Weekly Bento

Well, at least it was just a quick lunch for my husband. I have been trying to pack his lunch more often, and have been getting up to 3 times a week at least. It's saving us quite a bit each time he doesn't have to eat out! This was the rest of the tuna from the day before on wheat bread. A diced tomato he could eat plain or throw on his sandwich. Carrot sticks for crunch. Diced apples (leftover from the day before so they were a tad bit brown, oh well!) and a half a blondie from Starbucks. Can't believe I let him have the rest!

This box is by far my favorite for packing for my hubs. It can fit a ton of food, it seals well, and he can microwave it at work when there is hot stuff packed inside. I need to find another like it for myself for the days I am packing lunch for both of us. I find it is so much easier when I am making multiple lunches to make them as similar as possible.

Husband and I both had potlucks last Thursday, so I only had 3 little lunches to make. Since I was in a hurry, and the fridge was running bare, this is probably the fastest lunch I have made so far!



I whipped up a can of tuna with mayo and a little relish, threw in some snowflake shaped ritz crackers, added some already sliced cheese, diced an apple and soaked in lemon juice and water for a minute or so, while I assembled everything. They had apple-cranberry juice to drink and the last of the remaining granola bars for snack.



As far as I know, the girls really liked this easy-peasy lunch, no complaints. They'd been waiting a week to be able to have the special ritz crackers, so I am sure that made their day :) They are pretty easy to please! And my potluck was delicious, tons of yummy soups and breads! I made a delicious apple cider with a sliced orange, brown sugar, apple juice, and mulling spices from Whole Foods in the crock pot. Yum. In fact, I think I am going to make it again (for the third time!!) tomorrow for Thanksgiving. Now if only I could figure out how to make it a cup at a time, hmm . . .

I am a week behind, but I have photos ready for my next post too, just have to find a moment to sit down and actually type it out. Its been one of those weeks!

This week's bento consisted of leftovers from the freezer. Each one was a little bit different to accommodate everyone's personal likes and dislikes.



In the Mr. Bento knockoff, Husband had leftover grilled teriyaki chicken, leftover fried rice, chopped tomatoes, carrots, and cheese, and ranch dressing in the top portion.



I used my little H.O.T. bento because it makes me giggle. It had the rest of the grilled teriyaki, fried rice, pineapple chunks and cottage cheese in the top. It was just enough food with the little side container of rice cakes. Yum.



Youngest had fried rice and turkey meatballs with a little container of ketchup for dipping. Top tier is grated mozarella, chopped carrots and tomatoes, and peach yogurt with a few diced pineapple on top.



Middle one had the same on the bottom, the meatballs are still frozen and the rice is cold. They like it cold at school usually. Her top tier is more shredded mozarella, a carrot, a rice ball, and cottage cheese.



My oldest had more of the same on the bottom, yogurt, carrots, cheese and a rice ball on top. My girls all LOVE riceballs, but the like it better when I remember to pack a little teriyaki sauce bottle to pour over the rice ball. I make them when I only have a small amount of leftover rice. My friend from Korea showed me how to make them when the girls were little. I drop a scoop of rice into a square of plastic wrap covering my hand, gather up the ends of the wrap and squish the rice into a firm ball. We usually dip them into whatever sauce is handy. Next time I am going to try to make some filled rice balls with chicken inside. I take all the rice balls and pop them into a container in the fridge and the girls will grab a couple for snack or as a side for lunch. Easy, healthy, and more fun than just plain rice, I guess :)



Overall, it was a well received lunch, and pretty quick to throw together. The girls had cranberry juice to drink in their little spill proof bottles, and caramel mini rice cakes for snack. I feel like I get into a bit of a rut when packing their lunches, and I am trying to be creative. I only do this once or twice a week, I can't imagine how hard it is to be creative when packing lunches every single day! I really admire those of you who do!

