Paige's Creation

As some of you know, we have been having some money problems. This means that Paige is going to start getting free lunch at school. It kills me to have her eating that garbage, but it is free and for a little while, necessary. Still, she needs lunch until it comes through, so today she made a bento for herself. The rice is supposed to have a bear and a rabbit in sesame seeds, the stenciling can be a problem though, but I can see them, can you? Her carrots have a little dressing on them and more sesame seeds, otherwise there are octodogs and pineapple. I am just happy she remembered a veggie!

Picnic Bento and Two More Days

Okay, lots of bento going on today. It isn't that I have not had the time, I have just been lazy. I am going to post the picnic bento first because I am pretty proud of it. I used a two tier tiffin which is supposed to be one lunch, but this should feed three, maybe four kids.

On the bottom is the deeper tin, so half is filled with rice divided with lettuce with apple rabbits and a checkerboard apple, two donut peaches and tangelo segments. On the top I made a rolled omelet, a pork bun, some cheese sandwich triangles and a cup with fresh pineapple in it. All of the fruit came from Wilson's Farm which I would highly suggest anyone in Massachusetts to check out. Beautiful fresh produce everywhere, plus plants. There are also take out packages of mustard (for the cheese sandwiches) and soy for the rice. I am posting the pictures, but keep scrolling down as I have two more bentos to show you all.
It is also important to note that Paige helped a lot putting this together, even getting up 45 minutes earlier.

The next one was yesterday's. It isn't really very special, but I did give some frozen, cooked shrimp a try which she actually ate! Go team! It is very difficult to get seafood in her. She also had half a plum, fresh pineapple (again from Wilson's, but the pineapple was obviously not local here in Boston), some grape tomatoes (also from Wilson's) which she did not eat, no surprise, and her rice. (more below this one too)

This one was done the other day. I switched out the rice for some French couscous that we got at Hannaford's bulk bins, made with vegetable stock and some dried cranberries. For the rest, I rubbed some soy into a little bit of chicken and fried that up, she has a cup with cucumbers (not local) and grape tomatoes (Wilson's). She also had some nice raspberries which I am not sure are local because it is a little early in the season.

This is Paige in her sister's Naruto jacket, the first piece of cosplay she ever got. Paige is thrilled that it was cool enough to wear it for her field trip today to the Franklin Zoo. I took pictures because she actually let me, which is a miracle.

Soboro!

Today I pulled out the frozen ground beef soboro out of the freezer. I have another couple of bag, so it will make more appearances. I also made some egg soboro (both recipes are in "Just Bento") to go with it, cut up some carrots and a plum and put in some snow peas and of course rice on the bottom of it all. I do wish that my pictures weren't so fuzzy. It recently started happening all the time. I tried noise reduction and sharpen and that just seems to make them worse, so I apologize again for my lack of photography talent.

Lately I have been doing a lot of repeats, particularly with the potstickers because we had a lot of them in the freezer with different fillings. She is still not sick of them! I am hoping to make a few decorative ones before school ends since I have more time with the semester over. 

In school news I got two A's and two B+'s, so I am on the Dean's list again, Whee! This is so much better than when I was doing horribly in Spanish 101. Finally back on track. The Fall with be my last semester as an undergrad, then I look for work and see if I can get into a Masters program.

Fried Rice Again

The great thing about fried rice is that is uses up so many things in the refrigerator. Today's has onions, zucchini, carrots and sugar snap peas with egg. I also sliced some cucumbers and sectioned a nice tangelo from our Boston Organics box. I wanted to use the purple panda box that I won, but I can't find it anywhere. Maybe Paige knows where it went. Last time she didn't even know that there was zucchini is there! (She doesn't like it very much)

Caterpillars and Social Commentary

First the good news, Osama is no longer a threat. I can't say that I am happy he is dead. That is the easy way out in my opinion, and will also anger his followers. I can say that I am happy he is gone, and I hope that means we will get out of the Middle East sometimes soon.


In other news, this week is another "make do" week. We still haven't found decent tenants for the apartment, so we have to find a way to afford the mortgage for another month. That plus the carpet hasn't been put in yet. On that vein, I will try to make the old standbys at least a little interesting.

