I haven't posted here in a long time, but have still been making and enjoying bento at work and when I travel.  Today I must fly from California to Washington, DC so I made a bento to avoid having to buy airline food.  I am sharing this with one of my coworkers, who is traveling with me.



Large box- carrots, snap peas, grape tomatoes - apple bunnies - roast beef and cheese roll ups, ham & cheese roll ups, mustard in the elephant and peanut butter (for the apples) in the bunny.
sidecars:  (top) snack mix and goldfish (bottom) gummy bears, spiced nuts, dates.

This should hold us for 7 hours!  (p.s.- I called the airline to be sure I could bring this on the plane and they said it was fine)

Here's the bento I put together for today:



Top has fried rice with egg and onion, teryaki chicken and stir fried carrots and broccoli. Bottom has blueberries, edamame, blackberries and mandarin oranges.

SO excited. New boxes came yesterday from bento crazy and they are AWESOME.
Today's lunch is as follows:



Left over sushi from last night's dinner, a somewhat heart shaped boiled egg (any tips on getting it to shape better?) and carrots with dip. Apples, grapes, and I have a cupcake in the sidecar because I LOVE me some cupcakes.

Check out my new boxes after the break.

( New Boxes!! )

Ok this morning I decided I would make some bento as I forgot to sort it the day before. Running low of food in the fridge so its whatever I have. My new bento box can as well yesterday ^_^ yay!! so I had to use it.

I can't remember who told me it would be the same size, but your right, so I decided to use both as I am feeling hungry today.

Left: Teri Aki pork, with some red peppers and sugar peas underneath.
Top Middle: Yaki Soba noodles, with a bottle of soy sauce (not pictured)
Bottom Middle: Carrots, red peppers, sugar peas cut into sakura flower shapes.
Right: Pretzels and grapes.

Yesterday we had an anime meet and the theme was pie and boobies. (its an inside joke, but mooooving on!) Jurry also came to teach me how to make sushi. We made these rolls together, him showing me how it was done and me copying it. And I didnt do half bad!



( todays bento and a theme related snack )

Bug Week continues with Ms. Spider.

 

I've hardly made any sushi in, what, a year? Now all of a sudden I decide I want lots of it. So, here's some smoked salmon sushi and hantako sushi, the latter of which is my fancy way of saying I strapped half a baby octopus to a rice block. I mainly do that because the tentacles curl up so pretty and spirally, I want to find a way to display them. Then there's some baked purple sweet potato arranged in a way that I thought was artistic, but now looks kind of corny to me. Finally, some zucchini & onion stir-fry and carrot & raisin salad.

(Website post, with links to recipes.)

Just a quickie note to let you know that I've added a new tag to the community: low-carb.

Use it wisely.

this is a really crappy bento i made for brunch yesterday morning, i just /had/ to make one because i hadnt in nearly a month!!! anyways, i have bunny and flower shaped bologna sammiches with mustard in the monkey container, cinnamon waffles and part of a candy bar ^^

Because I'm feeling kinda icky today going to keep this short and simple
 

Ok so this is my first attempt at Bento!



Its not pretty at all and as all i have are those lock & lock containers not huge either!

It is rice with soy sauce and spring onion, sweet and sour chicken and some steamed asparagus! tasted lovely!

Cod fishcakes were store bought and heated up in the oven this morning. I had some inari pouches in the freezer which I defrosted overnight and then stuffed with rice cooked this morning. This is AP's lunch. Top tier: Cod fish cakes, edamame, piggy container with sweet chilli sauce (for fishcakes) and lion container with soy sauce (for inarizushi and onigiri). Bottom tier: Inarizushi, onigiri, cherry tomatoes and edamame.



( My lunch under cut )

I have made an interesting discovery: Rice seasoning

( Let's look )

Hope that helps.

x-posted 0bentofrench

Forgot to post last night.



Top: Strawberries, heart-shaped boiled egg, heart-shaped PB&J, grapes.
Bottom: Babybel cheese, celery, watermelon jello jiggler, ranch dressing in the Gary cup and peanuts for filler.

My hours at work have just recently been changed (oh, the love of military contracting!) Now I work two nights out of the week. Thats okay as I've found I had more time to make bento for the dinner bento I will be taking to work twice a week. I decided to get in on this week's bento challege with this one.

