chicken salad croissant bento

(I made this bento on April 9, 2008.)

When I got to school, I realized I had forgotten to take a picture of my bento. Even though the contents had shuffled a little, I took this picture shortly before eating it.

Left section: apple slices, chicken salad and lettuce on a mini croissant, and mini tomatoes (yellow and red) as gap fillers.

Right section: Newman's Own hi-protein mini pretzels, a small cup of Pub Cheese, rumaki (water chestnuts wrapped with turkey bacon) on toothpicks, a round of Babybel cheese (hiding under the pretzels), and a few more tomatoes.

Classroom bento

(I made this bento on April 6, 2008.

Left section: teriyaki-pineapple meatballs, steamed broccoli, clam alfredo linguine

Right section: homemade white grape juice gelatin cup with strawberries, grape tomatoes, Babybel cheese round, edemame skewers
I bought the meatballs, the cheese, and the edamame (already steamed and shelled) from Costco.

I made a batch of the juice gelatin cups on ahead of time so I'd have them ready to stick in a bento. The pasta was leftover from dinner a few months before. Using a tip from the Lunch in a Box blog (as well as the tip about the gelatin cups), I froze the pasta into bento sized portions.

yesterday's bento

(This was originally posted in a bento community on 4/25/06)
Bottom tray: Green beans, 2 pieces of Daim chocolates (Swedish chocolate toffees), foil cup of macadamia/almond/cashew nut mix.
Small green cup (to the right of the bottom tray): Vitamins.
Top tray: Chicken L'Orange, container with extra orange sauce.
Right of top tray: Instant miso soup.

two for the price of one!

(This was originally posted in a bento community on 4/20/06)

Two bentos today!

Top row: Little green container with vitamins, package of instant miso soup, small blue container with toppings for salad.
Upper tray: Spring salad mix with little container of Garlic Italian salad dressing.
Lower tray: Mixture of cashews, almonds, and macadamia nuts, and 1/2 of an almond butter and blackberry jam sandwich.

My daughter had testing in school today, so she had some snacks to enjoy during the breaks.

Purple tray: Hot dog coins with ketchup for dipping.
Red tray: Goji berry blend dried fruit mixture.
Yellow tray: Roasted peanuts.
Green tray: Hardboiled egg, fig bar, and sea salt (for the egg).
Sitting on the blue lid: Hello Kitty wafer cookies.
Drink: Water.

chicken salad bento

(This was originally posted in a bento community on 4/19/06)

Bottom tray: Smokehouse Almond Thins crackers, a Dove chocolate egg, and some Smokehouse almonds.

Upper tray: Chicken salad on spring salad greens with a flower made from red leaf lettuce, calendula blossoms, and borage blossoms.

Little blue container in the center: Blue-green hardboiled Easter egg.

Sitting on top bento box lid: Packet of sea salt for the egg.

Drink: Bottle of MetroMint peppermint flavored water.

I really liked the way the flower turned out, but unfortunately the close up picture (on the right) doesn't do it justice.

child's bento lunch

(I've been catching up... this was originally posted in another blog on 4/18/07)

This wasn't my lunch, but my daughter's. Her bento box is one of the Laptop Lunch boxes.
Bottom left tray (purple): 2 mini whole wheat pita pocket halves with peanut butter and blueberry jam.
Bottom right tray (red): Honey roasted peanuts.
Top right tray (yellow): Goji berry blend dried fruit mix from Trader Joe's.
Top left tray (green): Purple hard boiled Easter egg, packet of sea salt, a "This Fig Walks Into A Bar..." fig bar, and a packet of Hello Kitty sugar wafers.

She also had a bottle of water (which you can see to the right of the yellow tray).

miso soup bento for tomorrow

(This was originally posted in another blog on 9/18/06)

I wanted something simple but satisfying for tomorrow, plus I've been dying to use my new bento bowl for weeks.

Top section of bowl: packet of miso (foil pouch), blue packet of miso soup seasonings (contains freeze-dried scallions, wakame)
Bottom section of bowl (left): sliced green beans and carrot flowers
Middle lidded compartment: sliced egg, matchsticks of roast pork

When I'm ready to eat, I'll mix everything together in the bottom section of the bowl, add hot water, and eat!

falafel bento

(This was originally posted in another blog on 9/7/06)

It's really difficult to make little brown and green balls look appetizing in a picture, especially when the sun has gone down and the natural lighting is gone for the day.

:(

Tomorrow is my 9am-2pm film class, so I wanted to pack a substantial lunch.

Larger bento box: Falafel with container of tahini sauce, assorted veggies (cucumber, tomato, pickled turnip, oil-cured olives).

Smaller bento box with pink lid: Hummus (topped with chopped parsley and a spicy red sauce), strawberries and kiwi slices.

With the exception of the fruit and some of the veggies, these were all leftovers from tonight's dinner from Falafel's Drive-In. I'm planning to use the veggies as dippers for the hummus and use the tahini sauce (and maybe some of the hummus) on the falafels.

First day of classes bento!

(This post was originally made in a different blog on 9/16/06)

My fall semester classes started today. It seemed like a good time to pull out my Kiddy's Dream bento tray that I bought at the beginning of the summer.

Top left: smoky roasted aubergine dip (covered with Glad Press n' Seal so it doesn't leak)

Top right: whole grain crackers

Bottom left: oil-cured olives

Bottom center: roasted almonds

Bottom right: tomatoes (from my garden) and green beans

Second bento

Lower tray: Carrot pennies and egg salad (made from leftover Easter eggs!) decorated with a flower made from calendula petals, lettuce, and a borage blossom.
Upper tray: Smoked Almond Nut Thins crackers, pepper havarti cheese slices (wrapped in violet colored cling flim), 2 cut up pieces of sugar-free Twizzlers, and one foil wrapped Earth chocolate.
Cup: Raspberry lemonade powder (I wish I trusted the cup to not leak while lying on its side. Anyone ever use one of these?).

The closeup of the flower egg salad turned out a little overexposed.

First bento

I recently purchased my first bento box and packed lunch in it for the very first time.


Lower tray: Cubes of leftover meatloaf and a little bottle of ketchup.
Upper tray: Steamed spinach with sesame seeds and lemon, a little nori maki rice cracker, and Fuji apple slices.
Cup: Instant raspberry iced tea powder (I added water to it at lunch).

The bento box says "Puti Fresh" and has a green grape design (another view of the same bento box). It unfortunately didn't include a band to hold it all together; I've been using a thick rubber band until I can get a real one. Everything came in a cute matching cloth bag, but I have to keep the cup on its side in the bag in order to get it to fit. This makes me a little leary of traveling with liquids inside the cup, but powdered drinks will work for now.

About that blogger o' mine...

I got the account months ago, but I've been terrible about posting in it! Feh.

I'll have to remedy that. No point in having an empty blog.

first post

I broke down & got a blogger account.