Cucumber Sandwich Bento

No Easter bento today! Guess I got all Eastered out. Instead, I made a cucumber cream cheese sandwich and some Nutella style sandwiches (but with Trader Joe's cocoa almond spread), and fruit. I think we are getting tired of the PB&J and tuna already, so I've been trying to switch it up a little (yesterday I did hummus/avocado, which was well received). There's tortilla chips under the sandwich (for a little crunch), and our usual variety of fruit. It wasn't super cute after I'd put everything in, so I dressed it up with a fruit roll up heart, and I used my silicone leaf dividers in between the chocolate sandwiches for a little color. I also tried to arrange the pineapple/oranges in a cute way...

Then I decided to put in the fruit picks, and you can see how easy it is to just make the lunch a little more special!

If you're intimidated by bento, don't be! It's so easy. Today's sandwiches are just cut into rectangles. It's the arrangement and the added decorations (silicone dividers/animal picks) that make it cute. It's fun, and everyone deserves a lunch that makes you smile.

REVIEW: the chocolate sandwiches only got an "ok." Mike really hates almonds, so I guess that must be it. Fruit got all eaten, as well as the cucumber sandwich, but the tortilla chips got stale really quick. It's hard to keep crispy things crispy in a bento! 

Easter Duck and Bunny Sandwich Bento!

I put a little more effort into today's bento to make up for yesterday's quickie bento. Today we have a duck/chick tuna salad sandwich, and a bunny hummus and avocado sandwich. I used egg whites and nori for the eyes, fruit roll ups for the bunny nose/mouth, and carrot for the beak and feet. I also used the same cutters for the sandwich bread on the avocado, so that it would fit perfectly onto the bunny shaped bread. In retrospect, the bunny body looks a lot like a turtle, so I might have to try that sometime in the future! How fun would it be to decorate a turtle shell?

Since Mike's had two days of veggies, we went back to fruit for today. I had cut some Caracara oranges yesterday, and peeled a kiwi, so we have oranges, kiwi and pineapple, dressed up with a bunny pick. 

Here's what it looks like all together:

I hope he likes it!

REVIEW: Hummus and avocado was a hit, probably because it's something new! And it was plenty of food. Yay.

Very Late Friday Review - Egg Molds

Finally, my "Friday" review on one of my bento products: Egg Molds. If you've googled bentos online, you've seen tons of pics of these molded eggs. They come in the shape of cars, fish, bears, bunnies, and there's even quail egg molds (although, it's so difficult for me to peel quail eggs that I don't personally think it'd be worth it). I bought these two as a set:

I found them pretty difficult to use. First, the egg needs to be hot in order to mold properly and not break/crack. Then, you have to peel it perfectly (while it's hot!), or there will be "pock marks" on your bunny/bear's face. You shove them into the egg mold, close the lid and snap them shut, then dunk them in cold water for 10-15 minutes.

Since Mike and I buy our eggs from a lady with backyard chickens, they are super duper fresh and are therefore awful to peel. Taste? Awesome. Aesthetics? Suck. The top layer of egg frequently sticks to the shell. We usually make egg salad if we hard boil them. We've tried every trick in the book to peel them (running cold water, putting them in the fridge overnight, etc), but it just doesn't work.

Therefore, I've rarely had the occasion to use these molds. In theory, they are great, but then again, how often are you really going to be giving your child a hard boiled egg to eat, plain? At least in my experience, I'm making a variety of things, such as deviled eggs, egg salad, putting it into tuna salad, egg sandwiches, whatever. It's rare where Mike would want to eat a whole, plain, cold, hard boiled egg. 

So buy your bento items carefully. Spend your money on things you think you'll actually use frequently (in my experience this would be cookie/veggie cutters, an awesome paring knife, and a good frosting spatula for spreading PB&J). 

More Easter Bento Fun...sort of!

I failed to prep again last night since I had a headache. Boo. So my dreams of deviled eggs that look like little chicks was a major fail; I'll have to try that again some time in the future. At least the eggs got boiled (thanks to Mike)!

This morning I made some quick deviled eggs for Mike's lunch, on top of a little bit of folded pita, with veggies and hummus on the side. Super fast bento! Forgot to cut the veggies all cute and pretty so I ended up cutting some fruit roll up flowers and throwing them on top. It's amazing how much better lunch can look with just a few little decorations and some awesome reusable grass/leaves! The pink silicone cup doesn't hurt, either. Eliminate the pita and this lunch is gluten free.

REVIEW: Everything got eaten, but both Mike and I noticed that the egg whites on our backyard chicken eggs are different than store bought eggs. The backyard chickens have a more varied diet that includes grass, seeds, insects, etc. The yolks are delicious! But texture/palate-wise, the egg whites are really firm. They definitely work better as egg salad or poached, scrambled, fried, etc. For some reason in the hard-boiled form, it's just harder to eat since the whites are not jello-y like conventional eggs.

