A Very American Bento

The other night we had roast chicken for dinner.  It's fast, easy, and tastes great.  Well, dinner made it into the bentos again.  This time, I remade the side dishes a bit.


Layer 1:  The usual fresh veggies and cheese.  Dessert is plum, peach, and orange slices.  There's some frozen strawberry in the center.


Layer 2:  Dinner was roast chicken.  Rather than remake the chicken, I changed up the sides a little.  DD loves sweet potatoes and I had roasted one the night before.  In the morning, I mashed it.  DD and DH each got 1/4 of a sweet potato as part of their meal.  I added a little butter and some toasted almonds to the green beans. 

Looking at it this morning, it seems like a Thanksgiving themed bento.  All I need is some cranberries thrown in for color and perhaps some stuffing.  That would be fun to make!

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

Soup Leftovers in a Bento

We had soup for dinner and I needed to use the leftovers . . .   I looked at different sized ramekins to place inside the bento covered with plastic wrap. - This didn't work.  I didn't want to make anything new and we had precious little in terms of leftovers.  How do you remake soup?  Well, I turned it into a pasta sauce.  Take a look!


Layer 1: Appetizers of fresh veggies, a prosciutto and mozzarella roll, and some gold fish.  Dessert is mini grapes (so cute!), orange slices, and mini Reece's PB cups. 


Layer 2:  Where's the soup?  Well, I made some ramen noodles and used the soup (veggies and all) as a sauce.  I added a few turkey terrine balls from the freezer and some carrots, green beans, cauliflower, and dried cranberries to round out the meal.

The only problem with using the soup this way: I still have leftover soup.  How else can I remake it???

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

Roast Chicken Bento

Sunday dinner was a lovely roast chicken.  So, this is the leftovers packaged for school on Monday.  This took just a few minutes after dinner to make.  The morning was so much nicer because I got to sleep in!  :)



 Layer 1: Veggies and Laughing Cow cheese.  There is a mini quiche that I pulled from the freezer.
Dessert is fresh fruit: strawberries and oranges.


Layer 2:  Roast chicken with potatoes and green beans, zucchini, and roasted peppers.

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

Leftovers à la Bento

The other night, a good friend called and chatted with me for 4 hours on the phone.  We talked, and talked, and talked some more.  That night, I got maybe 5 hours of sleep.  So, in the morning I threw together an almost thoughtless bento consisting of leftovers.  I made absolutely nothing new and was grateful to clean out the fridge. 


Layer 1:  There's a wedge of brie cheese with tomatoes and carrots.  The little jar in the center holds some salad dressing.  Fresh fruit rounds out this layer with grapes and slices of peach.


Layer 2 version 1:  Here is some ramen on the bottom topped with leftover mushi, a small green salad, and some steamed veggies leftover from dinner.


Layer 2 version 2:  The ramen is topped with grilled chicken and the same veggie sides. 

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

Funny Story and an Ugly Bento

Last week, my husband and I went out to dinner with some relatives from out of town.  It was a lovely evening filled with conversation and good fun.  But, at the end of the evening, we had leftovers to take home.  In the morning, I tried to hand off a plastic container from the restaurant filled with jambalaya.  Would you believe he actually pouted and said it wasn't the same as taking a bento to school!?!?!  So, here's the jambalaya bento.


I had some leftover salad in the fridge and so I put that into the bento with some random slices of fruit. 


And here's the jambalaya.  It looks rather boring but just the simple act of putting it into a bento container made DH smile.

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

"Mushi" Strikes Again

Ok.  I have a confession to make: I just went grocery shopping last night and the options in my fridge are looking rather slim.  I have no leftovers to use in bento making.  Indeed, we had "breakfast for dinner" last night (because it was quick and easy) and I was scrambling to make this bento.  :)

I happened to have some ground beef in the fridge that I was planning to make into meatloaf, so I decided to try "mushi" again.  Please, dear readers, help me come up with another name for this dish! I can't believe I'm using DD's name for it!


Layer 1:  First course is (as usual) veggies and cheese.  I found these lovely little yellow tomatoes in the store today, so I added them.  Dessert is very simple.  There's Greek yogurt and peach jam in the center, little cream cheese and strawberry jam sandwiches, and fresh strawberries.  I cut the sandwiches in triangles today and I think you can see more of them this way.  They are on square cocktail bread.


