I am a Bento Slacker!

As you might’ve noticed, I’ve not posted a bento in quite awhile (wow, it’s been a month already!). I’ve still been making bentos, but they haven’t been too inspiring. Most of them have been tossed together first thing in the morning before I run out the door, so even if they were pretty, I didn’t have enough time to take pics.

I can blame some of this on my husband who bought me Lord of the Rings: Online which has been sucking up the hours in the evening after Munchkin goes to bed that I normally used to make my bento for the next day. I can also blame part of it on the fact that my birthday was this month, plus I had Guard duty for a few days, which both meant that I was eating out for lunch on several occasions.

I’m going to get back into the swing of making some decent, photo-worthy bentos…yes, I am. Hubby gave me a bit of a bento wake-up call the other night when I was drooling over all the new and restocked goodies at Ichiban Kan. I’d filled up my cart rather nicely when he said “Why are you buying more? You’re not even using what you have now.” Ooo…ouch….he’s right. So, before I let myself buy anything else, I’m going to have to start using what I have first (and stop using Munchkin as an excuse becasuse she’s not asked for bento in ages).

Mmmmarvelous Mmmmuffins!

Jasmine Green Tea Muffins

I found a recipe for Earl Grey Tea Muffins at JustBento.com and just had to try it. I’m not a big fan of Earl Grey tea, so I used Jasmine Green tea instead. They turned out pretty yummy. Not very sweet though since I used regular sugar instead of the sucanat that the recipe called for. But a dab of honey on a nice hot muffin out of the oven makes it all better!

I love fall…it brings out my urge to cook and bake.

Bento #25 ~ Frozen Foods Are Our Friends!

Whipped this up in about 5 minutes. It’s all frozen with the exception of the fruit cup. I love the snap lock boxes now. I can fit much more into it and just toss it into the microwave to heat it all up tomorrow at lunch. Yum yum!

Boneless teriyaki chicken wings with vegetable and pork gyoza, on top of a bed of vegetables and garnished with broccoli. Tropical fruit cup on the side.

Bento…Organized!

Since my bento drawer in the kitchen was packed to overflowing, I decided to retask a 4-drawer unit that I had been using for Avon samples and supplies back when I was selling it. It worked great! The only downside is that none of the drawers are completely full yet so everything slides around when I open and close the drawers. Just another excuse to buy more…bwahahaha! >:-)

Bento Storage, Will Travel (see it has wheels!)

Top drawer: At the top are various cookie cutters, below is a sectioned storage case for my picks, sauce bottles, mayo cups, punches, dividers, and furikake shakers. To the right are rice/egg mold and furikake stencils.

Second drawer (L to R): Antibacterial sheets, gyoza mold, various cups, decorative brads (that I plan on using to decorate some of my plainer boxes), chopsticks and case, utensil set, and belts.

 

Third drawer: Two-tiered boxes (with the exception of the LIberty box which will, hopefully, eventually be a second tier once I get the large size)

Bottom drawer: Snap lock boxes, minus the one I used for lunch today.

Bentos #23 & 24 ~ More Two-For-One

I’ve been a lazy photographer lately. Been taking the pics, but not uploading them here. Below are today’s and tomorrow’s bentos, with commentary.

Today’s Bento

Vegetable fried rice with egg leaves and ketchup, baby carrots, and kawame salad. In lid: container of soy sauce and more ketchup, yakgwe cookie.

 Please kindly ignore the ugly kitchen floor in this pic…one of my “backdrops” was in use elsewhere (my eco bag), and the other was in the wash (my cherry blossom shirt). I swear once I get some extra money, the first thing I’m doing is getting new tile in the kitchen. But anyway…on to the bento. It looks quasi-pretty, but was all in all, a bit of a disappointment. Cold to room temperature fried rice is not yummy at all…at least not the kind I make. The ketchup blobs were supposed to be veins on the leaves, but turned out all wrong and ended up as just…blobs. Note to anyone who bought the super-cute compartmentalized mayo containers at Ichiban Kan: they are NOT leak-proof. Thankfully, I had it tucked in my lunch bag with my bento and not in my eco bag with my workout clothes because I ended up with half the soy sauce all over the inside of my lunch bag and all over my bento…and I was being very careful not to jostle it too much for that very reason. Lesson learned. This bento was veggie-heavy due to a weekly Biggest Loser challenge I’m partaking in at SparkPeople…we’re tracking our daily vegetable servings (GO Green Team!). Anyway…onward to tomorrow’s bento.

Left tier: Pork and napa cabbage gyoza, shrimp and edamame shurai, baby carrots, all on top of soma noodles. Right tier: Greek finikia cookie, frozen strawberries.

Lots of brown in this one, I know…but hopefully it will be tastier than today’s. The gyoza are not burnt, I just did a little experiment and pan-fried them in dumpling sauce which gave them a crispy, carmelized look. Finikia cookie is from the Greekfest…mmm….I could eat a dozen of these at a time. They are sooo good!