Easter Egg Bento

This morning I wanted to do something with Easter egg shapes, but my oval cutter is pretty small. So instead, I made mini tuna salad stuffed pitas, and decorated the tops with Easter eggs made from provolone cheese. One has cheddar polka dots (I think one dot fell off in this pic, whoops!) and the other has fruit roll up stripes. They came out really cute and I made very good use of all my fun silicone grass/leaves! If you put the tuna salad on lettuce or on the silicone grass directly, this lunch would be carb-less and gluten free. 

The rest of the box was a lesson in "speed" bento-ing - chopped up some extra celery leftovers from the tuna salad, put in a little container of peanut butter, and threw in pistachios and roasted plantain chips. Lots of protein, crunch, and healthiness today! If you have a little kid, you may want to invest in the tiny containers that have lids, for things like ranch dressing, peanut butter, etc. Luckily, I have a big kid who will transport this bento box safely to work.

As a side note, this bento took me 30 minutes this morning because I had to make the tuna salad (mayo, celery, relish, cilantro, pepper) from scratch. If I had made it last night, this bento would have taken me 10-15 minutes (the eggs took a little bit). If I had made the decorations last night, this bento would have taken 5 minutes or less! Prepping is key!

REVIEW: Not enough food! Which is weird because this is the large bento box. And, the mini pitas are not very good when cold. I've taken some myself, for lunch, and they are a little dry. Next time, we'll put the tuna separate so Mike can use the toaster at work for the pitas, or we'll just pair the tuna with crackers. 

Frushi! Otherwise known as Fruit Sushi, with a Bunny Sandwich

We were out of town this past weekend so I apologize for the haphazard postings and missing Friday Review. I will post a review soon on another awesome (or un-awesome) bento product! In the meantime, I have figured out how to get posts to self-publish, so in the future we will have full bento coverage when we're on vacations. Yay!

On Sunday I played around with fru-shi, which is sushi composed entirely of fruit! It is super cute and fun. I made the rice with coconut milk (just substitute the exact same amount of light coconut milk for water in the recipe) and a little bit of sugar (about 2 tablespoons per cup of dry rice). Be sure to use light coconut milk, otherwise your rice will come out way too creamy and it won't stick together properly. You need to make it sticky Asian rice style, not Latin rice style (use a pot, not a pan, and don't use oil).

Next, you just cut up any type of fruit you want, into sticks (to put inside rolls) or into "sashimi" to lay on top of rice, like nigiri. Fruit roll ups make the perfect "nori!" Other helpful tips: use the sharpest knife possible, and wipe it with a damp towel after every cut. Dampen your hands before handling the rice, so that it won't stick (but don't dampen too much because you'll get your fruit roll ups all soggy). Also refrigerate your rice; it's easier to mold when it's cool (opposite of regular rice), due to the creamy texture of the coconut milk.

Frushi would be adorable for an afternoon tea, or as appetizers/desserts. It is also gluten free! My Sunday efforts included pineapple "rolls" and Caracara orange "nigiri":

For this morning's bento I didn't make nigiri, I just did pineapple and orange "sashimi" and mango-coconut rice "rolls." I love that I have silicone grass dividers for the frushi! I'm also trying to do an Easter theme for this week, hence the PB&J cut-out bunny sandwich. 

REVIEW: Everything got eaten, which is always a good thing. I've noticed the times that things don't get eaten is when it's a repeat, or there's not enough variety. So no fruit for tomorrow since there was an overload of fruit today!

Tea "Sandwiches"

When we have guests over now, I'm finding it easier and easier to make up little appetizers, thanks to my daily bento-ing. For this one, I cut thick slices of cucumber (I used English cucumber but in retrospect I think Persian cucumbers would have been better since they have less seeds), and using a sharp paring knife, made little hollows in the middle. Be careful not to cut through the other side, though! 

I let them sit on paper towels to drain away as much liquid as possible, and dabbed the hollows with paper towels as well. When they were mostly dry, I spooned a little of Trader Joe's smoked salmon dip (any crab dip, spinach dip, etc. would totally work) into the center, and sprinkled on some chopped dill. They came out really pretty (although the pic is a little blue-ish since it was an overcast day)!

Unfortunately, most of the people that came did not like smoked salmon. Bummer! Next time I might cut the cucumbers a little thicker and do a shrimp gazpacho-inspired dip in the middle. YUM.