Layer 2: I've got ramen noodles tossed with butter, Parmesan cheese, and rosemary.   This is topped with carrots and broccoli tossed in more herbs and butter.  (It sounds like the meal is dripping with butter but I think I used 1 tsp of butter for 2 people's lunches here folks.)  The "mushi" is on the right. 

As you can see, it looks very different from the last time I made it.  Indeed, I don't think it turned out as well.  At least it smelled good while I was cooking it.  I used black forest ham and lined it with a cabbage leaf.  I then put in the ground beef, some pepperjack cheese, and some green onion.  The cabbage leaf kept the ham from sticking to the beef and this made the whole thing difficult to cook.  I may try an egg wash on the ham next time to see if that helps in terms of structural integrity.  The cheese slices posed another problem.  They were rather brittle and kept things from forming a proper roll until they started to melt.  I might try a cheese stick next time, if I decide to do cheese again at all.  I miss the pop of color the carrot provided in my last attempt and I still think I might try this with turkey or chicken.

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

An Evening Bento Series - Day 6

After day 5's failure, I decided to make one more evening bento and see how it went.  That evening we had sandwiches, so I had very little in terms of bento making leftovers.  I ended up digging around the fridge to pull this one together.

Layer 1: The first course is comprised of carrots, tomatoes, and bell pepper with laughing cow cheese.  This is the standard starting point for my bentos.  Dessert is fresh fruit: peaches and strawberries with candied walnuts and little sandwiches of cream cheese and strawberry jam.  The sandwiches are cut in the shape of tulips but it didn't photograph very well.


Layer 2: Roast chicken (pulled from the freezer), broccoli, and a roasted tomato.  I made onigiri, which are Japanese rice balls.  Typically, they add vinegar and salt to them.  I tried it out and really like the added flavor of the vinegar.  DH loved them.

***
How to Make Onigiri Without a Mold

Most bento stores sell little plastic molds for shaping onigiri.  There are cute shapes: triangles, balls, flat disks, squares.  It's all very cute but I'm cheap and wanted to know how to shape rice balls without a mold.  After reading a few websites, it turns out that the secret to easy onigiri is plastic wrap.

So, here's how it works.  Take warm rice (not too hot - you still need to handle it) and mix it with whatever flavors you are going to use. 

Today's has white wine vinegar, a little salt, and some minced onion that I added while the rice was cooking.  This rice is leftover from dinner a few nights ago, so I had to heat it up in the microwave.  I have even heard of people freezing quantities of rice and then heating it up to make onigiri.  It seems to work fine as long as you have rice that will stick together.  The rice I used here is a short grain, Asian rice from the grocery store.  If you're ever looking for a way to use the white rice you get with your Chinese food, this is a great option.

Spoon a small amount of rice into the center of a square/rectangle of plastic wrap.  If you are going to add a stuffing, add it now.  Then, pull up the sides of the plastic wrap so that you have a little bowl shape around the rice.  Twist the wrap to bring the ends of the bowl shape into a ball and create enough tension to shape the rice.  Unwrap and place carefully into your bento.  You're done!

If you want to make a few of these in advance (while you have warm rice already), you might leave them wrapped in plastic and refrigerate.  This will keep them reasonably moist for a few days and speed up your bento work.

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

A Bento Story from AP in New Jersey!

I’ve been on your bento blog several times checking out what you’ve done, and looking for interesting things. Thanks for the tip on cooking ramen noodles – I love them but always get them too well-done. Have tried your way x 2 and they were perfect. And I liked the tomato-mozzarella caprice on a stick – who would have thought!!.

As for my bento box….I really don’t have one, and really don’t need one. I very seldom need lunch, now that I’m retired – I only take lunch if going to a continuing ed seminar which is only 1-2 times per year, maybe. (The rest I do on line). They used to give you lunch, but now it’s just coffee, hot water, cold water, if you’re lucky, and they sometimes take that away at mid-conference. So I take lunch and your blog inspired me to create a my version of a bento box lunch without the bento box.

So I raided my container closet to see what I had that would fit into my lunch box tote purse without having to be tilted on it’s side. (It’s actually shaped like a purse – you really wouldn’t know it’s insulated). I found 2 rectangular containers that came from the prepared lunch meat section of the supermarket (like Healthy Choice, Hillshire Farms, etc.) Then I found 2 tiny containers with lids that would fit into the other 2 . Even found a very small jar that I could use – it comes with hotel room service breakfast with jam or jelly. And for holding my utensils, I found an old eyeglasses case that I had just left in a drawer – it holds a knife in a protective sleeve made from plastic canvas and wool scraps, fork, spoon. Could even wrap them in the napkins and place in the case.

