| | Welcome to the Bentolunch Livejournal community! If you are new to the group, please take a few moments to look at this group's posting guidelines. Briefly: - All entries must present bento boxes that were prepared by or for the person posting.
- Please keep one representative photo of your lunch outside the cut and any other pictures behind a cut.
- Photos of closed or empty bento boxes, multiple pictures of the same lunch, and recipes must be behind a cut.
- Entries are tagged by user name. If you want a tag, please E-mail me at negaduck9[at]aol[dot]com with your request, LJ username, and a link to one of your posts in this group.
There are also tags for general use, such as vegetarian, gluten-free, recipes, and so on. A complete list is in the posting guidelines.
- Please only suggest stores to be added to the online bento shopping guide if you have shopped with them before and had a good experience with them.
|  Contents: Whole wheat mini pitas with bacon, colby jack, and spinach; grapes; strawberries and blueberries Prep: Bacon was crisped the night before. The mini pitas were easier to deal with this morning for sure. Verdict: Tasty! I think I'm getting better at maximizing the space in the new bento box. My hard plastic food cups arrived in the mail today, and I look forward to experimenting with them in this box.  Contents: Mini buffalo burgers with colby jack cheese and spinach; roma tomato slices, jicama, and cucumber; mango and blueberries; cheese wedge, grapes, and triscuit Prep: I made extra mini burgers with last night's dinner. The jicama was also prepared last night. Mango was pre-cut. Verdict: Tasty and filling. I was hoping to include some seaweed salad in here, but I didn't like how it turned out, so I improvised with the cucumbers instead. The jicama was just as good cold as hot. | |
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These are leftovers from my husband's birthday dinner. I just packed the box as I was putting stuff away. The Citrus Marinated Shrimp Cocktail is really yummy. I got the recipe on Epicurious. I tucked some corn in next to the shrimp. On the bottom are bread slices with Dubliner and Maytag blue cheeses. I gave him a do-it-yourself strawberry shortcake with pound cake in the silicone cup and sweetened cherries and cream in the little containers. BTW - the pound cake is supposed to be Elvis Presley's favorite pound cake.
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| Since I can't go out or eat solids for a good month (surgery), I decided to introduce my family to bento making. I made three boxes:  Top Tier: Left- Tomato, lettuce, and green cole Right- Broiled chicken Bottom tier- long grain rice ( +1 ) | |
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|  This is my first bento post, but my second "serious" attempt at making a bento. As you can tell, it's not exactly cute. My biggest priorities are making it look appetizing and utilizing leftovers so that I waste less. I hope that's still appropriate. :) This one contains leftover fried chicken I made last night (Thomas Keller's Lemon Brined Fried Chicken from Ad Hoc, to be exact), a simple arugula salad with a balsamic-olive oil-dijon mustard dressing, and plain onigiri. In the rectangular box is dessert: leftover poundcake and maple cream (for the boy) and raspberry preserves (for me). The little beetles are sporks. | |
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| This is my first post here; i've been making bentos for my husband for a couple of weeks now. Here is my first attempt at feeding the whole family this way:  | |
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| Yay for another try!  (click for bigger) Left: Tuna salad with hardboiled, egg, pickle, & miracle whip on top of romaine. Carrot chips & regular laughing cow light. Right: Wheat pita pocket, car-shaped egg, laughing cow cheese square, romaine and half an apple. I also packed some ranch dressing in a separate container for the carrots since I don't have any of those cute dip containers yet. - Mood:cheerful
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| Hi guys! We were gone for a long weekend for my 20 year HS reunion, so we're back and I got his lunch packed for today again :)
Top Tier has his Chef Salad (again) with the flower and hearts swiss cheese cutouts - We got the new tulip and teddy bear cutters from ichiban yesterday, so he has some tulips this time :) On the side are strips of red and green peppers and some baby carrots that he can either eat separately or with the salad :)
Bottom Tier has a boiled egg in a car shape and sliced, macaroni salad, pineapple and blueberries, and roasted garlic hummus with a grape tomato in the center for a touch of color :)
( A couple more pics... )
