Eat my Bento!

Na Na Na Na Na Na - Batman!

2008-07-19T12:20:53Z

In honor of The Dark Knight coming out, here is a Batman-bento I made a while back but never posted.

String cheese on very top, bottom tier has strawberries, side container has almonds and raw, unsalted peanuts - plus a Milky Way mint on the side. Here's a closer look at the top tier, meant to look like the bat-signal in the sky:

Hidden at the bottom are shrimp. Forbidden rice, which I found just browsing the tiny organic section at my local grocery store, plus onion for stars and moon, yellow bell pepper for the "light" of the signal and nori as the signal itself.

Hope you enjoy!

Bento from Wednesday and today

2008-07-18T19:39:03Z

I got my new Black Skull bento in the mail yesterday! It's going for its first run today for lunch. In its honor, I did a skull theme. Check it out!

In the first tier I have rice and curry with skull-shaped potatoes (hard to see here) and a skull face on the rice. On the second tier is my usual yogurt and strawberry slices. Yum!

Pretty bland here. Two potato, green pepper, and swiss croquettes with yogurt and strawberry slices.

inarizushi and tamago nigirizushi

2008-07-18T18:09:50Z

Today's obento is a couple kinds of sushi, lots of veggies, and some very bright purple tsukemono that did not want to have their picture taken. :P

In the bottom tier: inarizushi with konbu and sushi rice filling, tsukemono, flower carrot cutouts, and tamago nigirizushi. In the top tier: strawberry slices and blueberries, steamed broccoli with mini star carrot cutouts, and renkon (lotus root) with dried red pepper.

Nutritional Info
lime version:
480 calories
1.5 grams saturated fat
~790 mg sodium
18 grams protein
75 grams carbs

umi version:
360 calories
1.5 grams saturated fat
~765 mg sodium
15 grams protein
58 grams carbs

Inarizushi is usually just sushi rice inside aburaage, which is a deep-fried tofu pouch. When you get them in a restaurant the bottoms are closed. I don't know how to do that so I just use them as pouches. I am not a fan of sushi rice by itself (as in not part of maki or nigirizushi) so I like to mix stuff into the sushi rice before stuffing the inari. Today the filling is just stewed konbu with sesame seeds and chopped up carrot. I got the idea for adding the carrot from Just Bento (hahaha, I just noticed the most recent post on Maki's page is hijiki-stuffed inari...great minds think alike, I guess) but I use stewed konbu by itself all the time in onigiri because it's my husband's favorite. Like Maki said, you can make them healthier by using brown sushi rice but I'm out of brown rice right now. I made the inari and the nigiri part of the tamagozushi last night and refrigerated them, then heated them in the microwave briefly before packing this morning. There is no way I am going to be coordinated enough to make sushi in the morning, ever. Heh.

The tamagozushi is just a piece of dashi-flavored tamago sashimi on top of a small mound of sushi rice and held together with a thin strip of nori. It's not as sweet as the kind I usually make. I do not use a recipe anymore because I've made it about 100 times, but this one is pretty close to what I do, although I use less than half of the ingredients, minus the mirin which I do not put in at all (instead I use a tiny bit of honey dissolved in warm water). Make the omelette and then slice it to your desired thickness and wrap a thin strip of nori around it to keep it together.

Renkon is my favorite root vegetable. It's gorgeous and the consistency is chewier/not as fibrous as most other root veggies. This okazu is from Naomi Kijima's book, Bento Boxes. Basically it's just renkon, vinegar (I used apple cider vinegar so it changed the color of the renkon a tiny bit...use white if you want your dish to stay as white as possible), water, sugar, and a little salt along with the renkon and dried red pepper rings. It only takes about 5 minutes to make.

The tsukemono is from Uwajimaya. It's cucumber and eggplant pickled with akajiso (red perilla leaf) to turn it that bright purple color. You can make your own version of this with a pickle press and the right ingredients. Japanese grocery stores and gift shops often carry pickle presses and I have also seen them on Amazon.

a mosaic

2008-07-18T15:16:53Z

I love the mosaic maker on flickr. I'm happy to share recipes; just let me know :)

For those of you on my friends list and in the bentolunch community who are seeing these bento for a second time, I apologize.