As for my actual lunch – one container had ramen noodles as a base topped with diced grilled chicken (diced so I needn’t worry about a knife as I eat from my lap probably). Second container had 4 tomato-mozzarella sticks (on those little plastic colored swords) and dressing in a small lidded container that I sat in a colored paper baking cup to help keep it from moving around. Those 2 sat in my tote on top of each other, with room for an uncovered Tupperware rectangular container on top that held a store-bought mini fruit cup for dessert and a paper baking cup with 2 pieces of chocolate for PM snack. And a bottle of water fit nicely in the tote beside the stacked containers.

As for the results – I need to work on adding more flavor/moisture to the noodles; the dressing leaked some in the tomato-mozzarella sticks (lid not tight enough but leakage was confined to the paper baking cup); it was really too much food compared to my normal lunch at home. But I was over-all pleased with the results and now have my version of a bento box that works very well with my favorite lunch tote.

It was an interesting adventure to create the whole thing – I think I did well with what I had.

So that’s my long bento box story – thanks to your inspirations.

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

A Bento Contribution from DD

Today I'd like to share a dessert bento idea created by my own DD. She decided she wanted fruit for dessert and made peach pie. It's not your normally sized peach pie though. Let's take a look.

This is the raw version. Here she took little ramekins and lined them with pie crust. She then added peaches, brown sugar, and a little cinnamon. She topped it with butterflies cut from more pie crust.

Here is the baked version. I think the butterflies look darling!


She made far too many of these for just dinner. The solution? We wrapped them in plastic wrap and can now take them to school as part of a bento meal. I'm not sure they'll last that long but it's a great idea!

Another option: Make them in jars that you can then put the top on. This would make transport even easier since you would have a hard top to the container.

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

An Evening Bento Series - Failure on Day 5

Thursday morning, I woke up at 2:30 am and worked on paperwork for our adoption until about 7 am.  I then worked all day on other stuff.  Needless to say by the time dinner rolled around, I didn't care what the family ate; I just wanted to get through the meal so that I could go to bed.

Under such circumstances, making bento would not have been a good idea.  So, I waited until this morning.  There's only 1 problem with that plan: I'm still tired.  I told DH that I made this with my eyes shut.  Indeed, I skipped breakfast and will be heading back to bed here shortly. 


Layer 1: Leftover pasta salad with a mini quiche that I pulled from the freezer.  Dessert is half a hot cross bun.  I made a bunch of these on Wednesday for the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (it seemed like a cute idea).  I also added some orange slices and strawberries.


Layer 2: A rather uninspired tuna sandwich with carrots and tomatoes. 

DD's lunch was essentially the same.  She had a ham sandwich though. 



  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

An Evening Bento Series - Day 4

Tomorrow's bentos are reprised leftovers from a couple of different days.  I think it is one of my best yet.  I don't know why that would be the case except that DD wasn't home tonight and I was doing the dishes myself.  I may have felt less rushed to get it done.  I certainly felt like I played a bit more than I have so far this week.  What do you think of the end result?


Layer 1:  We have an appetizer course of Laughing Cow cheese, potato wedges, carrots, tomatoes, and flower shaped pieces of green pepper.  Dessert consists of slices of plum, orange, some beautiful strawberries, and a little bit of leftover peach crumble. 

What are the leftovers on this layer?  Well, the potatoes were extra pieces from dinner two days ago and bento making the other night.  The plum and orange pieces were random half fruits hanging out in the fridge from this week's bentos, and the peach crumble was dessert on Sunday, Monday, and a snack on Tuesday (DD really loved it). 


Layer 2: The main course is rice with chicken, zucchini, yellow and red bell peppers, carrots, and tomato in a herb infused olive oil sauce.  I've topped the rice with a half a tomato that I've sprinkled it with more herbs.  Everything is lightly topped with feta cheese crumbles.

Leftovers?  The chicken was Sunday dinner.  The veggies and rice were made tonight.

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

An Evening Bento Series - Day 3

Today's bento does not include leftovers.  My family eats vegetarian twice a week: Wednesdays and Fridays.  Naturally, I couldn't include meat from tonight's dinner in tomorrow's meal.  I decided to make some staples to keep on hand today instead. 