My girls are big-time breakfast lovers. So I thought I would give them a special treat this week and pack up a complete breakfast for lunch! A few days ago we'd had pancakes, and I always make up extra batter so I can throw pancakes into the freezer and then pop them in the toaster oven to reheat when we feel like a hot breakfast with less mess. This time, I made several silver dollar-sized pancakes specifically to pack in their bentos. I wanted them to be easy to eat with their fingers and dip in the little syrup containers.



These pancakes went straight into the fridge because I knew we'd be eating them quickly. I grabbed 3 for each girl, hard-boiled then molded eggs the night before, and had candied some bacon the same day I made the pancakes. Candied bacon seems to keep better, especially when it isn't going to be reheated, and tastes better too. We eat a lot of turkey bacon in this family, and I have found it doesn't reheat too well, but when its candied in maple syrup, its yummy right out of the fridge. Each girl got one piece of bacon split in half. They have lite syrup in their little round containers. A small slice of sharp cheddar cheese, cubed, and diced apples soaked in a little lemon juice round out the meal. They also had mini rice cakes in a separate little container for snack. I forgot to pack them juice the night before, but they lived without and just drank lots of water.



Each girl completely devoured her meal. This was probably their favorite bento so far. They were dipping everything in the syrup, even the eggs and cheese, but they are weird like that :) Ainsley didn't finish all her apples at lunch because she was too busy talking and telling me about chemistry solutions. Liberty ate all of it, even the cheese which she normally doesn't like very much. And Melody ate everything and shared her food with all her friends.

This week we were not the only family with our bentos! I have had several moms ask about our bentos since the beginning of school. This week at least 2 other families started packing lunch in their bentos from Ichiban Kan. It was fun to see all the kids talking about their fun lunches, eating their molded eggs, and creating less waste!



My husband and I had matching bentos, sort of, this week. I preheated the oven, popped some potatoes in the microwave for a few minutes, and then tossed them into the oven to bake while I assembled the girls lunches. I used some baking cups to contain butter and sour cream. Husband had the rest of the diced apples, rice cakes on the side, two slices of cheese to top the potato, and a hard-boiled egg.



I had cottage cheese (which got frozen in the fridge, think I need to turn it down a bit!) and diced pineapple, and everything else he had besides the apples. He said it was a little light for him. I had plenty to eat. Lately he'd said I was packing too much, but I guess I scaled back more than I needed to! My guess is that he could have used a bit more protein, and I should have packed a bit of ham or something to add to his potato, or possibly a side of chili if I were to make this lunch again.



I do feel like making bentos is coming more naturally, and that I am thinking throughout the week of how I can bento-ize our leftovers. The girls really enjoy it, and I think my husband and I are eating healthier as well. I also wanted to say thanks for the comments I have been getting both here and on my flickr pictures! It is a great encouragement to me that I can inspire others, as so many others have encouraged me!

The girls got to wear costumes to school yesterday and they were thrilled, but it meant that I needed to be extra speedy this morning making lunches. And it was cold, so everyone also needed a hot breakfast (thank goodness for organic oatmeal packets from Costco! I used to make up indivual packets of ready to add water to oatmeal, why did I stop? Might have to do that again when we run out of this box of oatmeal, in something less wasteful than ziplock baggies. How's that for stream of consciousness blogging?)



Anyway, on to the speedy bentos. One thing I was sharing with a mom at co-op is how much less food I use per lunch because so much is divided up between the three girls. So for this lunch I will list out just how much I used:

one carrot, peeled and cut into sticks
2 stalks of celery, cut into fourths and spread with a total of about 2 tbs peanut butter
A few raisins, it looks like 30 to me :)
1 half in thick slick of mozzarella cheese cut into cubes
1 container of vanilla yogurt spooned into 3 cups, with a few bites leftover for me
1 mexican tomato, diced
About a cup and a half of leftover spaghetti, sprinkeld with 3 tbs of parmesan
2 slices of canadian bacon cut up
3 small containers full of maybe 1/4 cup of chex mix
21 candy corns (more about that later)
And in the top of each bento, 1 graham cracker each



Melody devoured every last tomato, most of the yogurt, but didn't really eat much of anything else. They'd had cake and ice cream for snack, and the kid doesn't each much anyway. And her friend shared a bag of chips with her. Oh, and she ate all the chex mix and graham cracker. The cheese was gross because, guess what? Candy corns melt and turn into goo that will spread everywhere. I kinda figured they would in the yogurt, but that is where they should have stayed, or in the top with the grahams! Whoops!

