooms and soy sauce in the fishie. Next is red grapes with a panda pick, a rocky bar and a rather scary Weebl and Bob style boiled egg. In the lid I have some gummy sweets because it seemed a shame to waste the space ^^

Hi all,

I have had a request to post the recipe I used to make my Sweet and Sour Chicken bento. As such I have posted it under the cut. For reference here is the meal in question.


Please note the vegetables have been changed to my personal favorites, I did cook it with pineapple but removed them before eating as I don't like them (lol mad I know) . ^_^

The recipe came from http://bit-o-nifty.org/archives/2004/12/000849-sweet_and_sour_chicken_cantonese_style.html

( Recipe Under Here!! )

 

Ironically, I'm freezing this morning, wearing 2 jackets and a lap blanket at my desk and this is the day of my first cold bento box. It’s taken me a while to settle on something that didn’t require reheating at work. Which also means I got to finally use my bento with the questionable red lacquer. I’m not sure how you tell whether older lacquer bentos are safe or even if a bento is old. Anyway, this bento was inspired by Nilmandra’s recent cold soba noodle bento. But I added a home made spicy peanut dipping sauce for the noodles and I tried to make little bit-sized noodle nests for easier eating at work.



Contents
Cold soba noodles with Furikake and green onions
Spicy peanut dipping sauce
Salted and peppered tomatoes
Kalamata olives and Teese® brand soy mozzarella (see my review of this awesome cheese here)
Some broccoli thrown in for extra green vitamins


( more pics )

made my very first bento today for me and the boy. we have lunch together every friday :)

( follow me! )

I was so not feeling the bento today. I woke up late and didn't really feel inspired. Eventually I forced myself to look in the fridge and evaluate what I had in terms of leftovers. Soboro and iri tamago but no riceaflower (and no time or patience to make any real quick). Salad but ugh feel like I've eaten salad all week. Finally the idea of a Japanese Chef Salad hit me and I threw this together.

Top: Spring greens and tomatoes
Bottom: Iri tamago & soboro for salad toppings, cherry tomatoes and sugar snap peas, soy/garlic/ginger/sesame oil for dressing in the vial, Babybel cheese, furikake for salad topping in the small tin


I was honestly more excited about my breakfast: ( Under Zee Cut )

Hello

I read on some bento blogs that you could do japanese "thin" omelette in the microwave, so i decided to try.

Disaster.

It looked like this when out of the microwave:



Not to mention it was all dry and sticked pretty hard to the plate it was on...
(Black things are sesame seeds and i added a spoon of teriyaki sauce to the eggs, as well as a small amount of chinese hot sauce). Was good, but the consistency was gross.

What went wrong?

I was more lucky with my rice balls!

Alright! I said my last bento was number 7... but it wasn't. I guess I can't count!

What happens when you make your bento @ 1 a.m.?

Bento under the sea!

(as always, click images for larger view)



( Close Ups Here! )

Main content: 2 spinach filled steamed buns (I drew on them with food markers)
Legs are made of fake crab sticks.
some pepper starfish and shells ^_^

Sides:
Left side: Kiwi and Dolphin&Friends snack crackers

Right side: cherry tomato and pepper skewers. A hard boiled egg (sliced with my egg slicer). The pink container is filled with fat free chipotle mayo (take mayo and add a few drops of Frank's Red Hot, mix = yummy chipotle mayo) to mish with my egg for a quick egg salad with a kick.

There you have it!

P.S. Moddy Modress? Can I get my own tag?

 

Kidlet just has a quick bento today, I was in a hurry to get out the door this morning :D

There's a blueberry muffin, ham skewers, carrots, checkered apple, grape, and cucumber

Also, mods could I have a tag please?? I'm a bit late in asking lol :P

As some may know I have a weakness for "interesting" numbers, and # 333 is certainly one of those. Unfortunately it's not exactly one of my prettiest bentos,although I tried to spruce it up a little with some nori accents.

Oh well.

Oh and the other one was the one I made early morning yesterday to keep myself from starving ;)

Bento # 332 - my lunch, Thursday Crispy-fried Kelp with soy and sesame. Sautéed mixed vegetables with lemon pepper. Spicy chicken fillet with tonkatsu sauce. Somen noodles and soba sauce in the banana-bottle.

Bento # 333 - Kid's lunch, Friday Pie no Mi cookies. Cherry Tomato. Vegetarian curry (spicy tofu, kepp, wakame and mixed vegetables cooked in thai yellow curry and coconut milk) Jasmine rice decorated with shizo/basil furikake and a few nori stars. And 333 made of cucumber peel.

Or maybe he's a caterpillar, I'm not sure. Bug week finishes with this little critter, nestled in a woodland scene.