Dress Up The Leftovers Bento

Today we are taking a mini vacation! So for our daily post, I have a version of Tuesday's bento that I made "adult style" for myself. I had leftover turkey tenders and sauteed brussel sprouts with green apple and almonds, cheddar cheese flowers and crackers, melon stars, and a few of the leftover strawberries for color, and a giant mango star. It's so easy to make your own lunch beautiful, even if it's just leftovers from last night's dinner! Don't forget yourself if you're making lunch for others (your kids or special someone) - it's very simple to just prep extra and throw it into your own lunch or dinner.

"Hiding the Leftovers" Bento

Inspired by some Easter posts I saw online, I tried to make a "bunny bread" for today's bento, using crescent roll dough from Trader Joe's. I stuffed the bunny with provolone cheese and chopped up leftover turkey (yep, too many leftovers = creative lunches), and made another roll stuffed with artichokes, sun dried tomatoes, and provolone. The veggie stuffed roll is on the left, with melon stars, half a Caracara orange, and tucked in the back, some plantain chips and a little fruit snack flower. On the right is my attempt at the "bunny" with some celery sticks and peanut butter, and little fruit snack flowers for color. I brought some of the stuffed rolls for myself for lunch today, so I'll let you know how they taste...

Although I'm not spectacular at creating the bunnies yet, they were super easy and you should give them a try! Just buy the ready-made dough in the refrigerated section of your grocery store, chop up whatever you've got in your fridge, put them on the dough and roll them up! I baked them at 350 degrees on parchment paper. I liked that the Trader Joe's brand was not greasy and did not leave any grease marks. Plus it didn't smell artificially buttery like the Pillsbury brand.

The dough was easy to handle - some of them I just wrapped and pinched them closed, and they look like little balls. With some cheese decorations, or decorations with the leftover dough, they could be any animal or item you want them to be. Plus they only took 12 minutes to bake. Easy and neat solution for leftovers! I made everything last night except the celery sticks and the fruit snack flowers, so today I just arranged it all into the bento box. 

REVIEW: No complaints about this lunch, but I suspect it wasn't a favorite, either. I think those crescent rolls would be better if they were ham and cheese, or maybe proscuitto and swiss? Something with a little more flavor. The fruit leather flowers were a huge hit, and easy decorations, so now they're on our regular shopping list.

Stars and Flowers Bento

I didn't have the energy to prep last night, so this morning I relied on good old peanut butter and jelly. It's Mike's favorite and happens to be the easiest thing to make! Luckily, I still had fruit left over from Sunday's prep, so all I had to throw together was the sandwich and some cheese and crackers. As you can tell, I made great use of the silicon cups today:

For fun, I made three separate PB&J sandwiches on multi-grain bread - two star "stackers," and one cut-out sandwich. These are just two examples of things you can do with bread! Think outside the box and remember you can make them open-faced, shaped (with cookie cutters or even just squares, rectangles, triangles, etc), cut-out, or just plain and decorated or stamped on top. They can be stacked straight up or sideways, too. I love the sideways look. 

On the right, we have Galia melon stars again, a few strawberries, and cheddar flowers with crackers. My vegetable cutters are amazing, I use them for everything! I am a huge fan of the stainless steel cutters over the plastic cookie cutters. You can see how sharp and clear the star is in the sandwich - that's from a stainless steel cutter. 

I packed everything into the small bento box to see if this will be enough food. Usually the big bento box has leftovers.

REVIEW: Mike ate everything and loved this bento, because PB&J plus fruit = favorite! He requested PB&J for every day, but really, that's not very healthy and I would imagine that at some point, you'd get sick of it, and then what would I fall back on when I'm rushed? ;) 

Fish Sandwich Bento

This bento sandwich started out with me staring at the two butter rolls I had left from last week, thinking, what do these look like? Ice cream cones and snails went through my head before I thought, "goldfish!" And that's what we ended up with today. The pic isn't as wonderful as I hoped it would be, since it is super gloomy outside today.

I chopped up leftover turkey from dinner last night and mixed it with a little mayo, then hollowed out the inside of the bun and stuffed that in. Ripped up some lettuce leaves and laid them inside the bun, poking out as "fins," and made a little eyeball from a slice of string cheese and the smile from a nori (dried seaweed) face punch. I think it came out cute! What do you think?

This Sunday I also prepped a lot of fruit (prepping is key to making bentos quick and easy in the morning!), including organic strawberries, Galia melon stars, and caracara oranges. It's citrus season in California right now, hence all the varieties of oranges I've been using lately. Caracaras are pink inside, sweet, mellow, juicy, and totally delicious. If you have them in your neighborhood market, try them out! We actually bought ours at Trader Joe's; didn't make it to the farmer's market this weekend, thanks to the LA Marathon street closures.

Mike also has roasted plantain chips above the sandwich and cheddar rockets (Trader Joe's version of goldfish crackers) below the sandwich, for crunch. I think he'll love this bento, it's got all his favorites!

REVIEW: Mike liked the sandwich but wasn't able to finish all the fruit. The melon got rave reviews. It's hard to know what's too much food and what's too little. This is the big bento box, and it frequently comes back with something leftover. When I'm packing it, though, it looks too small. Go figure.

Friday Review: Animal Food Picks

These food picks are absolutely the go-to item out of all my bento supplies. When you're running late or your brain isn't working, or you failed to prep a single thing, these little guys are life savers. They will make anything cute. Stick a few into an ordinary sandwich, and you've got a zoo. They're handy for quail eggs, fruit, cheese, and veggies, and also eliminate the need for utensils. 

There are two different types displayed here: single picks and what I call "multi" picks. The ones on the left are from one package and came with short ones and tall ones. I've used the short ones for skewering string cheese or roll ups, which was super cute in my coworkers lunch bento, and I plan to use the tall ones for sandwich "stackers." The multi picks on the right are great for mushier things like fruit or mini sandwiches on soft breads.

I will say that I have not used both the tall single skewers or the tall (elephant and giraffe) multi skewers because they do not fit well into the bento boxes we have. If I laid them down sideways, that might work, but I tend to pack the boxes full, so there's really no room. The shorter picks all can stand straight up and still fit, so they are more useful. 

They're reusable and more durable than party picks or toothpicks, and super easy to wash - I just dump them all into a dish of hot soapy water and swish it around a bit. Just don't let them go down the drain, especially if you have a garbage disposal! 

These types of picks should cost you no more than $5.00 max, for a package of at least 10-15. They also come in lots of different varieties, like hearts, flowers, leaves, even little hats. If you don't have a store that sells this type of thing in your neighborhood, Amazon online has a pretty good selection. But if it's over $5.00, they're totally ripping you off. My single skewer picks are going for $11.99 on Amazon and I bought them for $1.50 at the Daiso store. 

Slightly Squashed Bear Bento

Bears are a popular theme in bentos, probably because they are easy to recognize and easy to make - just eyes, nose, and ears, and they can be done any number of ways. For today's bento I had bought some butter rolls at the local Japanese bakery, Yamasaki, and decided to make a bear face from it. 

You could make any type of sandwich and apply the same decorations. Mike's is a ham and cheese with lettuce/mayo/mustard sandwich. I used a mini circle sandwich cutter to make the two ears out of cheese, and then I used the flower cutter to make the nose, but just sliced off two of the "petals." I don't have a lot of cookie cutters in my repertoire so I have to get creative. I cut a triangle piece of nori for the nose. For the eyes, I used two slices of string cheese and punched some eyes from nori using one of my face punches. Originally I had just laid the cheese face on top of the bun, but then I ended up cutting into the top layer of the bun and really sticking the cheese into it, to make it more secure. You could do it either way. The ears are actually laid inside the sandwich.

This morning when I pulled out the sandwich, he was a little squashed from being in the bento overnight, but still pretty cute:

I had also prepped the fruit last night, so this morning all I did was throw in pistachios, then mix sunflower seeds with chocolate covered sunflower seeds, and put a little chocolate on top for dessert. Lots of protein, lots of fiber. Yummy lunch!

Tip: If you prepped eyes/noses/ears for a few sandwiches and put them in a baggie in the fridge, you could make sandwiches for a week in a few minutes a day. I also had the lettuce cut, washed and stored in a tupperware. It lasts for a week if there's a sprinkle of water in there for humidity. Food for thought! 

REVIEW: Mike ate everything except the pistachios and some of the sunflower seeds. Pistachios two days this week was boring, apparently. :) Also, sometimes there can be too much food in these larger bento boxes, but then the smaller one looks too small! Tough to gauge, but I think I'll figure it out as we go along. Fruit fills you up, but then digests quickly, so it's a little bit of a balancing act.

Another Quick Bear Sandwich Bento

I'm almost two weeks into making bentos, and learning a lot! I think one of the main tricks to being able to do it every day is to have something prepped or have things that can just be thrown in without any prep (i.e. snacks, crackers, nuts, etc). Fruit is relatively easy to cut up quickly, as well. That being said, today I didn't have anything prepped and I had to throw together something on the fly. Mike also left the big bento box at work so I had to use the little one. 

We're already running low on bread and I barely got two slices out of the squaw loaf. When I do my grocery shopping this weekend, I'll plan better. Slapped on some peanut butter and jelly and made some cute bear faces for the top as decoration. The bears are made from muenster cheese with a bear shaped cutter, with string cheese slices as the muzzle and little ham circles for their noses (I used a plastic straw to make those). I used some nori for the eyes and made one look sleepy just for variety. 

The rest of the string cheese got cut up in pieces and pierced with cute animal pics. I did take the time to cut the kiwis into flowers with my handy veggie cutter, and cut the blood oranges into slices for effect. These pictures do not do blood oranges justice; if you have a chance to get some from your local market, do so - the color is just intense and so dramatic! They make the greatest garnish for fruit salads or tarts or any dessert, really.

Dumped in some chocolate covered sunflower seeds and this bento's ready to go!

I will say that being creative takes some pre-thought, I couldn't come up with these ideas in just 5-10 minutes. I sort of sleepily think about it while I'm brushing my teeth and doing my morning routine, or I browse the web for ideas. If you have an idea of how you're going to make things cute, that helps make the process much faster. Otherwise I'd just be staring into the fridge like any other morning.

Quick and Speedy Bento with Quail Egg Faces!

I didn't have the energy last night to prep anything for our bento lunches today, so I knew it would be a fun challenge this morning to pull something together! This is where all that prepping on Monday and Tuesday came in handy. I still had a smidgen of leftover tuna salad, peeled quail eggs, and a few pieces of fruit. All I did this morning was punch out some faces from soy paper with my handy new face punches, cut up a fruit snack (for the flowers), and cut up a kiwi and a banana (I rub whatever citrus-y fruit I have all over bananas, apples and pears to keep them from turning brown/oxidizing). It took me about 10 minutes to cut and assemble everything. You could also easily make this carb-less or gluten free by substituting vegetables for the crackers:

Plenty of protein and fruit, and a nice variety of snack-y things. I hope he likes it! 

p.s. our kiwis look a little different because they are "old vine" kiwis. They grow sort of in a fan shape and they are enormous - the size of 2-3 regular sized kiwis! Grocery stores won't sell them because they aren't "normal." So we get organic, giant sized, local grown kiwis at our farmer's market for 3/$1.00! 

REVIEW: Mike loved this bento and ate everything except one cracker and the blood oranges. They were admittedly a little tart. If you want to sweeten up tart fruit, you can use caster sugar, which can be found in most specialty baking stores or restaurant/catering supply stores. It is a super fine sugar that dissolves in seconds, even on cold things. Just a tiny pinch can give a boost to a fruit salad.

Mushroom Bento

Mike and I both love mushrooms, but Mike doesn't like to eat them, he just likes the way they look. Inspired by the ones I saw online, I made Mike a salad with tomato and string cheese toadstools. I hollowed out sugar plum tomatoes for the tops, cut up a piece of string cheese for the stems, and put a tiny bit of ranch dressing on the top, which acted as "glue" for a sprinkle of parmesan cheese. They came out pretty cute!

On the left we have a salad with carrot flowers, sliced sugar snap peas, smoked gouda stars, "toadstools," and "chicks" made from quail eggs with black sesame eyes and carrot beaks. I threw in sunflower seeds to up the protein factor a little. On the right we have a fuji apple, blood orange and green grape salad, a heart shaped tuna sandwich on squaw bread, kumquats, and some chocolate covered sunflower seeds for dessert. I inserted a little bottle of ranch dressing after I took the picture; it fit right on top of the heart sandwich.

This is the first mostly veggie/fruit bento I have made for Mike, so I hope it is filling enough. I prepped the whole salad and the fruit last night, so this morning all I made was the heart, and cut up some kumquats. Which was a good thing, because I woke up late with the time change. I miss my sunlight in the morning!

REVIEW: Mike loved the salad and even ate the tomato tops of the "mushrooms" which is weird because he hates tomatoes. I would like to think it has something to do with the cute factor, but I think it's probably because they were hollowed out, then coated in ranch and parmesan. :) 

Also, chocolate covered sunflower seeds were a huge hit with both of us! They are like mini M&Ms. I love the pop of color they provide.

Daylight Savings Bento

Since an hour of sleep was stolen from me this weekend, I made sure to prep things on Sunday for bentos today. It's hard to get out of bed when it's still dark! Even my pictures are a little darker, unfortunately.

I cut up kiwis, green grapes and blood oranges, marinated some sugar plum tomatoes with fresh mozzarella balls, made tuna salad, and rolled up some ham/muenster cheese in a tortilla with mayo/mustard. 

Today I made two bento boxes, one for Mike and one for another coworker's birthday. I know I said I wouldn't make different things for everyone again...I did make these just slightly different:

Mike's bento has a half tuna sandwich on squaw bread (it's a delicious, slightly sweet dark bread from The Bread Man at the Hollywood Farmer's Market), rosemary ham/cheese roll ups, Trader Joe's baked cheese crunchies, and on the right, cut up string cheese, kiwis, blood oranges/green grapes, and a few Bunny Gummies and Friends (these all natural gummy candies from Trader Joe's). 

I am using lots of these new bento toys I found this weekend at Daiso Japan - the Japanese version of a dollar store. I got 6 silicon flower cups and 6 silicon square cups for $3.00! And the silicon "grass" that you normally see on sushi trays was only $1.50 and totally reusable, which I like. There's tons of paper/foil/plastic disposable things for bento boxes, but I try to minimize my trash in the world, so I really love these reusable dividers.

My coworker's bento has fruit salad on the side, tomato/mozzarella balls (under the parsley leaf) with crackers on the side, a few ham and cheese roll ups and an open faced cucumber/dill cream cheese/squaw bread heart sandwich. I also found a bunch of kumquat bushes outside a strip mall this weekend and plucked some! The kumquats add a nice color pop around the heart sandwich. Plus, it is important to try and fill gaps around the food, so there is not too much movement during transport.

The bento heart sandwich looks like it took a lot of time, but it's not that bad. I just cut up the cucumber nice and thin (you can do this quickly with a mandoline or any small, sharp knife) and laid it down overlapping each other on half a paper towel (to soak up extra moisture). Next, I cut the heart out of the bread and spread it with cream cheese. I used the exact same heart cutter to cut the cucumbers and removed all the excess cucumber around the edges. At this point you just fold the rest of the paper towel over the heart and flip it over. Open the paper towel, put your heart bread on top and flip it back, and voila!  

REVIEW: Mike loved everything in his lunch but the baked cheese crunchies were still stale, even though I put them into the box in the morning. We probably won't use them again in bentos, which is fine because they're not really that healthy anyway, and I'm pretty sure they use GMO corn, even if all the products in it are "natural." The crackers in my coworkers lunch stayed fresh and crispy, even after sitting all morning in the fridge at work. I have been making a habit of putting things that should be crunchy into the boxes in the morning, rather than prepping everything the night before.

Bento Snack

Mike is coming home from work early today, so I just made him a bento snack. PB&J flower stackers on whole wheat - they're two pieces of bread with PB or J in the middle and the other on the top, pretzels, and a fruit salad with kiwis, pineapple, and strawberry hearts! Obviously this fruit lends itself easily to the heart shape (I swiped these strawberries from my fruit tray at work and brought them home to use in the bento). 

REVIEW: Mike loves PB&J and fruit. Put those two together and we have a winner. Plus this snack had sweet and salty - which is lots of people's favorite taste combo! 

Friday Review - Stainless Steel Veggie Cutters

Each Friday I thought I'd review a bento item I use, and let you know how it tested in a "real world" setting. Namely, my kitchen. 

Today's item: the stainless steel veggie cutters I bought on Amazon (but can also be found, in various sizes and collections, in probably any catering, restaurant supply, cooking or Japanese store). I bought these four cutters at $3.50, a total bargain, considering the durability and sharpness. They are tiny, about an inch diameter, and work perfectly for vegetables and fruits, although you'll need large sized carrots and you'll probably only use the top half of the carrot. To be quite honest, it's tough to find organic carrots this early in the season that are large enough to accomodate these cutters. They come with a "mum" flower shape, a star flower shape, a traditional 5 petal flower shape, and a cherry blossom flower shape. The cherry blossom is best on harder fruits/veggies because it has tiny "divots" at the end of each petal that won't show up well on softer things like bananas. The 5 petal flower one is the smallest.

Once you start building up your bento utensil collection, you'll find that the 5 petal flower shape is very common, and that it's handy to have a small one. I used it successfully on my smoked salmon tea sandwiches and they came out gorgeous! 

In retrospect, I would consider purchasing cutters that have a hand guard. The cutters were fine on fruits and cucumbers, but on raw carrots or maybe raw potatoes, they're too hard and you'll end up with imprints on your hands. If you had arthritis, the tiny size of these cutters would be difficult to use on a continuous basis. When I prepped a bunch of carrot cut-outs for the week, my hand was sore afterward. Cutters with hand guards run about $10.00 for a set. However, for the low price of $3.50, this set can't be beat!

Updated Note: After browsing the web for more bento ideas, I've found that most Japanese bentos feature cooked (boiled or steamed) veggies, so in retrospect, those Japanese moms probably aren't hurting their hands with these little flowers, cutting through softer veggies. Since Mike and I like to eat lots of raw veggies or fruits, I am using these to cut harder substances, and I think a hand guard would still be nice!

Bento Bear

Last night we had dinner with our neighbor, and managed to get home by 9:30pm. We go to bed at 10pm, and our nighttime routine includes taking care of our fish, frog, 4 cats, and rabbit. So you can imagine I was pressed for time and needed to create a bento that was quick and easy! Here's what I came up with: peanut butter/jelly bear (there's extra jelly under the nose), bear shaped muenster cheese with crackers, a pretzel "nest" with smoked gouda birds, and a salad with ranch (I got these nifty little bottles at the Marukai Market). I put a clementine on top of the box for him to take along, too. I'm not sure if it'll be filling enough for Mike, but it'll tide him over until he gets home. Oh yeah, there's a package of gummy bears hiding under the peanut butter bear, for dessert. 

The bento bear is easy, I used a water glass for the face, then a circle cutter for the rest - the ears were pressed into the remaining bread I had left after making the face, I went right off the face circle, which is why they fit so nicely. The entire bear is about 5 inches across.

REVIEW: This was Mike's favorite meal so far, and he ate all of it. Which is amusing, because it took the least amount of effort. Let that be a lesson to me! To improve the healthy quotient of this lunch in the future, I might try to add a protein/fruit like yogurt with strawberries, or some quail eggs and a fruit salad, and take out one of the carbs (the crackers or the pretzels). 

Getting Crazy With The Bento

I received some feedback from Mike about my past two lunches, so I'll post those as "reviews" to each post going forward, so we can keep a log of what works and what doesn't! :) I imagine this will be an ongoing learning process.

I made today's bento for Mike in a simplified way, just making the cute part the top! Here I've decorated chicken salad (with celery and carrots) with black sesame seeds (which add calcium, always a good thing) and red pepper letters. I kept it separated from the rest of the bento with carrot cut-outs that are pressed into the side (you can just barely see them). My chicken salad is not runny or drippy, so it should be fine. 

Just in case, though, I put the fruit (blueberries and pineapple) into little silicon cups, with animal picks for easy eating. There's clementine segments at the back and sugar snap peas flanking the cups (it's important to make sure everything is pretty tightly packed so it travels well). I also made him a Greek yogurt/brown sugar fruit dip, which is in the dip cup in the back. This bento box is from the website Fab, which we love. It comes with two insertable containers that both have lids (only using one today), and the top, which locks down, also has a spot to store a fork. Perfect for today's lunch (which is gluten-free)!

I also made a lunch for my coworker, whose birthday is this week and I am missing her birthday dinner celebration. She loves Asian food so I made her a soba noodle nest (soba noodles are Japanese buckwheat noodles that can be eaten cold or hot) with quail eggs, and those are shitake mushroom slices I tucked into the corners, for added sustenance. On the side is a salad with tomato hearts, star carrots, and little red bell pepper pieces for color.

The other little box has flower toasts with cream cheese sprinkled with chives, and a smoked salmon flower. They came out pretty cute and I would totally make these for an afternoon tea! Close up:

My own lunch was a pocket sandwich with turkey, smoked gouda and cucumbers. I learned you should not overstuff pocket sandwiches...and maybe just put the cheese on top as a decoration. It's much better that way. My pocket sandwich wouldn't stay sealed. I also made myself a fruit salad with yogurt dip - yum. Very colorful and cute even without fun shapes:

Whew! That's it for today. It did take me awhile to prep stuff last night because I made three  different bento lunches with completely different items. That will be the last time I do that! From now on Mike and I will eat similar or the same food each lunch, which will make the lunches quicker and easier. 

REVIEW: Mike ate everything in his lunch except one cup of blueberries (there were two). So it was a success! My coworker loved her lunch, too, but wasn't able to finish all the noodles - too many. I used one serving size (they come packaged that way) of noodles, which I usually eat for lunch alone, so with all the sides I think it would be best to cut down the amount of noodles and maybe add more condiments, like nori seaweed or an extra egg.

Practice Makes Perfect!

For lunch today I wanted to try making something more traditional-ish, with rice. I've always loved onigiri, the Japanese rice balls, but they are usually wrapped with seaweed, which Mike hates. So I purchased some soy wrappers at the local Japanese market (also readily available online), which come in rainbow colors - perfect for bento! Onigiri are also traditionally plain or filled with simple salty things like bonito flakes or salmon or tuna, or pickled plum (also all things Mike dislikes). So I just cooked some chicken tenders really quick with some bottled teriyaki sauce, and chopped it up small, intending on making chicken teriyaki/rice onigiri. Yum!

I had some trouble getting the rice spread onto the soy paper evenly, until I learned the "wet hands" tip. If your hands are wet, the rice won't stick. But they can't be SO wet that you make the soy paper soggy, because it'll tear. I ruined a couple papers rolling things up too tightly, too. The teriyaki didn't cooperate and kept spilling out the ends. Then, when I tried to cut the ends to make them all nice and neat, the soy (or my knife) wasn't cooperating. So, after a ton of effort, I ended up with two soy wraps of different lengths. I was a little disheartened, but hey, it's only my second day making bento lunches, so I'll keep practicing. Also, I think in the future I will seal the teriyaki inside the rice instead of doing a roll (more like a traditional onigiri).