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| I finally found a dollar store that had bentos! Well 3 of these hello kitty ones anyway. So of course I had to get it. Surprisingly, it's larger than my ichibankan ones...so it'll be good to use on days I pile on the veggies. 2.6 oz peanut butter and jelly sandwich 1.7 oz sugar snap peas 4 oz baby carrots 1 oz raisins 1 care bear gummy 454 calories, 12g fat, 77g carbs, 14g protein  | |
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| I'm not sure if this is allowed, but here goes! Someone gave me 20 small square clear plastic containers with attached lids. They were designed to be used to prepare and freeze baby food. However, they'd be great bento accessories! The containers are 2" high, 2" deep at their widest (and 1.5" deep at the narrowest point, the bottom), and 1.75" high. Here's a picture of something very similar: http://www.cheekymonkey.ca/BabyFoodCube.htm The only difference is that the ones I have are square, not rounded. I don't need any more small containers, and I'd be happy to ship some or all of these to bento-ers looking to add to their small containers collection. I'm in Toronto, Canada and will ship anywhere for the cost of postage (via paypal). | |
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| My daughter LOVES looking at these Bento lunches online. She REALLY wants a Hello Kitty one. Well I have a LONG ways to go before they could even look like that. Since I am working now, I am going to be packing her lunces ahead of time so I know that she eats what she should be. This is the one I packed last night. I still need to work on filling the gaps but she thinks it looks great! :)  | |
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| Both made for my husband. First:  Leftover pork chilli (that he made); brown rice; cherry tomatoes, ham and pepper on picks, wrapped in lettuce. And more rice. I used a small pastry cutter to make the leaves on the chilli and rice. A different colour pepper would have been better for the chilli. Second: All Day Breakfast bento  Baked beans; a mixture of cut up sausage, bacon, fried potato (a bit burnt, oops); a sprig of parsley; scrambled eggs, fried cherry tomatoes, cherries, a bit of raw broccoli. And, separately, a bread roll. He brought yoghurt and blueberries for dessert. ( closeups ) | |
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|  Muffin has been in summer drama camp and eating camp food. But yesterday she decided she was sick of that "gross" food and wanted bento again, so here we are. | |
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| Boyfriends lunch for tomorrow... 
Main: Parmesan chicken (kind of) w/whole wheat penne, vegetable marinara sauce, garlic mashed potatoes, and corn on the cob.
Side: Nectarine wedges, strawberries, and a pineapple cake.The colors aren't very balanced, and there's too much starch. Life got busy all of a sudden, and bento making has taken backseat. :/ | |
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| I'm continuing to be diligent about packing my breakfast and lunch bentos in the mornings. For breakfast, I was very excited to use my new bento box.  Contents: Strawberries, blueberries, and kiwi; mini-pitas with lox, goat cheese, and baby spinach; rainier cherries. Prep: The mini pitas were a pain to deal with. I prefer the Trader Joe's ones, but I got the Whole Foods brand because it's more convenient to my apartment. It took me forever, seemingly, to get the lox, goat cheese, and spinach in. The fruit was easy to slice up. Verdict: Despite being irritating to put together, the mini pitas were a nice change from my standard mini bagel. The fruit was tasty--I probably could have put even more in. I was so focused on my new bento box and what I was cooking for dinner tonight that I realized late Sunday that I hadn't thought about lunch for today! Fortunately, I had a lot of leftovers.  Contents: Fusili with chicken sausage, green onion, spinach, orange pepper, roma tomato, and feta; green beans, carrots, and yellow grape tomatoes; blackberries and kiwi; grapes, turkey pepperoni, and babybel. Prep: Easy--I just popped everything into its containers and voila. Verdict: I ate everything at lunch, rather than saving one container for a snack. Not sure if my breakfast was too small, if I didn't have enough protein in this lunch, or I was just hungrier than usual. Hmm. | |
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Today was my husband's birthday. I made him a mini-layer cake by cutting out two tiny circles of cake. I filled it with apricot preserves. It's hard to see, but the cheese hearts spell out HAPPY BIRTHDAY. He got his favorite peanut butter celery, some pickled cucumber, and some nice big shrimp with cocktail sauce. I nestled a little frozen fruit custard in between the shrimp to keep them extra cool.
