Fastest bento ever!

Yes, I was amazed to find that after making this bento I had free time that morning. Naturally I used my unexpected free time to do nothing useful, but I enjoyed reading "Mistress of the Art of Death" for a while. Most everything in this bento was already prepared and frozen. I just had to microwave it a bit or as in the case of the grapes, plop them in straight from the freezer.

The hello kitty onigiri (freezer item) has nori and carrot details. The marinated tofu needed just a few minutes to sautee. The broccoli (freezer item) needed a moment's worth of steaming. Had to fry the corn croquette (frozen item) but the grapes could go in still frozen. Last came the baby tomato which needed no preparation, yay!

Simple Sammie Bento

Another school bento, six weeks ago...

This was one of those mornings that needed a simple bento. Mainly because we were coming up on my crunch time - 2 conventions, 3 festivals, a farmer's market and my dance students' recital in a period of 6 weeks. I was panicking so much about everything else that I absolutely had no time to be very creative.

I enjoy it immensely when circumstances force me to come up with new solutions and offer challenges. In this case A-chan attends a Montessori school and they request that very little sweet or sugary items be included in lunches. Most of the time I absolutely agree, she usually only get sugar of any type on holidays...but I wanted to do quick and easy PBJ sammies! Cause they are quick. And easy, see? Ahh, so what to do?

Taking some empty cones that I would normally fill with henna paste, instead I filled one with strawberry jam and the other with blue sugar sprinkles. I assembled the sandwiches with only PB on the inside and the hearts already cut out. Then using the cones applied jam or sprinkles inside the heart shapes. Much less sugar than if I had spread it on the whole sandwich, yay!

There were also 2 Morningstar Farms Chik nuggets, 2 picks full of green peas, 1 carrot butterfly, a baby tomato, 2 pieces of frozen mango.

Seven weeks ago

It was exactly seven weeks ago today that A-chan started back to school. August and September are my busiest months of the year and thus I am incredibly late putting up school bento pics. But before I talk about the bentos, let me discuss the week before school started. The planning week.

Thinking about making a bento every day was a bit daunting. Sure, every day here at home was no problem...but this new schedule was going to be like camping in the mountains or deep sea diving. I was going to have to make sure that she had absolutely everything she could possibly need with her in an easily portable form. Napkins, utensils, soy sauce, salt, etc!! If I forgot something it would not only be a failure on my part, it could possibly be a disaster of epic 5 year old proportions!

The only way to conquer it all was to become ultra organized. I spent the week before school started making lists and reorganizing my kitchen for ultimate efficiency. I made a shopping run for all the bento essentials to make sure that I had them on hand. Then I spent the weekend cooking bento-friendly foods and freezing them. A-chan helped me cook and together we made miniature Forfar Bridies, Fried Tofu, Corn Croquettes and Bento-sized Scottish Flatpies. I am just now running out of these frozen staples after seven weeks and they were incredibly helpful, especially on mornings after staying up way too late to rehearse!

These photos are a sampling from that first week. The top bento was for the very first day of school. It contained pink rice and two soy-bologna bunnies with carrot letters and an apple heart. The other side had fried tofu bites, baby tomatoes, frozen grapes on a pick, steamed broccoli, carrot flowers, steamed cauliflower and a heart full of feta crumbles.

The bento below has smiling miniature bridies, tater tots, a Babybel cheese round, steamed broccoli, frozen mango cubes and frozen blueberries. (Forfar Bridies are a type of Scottish meat pie made with ground beef, mushroom broth, onion, parlsey and ground mustard wrapped in pastry. To make mine vegetarian I replaced the beef with Morningstar Farms crumbles.)

The next bento was also from my freezer of frozen goodness. The main part was a Scottish flatpie (potato and onion filling on a biscuit crust with cheese melted over). I baked it straight out of the freezer, let it cool off a little and plopped it in the box. There are more frozen blueberries and grapes, some morningstar farms chik nuggets, an apple flower, cucumber palm fronds and carrot stars. The lion's ears were soy bologna, the face was made with mozzarella cheese and nori.

Unfortunately while I thought he looked like a lion - A-chan thought he was a bunny!