1. bento 6.24.08
white rice with veggie furikake; fried rice with chicken, chive, onions, and egg
kale and shallot sautee; hard boiled eggs with black sea salt; Chinese sausage and joi choi stir-fry

2. bento 6.25.08
white rice
kale and shallots; the sauce from braised lamb shanks (mostly tomatoes and wine) with green peas and sliced steak

3. bento 6.26.08
white rice with veggie furikake
lamb shanks braised in tomato-red wine sauce; roasted radish, carrot, turnips, celery root, and spinach

4. bento 6.30.08
white rice with umeboshi
ma-po tofu with kohlrabi and garlic scapes; cucumbers in chikuwa

5. bento 7.1.08
white rice with veggie furikake
sugar snap peas; lamb braised in tomato / wine sauce with green peas

6. bento 7.2.08
white rice with umeboshi
ma-po tofu with garlic scapes and kohlrabi; sugar snap peas; leftover sizzling tofu from Peninsula

7. bento 7.7.08
brown / white rice with shichimi togarashi furikake
chikuwa with cucumber and bainiku (minced umeboshi) inside; ma-po tofu with garlic scapes and kohlrabi

8. bento 7.8.08
9. bento 7.8.08
chard / kale braised with garlic; brown/white rice mixture; salmon
hard boiled eggs with pink sea salt and black salt on white / brown rice

10. breakfast / snack bento 7.9.08 -- breakfast / snack bento
brown rice with mentaiko furikake
egg / ham / lettuce wrap with mayo and mustard

11. salad bento 7.10.08 -- salad bento
salad with lettuce, sugar snap peas, tomatoes, and tuna

12. bento 7.14.08
brown and white rice
fried potatoes with chili and green onion; roast pork; braised chard with plums; made from roast marinade of mirin and basil

My third Bento!

2008-07-18T03:53:51Z

Mkay so im happy with the top box of this lunch not
so much the second one I'm getting better?

had to use web cam really bad photos... much better in real life.. :*(

                          man i really need to get a new camera!! ugh
                          also im running out of stuff and things going bad...
                          need to go shopping haah
                          oh that peach is a donut peach it was really cute.

bentos - 7,8,9

2008-07-17T21:18:51Z

Phew, well I haven't posted for a while but I haven't stopped making bentos! Here are a few from last week - including the new box I am using. I also got some Dragonfruit from my aunt, her friend is doing research on the fruit up at UCI (I think), so lucky me!

Most recent bento:

Top: Dragonfruit (red flesh), Hard boiled egg chicks - one egg, halved the yolk, furikake seasoning on one.
Bottom: Sauce container with ketchup-mayo mix for the eggs, leftover tuna helper with broccoli, and rice with furikake.

Bento 7

Top: Leftover bowtie tuna helper. wild rice with sauteed mushrooms
Bottom: Apple bunnies, apple cuts, almonds

Bento 8

Top: slices of watermelon and pear (green)
Bottom: Teriyaki chicken and white rice

Bento 9

Top: baby carrots, plum (halved), apple bunnies, almonds
Bottom: Rice with furikake

I haven't been spending much time prepping these, so they aren't as cute as a few of the first. I really need to come up with a good vegetable side that I like - I'm so picky veggie-wise!

TMI? your input welcome

2008-07-17T20:50:17Z

Recently I decided to start including nutrition info on my posts. I thought this might be a neat idea for people trying to keep tabs on this type of stuff in their own lives. I'm curious, though, after reading a post on bento_snark: does anyone care about those stats?

What do you use this community for? I use it for presentation and menu ideas so the nutrition info seems useful to me, but if most people aren't going to copy my menu plans I'd like to leave the stats out so my posts aren't so long. I can always just leave that info for my personal journal and not include it here.

What kind of information are you hoping to get when you click on the jumps you choose to click on? Part of the reason I decided to start posting here is I wanted to help inspire people to make neat lunches, so I'm curious to know what information I can include that will actually be helpful.