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|  Bento #1 Lid- koala bear cookies Main Portion- onigiri, green beans crisps on top of a Laughing Cow cheese, freeze dried strawberries, arugula salad topped with sliced carrot and artichoke heart, tofu hotdog octopus, vegetarian meatball, Tofurkey "turkey" deli slice "flower Bento #2 Left: arugula salad topped with sliced carrot and artichoke heart, tofu hotdog octopus, container of soy sauce for sushi, freeze dried strawberries, candied ginger Right: my fail-tastic first attempt at making sushi, vegetarian meatball, edamame topped with scallions, cucumber with sliced carrot, some wasabi under the divider | |
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|  Top tier: boiled egg (I finally got my molds--yay!) & a cold soba noodle salad with cucumbers, red bell peppers, scallions, rice vinegar, chili oil, chili flakes & black sesame seeds Bottom tier: blueberries & strawberries. (Wanted to throw some kiwis in there too, but they're still hard as rocks and I have to wait for them to ripen.) | |
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| This is the saddest bento ever:   I was all excited for today because I was planning on doing my very first bento! with whatever we had around the house. Unfortunately, I got a call at 8:10 reminding me I needed to cover for someone. I normally go in at 2PM and since the arrangements were made weeks ago, I had totally forgotten! D'oh! Having to rush, I just threw in some leftovers and that was that. It's a pretty meager beginning, but hey, if I can do this in 2 minutes, including a quick wash of the box in warm water since it was the first use? Just imagine what I can do if I have a few more minutes to pack! Hehehe. Top: Filled with leftover homemade baked mac & cheese. Bottom: Laughing cow light regular, leftover grilled chicken. I also packed a yogurt in my bag. ( supplies collection so far under cut )- Mood:cheerful
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| Download the visual planning worksheet for lunches packed in the Laptop Lunchbox here at Lunch in a Box. I picked this up last weekend at DooF-a-Palooza, a kids' cooking event where I met one of the co-founders of Laptop Lunches. Event details and photos at the blog entry. | |
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| So my parents are out of town for a few days, and I decided to make lunch for myself when I roll out of bed at the crack of noon. ^_^  ( More pictures and What's inside under the Cut )- Location:Home
- Mood:accomplished
- Music:Dismantle Repair - Anberlin
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|  I had migraine this morning, continuing from yesterday afternoon, so getting out of bed was really tough.... I kinda figured the DH would just get something out today, since I was pretty sure I couldn't fix a Bento fast enough, once I finally got downstairs. Well, when I got the kitchen, he had his Bento box out, and had already made a sandwich wrap for it! I was so impressed! :D I helped him wrap up the rest of it, and fix a breakfast one. Breakfast is on the far right... it's two microwave omelettes, one is Japanese-ish, the other is American with cheddar cheese. Two slices of buttered toast, cut into soldiers, and a little cup of blueberries. For lunch, the wrap he made (so I'm not sure what all is in it), green grapes and red grapes (the red are under the green), carrots, a small container of dip (hiding under the Babybel cheese round), and little rice crackers. Oreos in the lid for dessert. The rice crackers got moved to the other lid, because it wouldn't close with the cheese on top of the dip container. | |
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| Yes, it's been awhile. Not sure how many of you actually read my LJ, but it's been a real mess: financial issues that are on going, illness, and, about a week and a half ago, surgery. It's been exhausting and bentos have been the furthest from my mind. We're still struggling money-wise (the husband was out of work for 3 weeks), but we don't have "quick and easy" lunch items, so it's back to bentos for a bit...as long as we can manage, anyway.  On Left: Half a Blueberry Muffin, Dressing, Peaches, Carrot & Celery Sticks On Right: Rice and Glazed Meatballs made with Turkey Nothing fancy, but wanted to let you all know that I really am still alive. ;) | |
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| - Mood:okay
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