Today I made a caterpillar out of round onigiri and cucumber skins for the eyes and spots. I also sprinkled on some white sesame seeds, but that is hard to see on the camera. I thought it would make it look a little fuzzy, like a real caterpillar. For the stuff that goes with the rice, we have the teriyaki meatballs, sugar snap peas and one of those frozen blueberry muffins that I thought we finished up. The whole thing took about 20 minutes, and that included the my making homemade teriyaki sauce for her rice and meatballs. My husband starts the rice for me as soon as he gets up, so it was all ready for me to go to work. Sadly, I don't have a lot of fillers in the house right now, I will have to do an inventory to see if I can find some, but this should stay in place okay.

Soup Day

Today Paige is going to school with a thermos of hot tomato soup along with her bento box. In the box there is no protein, which I try to avoid, but sometimes things happen. In her little take along container are goldfish crackers and around that are apples, a couple decorative so the lunch wouldn't seem too plain and red grapes.
We are currently in the throes of trying to find new tenants for upstairs. With my husband working and me going to school or studying all the time, it is very hard to fit in cleaning up the mess the old tenants left behind. I guess that relates to bento because I really don't have a lot of time or energy to be thinking of new things to do.

Nachos!

Okay, today's meal is not exactly nutritious, but I was running out of ideas and food. I am hoping to do a bento food run this weekend in between studying and showing the apartment and prepping the apartment for paint and arranging to have a flooring person and an appliance repair guy to come in. Fun! I did make a run in the sleet to the store this morning, but I hadn't planned any bentos, and quite honestly, the store didn't have anything I would normally use except for a few things like broccoli and tofu.
I guess this is all self explanatory. I used the ecolunchbox for this one because it is deep. A few of the chips got crushed anyway, but it should be fine.

Running Behind Again

I had a rough plan for this bento, but didn't work it out until I woke up half and hour late at 5:30. Suffice it to say, there is only one cooked from scratch dish. I also reheated some meatballs from a bag we got at Costco a while back, sliced up some apple (I love pink ladies as they don't brown very fast) and some frozen vegetables. I must apologize in advance for the crappy picture quality, I only took one picture because of time constraints.

Friday and Monday Bentos

I forgot to post Friday's bento, so here it is today. I thawed out the ground beef soboro and laid that on top of the rice. On the side is some uncooked baby spinach (which she likes), grape tomatoes (that she doesn't like) and broccoli and grapes which she likes well enough. It was very simple and took me about 10 minutes or less to put it together minus the cooling time.

Darned blogger wanted to make this text centered. Well I showed them with my HTML Fu. This next one is today's lunch. Again, this is pretty speedy. She has rice which is separated by green leaf lettuce, a tamagoyaki made with soy and mirin, snow peas and grapes. I expect an empty box if she is given enough time to actually eat.

A little rant about her cafeteria. She has eaten lunch there exactly twice all year. I paid for one meal and Pippy said that she put one on credit during my break because she didn't want to be bothered to make a lunch. Now they are saying that I owe them 6 dollars. This has been happening for the last three years and I can't seem to get them to believe that they are making a mistake. I am having the same problem with the library. She owes money on a book she never took out. They say she took it out when she was five, but I would have known and she refused to take out a book at that age. I love computers and all, but I have issue with the folks who like to mess them up.

One of Pippy's Favorites

I have learned that the Korean barbecue was not her favorite. She ate some and said she liked it, but there was a lot left behind and she doesn't like to hurt my feelings. Yesterday's meal was gobbled up, and the curry with rice balls that I didn't post also was eaten completely. So, that is the progress report on what I can get Pippy to eat.
Today is very simple. I took out Just Bento's "hamburgers" that I made a while ago from the cookbook and doused them in some barbecue sauce. I think put a line of the sauce on the rice because she loves that combo. I also stirfried some beansprouts with snow peas and stuffed some tomatoes, which will not get eaten, in between along with a "baby" cucumber cut in a rolling bias.
Everyone who doesn't know yet, the bento community has an auction going on at ebay called Bento4Japan.
I also won some bento from Bento Fabulous which is a fun site to get ideas from, plus- I got a purple panda box!! The other two are also very nice, but...purple...panda... the cute!

I also made the background cloth. Because I couldn't find double sided cloth, I put two sections together and sewed them together. It is a little bulky, but it does the job when I don't have a bento bag to go with the box.