I'm now remembering why I don't join *snark communities. They might be kind of funny sometimes but they make me feel so self-conscious, like there's only one right way to do something. So much judgement! Yikes! ^_^;

First bento

2008-07-17T19:38:41Z

I have been lurking here for some time now and making a few comments here and there. This is my first post!

I have to admit I like buying bento boxes more than making them. My husband, the actual cook, made this lunch for me! :p

Sorry if the quality of the photo is poor. Its from my cell phone.

The left section has carrots with cucumbers hiding below and grapes. The tier on the right has potato salad and korean BBQ beef. My bento bag and a Redbull drink are in the background.

A cupcake form was used to hold the potato salad, but its all soggy now. I don't think we will be using that again in the future. :P

Its a plain bento, but thanks for looking. :)

Poll time!

2008-07-17T16:15:33Z

View Poll: What do you think bento is?

If there has already been a poll like this, I apologise, but I want to see if I'm the only person who believes that bento is its own type of food preparation, an art form in itself. I personally don't like seeing a bunch of leftover food smooshed in a tupperware container on here, but its up to your own opinion.

Bento #11 & #12

2008-07-17T04:57:55Z

Bento from Today and Tomorrow

(click images for larger views)

#11=
Top tier (left): 4 spicy shrimp steamed gyoza, steamed baby carrots, boiled egg.

Bottom tier (right): cucumber hearts, raspberries & cranberries, green apple, light babybel cheese

Under the lid: Instant Miso.

#12=
Top tier (right): light organic cottage cheese, raspberries, baby carrots, kiwi hearts.

Bottom tier (left): veggie 'ham'/'turkey'/'smoked provolone'/spinach/light mayo sandwich cut out to look like a dino. cherry tomatoes and orange flavored dried cranberries.

Under the lid: Instant Miso.

eat_my_bento @ 2008-07-16T17:22:00

2008-07-17T00:26:40Z

today's lunch :)

top: 3 potato vareniki (russian potstickers)
radishes
peas
quail eggs
steamed broccoli
carrots

lower: onigiris w furikake on them
some broccoli
peas
cucumber

Tuscan squid and karaage bentos

2008-07-17T00:11:02Z

Polenta (boiled cornmeal) is a natural candidate for a Leftover Remake, as you can have it soft and creamy at dinner when it's fresh out of the pot, then pan-fry the solidified leftovers for subsequent lunches.

Contents of preschooler bento lunch: Homemade Tuscan-style squid and green peas in tomato sauce, fried polenta slices, and quick tomato and cucumber salad (the cucumber is actually an unripe young horned melon). Morning prep time: 13 minutes, using leftover Tuscan squid and polenta. Full details here at Lunch in a Box

Contents of preschooler bento lunch: Homemade karaage (Japanese marinated fried chicken), plum tomatoes, steamed zucchini with Korean barbecue sauce, and mini onigiri rice balls with salmon furikake rice sprinkles and wrapped with packaged, pre-cut seasoned nori seaweed snack strips. Morning prep time: 11 minutes, using leftover karaage and frozen rice. Full details here at Lunch in a Box

My second bento!

2008-07-16T17:35:43Z

This was themed meteor garden since i was watching it.

                     my camera's flash broke so i had to take the pictures outside
                     ugh not too pleased with how it came out tomorrows will be better!!

My first bento!

2008-07-16T06:59:50Z

Ok so i've had all the stuff for a while..and tonight i said to myself i would
start making them for work..not that good or cute.but i'll get better! >_< i hope!

(using 5 year old 3mp camera bad photo!)

In top i have an onigiri, stake (super rare yummm!) with cheese
baked on and then a star onigiri

In bottom i have carrots ,raspberries and blackberries some cakes,
celery, and a lychee

Any tips for me please share.
Danke schön!

Bento Lunch + New Bento Set

2008-07-16T06:59:20Z

While out running errands today I found a neat store called Daiso Japan, that had a bunch of cute little bento boxes for quite cheap. For $6 i got two bentos, matching chopsticks and these nifty little felt strap things to keep the bentos from opening inside my bag.