Liberty ate her yogurt and most of her spaghetti, all the chex mix for snack, and the grahams for lunch. She didn't really touch the veggies due to the aforementioned goo.

Ainsley didn't mind the goo and ate most everything.



I packed myself a frozen chicken and rice bowl and a coke zero. That's what happens when the statue of liberty and Alice in Wonderland can't find the appropriate attire on their own!

Again with the bunny boxes, the girls just love these ones. And this was a quick to put together meal, mostly leftovers. I am getting faster every time, it seems. And when I plan ahead, its even quicker!



So each girl had leftover basmati rice in the bottom tier of their bento with a little container of soy sauce, steamed broccoli from the night before, ketchup in the little container, and meatballs from the freezer, from our last batch of meatballs. I just reheated the rice and the meatballs and broccoli in the microwave, super easy!



The top tier of the bento has a little tight-fitting lid, but it wasn't quite tight enough to keep all the juice from the fruit from getting to the graham crackers. Next time, I think I will put a little square of press n' seal over the fruit to help with the soggy crackers! The top tier had a graham cracker broken into squares, dices pears and mandarin oranges, and craisins, raisins, and cheerios. Nobody complained about the soggy crackers, but I noticed when I was eating lunch with the oldest.

For snack, they had spice cake cupcakes in little containers from the dollar tree. I forgot to make frosting the night before, but the spice cake was almost muffin-like and didn't really require the frosting, but it wouldn't have hurt to have an nice fresh cream cheese frosting! They also had juice and water, but I forgot to freeze the juices the night before. You can see that I wasn't quite on top of everything on Wednesday night!



Kevin had leftovers already at work, so he didn't get a bento. I had leftover beef potroast with potatoes and carrots and celery, and a cornbread muffin. It didn't look very appetizing cold, so I didn't take a picture :) But it was delicious! Nothing like potroast on a cold day. We also had our first snow of the season on Wednesday, so Thursday morning it was still quite chilly and there was still snow in the shady spots!

The meatballs are the biggest hit of the lunch once again, and the girls would like to make them again tonight! Next time I should remember the food picks, and a fork for myself :)

This week we had our first real field trip with COVA, our virtual academy, to a pumpkin patch about an hour away. I needed to pack a peanut and tree nut free lunch that would also keep well in the heat. I also had a flat of muffins from Costco that I wanted to use up. I was also running late, so I needed to be quick quick quick! And it was the day before grocery day, so we were low on staples, only two pieces of lunch meat left!



But we were going to the Happy Apple farm, so I knew apples were a necessity. And I used my new corer and slicer from the dollar bin at Target to quickly chop and apple, then I diced it up and put it into a bowl of water with a little lemon juice. While those soaked, I microwaved some chocolate caramel dip. While that cooked I cut two slices about 1/4 inch thick of monterey jack cheese and cubed the slices. I also quartered and cut up a giant chocolate muffin. Then I rolled and sliced the deli meat. Assembled the whole lunch, added a package of Hello Panda Cookies, and we were ready to go. Probably a little heavy on the chocolate, and I should have used a banana muffin instead of chocolate!



For myself, I had all the diced apple that wouldn't fit in their bentos, the last of the cheese, and a few pieces of pepperoni. I had a whole blueberry muffin which I ended up splitting with my friend. I also shared the apples with her kids. Something about walking around a hot pumpkin patch made me really un-hungry, but I still finished off my food.



The girls also had boxed chocolate soy milk, a rare treat! Apparently I was craving chocolate, as I just realized they had 4 different types of chocolate in their lunches! They ate all of their lunches, though my oldest I had to remind to actually eat her meat. Not the most balanced meal I have ever made, but not bad for a quickly-thrown-together-at-the-last-minute-with-no-groceries-or-peanuts meal. They still had protein and fruit, right? And Chocolate is one of the main food groups, I am sure of it!

