Camping Bento Box...Campfires, Tents and Bears, oh my!

One of our favorite activities in camping, and so when I saw a camping bento online (click here to see it our Pinterest page), it totally inspired me to make my own! 

I used red, orange, and yellow bell peppers to make the flames, celery for the logs, and black olives for the fire circle. Carrot shreds are the heat and embers coming off the fire. Sorry about the crappy picture today, it's gloomy and raining in Southern California, so I had no natural light.

On the right we have "Berry Mountain," complete with little bear friend! 

And a peanut butter and apple jam tent. I used fruit roll ups for the tent outline and opening. 

The full camping bento!

Late Friday Review - Silicone Everything! Cups, Dividers, Sushi Grass, etc.

Today I'm reviewing my favorite bento product so far - silicone cups, dividers, etc. If you are just starting out bento-ing, this should be top on your list of things to buy. You can get them easily at any store that sells baking tools or craft stuff, like Michael's, Hobby Lobby, Target, etc. Colorful and reusable, these items are super useful for keeping wet stuff away from dry stuff, separating fruits and veggies, and adding aesthetics! They are also dishwasher and microwave safe, although I never use them in either. I mostly use them for fruit and snacks, dipping sauces, and to separate things. I have used them in almost every single bento I've ever made. BUY THEM, you won't regret it!

The sushi grass and leaves I bought at Daiso Japan (see link on right). The square and flower cups can be bought on Amazon or at any store. They have all different sizes, but don't go too small if you're packing American sized lunches! It's tempting to buy mini everything, but when you're actually eating lunch you find that just a couple potato chips are not enough. The bear and heart cups were bought at Tokyo Japanese Outlet in LA's Little Tokyo, but you can also find them online at Bento USA (see link on right). 

If you're looking for things to hold sauces/dips that have lids, stay tuned! I just discovered a new bento dipping cup that I will be reviewing soon.

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). 

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.

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).