Anyway tomorrow's lunch consists of fresh picked green beans from my garden with a little bit of salt on top, some tomato (from my garden) with fresh mozzarella and basil (from the garden), and then some little omusubi as a random yet tasty treat.

eat_my_bento @ 2008-07-16T00:20:00

2008-07-16T05:21:02Z

(admittedly monochromatic) Fried Rice
Corn on the cob
Mushrooms
Cherry Tomatoes
Cucumbers
Baby Carrots
Strawberries
Soy Sauce
Ranch

Bento for Wednesday, July 16

2008-07-16T02:32:41Z

Gohan with tarako furikake. Tori no karage chicken. Fresh strawberries and cherry tomatoes.

Bento #10

2008-07-16T02:00:48Z

I haven't posted pics in a while due to the death of my camera, but now I've got a new one!

Hooray! I said I would never do it, but apparently I lied. I bought a real bento box! Here is my first bento packed in it that I ate today. I was being extremely slack with my bentos for a while before I bought this, so hopefully having a pretty new box will help me stay on track!

(click images for larger views)

Top tier (right): Salmon onigiri (w/furikake sprinkled on top)on a bed of dried cranberries, strawberry, raspberries, and light babybel cheese.

Bottom tier (left): another salmon onigiri, salmon/zucchini/carrot sushi, carrot sticks, cherry tomatoes.

Under the lid: Instant Miso.

Crazy for croquettes!

2008-07-15T19:45:42Z

I loved the one I made yesterday so much I had to do it again! This time I used one of my new cookie cutters to shape it into a heart. It has swiss cheese mixed in this time. I had a star companion for it, but the points wilted when I cooked it so I ate it for breakfast instead. Very tasty! Then I have mixed fruit yogurt with two whole strawberries, a single apple bunny, and some blueberries for gap-fillers.

sodium, anyone?

2008-07-15T19:32:44Z

Today's obento is not very exciting from a culinary standpoint but it was tasty, and sometimes it's nice to eat something that's not so good for you. Yes I am rationalizing. ^_~

In the bottom tier: herb and butter pasta with broccoli. In the top tier: strawberry slices and blueberries, meatballs, yellow bell pepper with mini flower carrot cutouts. Not pictured is the pre-workout snack case with a sliced carrot and one serving of roasted soy nuts (nutrition info for the snack is in parentheses).

Nutritional Info (I'm going to try to include this from now on)
lime version:
495 calories (+ 124)
9 grams saturated fat (+.5)
1228 mg sodium (+63)
21 grams protein (+12)
50 grams carbs (+4)

umi version:
415 calories (+124)
6 grams saturated fat (+.5)
1015 mg sodium (+63)
16.5 grams protein (+12)
48 grams carbs (+4)

I am very tired and worn out today thanks to an ass-kicking workout class yesterday (ballet! :) so I slept in pretty late. Well actually I woke up at the normal time, put some meatballs in the oven to bake (I don't like microwaved meat) for 35 minutes, cooked up the pasta, then went back to sleep for 20 minutes, then got up to take the meatballs out, sliced the veggies, put everything in the box, and went back to sleep until 11. Heh.

Meatballs are from giant Costco bag o' meatballs (not very good for you but nice to have around for lazy days), pasta is Annie's herb and butter pasta packet with broccoli added. Several Annie's pasta packs, including this one, have a TON of sodium in them and I will not be buying them again. This one was about to expire so into the obento it goes. Now I am just about out of not-good-for-you packaged food (the only ready-made things I have are very carefully selected these days and used sparingly). With all that sodium and so many carbs at lunch I am thinking maybe dinner is going to have to be handmade low-sodium squash soup and a big salad. ^_^;

Mmmm....bento....

2008-07-15T18:18:03Z

I've totally been slacking on making bentos for lunch. But I did last night! Here they are!

Lunch bento:

Lid: Strawberry drink mix
Top: chopped up cinnamon pecan cereal bar, squares of angel food cake, turkey wrap on a wheat tortilla with a leaf of cabbage and mustard
Bottom: Pesto pasta salad in a cabbage leaf

Sliced biscuit and a piece of angel food cake with honey.

Sorry, this one's a bit blurry but it's a sort of Mexican salad including lettuce, black beans, corn and cucumber in a cabbage "bowl." Salsa underneath in the right lower corner and a triangle of wheat tortilla in the upper right.