And tomorrow I should have time to post about today, rather than being a week behind! Its a shocker!

Yesterday I got to try out leftover rice from my brand new rice cooker! I made my first ever batch of fried rice, and it was yummy! Normally I cannot stand fried rice, and I will almost always get steamed rice at a restaurant because fried rice is always too salty and just gross. We had about 2 cups of leftover basmati rice, so I whisked an egg and tossed it into the wok with a tablespoon of olive oil, whisked it to cook it, then threw in the rice and a bit more oil into the wok. I added a tablespoon or so of soy sauce, a dash of ground ginger, a dash of salt and pepper, and a handfull of frozen mixed veggies, and just heated it all up. Yum. The girls each had a bit in their bentos, and all of them ate it and loved it! I had a cup full in my Mr. Bento, and it was hot and tasty at lunch time. I am committed to actually making extra rice at night and making fried rice from leftovers :)



Kevin and I also had leftover homemade sweet and sour chicken with the same mixed veggies, peppers, and pineapple. Oh my goodness, I never realized how easy it is to make sweet and sour sauce! Why did I ever pay for bottled sauce?! Everyone gobbled it up the night before, and so I only had enough for Kevin and myself. I love my Mr. Bento knock-off. Hot food without microwaving it later! I forgot to take a picture but I will next time. I got my knock-off from the Asian market for $20 and it works GREAT! Kevin always puts his lunch in the fridge at work, so its not as big of a deal for him to reheat it later, but there is only one tiny microwave at co-op, and its always busy, so if I don't have to reheat my lunch, I have lots more time to actually eat my lunch. Kev and I also had cheese cubes, a cherry chip cupcake, lil smokies and ritz crackers.



The girls had noodles with parmesan cheese, frozen mixed veggies, lil smokies, ritz crackers, a cherry chip cupcake (leftover from my failed attempt to make cupcakes for Melody's birthday), and cheese cubes. They also had a fruit cup for snack, and mango nectar to drink. They probably could have used a bit more protein, but we were out of tofu. Liberty doesn't like the lil smokies so she wouldn't eat them, but everyone else ate everything. Oh, and Liberty doesn't like mango nectar. I need to get more apple juice from the store, it freezes well and they all like it.



Overall, tasty food, filling, and no real complaints :) Sorry for the not so great photos this week, it was late and I was in a hurry!

And I have rarely had a moment to sit still, much less to edit pictures and update my blog! And I am about to run out the door for a birthday party for my youngest, but I have about 5 seconds to actually write up my blog while I have a print job running, hooray :)




So let's see . . . last week we had bentos in a one tier box from whatever was lying around the house. Some Jonathan apple slices soaked in a bit of lemon juice in water with peanut butter in the little fish containers, tortilla rolls with Neufchâtel cheese and ham slices, ritz crackers, and yogurt covered craisins (in my personal opinion, yuck! way too sweet!) were in the girls' bentos. Melody also had raisins in a little box that I keep refilling from the big bag of organic raisins. They had side containers with pretzels, organic animal crackers, and mini Reese's pieces. Oh, and they had the last of the mini containers of candies from the Asian market.



Everything was gobbled up, and nobody complained about anything this week. Their snacks were a bit too large, and they actually ate them with their lunches. They had large containers of apple juice this week along with their water, and no one finished, partially because the large bottles took too long to defrost, and partially because it was just too much to drink. They worked nicely as icepacks though, and then the girls had leftover juice to drink on the way home. So I am not sure if I will stick with the large bottles, or go back to the tiny ones.



Kevin and I had identical bentos: salami sandwiches, the same pretzel mix and threw in a few craisins into his lunch, and half an apple each that had been dipped in lemon juice. My husband decided the lemon juice was too strong for his taste, but I think it might have been the apple itself that was a bit too tart. We also had diet pepsi because we were out of coke zero, and it just is not the same!



