Category Archives: Bento

 

PB and lemon curd, apples, carrot, organic fruit roll up stick thing, butterfly grahams.

Time Taken: 10 minutes

Posted by Kristen in Bento

 

Crescent roll, ham and cheese roll up, romanesco, carrot stars, dragonfruit.

Time taken: 10 minutes.  Roll was leftover from night before.

Posted by Kristen in Bento

You may have noticed I am missing some bentos from the mid 40’s until now.  Most have pictures, but its a matter of finding them.  I switched cameras AND computers both in the past two weeks.  Between that and general busy-ness, I haven’t gotten everything together in the same place.

PB and lemon curd, romanesco, yellow wax beans, quail egg, peaches, raspberries, strawberry and chocolate candies.

Time Taken: < 10 minutes

Posted by Kristen in Bento

 

PB and J sandwich, carrot, romanesco, raspberries, blueberries.

Time taken: 10 minutes

Posted by Kristen in Bento

 

Pb and J, raspberries, blueberries, carrots, quail egg, cherry tomato (under sauce container) and ranch dip.  Also a stick of string cheese in his lunch pail that didn’t make it inside the bento box.

Time taken: 10 minutes

Posted by Kristen in Bento

Here’s an example of the bentos I have been doing over the past week:

Plus, there was a side car with cottage cheese and diced tomatoes.  This was probably the cutest of the lot, some of the others weren’t even packed this tightly.  Certainly as little variety.   Just not worth posting for the most part!

I’ll be back next Monday with lunches again though =)

Posted by Kristen in Bento

I was tagged by Bunches and Bits to share what I do with the bits that are leftover after prepping a bento.

I did a post on this a while back!  I’ll copy that over and update it with my current changes.

 

Bento-ing can be contrary to my current frugal goal of tightening up my food budget.  It could be very wasteful.  I cut away a lot of bread to fit sandwiches to the box,  Fruit and veggie shapes leave a lot behind, cheese buses and sonics leave tons of scraps, and so on.  What do you do with all the leftovers from decorating bentos?

 

1. Unless I know I can dice them and use them in another meal that day, stock-suitable vegetables (carrots, zucchini, celery, etc), go into a gallon bag in the freezer along with other cooking scraps (parts of onions, celery tops, etc) to make stock.  I roast a chicken at least once a month, so having those veggie bits come in handy.  I much prefer my own stock – we try and cut back on salt around here, and most canned / boxed broths taste of nothing except salt.

 

Veggies that aren’t that great for stock (peas, corn, etc) I will save to make a cute little skewer for the next day, or use in soups, fried rice, and so on.

 

2. Cheese bits are saved in a baggie.  I sprinkle them on my taco soup lunches (which I am eating a lot; I haven’t gotten sick of eating taco soup several times a week!) or use them to make grilled cheese sandwiches.  They can be tossed into scrambled eggs or omelets.  I also use them in savory meat and cheese corn muffins.

 

3. Meat bits go in those same corn muffins and egg dishes, or tucked into a sandwich if he has one that day.

 

4.I’ve gotten better with bread bits since my last post.  I save them in the freezer in a baggie and whiz them in the food processor as needed to make breadcrumbs.  I can use those homemade breadcrumbs for meatballs (one of the few non lunchmeat proteins I can count on the kidlet to eat) or breading cutlets for dinner.

 

5. Usually the fruit scraps get eaten right away by me or the kidlet.  I suppose you could save them and make a fruit salad, but I’m happy to let the kiddo gobble them up with breakfast for a little more nutrtion.

 

6. I don’t save nori bits.  I don’t use much of it; he doesn’t actually LIKE it, and peels it off anyway.  Just sometimes you just have to have a little black!  No one here (including me) likes seaweed in any form.  Truthfully, opening the bag I have the nori stored in to pull out a little bit to use makes me want to gag with that sudden fishy sea aroma that assaults my senses.  So, bits left after punching out eyes or whatnot just plain get trashed, with no apology.

 

I’m going to tag Arkonite’s Bento Box next and ask her to share what she does with her bento leftovers! 

Once you accept the tag, the rules are simple:

1) Please link back to the person who tagged you and add your name to the “tagged list” below.

2) When you have answered the question (which can be in any style/format you like), nominate another (one will do) fellow blogger (who is not already on the list) and pass the tag to your nominee.

If you (the selected nominee) has already answered this question in an earlier post (well done), then your job is very easy – just link the tag to your earlier post and pass the tag on as per item nos. 1 and 2 above. Alternatively you can update it (if you wish). Have fun 🙂

Tagged:

1. javapot
2. susanyuen
3. sherimiya
4. Karina
5. MandLmom

6. Arkonite’s Bento Box

 

[Ps. No cute picture with this tag unless someone can generously suggest one which would be most appreciated! Hint, hint…anyone wanna sponsor or is just creative? All credits will be given.]

Posted by Kristen in Bento

Yesterday’s bento that just didn’t make it to be uploaded.  Mom was in town the last couple days and I spent most of my “free” time at Kidlet’s school, volunteering in the classroom instead of sitting in front of the computer.

Friday’s are music class day, so that sparked the little bit I did with a theme.  It was another rush and go lunch.

PB and lemon curd sandwiches shaped like notes, quail eggs, grapes, blueberries, carrots, broccoli, little bell pepper flower on top, a japanese pastry and a couple little strawberry candies.

Time taken: 20 minutes, while also making breakfast.

Posted by Kristen in Bento

One of those mornings where everything goes wrong, everything happens at once, and I was happy to get ANY lunch out the door, even one this ugly!

Ham and cheese flower sandwiches, babybel cheese, carrots, forelle pear, mini banana, raspberries, carrots and a small japanese pastry thingy from the asian market.

Time taken: 5 minutes

Posted by Kristen in Bento

The original plan today was a Sesame Street bento.  As you probably know, today is the premiere of the new season, and they are celebrating thier 40th anniversay.  I had grand plans for a turmeric colored quail egg bert, a cheddar cheese ernie, a babybel elmo, a grated cheese big bird and a street sign with a pretzel stick pole.

Alas, Baby L was not normal last night and took forever to fall asleep (after she projectile vomited at least twice the volume of formula she’d just taken, I swear!) and I was so tired when she finally did I just wanted to lay like a slug.  This morning, she cried inconsolably for several hours.  No time for elaborate bento prep at all!

Instead I made the next one on my plan for the week.  The unit this week turned out to be “hibernation”, so I have a sleeping polar bear.

Sleeping polar bear (eggplant skin eyes and nose) and snowflakes from havarti cheese, snore Z’s from cheddar, sausages underneath.  Organic blueberry mini waffles, grapes and raspberries.

Time taken:  It was very quick.  I cooked the waffles and sausage and left them to cool to try and quiet the baby.  The bear is hand cut, and took only a few minutes.  Oddly enough, the snow flakes took the longest.  It was a total bear (pun intended!) to get them out of that tiny little cutter.  In total I probably spent 15 minutes (not counting cooling time).

Posted by Kristen in Bento