Lila's Gift

Hi Y'all!  Happy New Year!  Long time no see - how ya been?  The holidays were fantastic and fun, but I feel a bit like I've been trampled by an elephant.  Slogging through molasses somewhat towards the direction of the normal groove, I am finally doing the first bento post of the year!  I am so excited, I can't wait to see what bentos everyone comes up with in the new year!

Technically this is a bento from last year.  One of my dance students asked me to buy a bento box and fill it with food as a Christmas gift for her boss.  She wanted to try and inspire her boss to eat healthier lunches in the new year, which I thought was a sweet gift idea.  This cute box with matching fork and case came from Ohayo Bento's store.  It is filled with easy to make things that I consider to be classic bento foods.

In the bento: Sugar snap peas, carrot flowers, cauliflower, vegetable gyoza, clementine pieces, cherries, vegetable fried rice with nori on top and cherry tomato halves.

The three color vegetables is one of the most recognizable bento dishes.  I can't count the number of bento books that I've seen it in, not to mention the tons of bento posts out there on blogs and flickr!  It is usually cauliflower, zucchini and carrots.  I substituted the snap peas for the zucchini because I wanted their texture. The veggie gyoza were store bought and were cooked straight from the freezer.  First they were browned in a bit of olive oil and then I finished them up by steaming with a small amount of water.