Spanish Tapas Adult Bento Box Lunch

One of my favorite easy week night dinners is to just make an antipasto or "olive" platter with various olives, cheese, grapes, dates, prosciutto, salami, etc. Throw in a crusty loaf of bread and some aged balsamic and olive oil, and you've got a delicious dinner (especially paired with wine!). Since I'm only responsible for feeding myself (and sometimes Mike), this meal finds its way into our rotation quite a bit. It's healthy, it appeals to my snacky cravings, and it's got a great balance of savory and sweet. 

The leftovers also make the greatest bento meal, as you can see below. I've got delicious Castelvetrano olives, and if you haven't tried them, or think you hate olives, PLEASE try these, you will love them! They are not cured in vinegar, so they taste mild, with no bite, and have a really appealing firmness. You should buy them with pits, not pitted, because they'll lose some of their texture. They don't have a long shelf life, so eat them quick (not a problem, usually!), and buy them in the refrigerated or olive bar section. If you like olive oil, you'll like these olives, I promise.

I've also got little Emmentaler cheese stars, seedless organic black grapes, cubes of crusty country loaf, and fancy Medjool dates wrapped in prosciutto. YUM! It was also really easy to eat while I read a book! :)

Close up of the prosciutto wrapped dates below. My dates come pitted, but I cut them in half, remove the pit, and then fold a strip of prosciutto around half a date. You can also stuff your dates with almonds or goat cheese for an added treat!

These type of bentos are easy and really satisfying for your taste buds. If this sort of meal leaves you still hungry, up the protein factor by adding hard boiled quail eggs, or nuts such as walnuts, pecans, or almonds.

Under The Sea Bento Box Lunch with a Crab Sandwich and Seastars/Starfish

Mike and I are vacationing soon and are excited to see all things ocean-y. Following that theme, I decided to make him a crab sandwich today, with sea star accompaniments. Our crab sandwich is on one of Yamasaki's (local Japanese bakery) delicious butter rolls, with ham and cheese (no actual crab). His legs and claws are made of carrot, and his eyes are provolone cheese with carrot centers. 

I have to mention that we've been getting ham from the charcuterie counter at Whole Foods, and they make it in-house. It is absolutely delicious and the pigs are ethically raised on an organic diet, which is important to us. It was only a couple dollars more per pound than the local grocery store deli, and totally worth it!

As an accompaniment to the sandwich, I have Korean melon that I cubed, topped with blackberries and a piece of starfruit. Korean melon has a yellow, striped outside, is about the size of a large coffee mug, and smells delicious. Tastes sort of like a crunchy cantaloupe. I linked a good description and pics above if you'd like more information. Starfruit is something I get to eat all the time when I travel to Hawaii or Hong Kong, but not so much here in the States. I bought some at the local market, but I wasn't impressed with the flavor. Still, it looks beautiful in a bento!

Finally, a bird's eye view of the whole bento put together. The extra treats on the side are "jujubee" star candies from Whole Foods.

Heart Sandwich Bento Box - Who Doesn't Love BBQ Pulled Pork?

We made BBQ pulled pork in the slow cooker this week, and before any Southerners jump all over me, we know it's not true smoked BBQ, it's just BBQ sauce that's on it. :) But it was delicious and the leftovers make a really good sandwich. Today's bento has those leftovers in between two slices of wheat-oat bread, which does not cut very easily. You'll find that those cute bento sandwich presses and cutters work best with crappy low-fiber, totally processed white bread, unfortunately. While that's ok once in a long while, Mike and I prefer healthier, heartier whole grain breads, and therefore have to settle with slightly-shoddily-cut sandwiches.

Heart Shaped Pulled Pork Sandwich Bento Box with Veggies, Ranch Dip and Fruit Salad

Here's a bird's eye view of the bento and how everything is laid out. 

Around the sandwich I placed a few potato chips for crunch. Below that, we have veggies (red bell peppers, celery and carrots) with ranch dip (hiding in the cute panda), and a mini fruit salad - watermelon stars, kiwis and pineapple, which all go really well with BBQ!

I've been using my silicone grass and leaves a lot lately because they add a nice color aesthetic, and they're reusable. Some bento-ers will tuck lettuce leaves around each section, which is gorgeous, but wasteful for our purposes, since Mike won't eat the garnish. 

In the end, I also decided to just put the potato chips back into the bag and attach it to the bento by squishing it in between the lid and the box. This effectively keeps them from getting stale or spilling out, and now Mike won't forget them!

And a final pic of our super adorable panda container. I just love this bento accessory! This product came with a little piggy and a chick as well. Haven't had a chance to use the chick because it's so small, but the piggy and panda get used very frequently.

Super Cute Panda Bento Accessory!

Owl Sandwich Bento Box Snackwith a Stars and Flowers Fruit Salad

Mike only needed a snack today, so I made him a peanut butter and jelly owl friend to take to work. I cut two large eyes out of wheat/oat bread, using a circle cutter, and from the scraps, cut a triangle using a knife. Then I placed them on a piece of bread and used them to determine how to cut the owl face; I just sliced a little off the sides and made little pointy ears. 

Then I slapped on peanut butter, used jelly to affix the eyes and beak, and grabbed two of my fruit roll up circles for his eye balls (I have tons of circles and ovals pre-cut and ready to go). Presto! PB&J owl.

Owl Bento Sandwich made with Peanut Butter and Jelly and Fruit Roll Up Eyes on Wheat Bread

Watermelon Star with Pear and Mango Flower Fruit Salad

I had cut up all the fruit this weekend so it just a matter of arranging it all pretty in the box. A giant watermelon star, with mango and Bartlett pear flowers. Here in Southern California we are on our way into summer already, so there will be lots more fruit available for the bentos! 

Tip: I cut the pears last night and kept them this nice, bright white by tossing them into pineapple juice (pure juice, no added sugar!). I let them soak for a few minutes, then took them out and put them into a glass tupperware. You can use any acidic juice such as lemon or lime, but I like pineapple best. I keep a couple cans of it in the pantry for this purpose. It works great on apples and bananas, too!

REVIEW: Everything got eaten, but the pears were difficult to pick up with animal picks (not pictured). They were a little too ripe. I might try making flowers with apples in the future, since those are much firmer.

Little Piggy Bento - Pig Flatbread Sandwich!

As I keep bento-ing, I learn new ways to keep offering variety with the lunches. One easy way is to change up the bread. This week we didn't buy any sliced bread and instead, we got bagels, flatbread, and butter rolls. It's like getting a new canvas! 

Today's lunch is a piggy flatbread sandwich with turkey, mayo, mustard, lettuce, provolone cheese, and avocado. YUM. I made the nose with ham and two sizes of my oval shaped fondant cutters. The ears I just cut with a knife, and the eyes were made from my tiniest round fondant cutter and the nori punch (I just put together a mouth and an eye together, overlapping, to make a round shape with a tiny hole in the middle). 

We have three kinds of fruit on the side - kiwi stars, two strawberry hearts, and honeydew flowers, with our ever-so-useful animal picks. Close up of the kiwi stars:

Mike also has celery sticks and peanut butter in the tiny piggy container. I love this container because it has a lid (no spilling, no mess) and it's SO CUTE! I also got a panda and chick with this set. 

REVIEW: This lunch got a "delicious!" rating and almost everything got eaten, although most of the peanut butter was leftover in the little piggy. Guess it holds a lot more than I thought.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.