I still have no idea what I am making for lunch this week, but we will have two bentos because we have a field trip to the pumpkin patch on Friday! Maybe I will try to have a cute fall theme for the trip to the pumpkin patch. The bentos have to be peanut and tree-nut product free, which normally isn't a problem, but probably will frustrate me just because I know it is a limitation! Sunbutter is okay though, so I will probably stick with that :)

Well, this was our first lunch of October, and I suppose I should have gone with a more autumn-y theme, but it was a very busy morning, and we barely made it out the door in time as it was! We were having a potluck for the parents at co-op, so I only needed to make four bentos and a blueberry french toast casserole to share for the potluck. The casserole was assembled the night before and left in the fridge overnight, so I just had to pop it into the oven in the morning.



My husband really wanted a sandwich, so he had roast beef and marbled cheddar on wheat, 2 eggs (because I used 12 out of eighteen in the french toast casserole, and hard boiled the rest of the six in the morning!), cheese cubes, and frozen peas. He really, really likes peas, and was quite pleasantly surprised to find them in his lunch last week. I really don't like canned peas a bit, but thought I would try these sweet frozen peas instead. Peas really aren't my favorite still, but these were at least edible!



The girls had mini bagels and Neufchâtel cream cheese, organic cherry granola, vanilla yogurt, frozen peas and lil' smokies, cubed marbled cheddar with a ring shaped food pick, and half a molded hard-boiled egg. Oh, and chocolate Hello Panda cookies for dessert, with mini boxed candies in the skinny top compartment of their bentos. Ainsley and Liberty also had a side container with pretzels for snack, Melody is sharing snack with the class every week.



The press and seal worked well to keep the yogurt in the silicone cups (you can see it in the top left green bento). Everything was gobbled up by the girls and the husband. A few crumbs of granola were left over, and Liberty didn't like her cheese cubes very much. But even the lil' smokies were eaten without ketchup (which I forgot to add!) by all three girls, even though they thought they wouldn't like them!

Yet another successful week of bento for our family. and I pretty sure the girls would be really disappointed if I ever went back to packing lunched the old way!

Liberty helped me make our own version of swedish/italian meatballs for dinner on Tuesday night. The leftovers were saved to go into lunch boxes especially so we could use our little bone picks from Ichiban Kan. I haven't made meatballs in my lifetime more than a handful of times, but this was a great excuse to try it. And as it turns out, my girls LOVE meatballs!



The soy sauce bottles were a huge hit with my girls and the moms who noticed the bentos. And even Melody was able to open up her own bottle.



And the ketchup containers were a great find! I went to the dollar tree in search of the mythical hello kitty bentos supposedly sold there on occasion, and to look for portable soup containers. Found soup containers which when brought home were found to hold water as well as a sieve. No bentos, and not really any nice snap containers either. But in the Halloween candy section, I found these packs of six eye-ball roll up gum containers. The lids looked like they would stay put, and I wan't concerned about water tightness, just something to keep dressing or syrup or ketchup in one place. These worked great! The girls can open them easily, nothing leaked, and the meatballs fit into the containers as if they were made for that purpose! I just popped a couple of circular stickers over the creepy eyeballs and we were good to go. I figure I am not going to worry too much about the water-fastness (is that a word?) of the stickers themselves as I can change them out easily with any variety of stickers.



Kevin and I had tuna sandwiches with lettuce and dill pickles on Hawaiian Sweet Roll buns. Those buns are divine. I could eat up a package in one sitting, I love Hawaiian bread so so so so much.



We all had rice and peas (which I popped in the bentos frozen and they had thawed nicely from the warm rice by lunchtime. We also had garlic cheese and triscuits. Kevin had wheat thins as he is vehemently opposed to the thought of triscuit. Overall a yummy and filling lunch with very few crumbs left in their boxes!

Because I am lame and slow! But hey, at least I am posting before I make tomorrow's lunch!!



This week I used a recipe from another bento blog for corn dog muffins. They were quite tasty, but I definitely prefer them warm. Super simple to make, and I have another batch made up in the freezer to defrost in a few weeks. Would probably be really tasty alongside chunky chicken noodle soup!