Bento Salad

I am using the top half of my new tiffin for this one. I got a 2 tier, but it is really big. Thank goodness I didn't get the 3 tier as I was contemplating! This one just came in yesterday, but without the side kick. Amazon was pretty good about since they were just the shipper and the actual seller was someone else. Because of stocking issues my choices were: send it back at their expense and try to re-buy it, with the hope that there would be one in stock, or get 15% off my order. I went with the 15% because this box looks like it could be fun.
Pippy woke me up this morning complaining of being sick to her stomach and vomiting, so she didn't go to school today. She told me that she could eat this tomorrow though, so that is that.
The salad was made for dinner last night with the last of the lettuce, grape tomatoes, shaved carrots and celery. The tamagoyaki is self explanatory, and then there are some rolls that have been buttered. In the sauce bottle is her favorite, raspberry dressing from Trader Joe's, which I think they discontinued.

Pantry Clean Out # 2

This week I have decided to clean out the freezer and refrigerator of all the bits and pieces we have that are perfect for bentos. I may dig into a box of pork curry buns, but other than that, everything will be made from things that are already open.
Todays bento contains the last three meatballs from the freezer stash tossed with the last of the bottled teriyaki sauce and sitting on lettuce from the other week's produce box. I also used produce from that box for the watermelon radish and carrot salad that is spiked with a little rice vinegar and mirin. We have really been bad about our produce, so on the side is brocoflower tossed with a little curry powder and butter.

Not Ready For This Week

I have a huge exam that I have been spending every waking hour studying for tomorrow. As a result of that and the stress of losing a tenant I haven't been sleeping. This is not a good mix. Basically, this is my excuse for completely phoning it in this morning. I do intend to use up the bulk of my freezer stash and refridgerator stash this week though. I have bits of different things here and there and it is time to finish them up.
Today I thawed a pig in a blanket, cooked some frozen glazed sweet potatoes, fried up some potstickers (which will be seen a bit) and made a purple cabbage salad. With this she had rice and soy sauce as she likes it.

Twin Bentos

Since she didn't try the beansprout stir fry the other day, I made it again for today's lunch. When I asked her about it she said it was good. There was also her favorite standby of potstickers and of course rice. I also added some pickled radish for a nice splash of color. The twin part? I made another just like it for my eldest daughter. I also added a shot of her new lamb bento box that we got from Ohaybento.

She Loves Her Eggs

Pippy loves her eggs. Seriously. She told me a few weeks ago that she wanted to take a break from them, but the next day asked for them again. I wish she felt the same for boiled eggs as I have a few molds that I like to use. Rice is also a passion of hers. I try to give her noodles sometimes but they are usually met with "They are good, but...". I love that kid. I am also finding that it is getting harder to fit all the different types of food in one box lately. Don't get me wrong, these boxes are the right size for her, especially with such a fleeting lunch time, but I like to add something sweet and this usually goes by the wayside in favor of vegetables.

Kind of blah looking, but this is what she wanted. I used a green leaf lettuce as baran to separate the rice from the rest of it. The rolled omelette got a little spinach in there, but it just wasn't rolling right for me today. That could be because I had the heat really low and it may need that crust to keep it together. Live and learn. In the pink cup is a Japanese potato salad and squished in the blue cup is the last of the baby spinach cooked in a little soy sauce. We had packets of soy left over from our New Year Chinese take out, so those went in the cloth along with some chopsticks.

P.S. I REALLY want to find the bunny shaped bento for her. It was the first time I heard her squee over a bento box (other than a filled one of course).

Back to School!

Today I am easing into the bento making. I put a little thought into it, don't get me wrong, but it is pretty standard fare. I didn't even salt the cabbage first. Still, it is pretty and has the things that Pippy likes the most in it, those things chiefly being meatballs and rice. She has found a new love that we share though, Daifuku. I love these things. The mochi is so interesting and the white bean filling is to die for! Love, love, love. I am so glad that we went to Ebisuya this weekend. I also got some fish sausage to try and picked up some aburaage. Apparently I was making the inarizushi wrong. I didn't know I had to cook the aburaage first. Live and learn. The kids liked it the easy way, but I would prefer to get rid of some of the oil.

This is my first post with the camera that a friend gave me. It has way more storage space which I love and now that the pictures are on the computer they are pretty good quality. There goes my excuse for bad photos. Today I made meatballs cooked in Bulldog sauce, there is a daifuku, edamame beans and a coleslaw with too much sesame seeds. I meant to take the little top off but instead removed the big one and poured it over the coleslaw. Thankfully it was before the mayonnaise, so I could get most of it off. There is a new ume on the rice. It is extremely salty and I can't remove the pit so we will see how that goes over. I sufficiently warned the child about it.