Also, I had made these tiny sandwiches and stamped them with bunny/bear/frog faces, but since I use real bread instead of super processed white bread, the stamps didn't come out very cleanly. The shapes were ok, the faces, not so much. So frustrating! In the future, I think they'll work better as open-faced sandwiches with pretty herbs decorating them.

So how to put this whole mess together and still make it look cute? Food picks! Luckily I have a whole mess of adorable animal food picks, so I just used a bunch and here's what the end result looks like:

The fruit on the left side is composed of kiwis, pink lady apples, and pineapple. The picks will also come in handy as eating tools. The right side has the green and yellow soy paper wrapped chicken teriyaki rolls, and two turkey/muenster cheese sandwiches (it's hard to tell, but they're in the shape of flowers).

I also have been keeping an eye out for small "desserts" for bento boxes, and so far, here's what I've found! Mini gummi bears, mini Ritter chocolates, and mini Orbit gum. It adds a nice fun touch and they are really small (the chocolates are the size of a half dollar).

REVIEW: Mike ate everything but said the teriyaki rolls were too dry. Next time I'll probably include a mini bottle of extra sauce (I got these cute mini bottles that fit into the bentos, that are reusable). 

Mike's First Bento Lunch

Day 1 of bento! Honestly, I spent a couple hours on Sunday prepping food, which I realize most moms may not have the time or energy to do. However, I also experimented a lot and played around, so if you stick with basic shapes and stuff, I think you could make a bento lunch in about 15-20 minutes a day or less, if you prep at some point. Prepping fruit or veggies for the week really helps, so you can just throw things together. And if you prep extra egg salad or tuna salad, or have deli meat ready on hand, you could do this during the week in 10 minutes or less. It's all in the planning!

Today's meal has three kinds of sandwiches - turkey/smoked gouda with mayo/mustard on rye (both the top and the bottom sandwich), egg salad with celery on wheat, and tuna with celery and relish on potato bread (We ate all the trimmings and extra pieces for dinner). After putting the sandwiches in the box, I realized they were super bland looking, so I thinly cut some bell peppers as "dividers." I had leftover tuna AND leftover egg salad for later this week.

Mike needs some crunch with his sandwiches, so I threw some baked cheese crunchies from Trader Joe's into a silicone heart cup (to separate them from the veggies), but in the future I think I'll get some bigger dividers; he'll be bummed there's so few in there! There's Brianna's all natural ranch dressing in the little bear, and bell peppers, celery sticks, and carrot/cucumber flowers. Those were a sudden inspiration - I was cutting Persian cucumbers and realized that the cutout would be all seed - yuck! But the outside was perfect. Then as I threw them into the tupperware I saw that the carrot cut outs would fit inside them...ta da! Also, note that you don't have to cut everything cute - the celery and bell peppers are cut normally. Save yourself some time!

Under the bear is a mini package of Orbit gum that I saw, last minute, at the grocery store. Cute, small, and perfect for the bento box (especially with stinky sandwiches like tuna and egg). Plus, the combo of the plastic on the gum and the silicone bear helps keep it gripped in place while transporting this lunch to work. I later added in two of those sugar snap peas on either side to brace the bear, although he didn't move at all when I shook the box.

P.S. this bento box only cost $7.00 at Marukai Market and it came with the divider, which is very convenient!

REVIEW: Mike says this lunch was delicious but too many veggies and not enough sandwich (all four of those sandwiches = one sandwich). Also the cheese crunchies got stale when I put them in the fridge the night before. Whoops! You can only prep so far.

Salad for SJP (our bunny)

I bought a bunch of bento stuff over the last week and finally got to test it out! It was a lot of fun cutting out veggie shapes. I am contemplating how best to do this so I don't feel stressed about putting together a healthy lunch during the week. I did pre-cut a bunch of veggies - celery, red bell peppers, carrots and cucumbers, and I put them with a smidgen of cold water into glass tupperware in the fridge. We'll see how they hold up!

The first thing I made was a salad for my bunny, SJP, who will be helping us use all the trimmings from veggies and stuff. There is a lot of waste with bento and my goal is to have the least amount of waste as I can. Luckily we have a bunny, but she can't eat too many sweets (carrots, apples, etc)...so I eat a lot of the trimmings as we go, and I also thought I could put some into carrot muffins or bread, and omelettes, or soups! Be creative with your leftover trimmings. If you have a compost pile, that would be perfect.

The little rabbit is made from a veggie cutter set I bought in Little Tokyo at Marukai Market (I also bought an elephant - can't wait to try it out!). It cuts three pieces that you just slide together. It was simple and the results are adorable! The little flower carrots are from a four piece stainless steel veggie cutter set I bought on Amazon. Threw everything together with some Upland Cress and voila! SJP mowed it down.