Monkey Bento:
3 Inarizushi decorated with takuan and kamaboko
Edmame
Turkey meatballs
Grape Tomatoes
Monkey: Inarizushi seasoned rice head with inarizushi wrappers for ears and hair. Face accents are orange mamenori, cheese and nori eyes, nori noise, and bologna mouth.
I really like this one. :)


more pics

Top Tier: Chicken Tortilla Roll-Ups, Cherry Sour Candy
Bottom: Onigiri Roll w/ Soy, Grapes
Lid: Chocolate Pocky

This was the first time I ever made Onigiri! It turned out pretty well considering :) The first batch of rice got burned (didn't turn the heat down low enough...) but the second was tasty :)

I got the flower picks, along with several other designs, yesterday at the local wedding and party supply store for $1 per packet!

Today I was planning to meet up with a friend of mine and her rats (I had to leave my rats when I moved so she lets me play with hers) so I decided to make a rat-themed bento. I haven't done much experimenting with faces or the like (most of my decorations have been accidental) so I was really proud of how this came out.

Rock & Roll Bento!



Bento lunch special, I added a spicy yellowtail hand roil, so good!

I received my first bento, along with a lot of cooking accessories and soforth today and as I am going out for the day tomorrow, I thought I would waste no time and get on with making my first ever bento lunch! I'm a bit nervous about posting this, as I'm sure it's quite dull compared to what most of you make, but I swear I tried my best to make it interesting :D



( What's In Here? )

I won't have time to make it tomorrow morning, hence me doing it now. Wish I could eat it now though, it looks and smells so good! ^__^

Finally managed to make a bento that wasn't simply utilitarian. In deciding that my sandwich needed a little sprucing up, I ended up committing to the dog theme (thereby foiling my "sandwich = quick" plan a little bit, but it was a lot of fun).



It’s a peanut butter and jelly sandwich decorated (with thinly-sliced dried mango) with the kanji for dog. It’s accompanied by little bones made of carrot planks, strawberry & pineapple “frisbees” (you know, for fetch!), and a mozzarella bone, as well. Sunflower seeds in the little heart cup, next to a 3Musketeers’ bar, because even though dogs can’t have chocolate, I can.

Bug Week continues! Muffin's lunch has been invaded by ladybugs.

 

Radish ladybugs with nori decorations, carrots from Just Bento recipe (yum!), stir fried broccoli, a pale cut-up hot dog and edamame. Bottom layer has soba with Thai peanut sauce. Sidecar of the first local strawberries! Muffin always wants sugar for dipping. I am happy with this one.

 

This was my bentochallenge entry for the week. A cheese koala on top of a ham sandwich, carrots, grapes, and cucumber.

More tuna salad, by request.


Mini oreos, grapes, baby carrots and ranch dressing in the Nemo cup.


Tuna salad with a cucumber butterfly and carrot stars.

Tomorrows bento: curry fried noodles (recipe found here), lettuce and cucumber salad, colby cheese and pepperoni on toothpicks, orange slices, instant miso soup, dried cranberries and mango slices, tuna with mayo and celery.

Not my prettiest, but I tried. I have to admit to trying my hand at hambuger steaks (Japanese style) and being very distressed that my camera didn't take one clear photo!

My first bento lunch! It was a moderate success in terms of filling me up, but it was also quite messy with the soup.



Top left: Salad (spinach, broccoli, tomatoes) with raspberry vinaigrette.
Bottom left: Guiltless Gourmet tortilla chips
Right: Leftover chicken tortilla soup with a little fat-free quark.

Blogged here.

Left: Salad (spinach, broccoli, tomatoes, mushrooms) with balsamic vinegar.
Top right: Tropical dried fruit mix, a piece of nori seaweed as a divider, two slices of baked tofu, another seaweed divider, and more mushrooms.
Bottom right: Fat-free cottage cheese.

I'm getting a little better at packing my bento. This was more filling, although I could stand to have some grains included. The main trouble with this bento is that the juice of the cottage cheese leaked beneath the divider and made the dried fruit, tofu, and mushrooms damp and messy.

Blogged here.

Main: Curry fried rice
Sides: Broad beans, grilled red pepper

Sorry it's been a while! I seem to have picked up a bit of a stomach bug from one of my coworkers, and really I just did not want to look at pictures of food lately. x_x

The recipe for the curry fried rice is (heavily) adapted from Obento Daijiten and it is on my blog.

I also continued my series of bento book reviews with everyone's favorite Watashi-tachi no Obento.

Should I review Bento Boxes: Japanese Meals on the Go or has that one been done to death already?

But the first one I actually took pictures of!



Not anything special really... but it was damn tasty!

( Click for more pictures and description )