Layer 1: I would usually have dessert and an appetizer course in this layer of the bento.  Like last week, though, with a vegetarian meal, I decided to go a little heavier on the proteins that I can serve.  There's brie cheese, grapes, pinwheels made of roasted red pepper hummus and flat bread, some veggies, Laughing Cow cheese, and a plum.  In the center are some homemade crackers. 


Layer 2: The main course includes quiche and a pasta salad made with tomatoes, cucumber, yellow and green peppers, parsley, and a champagne vinaigrette.  Last week, I made quiche in normal sized muffin tins.  This week, I went smaller.  These were made in a mini muffin tin.  These are a cute size and work well in the bento (not that the others didn't).

What are the staples involved here?  Well, you can probably figure out that I keep certain items on hand regularly because you're seeing some repeats.  The fruits and veggies are pretty obvious.  But I also keep at least two kinds of pasta available (ramen and 1 other).  Here I've used little shells.  I do tend to buy the miniature pastas because I like their scale in the bento.  Today I made up enough pasta salad that I can serve it at multiple meals this week.  Rather than making quiche again, I've also gone ahead and made 24 quiches that I'm freezing.  That way, when I need one for a lunch, it's easy to throw together.  I have a huge wheel of brie that we need to get through and two rounds of Laughing Cow wedges.  Most of this stuff tends to last quite a long while because any one portion is rather small.  But I said enough about such things yesterday.  :)

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

An Evening Bento Series - Day 2

Good morning!  I'm happy and chipper because for a second day in a row, I got to sleep in and have a leisurely morning (getting up at 5:30 seems like sleeping in to 10 right now). 

So, last night I prepared two bentos from dinner leftovers.  Dinner was:

Steak
Salad
Baked potatoes
Peach crumble

This was recycled into a bento with some additions.  All told, bentos were made and cooling on the kitchen counter by 7:30pm; dishes were done at that point too.  While the bentos were cooling, the family played games and hung out - not a bad deal at all.


Layer 1:  The first course is actually pretty simple.  As we were making a salad to go with dinner, I sliced veggies for the bento.  So, here we have cucumber, tomatoes, carrots, and a butterfly cut from green pepper.  I also added a pinwheel sandwich of black forest ham, tomatoes, cucumbers, and mayo on a flat bread.  Between the two bentos, I used half a pinwheel roll, so I have enough for another day - easily.  I just thin sliced veggies and threw together the pinwheel as I was doing the other veg.  DH commented that he likes the lemon cake without the crunchy topping, so here it is served as dessert.  I added a lot of yellow and orange to this layer - and didn't notice until now.  There's orange slices, pineapple, and a strawberry. 

Layer 2: So here's the main course.  The leftover steak from dinner is thin sliced.  I've added some coleslaw (that I made over the weekend), sautéed onions and mushrooms (this I made specially for the bento), and as I was making potatoes for dinner, I added a few little ones for the bento. 

I think the end result today is rather pretty.  There's lots of color, variety of texture and flavor, and while dinner is refeatured, it's presented differently and side dishes are changed up. 

Portions are pretty small here.  I think there's about 2 oz (57 g) of steak, 1/4 cup of mushrooms and onions, the same quantity of coleslaw (if that), and 1.5 small potatoes.  That's one of the things I love about bentos: the tiny bits of leftovers that don't seem like they're enough to keep turn into meal.  Even layer 1 contains small portions.  There's 1/4 sandwich, 2 mini carrots, a few slices of cucumber, and some tomato.  The piece of green pepper is almost two small to mention.  Dessert is 1/4 of a small orange, 1/4 of a normal slice of cake, a single strawberry, and a tiny bit of pineapple.  Each item eaten on its own would be a ridiculous portion but the sum of the parts becomes substantial. 

A Special Bento Challenge!!!

With small portions and economy in mind, I have a bento challenge for you!  If you read my blog, I'd like you to go into your fridge and pull out the leftovers that have been stored in there for a day or two.  Take a good look at what you've got that's still reasonable to eat.  What can you make with it?  Tonight after dinner, instead of throwing out or pushing someone to eat that last spoonfull of veg or rice, save it!  Turn it into something special and take a picture or two.  Then please email it to me!  I'll post your bentos alongside my own.

My email:  fontevrault @  comcast dot net

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

An Evening Bento Series - Day 1

Today begins my attempt to pack bentos the night before they are needed so that I hopefully get more time and a prettier bento as a result.  They are also a series of leftover bentos rather than packing completely fresh items.  If I'm packing these at night, I really don't want to add more dishes for us to do.  That would defeat the purpose. 