Clementines Are Here!

I finally purchased my first box of clementines. My kids adore them because they are sweet and so easy to peel. I go through them like crazy this time of year. Pippy wanted me to do something decorative with a clementine, like a flower, so I gave it my best. I also turned a hot dog into a couple of tulips. Because the clementine is too big for her two tier boxes, I used the eco lunch box that is stainless steel.

Hmm, the picture came out pretty nice today. The hot dog tulips ended up with pickled ginger in the center rather than the sesame seeds  you see here. They just didn't show up as well as I would have liked. I cooked some sweet potato and added raisins and a sprinkle of sugar while they were hot. Squished in there is also a small cup of edamame beans. She usually doesn't go for them, but I stirred a little soy and mirin in which seems to help her like vegetable.

Lots of Cookin'

Yesterdays bento was a big hit with Pippy. She told me that it was a perfect bento and that I packed it just right. No shifting, no mixing of flavors. Needless to say, it is encouraging. While I covet the Charaben and other cute bentos, I am more than happy to have a less cute bento that she wants to eat.

As the title suggests, it does require some morning cooking. This morning I cooked another rolled omelet at Pippy's request, some winter squash and apples. Nothing green today, but in the winter greens aren't really in season anyhow. Maybe we will get something in our next produce box, but I am not holding my breath. I get produce from a business called Boston Organics. I had to cut back on our deliveries due to low funds, but I get organic produce, much of it sources fairly locally, delivered to my door. I used to have it every week, but I cut back to every other week until we can afford more. I haven't had a delivery in about a month due to the holiday (I suspended delivery for Thanksgiving), so I am working with very little. Also, she is pretty picky about what she eats, hence the title of this blog.

I put some red pepper on the rice to add color. She prefers just plain white rice or fried rice. She doesn't like any of the rice sprinkles that are out there because they are too fishy. On the right I made a batch of apples with a touch of sugar and the barest sprinkle of salt because salt does lovely things to apples, and then cooked it in the microwave for about 2 1/2 minutes. There are also some cooked acorn squash that was tossed with a bit of soy. We had chicken cutlets last night, so I sliced one up for her bento and then there is the rolled omelet with some cheese in it. That was difficult to make as the cheese is heavy and that made the egg very fragile. It isn't a perfect shape, but I did manage to contain the cheese. Can I just say that I love cooking for bento with my cooking chopsticks?

A Well Packed Bento

Given my penchant for sleeping past my alarm and not planning ahead, my bentos are generally a little sparse or have too much of one thing in there taking up space. This is my attempt at making my bento a little more, well, bentoey. I tried to stuff as much as I could in there using some tips from my Kawaii book. There are no characters of designs in this one, but I am hoping that it is good looking enough for my child to want to eat it.

I cooked the fried rice the way it was suggested on a few sites, by cooking the egg first. One thing that I noticed by doing this is that there wasn't such a crust on the pan when I was finished. This fried rice is chock full of vegetables, including: red and yellow bell peppers, corn (which isn't really a vegetable, don't get me started) and peas (also not a vegetable technically). In the larger container is a cup of potato salad that I made this morning. It has potatoes, mayonnaise and some of the bell pepper. I needed a little more height for the apples, but I couldn't find anything that would fit right. Squished in there is a cup with corn and peas from the freezer and then a rolled omelet for which I only used one egg because I used another in the friend rice. In the rolled omelet the peas and corn are also there. It is a sweet omelet using mirin in the mix.

There isn't a lot of variety, but I did use the same ingredients differently through out. I am finally getting a produce box in on Friday, so maybe there will be something green in there for us. I was going to use sweet potato, but sadly it had gone bad.

Running Low

We are running really low on basics in this house, which makes the bento a bit challenging. This getting paid every other week thing is going to be tougher to deal with than I thought. Add to my already hectic schedule and we have an empty pantry. I am also running low on creative ideas. There are a few things I could do, but I am thrilled that Just Bento will be coming out in America soon to get some new recipes.

I made a fried rice with the leftover rice from yesterday (which was a frozen leftover from another day) and fried in some red bell pepper and carrots, eggs and a sprinkle of green onion. The divider is made from long strips of carrot that I made using the vegetable peeler. There are also some "baby" carrots, a rabbit apple and some cookies. 

I can't go shopping today because I will be in school the whole day, so I hope that I can come up with something else for tomorrow. It may end up being a sandwich day, we will see.