Bento #22 ~ A Taste of the Mediterranean

A fun little blend of Italian and Greek, inspired by the local Greekfest that we attended this past weekend. Please excuse the gawdawful choice of bento boxes for this (pepto pink just doesn’t engender feelings of the Mediterranean, I know). Hubby had done dishes and my bento box drawer was a jumbled mess….I just grabbed the first complete box I could find.

Top: Six-cheese tortellini with Bertolli Fire-Roasted Tomato and Cabernet Sauvignon pasta sauce. Bottom: Mediterranean vegetable mix (from Schwans), Baklava from the Greekfest

More Ichiban Kan Goodies!

Just got my latest order in from Ichiban Kan. Not as big at the last couple, but still lots of fun stuff.

Left to Right: Gyoza maker, Mayo cups, Natural Lunch lock seal box, Natural Lunch belts, Card wallet, Tenmari lock seal box, Furikake shakers

Comments:

• Gyoza maker: I tried this out right after I took this pic to make some pb&j faux gyoza out of tortillas. It worked pretty well, but I doubt that I’d want to go through that much effort on a regular basis. They turned out cute, though.
• Mayo cups: These are super-cute. They’re both divided cups, one has three sections and the other has two, so you can put more than one type of sauce in them. They also come with cute little stickers to label what type of sauces are in the cup. I wish I’d gotten more than one set. Hopefully, they’ll get more in stock.
• Boxes: I got two more seal lock boxes because I’m really beginning to like them better than the tiered boxes.
• Belts: Got these for the other tiered boxes I have.
• Card wallet: This was actually extra in the box. I didn’t order it, but it will come in handy for when I’m at the gym or on Guard duty and I don’t need to carry my entire wallet/purse.
• Furikake shakers: These are cute…they look like little houses.

Bentos #20 & 21

It’s a two-fer-one deal today since I forgot to post my today’s bento last night. As you can see, I’m getting the creative juices flowing again. It also helps to go to the Asian market and find lots of fun goodies to put in my bentos.

Today’s bento was soma noodles….lots and lots of noodles. They were really good, but I could not eat them all. My original intent with this bento was to mix in the contents of the smaller tier, but the noodles were such a huge, tangled mess, there was no way I could do it without making a horrible mess everywhere. Thankfully, I eat my lunch in my semi-isolated office space where my co-workers couldn’t see me trying to eat the Noodle Mass. I should’ve rinsed them with cool water before putting them into the box. Ah well…lesson learned for next time.

Bento #20: Left: Soma noodles with surimi (fake crab), boiled egg and edamame. Right: More surimi, boiled egg and edamame. Lid: Choco-banana Pocky

 

Bento #21: Top: Spinach "salad" with grape tomatoes, baby carrots and a cheese "leaf", chocolate mushrooms. Bottom: rice cubes with egg and nori furikake, rolled egg, surimi, and broccoli

Bento #19 ~ Gyoza Galore!

Yes, I was in a dumpling mood today…or rather, I was a lazy butt and just tossed in what was quick and easy. This is definitely not my best bento…but at least it was yummy!

Veggie gyoza, pork and napa cabbage gyoza, grape tomatoes, mango Fruitery Jelly, fish bottle of dumpling sauce...all on top of a bed of edamame. Korean yakgwa cookie on the side.

Rollups are such a great quick and easy breakfast treat. I wanted to do the banana rollups again, but didn’t have time to freeze them…the pb&j ones were yummy, though a bit messy.

Breakfast bento: PB&J rollups and red plum (not shown: YoPlus strawberry yogurt)

Yes, I Am a Bento Snob

“To Post or Not To Post?” Indeed, that is the question that I believe that more bento-makers ahould ask. Many seem to feel obligated to post a bento everyday, regardless of quality. Despite the simplistic dictionary definition of a bento that states that it is merely a single-serving lunch in a container, I believe that a “true” bento goes beyond that and implies that care has been taken to the details of the meal. Leftover casserole tossed into a plastic container doth not a bento make. I guess that I’m somewhat of an elitist snob when it comes to bento-ing (along with a myriad of other things as well, but this is the bento blog, so I’ll just focus on bentos for now )…but I believe that folks should take a bit of pride in what they do and in what they post. Sure, I don’t see anything wrong with tossing leftovers into a plastic container, but why bother taking a picture of it and posting it in a bento community (or blog)? I am guessing that some people feel the need to see those numbers go up in regards to how many bentos they’ve made. As for me, I think that quality should prevail over quantity. Yes, there are going to be those days where the content isn’t terribly exciting, or the lighting isn’t quite right, or you rushed through it…or any number of factors that make for what I call a “borderline bento”; it’s more than glop in a box, but not quite as artfully arranged as it could be. That’s fine…I have those days too (today was one of them as you’ll see when I post my bento)…but any number of little tricks can be used to at least make it a bit more photogenic: tweak it in a photo editing program, use a pretty backdrop, etc. I think that if you’re posting something for all to see then it should be because you take pride in it….and to be honest, there are alot of bentos out there that I don’t think their makers (or anyone else) are proud of.

I would like to add however, that now that I’ve thought about it some, I realize that sometimes I have posted a subpar bento for the purpose of obtaining feedback on how I might make it better. In those cases, I can understand someone posting a bento that’s a bit below their usual standard.