Soul Eater Bento

My husband has been watching the Soul Eater anime for a while and I keep meaning to watch it too. But...it's not something I can watch with a five year old, so I've started picking up the Soul Eater manga instead. It's extremely wacky and bizarre and I really, really like it! Yesterday I absorbed the second volume, getting inspired to do a bento in the process.

It also is the first Halloween bento of the year. Normally I would wait until our traditional Halloween decorating day (Oct. 1st) before starting to make Halloween bentos. I have this thing about holidays - I don't like decorating or celebrating them too early. So Halloween (normally) doesn't start until Oct. 1st, Christmas and Pancha Ganapati don't start until Dec. 1st, etc. I'm breaking my own rule this year, though and bentoing before the start date! If you've ever seen the Soul Eater manga you'll instantly understand why - it's over the top Halloween style in a book.

For this bento the main thing I had to make was the Shinagami-sama onigiri. I just had to! We had pink rice already made in the fridge so I just warmed up a bit, made the rice ball and wrapped the nori around it. The mask is made from mozzarella cheese. There are two whole spears of baby corn, two soy bologna swirls, a pick with dill pickle stars, a large yummy strawberry, a steamed veggie bao, a small container of vegetarian Hamburger helper cheesy mac, a carrot Soul Eater icon with mozzarella details.

It was not only a blast to make, it was yummy!

A Rebel Bento

This one was for my husband. It was totally not me dying to do a Star Wars themed bento, no way. Really. I swear.

Top tier: Morningstar farms chik nuggets, steamed broccoli, waffle fry, black olives on an elegantly adult pick, orange slices, cherry tomato, snap peas, soy bologna rolls, chinese flower bread.

Bottom tier: Jasmine rice with one green pea and two tiny carrot hearts, Japanese curry vegetarian style, mozzarella cheese and nori rebel symbol.

My husband really hates nori and generally doesn't want to eat anything that nori has touched. The mozzarella backdrop for the rebel symbol made a big difference - it totally kept the nori off the curry. He was able to just lift off the whole thing and eat the curry underneath. Win-win for me!

Bunnies n' Balloons!

A bento from the summer that I just found in my huge picture file that was somehow mysteriously hidden on my computer.

The top tier holds a sweet potato bun, some sweet gherkins, mozzarella cheese hearts and skewered tofu cubes.

The bottom tier had a layer of jasmine rice with one section of sesame carrots on top and a section of corn. The bunnies are made from soy bologna, mozzarella and nori. The balloons are grapes with fresh parsley stems.

Get ready for an infusion of summertime bentos as I finally go through all these picture files that I thought I had lost! And once I get through all of those it will be time to go through the backlog of school bentos from this year. I can't believe how behind I am already.

Shokado Box Picnic bentos

I was recently asked how I use the huge Shokado bento box that I haul around with me to display when talking about bento history. So this post features two picnics using that box. It is a really large bento box and lots of fun to pack! I love the four squares though it can be a challenge to get food to fit perfectly.

From the information that I have been able to piece together this kind of box is traditionally filled with small dishes in each of the four compartments. The small dishes have elegant food placed in the center.

My favorite way to use this bento box is for family picnics. It is large enough to pack food for myself, my husband and my little girl. I also use it for taking snacks and munchies to parties.

The top bento is obviously a holiday theme :) One compartment has vegetarian sausage rolls, one was filled with veggie gyoza, a piece of decorated apple and tiny onigiri. A third compartment had a tin of cucumber dip with a cucumber xmas tree, some fresh veggies and bagel crisps. The last contained apple slices, cheese cubes, mixed nuts and three tiny sugar cookies with icing and sprinkles on top.

The second bento was for an evening at a friend's house. We ate it in the middle of the living room floor so in my book it still counts as a picnic bento. The top compartment had a fan shaped onigiri with black sesame seeds and pickled ginger with some rice crackers and carrots in the back. The left was filled with veggie gyoza and pork shumai (my friends were meatatarians). On the right was a large nest of yakiudon, some steamed broccoli, a couple of gyoza and lots of black olives. Last was the compartment of sweets with a tin of lychee, sweet rice crackers and 3 jellies.