I'm working on getting more color in my bento. And yes, I know I don't have any fruit. I love apples but mine get brown, even when I rub lemon juice on them. I need to get some grapes or strawberries or something to use as filler/in my sidecar.

All my bentos thus far have been full of American food because I'm still teaching myself how to cook. I'll def try some Asian inspired things soon, though - especially because there's an Asian market in town! Woooo!

eat_my_bento @ 2008-07-15T01:42:00

2008-07-15T09:10:28Z

my first bento! for monday lunch :)
not terribly amazing but it was delicious

pirozhki my mom made
"korean" carrots (thats what its called in russian)
steamed broccoli
chicken meatball/patty with an elephant pick
lil tiny sandwiches with a koala pick
radishes, carrots more steamed broccoli and 2 quail eggs with seaweed bunny n star

eat_my_bento @ 2008-07-15T13:08:00

2008-07-15T02:04:26Z

Yet again I have a back log of bentos to post. But dont worry, I will put most behind a cut.

This bento is Heart themed, not for any special reason, just because I had food that could be shaped as a hearts easily.

Top: Pork mince with a spicey red pepper and tomato sauce and lots of veges like mushroom, courget, carrot and onion. And two little heart cheese slices. This was amazing! Am going to be making that again.
Bottom: Salad with red cabbage and carrot, heart shaped falafel and heart tomatos.

Top: Beetroot chunks and Cheese stars, chicken cocktail sausages.
Bottom: Tomato pasta parcels filled with cheese and peas.

I found these cute little food pick things at a little asian store that I used to eat the top tier. It reminded me of being little and having small

Sausages like this with tooth picks in them. So much fun.

Top: Chicken curry (it looks odd as its still frozen)
Bottom: Chicken sauages peas borccoli and chilli bean potato thingy haha

I grated potatoes and mixed with left over chilli beans and onions, then put in muffin tin and baked in the oven. Not too bad if I do say so myself.

Top: Sliced pickle and cheese, hummus and crackers
Bottom: Salad sandwich with a chicken burger patty

So simple but I enjoyed eating this so much.

Top: Pasta and 2 meat balls with tomato pasta sauce
Bottom: Almonds and dark chocolate chips, Corn chips, Salsa

This was todays lunch. I was in a bit of a rush so the top tier looks pretty blah. I just dumped the meatballs in and then dumped the pasta in. I mixded it all up when reheating so it was all good.

So I got silicon muffin cups on the weekend. (For New Zealanders I got them from the wharehouse. Umm I think they were $15 or $20.)
Anyway they are great. They fit perfectly into the smaller tier of my red bento. Not so well in my pink one, I had to trim some shorter for this one which I was a little bummed about but oh well.

Yay new accesories!

One million visitors & bento contest listings

2008-07-15T02:03:04Z

Lunch in a Box marked its 1,000,000-visit milestone today, so I created a new listing of all current contests and blog events for bento lunches (and all packed lunches). If/when you organize a bento event, just e-mail me and I'll add it to the list so readers can stay on top of the latest! I'll also be at BlogHer '08 in San Francisco this weekend and an open food blogger get-together on Sunday. Details here at Lunch in a Box.

A few bento's...

2008-07-15T01:53:36Z

I decided to post a backlog of my bento's. I'm pretty broke, so they aren't as pretty or full as I would like them to be. That, and I've been so busy at work, so I didn't have a lot of time to put into them :(

Snack Bento: carrots, hard boiled egg, black and blue berries. Ranch dressing is inside the Clickety Click container.

Lunch Bento: Carrots, snap peas, black and blue berries, two Kasugai gummies (apple and grape) and Korean BBQ Chicken in a blanket (recipe is in my LJ)

Lunch Bento 2: Carrots, blueberries, white rice and tuna mixed with wasabi mayo

Today's lunch bento: Carrots, blueberries, and a wrap I cooked this morning, cut in half. It had ham, muenster cheese, mayo and green leafy lettuce wrapped inside of a garlic and herb tortilla. I grilled it in my George Foreman grill.

See, told yah I need to go shopping! Actually...I have a few things in the house I can make from recipes I found from Just Bento.