Sundays in our house are family nights.  While we always eat together, on Sundays we play games and spend the whole evening together as well.  As a result, this bento was a group effort.  DD sliced chicken, DH did dishes and put away leftovers as we went.  It is not an artistic triumph but I think we had fun as a family. :)


Layer 1: Here we have a cucumber and tomato salad. - We have a huge amount of cucumber thanks to a dear friend's garden! I sliced both the tomato and the cucumber paper thin here and then layered them.  On top are little flowers of cucumber.  I've added some onion and caesar dressing here.  Dessert is lemon crunch cake that I've sliced the top off of (the best part anyway), a strawberry, and some plum.  I'm not sure what to do with the rest of the cake though . . .  I'm sure it will find its way into another bento this week. :)


Layer 2: By now this should look familiar.  We roasted a whole chicken last night and so I took the juice and tossed it with some onion in the ramen noodles.  I topped that with half a chicken breast.  On the side is some broccoli, carrots, and cauliflower. 

Last night's dinner menu was:
Roasted chicken
Potatoes and onions roasted along with the chicken
Broccoli
Peach crumble

It was reincarnated to some extent here.  I used leftover chicken and then cooked ramen and veggies in the steamer I had used for the broccoli.  It was a microwave steamer that served well as a bowl and strainer for the ramen.  - No extra dishes here.

I sliced the tomato and cucumber onto a plate (because it was smaller than the cutting boards).  This was the only extra dish I made last night - aside from a knife and a spoon.

Time constraints:  By packing the bento last night, I used the normal time it would have taken to put away leftovers to make the bento as well.  So, there really wasn't much of a time investment here.  And the best part was this morning I got to sleep in until 5:30!

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

An Easy Chicken Bento

This is a single tiered bento box for DD.  She was rushed yesterday morning and needed something simple and easy.  So, here we have it!  One tier meant that I could get her out the door quickly this morning and give her a fairly healthy lunch nonetheless.  There are no snacks to accompany this meal, but that's OK because the portions are rather large.


This is the ultimate 5 minute bento.  There's ramen noodles on the bottom of this bento that I've tossed with some butter and Parmesan cheese.  On top of that I layered snow peas, carrot, cauliflower, and dried cranberries tossed in a little butter.  Then I added some sliced chicken.  It's a rather "no frills" meal that still gets the job done. 

First thing I did was boil water.  While the kettle was heating, I took some ramen and put it into a bowl with a colander already in place.  I poured the boiling water over the ramen and let sit for 3 minutes or so. 

While the ramen was cooking, I pulled the veggies together and cooked them.  I also threw a roasted chicken breast into the microwave for a quick reheat. 

I then began layering items into the bento.  By the time I'd tossed the ramen with butter and parm, the veggies were cool and I loaded them into the bento next.  Last thing to do: slice the chicken and put that in as well. 

I left the bento box open while I poured a cup of coffee and made some breakfast.  By the time the family sat down to eat, lunch was completely cooled and in lunch boxes for the day.

What did DH have for lunch?  Well, his wasn't this pretty looking.  I had some leftover tilapia from the night before that I'd preloaded into a bento box with a little rice.  It was very monochromatic and ugly - even when I added some of the veggies I made for DD.  Oh well!  They can't all be winners.

What was the lesson learned from this?  I am definitely a make the bento the night before kinda girl.  That's what I'm going to try to do next week.  After dinner, I'll assemble the bentos for the next day and see if that goes any more smoothly.

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

Waking Up at 5 am is Hard Bento

Wow!  Getting up early is rather painful.  The second day was harder than the first and thus my bento is rather sad.  I could have done more - if I had packed it the night before.  I really need to start doing that because early morning bento making is just too hard.

My goal today was to create a meatless bento that would be filling and easy to eat.  DD eats twice in her day: layer 1 around 10 am and layer 2 around 1 pm.  This grazing means that I wanted a carbohydrate on both layers - a little tricky.

Layer 1:  We have brie and homemade crackers because I wanted to include some bread in this bento and didn't have a lot of options this morning.  I've added sliced plum and grapes and chocolate.
Layer 2:  This is a main course of leek quiche, sliced potato with herbs, and a cucumber and tomato salad.  The quiche could also make a nice breakfast.  You could make it in advance and reheat in the morning for a quick meal.  - Hmm . . .  Yummy idea! :)

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

First Day of School Bento

Yesterday was DD's first day of her senior year.  Getting up at 5 am was hard and I didn't pack her bento until the morning, so this project was completed while I was half asleep and caffeine free.  It's a pretty simple meal.  We'd had Subway sandwiches over the weekend and I used the leftovers here.  She had gone out to lunch with her boyfriend and brought home some chicken tenders.  I used those leftovers too.  :) 

You will notice that there is little dessert and a lot of protein here.  DD has a job for the school year and will be on campus from 7am to 6pm every day.  I wanted to make sure she had enough to eat and protein fills you up more than sweets ever will.