Once again, the girls requested molded eggs. I made them the night before, but I guess I need to leave them in the molds if I am going to do that because they lost a lot of their shape overnight. Still tasted quite yummy though! We also had diced up nectarines, grape tomatoes, cherry jello with fruit in it, carrots, grapes, cut up cheese, and mini-shortbread cookies. Ainsley and Melody ate all of their lunch except the jello because I forgot to pack spoons! They ate the last tidbits at home after school. Liberty didn't eat much because she came down with an ear infection during school and spent lunch time laying down in my lap. Oh, and my lunch had the very last lava cupcake, the girls had eaten theirs at dinner the night before. Yum yum.


We got our shipment from Ichiban Kan which had the egg molds as well as the cute picks. The girls requested their bunny bento boxes this week again, but tomorrow I am going to try out some of the new boxes.


Every mom raves about the cute lunches the girls get to eat, and everyone asks me where we found the boxes, etc. I need to print out cards or something! Maybe we get more attention because it is a co-op. It would be great if we could encourage others to reduce the amount of waste in the packaging of the kids lunches!

I can tell my girls are really latching on the the idea of reducing the waste also. I sent little bottles with spill-proof lids full of apple juice that I had frozen the night before to serve double duty as lunch drinks and cold packs. Melody saved her lid but threw the bottle away (I have extra, but I had planned to reuse them!). Her sisters practically tore her head off for throwing away something from her lunch! I think we need to work on our approach a bit!

Still trying to decide what to pack tomorrow, but it will definitely include meatballs. I posted the recipe on my other blog

Well, we were heading off to a little field trip at the local nature center, so I figured it was a good chance to pack up a second bento this morning! Similar to the first in some ways, but enough different that the girls didn't mind a bit.



This time, the bottom layer was rice, leftover rotisserie chicken reheated with teriyaki sauce, and steamed veggies. The top had feta cheese and animal cookies along with the same fruit as yesterday. Its truly amazing, veggies my kids normally won't touch (squash really was the only one!) were eaten without complaint. Though my middle child still wouldn't eat the minuscule red peppers!

I am learning what fits where, and how to squeeze in a few more bites of food here and there. What fun! I am thoroughly enjoying my new hobby, and can't wait til next Thursday to pack another lunch!

We had our second week of co-op, and I was amazed by the amount of waste created from just a few more than 30 families in one day of lunch. My mind reeled multiplying that amount by all the children in all the schools around the nation. Wow. So I decided that I was going to do my part to minimize the waste our family creates during a school lunch, and have some fun in the process. Our first attempt was a complete success! The girls LOVED their special lunches. Several moms commented about them and asked about where we got our bento boxes (the local asian market!) And everything was gobbled up! And nobody went hungry. In the next few weeks, I am going to have to sort out how to do their snack as well, as we have been taking granola bars until our stash runs out. We will probably make some in our food deydrator, as we've tried that before and the results were quite tasty.



Our bentos were filled with hard-boiled eggs, grapes, oranges, raisins, wheat thins, pita bread, applesauce, cheese, carrots, edamame, and granola. Its amazing how much food can be packed into these tiny seeming containers!

My three girls and I will be creating bento style lunches to take to our weekly co-op meetings. As we create, we will share them with you, and hopefully inspire others to try this fun way of packing lunches. If you have never heard of bento, here are a few links to get you started!

Lunch in a Box

Make Healthy Lunches More Appealing

Lunch Bucket Bento

Laptop Lunches

Bento Box Recipes

Bento Lunch

We will be doing a mix of American style and Asian style lunches. My first experience with bento lunches was when my parents were watching a little Korean boy whose mommy always packed him the sweetest little lunches, and she taught me how to make her special rice balls. Ever since them I have been enchanted by these unique and tasty meals, and want my children to remember their packed lunches as being special and created from the heart just for them!

Another great place to look for inspiration to create your own bento-style lunch is on flickr: