bento

Love the dollar section at Target!

One of the key accessories for bento making are silicone cupcakes molds. As I am super cheap, I have refrained from purchasing them at Michael’s or the Container Store, even with coupons.

As I roamed the dollar isles at Target on Wednesday, I found a six pack of baking cups for a buck! Yippee!

Honestly, they seem pretty flimsy for baking, but who cares about that…I just want to separate my saucy and loose food in the bentos!

I added some pictures to my Flickr set with my new purchase. They make a huge difference in keeping your bento nice and tidy. Run out to Target and get some TODAY!

Photo from Maisie Eats Bento

I found Maisie Eats Bento a few weeks ago, and love everything about it! Lisa’s daughter Maisie was a very picky eater, so she started to pack bentos to make lunch fun, in hopes she would eat more. Her plan worked! Lisa takes pictures of the bentos daily, and comments on what Maisie did not eat, so you can get an idea about what goes over well and what does not. She’s also made a great Q & A page that gave me a lot of ideas for Nate’s bentos.

Snack bento for the trip

I decided to pack a couple of bentos for our road trip to Missouri last weekend, to save money and use my bento goodies. I made one for me, one for Nate and a snack for us to share. This one is the snack: a corndog muffin (new favorite, LOVE THEM…recipe here), baby carrots, half of a clementine, strip of bacon and a Babybel. We scarfed them down, and saved a good hour by only stopping three times for gas, a restroom break and coffee.

Best part? My wonderful SIL packed us boxes for the trip back home, with some little German treats. LOVE HER!

I decided to stock up on boxes before Nate begins pre-k in the fall. I’m always on ebay or some other website looking for boxes or accessories, and when I find a good deal I’m always put off by the shipping costs. I’ve really been trying to find more things locally. I went to the Container Store in Midtowne last Thursday and found a line of storage containers by a New Zealand company called sistema.

Gyros, anyone?

Mmmmm…gyros. Homemade and EASY to do!  I used the Bob the Buildersnack box I got the kiddo for Christmas to hold my Greek salad. OPA!

Click here to go to my Flickr bento set.

Photo from Fed Up

I can remember going to school with a packed lunch daily, even through high school. It was fairly rare when I had to eat an actual school lunch, unless you consider 10 rolls for a$1 lunch. Which is what I usually ate when I had to have a school lunch.

I remember the pizza and spaghetti being decent, and the cheeseburgers weren’t bad.

But I do believe if I had to eat a trayful of food that was packaged like this, I’d lose my appetite on a daily basis.

(more…)

Photo from What's for lunch at our house

Here’s a new bento blog I’ve found, What’s for lunch at our house…a Dallas mom with two kids making snack bentos for her them daily. She was featured on Dallasnews.com in 2007; the article has some great tips and resources at the end.

My love of bentos has been well documented, and I have this obsessive desire to share the love with everyone. We gave little bento boxes to all of the kid’s friends for Christmas; look at the little bundles, all done up:

Christmas obentos

These were done true obento style, with a cloth wrap (furoshiki) around the bento box itself (Bob the Builder or Strawberry Shortcake snack boxes from the Dollar Store,) plastic knife, fork and spoon, little picks and dishes for sides (here and here) and a magic washcloth for an oshibori. I also included a description of each item for the parent and child so it would all make sense.

I’ve keep a set of pictures of the bentos I’ve made on Flickr and have linked it from the blog, but it just does not seem to be enough of an outlet.

Let’s see if I can start something new here. I will try to share with you each Monday a little something new in my bento world.

For the inaugural Monday, I offer a recent discovery. I kept the divided formula container that I used when the kid was a wee babe. I used it for snacks as he got older, then kept it with the storage containers for leftovers.

As I was packing my taco salad bento a few weeks ago, I had a revelation….divided condiment container! Check it out:

Sweet, huh?

All of my condiments stayed in their little compartments and it did not leak. Genius, if I do say so myself. I’ve put all the pictures in the Flickr set for you to check out.

Now I’m off to scour the Internet for a good little tip to share next Monday.

I added a few photos to my Flickr set, hope you like them!

The bento fest in my head has not waned since my first confession of obsession earlier this week. I’ve been juggling my desire to go full-on Japanese and buy some real bento boxes and accessories between just using what I have at home to create containers and dividers with the qualities of bento. After all, in the end my goal is to be frugal and creative.