Top layer:  This is a veggies and dip and chicken tender "platter" of sorts.  I've included a Laughing Cow cheese in her favorite flavor - French onion.  There's cucumbers, carrots, red and yellow peppers here.  Oh - and there's a dessert: more of last night's chocolate cake topped with strawberries.  Sadly, that's the last of the cake.


Bottom layer: I cut the sandwich into equal pieces and put them into the bento.  There's not much excitement there in terms of color, so I went for some more veggies to brighten things up.  The cup holds some quick, homemade, purple cabbage coleslaw.  There was some extra room, so I threw in more veggies.

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

A Family Picnic Bento

I'm sorry that I haven't been posting in the last 4 days or so.  DH didn't have training on Friday, yesterday was Labor Day, and today is the first day of school.  So, as you can imagine, we spent the weekend as a family, just hanging out.  There were no bentos needed - well, except for last night.

We decided to have a picnic in a local park last night, hang out, and play games.  It was a nice way to end our weekend and begin the school year.  We had planned to pick fresh veggies and fruit at a local farm as well but it was closed for the holiday.  It's too bad because in order to go again with DH and DD, they'd have to take time off from school and that's not going to happen.

So, last night's bento was a dinner bento.  I used some neat containers I picked up at Albertsons years ago.  I thought they were for veggies and dip until I saw another site where someone used them as bento.  It's a great idea because the little cups allow you to serve each person.  The meal contains things you've seen before - not that exciting.  But, this bento was a family project.  Everyone helped to make it.


We packed a lot of food here because DH enjoys a solid dinner and everyone had been running around all day.  We finished it all too.  :)  There are mozzarella caprese skewers with balsamic vinaigrette, veggies and dip (DH's responsibility - he didn't think they were very pretty) and pasta with roast chicken.  DD made the caprese skewers, I did the chicken and pasta. 

And I didn't mention dessert.  Give the size of the meal, we packed a very small sweet.  It's just enough for a taste really.  But, it's yummy nonetheless.  In the middle of the bento, there's chocolate cake cut into little cubes and topped with frozen strawberries.  DD had made the chocolate cake the day before.

What did it look like when we got to the park?  Packing for density does have an advantage - nothing moves around much and the meal looked just as good as it did in my kitchen.
Dinner was packed into a shopping bag along with three small bottles of soda, a table cloth, silverware, napkins, and two games.  The only major change in the bento is that when the strawberries defrosted, the juice melted into the chocolate cake.  I think you'll agree that this was a yummy change.

How did I serve the food given that there were 3 people on the picnic and there are only two containers of chicken and pasta?  Well . . .  I had already placed a little pasta underneath the chicken.  I pulled out a portion of chicken, added some more of the pasta and then topped the original pasta container with chicken.  So, DH got a whole container of chicken and almost a whole container of pasta while DD and I shared the other.  DD stole a little more pasta from DH toward the end of the meal.

Here's the family at the park.

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

Breakfast à la Bento

DH surprised me by coming home for dinner last night.  We got to spend a lovely evening together and he brought me flowers!  Does it get any better?  Nope.  :)  But that does leave him with an already made bento and nothing to talk about this morning.  Am I sad, no.  He's a sweetie!

So what can I talk about today?  Well . . .   how about the most important meal of the day?  Do you wonder what I serve for breakfast in my house?  That's our topic.

This is only Greek yogurt and fresh fruit.  What makes it so "bento"?  Well, you could pack it into a bento easily (a smaller bento than I use for lunch).  You could also set it up in advance and cover with plastic wrap.  But, the part I like is that it is deliberately pretty (if I do say so myself).  It took just moments to slice the fruit and arrange it nicely - and I made 2 of these this morning. 

It's also a whole lot healthier than Eggo Waffles, a breakfast sandwich, or cereal.  The Greek yogurt is packed full of protein and calcium.  Fruit always goes down easily. 

Well, that's all I've got this morning.  I hope you have a wonderful day! 

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS