Sunday, October 3, 2010

Keeping Up!

I have two lunches from the past week to add. They're very similar, because we were running out of everything else towards the end of the week!







Main dish: leftover pot pie, pizza rolls (thirty seconds in the microwave, who could say no on a day you're running late?), and leftover spaghetti.

Other: apple, carrot sticks, granola bar, wheat thins, red beet egg, little rolos

In the second picture I accidentally snapped my little ice packs too, so there you go. I use straps to hold my bento box together, and I just use the straps to secure all the little ice packs to the outside. They work extremely well, but if you need to keep something cold more than 4-5 hours, I'd say go for something more heavy duty. They start to lose their cold by the time lunch comes around five hours later for me.

XX

Monday, September 27, 2010

leftover dayyyy

Last week was a lazy lunch week, because it was homecominggg :) I'm wishing I would have tried to do a lunch to match spirit days (mismatch monday, nerd day, clown day, school colors day, and class color day), but it was one insaaaane week, what with being sick and getting ready for the big homecoming game (we lost 40 to 0. Yes, forty to ZERO.) and dance.*

Today's lunch wasn't much better. I need to get back to planning. When I get lazy, I stop using my skinny box because it's so much harder to make 'cute' or interesting.

Without further ado...
A little slice of leftover stromboli. They were on sale at the grocery store yesterday, all you have to do is bake them! So easy, so good, so bad for you :) surrounded by salad with grocery store pasta, fish crackers, strawberries, and graham crackers.

XX

*I know this isn't about bento! But on a side note...a group of us went out to dinner before the homecoming dance, and it was amazing.

Eight of us went to this Japanese place called Fujihana, and it's one of those restaurants where they cook right at your table, so it's basically like dinner and a show ;)

The food was great, our chef was great, it was so much fun and I would love to go back sometime! I wish I had taken more pictures while we were there, but I think most of the ones we snapped were of the guys making funny faces and singing.

One of our friends didn't get any of the chef's puns until the end of the night, but they were making Family Guy references in the car all the way to the dance. That just goes to show you exactly how boys' minds work....

This anecdote completely lost sight of all relevancy.

XX

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Excuse me while I cough up this lung.

Well, I've caught the cold everyone at school has been flinging around. What's my prize? Being sick.

However, there's no better time than when you're sitting in bed crying out 'woe is me' to update tha blog. ;)

Here's a lunch from...Monday. I think.


I'd been feeling icky since last Thursday, thus the abundance of turkey wraps/sandwiches and pasta (comfort fooooddddd) plus a chocolate chip cookie just for kicks.

  • turkey wrap
  • grocery store-bought pasta salad
  • grapes and strawberries
  • goldfish, red beet egg, cookie.

Not too shabby, I suppose.

Getting whacked with the sick stick did not throw off my sense of time, so since it is wednesday, this can be my What's For Lunch Wednesday post.

Go see all the other lunches here!

XX

Saturday, September 18, 2010

TGIF lunch

Friday's lunch

Used up the last of the turkey to make the wrap - and it was gooood! red beet egg, carrot sticks, goldfish, macaroni from the freezer stash, and salad.

Quick and easy!

XX

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

It's one of those days.

It's one of those days where you keep trying to talk to your Chinese teacher in French, but then you can't remember how to say anything in French 3. Pre-calculus makes no sense, Chemistry is frustrating, and Global Studies makes you want to pull your hair out. (Thank you for teaching me what a mountain is in a 10th grade college prep class, I had forgotten they were pointy.)

deep breaths.... :}

Needless to say, lunch was a welcome distraction.





Turkey sandwiches with little heart cookies on top (cut like that, scraps went into my dad's mouth), carrot sticks, red beet egg, grapes, pasta salad from the grocery store.

Oh well, tomorrow's another day.

XX

Speaking of tomorrow - hey, this is my What's for lunch Wednesday post :) Check out all the others here!

Monday, September 13, 2010

Ahhh, pizza. Greasy, delicious, pizza.

I wish I was one of those people who look at all junk food/fast food and go ew, why would you put that in your body? There are certain things I could genuinely say that about, but for the most part, I was raised on chicken nuggets and delivery pizza twice a month ;)

So we got pizza this weekend, and I just had to take the extra piece for lunch. Yum!

Really simple lunch. I've had next to no time for planning this week, so everything is going in my green-lidded sandwich box, all simple, quicky and easy things.

leftover pizza (cut in strips and stacked), salad with broccoli, grapes, turkey roll-ups/flowers?

Now, onto Chemistry homework :) Factor labeling, anyone?

XX

Friday, September 10, 2010

Fruit, fruit, fruit

Late post! I haven't been home since I left for school this morning about 14 hours ago because there was a football game tonight! We lost 31 to 8. Ugh. And on top of that, the band was playing like a hot mess, so the color guard looked like a hot mess...it wasn't a good night! But we did get walking tacos at the snack bar, because you basically have to eat junk at a football game ;)

Anyway, since that has nothing to do with bento, here's my lunch from today:

pancakes leftover from dinner, turkey roll ups, broccoli with some cheddar

grapes, apple, strawberries

We were surprised the strawberries stayed this good so long...we normally get fruit from the market, and it gets ruined within the first 4-5 days, but since I'm in school we don't go to the market anymore and the strawberries from the grocery store have been perfect since last Sunday....Even if they are more expensive.

XX

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Lunch

Ah! I woke up later than usual this morning, so this is a quick, on the go, one shoe on one shoe off lunch :)

Top: Strawberry jam/bread rolls, apple, broccoli, red beet egg
Bottom: Grapes, salad, goldfish

XX

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

My Faux School Lunch Bento

In response to the '...why do you eat so healthy?' questions from friends, I decided to make some typical school lunch type foods. Of course, school would never get the budget for chickenless 'chicken' nuggets, but still. A girl can dream.

So this is my 'let's cheat and have chicken nuggets, mac n cheese, and tater tots all in one meal!' bento.

Top: Salad with tater tots (HOLY COW TATER TOTS!)

Bottom: 'Chicken' Nuggets (Morningstar), carrot sticks, broccoli and red beet egg, mac n cheese

I was SO excited when Ore-Ida frozen food was on sale this week at the store, because I have been dying to get my hands on these 'ABC' tater tots. I had dreams of spelling out my name, making an ABC school-themed bento.... But there was only one letter A in the whole bag. Just one. I had to use an upside down V for the other A in my name.

And THEN, I got my tots out of the fridge this morning to put my lunch together (after baking all five letters last night) and found that my R was missing. I was flabbergasted, but had plenty of time to make another....Except there were no more letter Rs in the bag! So I made a B quickly and cut it into 'R' shape.

There are about three Qs, some Zs and Xs...but only one A and one R?

Now I have no clue what words I'm going to make...I could do XYZ instead of ABC :P

XX

Ah! I almost forgot about What's For Lunch Wednesday! Check out all the lunches here.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

The Giraffe with the Broken Neck

Only semi-literally.

Lately I've seen a couple of cute bentos with shapes...but I'm not much for decorating, or free-handing the shapes I don't have in cookie cutters.

But giraffes kept popping up (is that how you make giraffe plural?) so I just thought, what the heck? even if it's not great.

And it wasn't! I wish I would have decorated it better, and between cutting the shapes last night and putting my lunch together this morning the giraffe's neck broke! Ouch. Anyway, final result:
Excuse the bad picture!
Top: Grilled Chicken/lettuce wrap with the cheese giraffe on top, broccoli, red beet egg, checkered apple.
Middle: grapes
Bottom: the other half of the wrap with a slice of strawberry, sliced grapes, salad

A little up close of the giraffe:

So. I don't think shapes are 'my thing.' Maybe I'll just practice! (or get more cookie cutters ;) )

My friends think it's weird that I eat 'healthy' (most of them were having the school offered Domino's pizza today, and trying to dab off the extra grease with napkins. no thanks.) so tomorrow I'm taking morningstar 'chicken' nuggets and a little surprise, for me :)
XX

Thursday, September 2, 2010

First EVER school bento

It also happens to be my 25th, which I think is a good number :)

I'm posting this tonight to make up for dropping the ball a bit this week with bentos....But since I'll be packing a lunch almost every day if not every single day, you will probably see most of them as long as it's not a lazy day where I just shove things into a box and take it to school.


Okay, first ever school bento contains:

  • three mini turkey/romaine baguette sandwiches
  • broccoli florets and grapes covering any and all space (and half the sandwiches...)
  • red beet egg and cheese hearts, the cheese scrapes around the bottom sandwich
  • cherries
  • goldfish and an oatmeal raisin cookie for desert

XX

Cafeteria Food.

It's not really that bad if you make the right choices. I mean sure, they sell greasy school pizza, cheese sticks, and fast food style french fries every day...but there's a salad bar. And the lettuce isn't that bad, even if it's all iceberg. It's the salad dressings I'm rather afraid of.

Tomorrow I'm starting my packing for the year, but today I bought, and my lunch was $2.05.

My choices were the cheapest lunch you can get, others starting at $2.95 or a la carte items that are seperate - 1.90 for those french fries, 2.10 for the cheese sticks, 55 cents for a cookie, not sure how much for a bag of chips/popcorn, I think it's 60 for a side of fruit or yogurt - hopefully the cheese sticks are expensive to deter people from buying them, but I still saw at least one person, a guy, who bought two of them today, plus french fries and the most expensive, sugary drink you can buy (We dont sell sodas, but flavored milk and pint drinks like lemonade, several kinds of tea, slushies, and other sugary choices are available).

How can people afford to pay five dollars a day to eat so unhealthy?

Then again...let me tell you what I got :)

Okay, so the platter today was 'Breakfast for Lunch.' This is one piece of 'french toast,' 4 'sausage' links, and a hash brown stick, with syrup. The sausage links aren't worth it, so we skipped platter and the mystery meat and opted for a breaded chicken sandwich.

This comes up often for lunch, and I usually get about halfway through the sandwich, and then it sort of starts to disgust me (maybe I'm being a snob, but a lot of the times our mantra about school meat is 'don't think about it, don't look at it, just aim for your mouth.') and I wrap it up and feel bad about tossing half of it away....

For sides (which come with the sandwich for no added cost) I got the hashbrown stick, because the tater tots/potato items at school are usually pretty good, and I was right. It was especially good since it was the first day of school, I think. They didn't have any fruit today, just pudding, a grape juice cup, and sugary yogurt, so I got the broccoli/cauliflower, and it was okay. A little mushy, but okay.

The kicker is that I went for the chocolate milk! I don't drink regular school milk, I always get the chocolate...it just tastes better! Probably because I drink 1% at home, and they don't have that at school. Most of the time I'll have water with me and just drink that, but today I sprung for the milk, since it was also included in the cost of the sandwich and the water would have been an extra 90 cents.

Anyway, that's my breakdown.
I was disappointed in the lack of fruit. The best time of year to get fruit is the very last week of school in June, because that's when strawberries are in season here and the school gets some really, really great ones. Like, better than anything else they serve all year.
Sometimes they'll have whole apples, too. But it's sporadic.

I haven't gotten a chance to plan my lunch for tomorrow, so I'll probably be doing that before bed. Right now I have to make dinner and eat before heading to color guard practice till 9 tonight.

The first day was pretty good. Tomorrow's picture day!

XX

Monday, August 30, 2010

Cookout Leftovers

Today I made a lunch with bits and pieces of what we had yesterday with the family. There are lots of leftovers!


Inside:

  • the unhealthiest mac and cheese you will ever find! It's so good though :)
  • bologna and cheese cubes on toothpicks
  • baby carrots, watermelon balls, strawberries, grapes, and some broccoli

XX

This is my post for this week's What's For Lunch Wednesday - check out everyone else's here!

Muffin Tin Monday: Numbers?

I will try and defend this as a numbers-themed muffin tin monday, I promise ;)


  • 1 leftover brownie bite from the cookout yesterday
  • 2 pieces of apple
  • 3 parts of a red beet egg
  • 4 pieces of graham cracker, plus 2 mini chocolate chips for eyes
  • a random cinnamon toast flower with pretzel stick stem and peach leaves (five parts altogether)

Check out other muffin tin meals here!

I'll be making bento lunches today, Wednesday, and Friday. Tuesday is back to school shopping day, and Thursday is the first day of school!

XX

3 days till school!

Friday, August 27, 2010

A Trip to the Market

I have to say, the Market at 11 AM is a lot busier than at 3PM when we normally go. It took us almost five minutes just to find a parking space, whereas we can usually find one or find someone pulling out almost as soon as we get there.
What we got this week:
  • Celery
  • 2 heads of broccoli
  • Cauliflower
  • A dozen red beet eggs
  • Butcher Bologna
  • A block of Cheddar cheese
  • Organic Strawberries
  • Half a watermelon
  • Blueberries
  • Organic red grapes for 99 cents a pound! For us, this is cheap even for grapes that aren't organic. We were shocked, but they look good and taste great.

We're having sort of an 'end-of-the-summer' cookout this weekend with family, which is why we got the bologna and cheese and some extra eggs, along with the watermelon.

The strawberries are just for me! We only got a little box :( some of the boxes didn't look so good. They were either very over-ripe or growing some of that fuzz strawberries can get. I guess we have to expect that since they come all the way across the country (Strawberries are only in season here in June, I think).

It was a good trip - but we have a ton of fruit now! The next couple bentos might be fruit-heavy.

XX

6 days till school starts!

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Last Day of Band Camp

Today's our official 'last day' of camp - we take pictures this morning, practice all afternoon, and have our first real performance tonight at 7, so it will be a longggg day.

Half of a sub, that was part of a band fundraiser, 2 red beet eggs both cut in half and stacked, salad, broccoli, and half a peach.

I'm also taking some apple...


We don't get red apples very often, and the checkered pattern doesn't really show up on the yellow ones, so I thought I would take advantage of this!

XX

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

The No-Name Bento

It has been a long day, my brain is on the frits (fritz? Is this even a word? That's how bad it is) and so today is a no-name bento.

My lunch, on top of a department store ad (woops. I woke up later than usual.)

Top: Turkey/Romaine/Cheddar scraps roll-ups. Note to self: More romaine next time. We've been testing out different brands of turkey, and I don't particularly like this one! Peach, Broccoli, Red Beet Egg
Bottom: Leftover pasta that wouldn't fit in yesterday's lunch, salad.
Spaghetti sauce and dressing on the side.

XX

8 days till school starts! Where did this summer go?!?

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Another Meatless Lunch

I'm out of baguette bread, and the idea of eating a wrap wasn't floating my boat for today, so I decided to have pasta as a main course instead.


Top: Penne (with spaghetti sauce on the side)
Bottom: Carrots and broccoli, the last of the bisquick biscuits, a red beet egg wrapped with mini cupcake liners, a quarter of a peach (ate the rest for breakfast) and the leftover pieces of cheese from shapes that I've cut out over the past week or two.

Monday, August 23, 2010

HOT MESS.

^^ That is what our guard instructor teasingly yells when we fail.

Today's lunch was a HOT MESS. It was the first lunch that I tried to use my new teensy weensy box from Jlist. Needless to say, it was a fail. The girls at lunch thought the box was cute, but it's obvious to me that I'm going to have to adapt a lot of my 'lunch staples' in order to make things fit better aesthetically.

And without any more stalling....



Inside the hot mess:
  • the usual turkey/romaine/mayo on the last baguette bread in the freezer
  • three cherries
  • salad with broccoli
  • red beet egg and part of a leftover cheese stick. We've been eating junk for dinner lately...I try to make up for it with my lunches, but every now and again, some leftovers find their way in.

Hopefully tomorrow will be better looking.

XX

Saturday, August 21, 2010

New Bento Box!

No food in this post, sorry.

Today the bento box that I ordered from Jlist came, all wrapped up in Japanese newspaper! I wasn't expecting to get it until sometime next week, as their site says shipping can take 2-5 weeks, but it arrived 12 days after they shipped it all the way from Japan, 16 days total from the day I ordered it.

Of course I snapped some pictures, and I'm actually holding the items in a few of them just to show size and proportion.
First impression: WHOA. It's tiny. I know it holds 510 ml, which is basically the same as the tupperware I started with originally...but WOW. I guess the trick is just to pack tightly, and take dense foods. I can see a lot more pasta/rice in my future (not hard for the girl who loves carbs). Any similar experiences?
I also got 3 cute little snack boxes, which will come in handy. I recently found out that while I have to leave my house around 7:15 in order to get to school, I don't eat lunch until 12:45, and I'm definitely not used to going that long between meals!
The next week or so will give me just enough time to play around with these before the start of the school year :)
XX

Friday, August 20, 2010

Chick'n Nugget Meatless Bento


The main attraction: 4 Morningstar 'Chick'n' nuggets. I was eating them cold here, and I have to say I think they're better cold than they are warm (I had to test one the night before to make sure I liked them before packing in a band camp bento)
Other treats:
  • bisquick biscuits
  • the last frozen mac n cheese cup (on my to do list this weekend!)
  • mashed potato balls? not sure what else to call them, just fried mashed potatoes
  • red beet egg, salad, broccoli, carrots

This is my meatless bento for the week :) and also my What's For Lunch Wednesday entry! Check out the other lunches here!

XX

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Another two-for-one special

Going backwards and starting with today's bento:

We made meatballs for dinner one night in the crockpot, and I asked to leave a couple out so I could put them in a lunch. Then I made some penne the night before, and put the two together with a little container of spaghetti sauce on the side.
Also in this bento:
  • Bisquick biscuits (at this rate, I'll be out by the end of band camp)
  • One of the last few egg rolls still in the freezer
  • Red beet egg (We're not going to make it to market this week! I'm so upset, I love packing these in my lunch!)
  • lots of grapes and an apple on the side

Now yesterday's:

In this lunch:

  • salad with leftover chicken, some broccoli and carrot flowers
  • bisquick biscuits
  • apple, some cherries, almonds, red beet egg

4 days down, 4 to go! I have the sock tan to prove it.

XX

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Two-for-One

I found one picture leftover from the end of last week that somehow got lost in transit...(my computer is in the shop, so I'm a little out of my element on someone else's) and I also have one for today's band camp.

Last week's bento:


Inside:
  • little ham and cheese flower sandwiches
  • potato 'chips' (cut/baked them myself, didn't get very crispy but were still good)
  • salad with carrot and red beet egg
  • some goldfish and apple

Band Camp Bento:


Inside:

  • bisquick biscuits with cheddar and a slice of pepperoni. The cheddar was heart shaped too, but I microwaved them to make the cheddar stick, and it lost shape.
  • salad and grapes
  • red beet egg, apple, soft pretzel bites.

The camp bento took me about fifteen minutes, with prep the night before (cutting the cheddar and pepperoni and putting them with the biscuits), and it's actually one of my favorites. Maybe because all the cheese and pepperoni is so bad for me! ;)

Or because it actually somewhat resembles a bento lunch for once! Either way, this is going to be my link over on What's for Lunch Wednesday! :)

2 days of band camp down, 7 more (and 7 lunches!) to go.

XX

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Muffin Tin Monday and first-day-at-band-camp bento

A very quick Muffin Tin Monday (and not technically in a muffin tin...oops)


Bottom row: part of a homemade baguette with turkey and lettuce
Top row: Carrots in dip, watermelon, Broccoli

Check out other Muffin Tin Meals here :)

In other news, today was the first official all-day band camp. Phew. I survived with a bit of sunburn, some wonky sock tan, and sore feet (better sneakers in my future). This morning's bento took me less than twenty minutes, with some minimal prep last night:

Turkey/lettuce/mayo sandwich on more baguette, with broccoli and watermelon, a red beet egg, grapes underneath sun chips. YUM.

Yes, it's pretty similar to the muffin tin meal. Can you tell I'm trying to use up certain foods? ;)

I've got the guinea pig running around here on the desk just begging for attention, so adorable.

XX


Quick Sunday Lunch

A quick Sunday lunch after we get home from the grocery store:


What's in my quick lunch bento?
  • Turkey/Mayo/Romaine wrap with pre-cut carrot flowers
  • Grapes and a red beet egg
  • Sweet Potato Fries! I was hoping they'd get crispy, but instead they just got dark :) still good though!

XX

Today we officially went shopping for 'Back to School' supplies. It's dawning on me that the summer is coming to a close! I'm looking forward to the schedule and structure of school, but I also like having the kitchen all to myself over the summer ;)

Over the next two weeks, I'm going to finish testing all my freeze-ahead quick-bento foods, hopefully get my bento box (fingers crossed, remember?) and get ready for school (that means finishing the summer homework I haven't touched yet).

Friday, August 13, 2010

Faux Lunchable? and my list for the market

Ahh, Lunchables. I loved them when I was a kid. Why don't I love them anymore? Because now I understand the Nutrition Facts label. ;)

So I drew some inspiration from a childhood favorite, for a little lunch:


  • Wheat Crackers (only ended up eating about half of these, eyes are too big for my stomach)
  • Watermelon in a silicon cup
  • Red Beet Egg
  • Half a leftover hot dog over some turkey, cheddar cheese beside that

This is definitely a child-like lunch!

XX

We're going to the market in a few hours when my mom gets off work, and so far my list is:

  • Broccoli/Cauliflower (broccoli for me, cauliflower for sister)
  • 1 lb turkey
  • 6 Red Beet Eggs (6 for $3 at my favorite stand)
  • Red Grapes
  • Romaine Lettuce
  • 1/4 watermelon (last Friday we got a half, and it took us all week to finish)

That's pretty much it, unless something grabs our eye while we're there. Last week we got a block of cheese, which we're still eating....Everything else we buy at the grocery store on Sundays.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Clean out the fridge Bento

Towards the end of the week, it becomes very necessary to start cleaning out all the leftovers/anything that would go bad if it stuck around for too much longer.



















In this lunch:
  • leftover crouton chicken (so good! probably not good for you though ;0)
  • the end of a dole salad bag with dressing
  • grapes and carrot sticks

XX

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Band Camp Bento

AKA I'm-in-a-hurry-'cause-if-I'm-late-for-camp-they'll-KILL-me-so-I'd-better-get-this-bento-done. ;)

Still, I love packing a lunch and actually TAKING it somewhere!

Inside:

  • Tuna on a sandwich round
  • leftover egg roll (which was still mostly frozen when I put it in, but thawed out by the time we ate)
  • baby carrots, grapes, and some almonds

In another small container, I also took some salad, and the only fork that would fit inside was this cute bunny fork! Dressing in the blue-lidded container.

XX

Also check out What's for Lunch Wednesday for more lunches!

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

I am a child at heart...and stomach.

Ever since I became attracted to bento-style foods, lunches, etc., I've also been leaning towards cute little bite-size foods.

This especially came through in one lunch in particular:

I was running a little late and wanted something quick and easy (but still with a peanut butter fix). I settled for:
  • tuna wrap roll-ups
  • apple, celery, and carrot sticks
  • peanut butter
  • goldfish

Always something sweet, and something salty :)

XX

Monday, August 9, 2010

Easy Breezy Peanut Butter Bento

Craving peanut butter? I sure am.

Today's bento:
  • Tuna on a sandwich round
  • Half an apple
  • peanut butter for dipping
  • animal crackers, carrot sticks, grapes

XX

Muffin Tin Monday

This is my first Muffin Tin Monday. I toyed with the idea of it since I began making bentos (a lot of mommy bento bloggers post MTMs) but this was the first time I seriously attempted. It will definitely not be the last!


I used a mini muffin tin since it was just for me, and inside I had:

  • a leftover bisquick biscuit (say that five times fast)
  • some failed mac n cheese (Note to self: basil is not good in macaroni and cheese, and milk is your friend) (edit: I made some more to see if I could perfect the recipe...and this time I added too much milk.)
  • cheese flowers, with some great cheddar I got at the market (the orange pieces)
  • turkey roll-ups (another market find!)
  • baked tortilla chips. I burnt them. I'm not having a good oven day.

So, the next two mondays I'm at band camp all day, and after that...school (ahhhh!). But hopefully I can still do some sort of muffin-tin breakfast type meal?

XX

In other news, the bento box I ordered has officially been shipped out from Japan. They say shipping can take anywhere from 2-5 weeks, depending on where you live. In order to recieve the box before school starts, it has to come in 3 weeks, 3 days. Yikes. Cross your fingers for me!

Saturday, August 7, 2010


"What IS that?"

I made this bento when my mom and sister were in the kitchen, and when I sat down with the final project, I got two blank stares. (My sister likes to snort obviously as she passes me in the kitchen when I'm making a bento-lunch, and I have to admit the halfway point does look pretty ridiculous.)

Maybe it was the blue rice :)

This lunch:
  • Rice
  • Little Tuna rectangles (they came out uneven)
  • Veggie sticks, carrot sticks, grapes, animal crackers.

Pretty standard for me. I'm not really a 'cute' packer (understatement of the century) and right now I'm not even a good packer, really....Maybe the cute will come out in the future.

xx

Friday, August 6, 2010

Bento on the Go

A really good friend of mine was in a scholarship pageant recently (Miss Teen PA), and I went along with her parents on her interview/formal wear day to help do her hair and lend some moral support.

I wasn't sure when or if we'd be stopping for food/eating lunch, so I packed a little container with loose animal crackers, goldfish, and veggie sticks (not pictured), and then a quick and easy lunch, which I ate in the dorm room she had stayed the night in.



  • lots of grapes, carrot dividers, animal crackers
  • Soft Pretzel Bites (love these! 30 seconds to microwave and pack. Another thing I use in place of rice sometimes)
  • Butterfly tuna sandwich

xx

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Fail.

I made a nice bento for dinner (band camp!) but was in such a rush out the door after a hectic day that I forgot to take a picture of it!!

Let me tell you. After being outside spinning a flag for 2 hours, it TASTED just as good as I think it looked :)
So, here's an old-ish bento pic I'm not completely fond of:

But MAN I do love me some turkey wrap. I think it's the mayonnaise, which I know is bad. But I love it anyway.

Anyway, in this sloppy sloppy bento:

  • Turkey/Mayo/Romaine/Swiss wrap. I just pick the leafy romaine pieces out of a bag of salad we have, because iceberg doesn't taste good in a wrap (AND has little or no nutritional value that I know of)
  • Leftover baby ear of corn on the cob!*
  • Hash Browns! When I don't feel like rice, I have these instead. I doctor 'em up with seasonings so I'm not using a ton of salt.
  • pretzels and baby animal crackers

*My dad works with a woman who has a small farm, and she was selling them $3/dozen - which seemed like an okay price until we started husking them. Some had been ruined by bugs (EW) some were too sparse to be worth anything, and the rest were all short and small. Of course, I exclaimed in delight at the 'short and small' because of course my mind was screaming 'BENTO MATERIALLLLL!"

(Today my mother mentioned that Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and my response was 'Good. I can use all the extra turkey in my lunches.')

xx

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

a family staple - Penne

Alright, I feel a little bad. The closest the food in this next post will ever get to a bento would be on the off chance that it's served as leftovers (and the rare chance that we actually HAVE some left over) - and I have a nagging suspicion it's not very healthy either.

Not sure what exactly you'd call this - in our house, we just say "Let's make penne-broccoli!" and everyone knows what that is :)

What's in it?

  • 8 oz penne
  • 8 oz shrimp or chicken (tonight we used shrimp because we got some when it was on sale at the store)
  • as much broccoli as you like (I usually end up eating most of it)
  • Cream of Chicken soup (we always use Campbell's, because it's easy and it was from one of their advertisements that we got the recipe)
  • 1/3 cup of parmesan cheese, like the kind you would sprinkle over spaghetti, we sometimes use less
  • enough milk to thin out the soup (what we do is put the milk into the soup can so we can get the last of the soup out of it too)

Whew! That was a lot of parenthesis. I used to get in trouble in English class for using parenthesis too often. And trite phrases. Well, a lot of things.

Now an up-close to make your mouth water?

xx

Flower Power

For holidays/birthdays/etc, I usually make a gift of sugar cookies or other sweets, so I've got about 20 or 30 of those Wilton cookie cutters. Some of the shapes are questionable (the hand and foot digits look more like claws) but there's always the standard heart, circle, flower, whatever.

Anyway, so I dug them out of the closet (haven't used them since shamrocks for St. Pattie's Day I think) and attempted to cut a flower out of the sandwich round:

Didn't go as well as I had hoped.

In today's lunch:
  • tuna flower sandwich
  • more leftover egg roll! yum! We make a bunch and freeze them so I can just thaw them for lunch. I'm attempting to do this with a lot of things in prep for the school year. Suggestions?
  • the usual baby carrots, veggie sticks, animal crackers, and grapes.

In other news, I just ordered an actual bento box from JBox. It was only $3.50, and holds the same capacity as the tupperware I'm using! Holy Cow!

It should come in 2-4 weeks. (I want it nowwww!)

Monday, August 2, 2010

Getting the hang of this?

My third attempt is my favorite so far! I read on another blog (or maybe several, I've lost track) that some people add food coloring to the water they make rice in. Usually for themed lunches, but I figured the last time I made rice it looked so...boring! So I added some color :)

In this lunch:

  • Food colored rice with some left over plain chicken
  • Leftover egg rolls (home made! but also deep fried, so still not very healthy, hehe) cut in slices
  • Baby Carrots
  • Animal Crackers under Veggie sticks
  • Grapes, yum!

xx

In other news:

I don't really make any bentos over the weekend, because I often eat with one or both of my parents, depending on how busy we are. So, weekend posts will either be sans bento, or bento for special occasions/catch-up bentos ;)

And perfect opportunity for actually getting a packed lunch out of the house: Band Camps!

I do not wear a plume or play an instrument, but I do spin a flag (you are never ever allowed to tell a member of our color guard that they 'twirl' anything; they will hurt you with their six foot flag poles).

Friday, July 30, 2010

Bento Take 2

My second bento-style lunch. Same container, a lot of the same foods...just presented a little differently :)

Still getting the hang of packing and presentation (although, to be honest, a little part of me sometimes thinks 'what's the point?' if I'm the only one who's going to see this before I eat it), hopefully things will get better as I go along.

Without further ado, Bento #2:

In this lunch, I've got:
  • Turkey and Swiss sandwich on a Wheat Sandwich Round (I love these! The only thing that gets me is that I'm the only one in the house who eats them, and sometimes the 'best by' date is only like 5 days from when I buy them! They don't seem to go bad though, so maybe this is okay?)
  • More strawberries! These go quickly in our house.
  • Baby carrots
  • Goldfish crackers (I was sucked into the '1/3 serving of vegetables in every serving!' gimmick. So maybe I'm getting about 1/6 serving of veggies out of them here?)
  • Angel food Cake as a treat to eat with the strawberries
  • My favorite: veggie sticks :)


xx

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Very first, perfectly imperfect bento!

My first bento attempt was not so much a cute success as it was an 'oh thank goodness it didn't turn out worse than this!'

Still, I'm proud of my very first bento, the first of many to come.


A simple lunch of...

  • plain white rice
  • leftover shrimp
  • strawberries (rare for us, since they're not in season here yet)
  • carrots
  • veggie sticks - which aren't actually made of vegetables... :(
  • lettuce from the garden to keep everything seperate

Happy Bentoing!