I had read on a blog that someone had good luck finding cheap bento box-type containers and accessories at their local Dollar Store, so when I had some free time Saturday night I went to the one on Cantrell Road to check it out.

I scoured the aisles of the kitchen and food sections of the store and here’s what I found:

This container had locks on all four sides and a gasket-type seal on the top, good when you want to keep the saucy items in.

A silicon baking dish, good to keep wet food items separate from the rest of your food.

Little picks to use for kabobs or cut pieces of fruit.

Sandwich cutters to make shapes from your plane jane bologna.

A Bob the Builder container that would make a great snack bento for a kid...they had Strawberry Shortcake ones too.

Another great container for a snack bento.

A long and narrow container would be great for sandwich bentos

Little containers with lids for sauces and condiments.

I picked up several items that I thought would really work out well, all for about five bucks. The next day was beautiful and perfect, so we decided to try out my new goodies on a picnic for the three of us at Knoop Park. Using my stash of goods and my new Laptop Lunch I created three bento boxes in about 20 minutes.

I packed vanilla yogurt and have my bread ready for sandwiches.

I used one of my cutters from IKEA for the kiddo's sandwich...a little touch that makes lunch so much fun!

Muffin cups ready to be filled with fruit.

Here's the kiddo's...sandwich, mini rice cakes, ranch; carrots; pears, apples and bananas; vanilla yogurt with sprinkles.

Here's ours: sandwiches; kiwi and bananas; pears squeezed in to fill up the empty spaces; carrots and mini rice cakes in mine; vanilla yogurt with blueberries for the husband.

I packed it all up in a tote with napkins and drinks, then with a blanket for us to sit on.

Later, at the park for our picnic….

He REALLY likes this box. And he said his sandwich was "really good!" Any sandwich shaped like an ameoba is better.

The husband checking out his box o' goodies.

The yogurt with sprinkles didn't stand a chance.

Carrots are meant to be drenched in ranch and eaten with forks.

Showing the kiddo the view of NLR from Knoop.

It was a great afternoon, and the boxes were clean empty when we left.

I just started a Bento set in my Flickr pool and I linked to it on the left tool bar. I’ll add photos of the boxes as I make them. Let me know what you think of them!

photo from thefoodpornographer.com

I am SO OBSESSED with bento boxes right now…last night I spent 3 hours on the Internet, searching for boxes, accessories and blogs by people who make bentos. Oh the compartmentalized joy! Here is an explanation about what bento, also called obento, is.

I have loved all things Japanese since I was young, starting with the Hello Kitty craze  in the third grade. Everything is so little and has a special purpose (Jerk reference.) It’s all modular and perfect and handy and…

Anyway, I found out about the Japanese store Daiso through the blog WhiMSy love. It’s like IKEA for the Japanese, except most things cost below a couple of bucks. They have 9 stores in the U.S., but they do have an online store and I spent some time perusing the obento section (boxes and accessories)…such heaven.

The accessories make bentos so much fun: food dividers, cups, picks, animal shaped food cutters and sauce containers. The list is absolutely endless. Everything is made to look like  little anime characters and you can’t read most of the writing on anything because its all in Japanese. That’s part of the fun, though.

Now, some people go crazy with their obento. Here are some of them. My fascination is not with these people, although I do admire the time and effort they put into their craft. What I admire and want to emulate are the people who make the simple bento boxes daily for their family.

photo from wendolonia.com

Wendy of the mama blog Wendolonia is a woman of my own crafty heart who blogs about the bentos she make for her grade-school aged son. She has a week in bento series, a great bento FAQ section and a tutorial on how to make a bento for a preschooler.

photo from lunchinabox.net

I also enjoy reading Biggie’s Lunch in a Box blog, a very informative blog that gives great advice and tips, like what size box you should buy, how to fill in gaps in your bento, and tips for making bentos for picky eaters. 

I purchased a Laptop Lunch bento box (looks just like the one from the Wendolonia photo) last month at a great eco-living store in Dallas called green living  and I’ve only used it once so far. I packed my leftovers from taco night and it worked out very well.

Anyway, we’ll see how this goes. I told the husband that when the kiddo start pre-k and has to take his lunch, it will be bento-style. He is curious to see how long that lasts. I think the kiddo will love it…he’s very much his mother’s child.

UPDATE: I completely forgot to metion the owner of the first picture, an Aussie who writes The Food Pornographer. She takes her yummy-lookin’ dinners and turns the leftovers into bentos. She even puts little notes in the ones for her partner….awww….