Using Bento Boxes for lunches.

MikaMojito

My first proper bento! An apple, some lychees, mini babybel and lettuce rolls filled with peppers, carrots, cucumber and chicken ham.

HannahBananas91

Tuna Onigiri. I always see them eat it in anime and I want it... And sometimes they make those cute octopus sausages, maybe you can find a low calorie low fat sausage.

moribunny

MikaMojito wrote: »

My first proper bento! An apple, some lychees, mini babybel and lettuce rolls filled with peppers, carrots, cucumber and chicken ham.

Oooh, yum! I've never had lychee.

HannahBananas91 wrote: »

Tuna Onigiri. I always see them eat it in anime and I want it... And sometimes they make those cute octopus sausages, maybe you can find a low calorie low fat sausage.

You can typically find tuna onigiri at Asian supermarkets, but if not, you can always try making them! The octopus sausage is really easy to make and pretty adorable, isn't it? ^__^

PixieGoddess

I make my own onigiri (see here) and I've never like the little sausages so I use hot dogs instead

mangrothian

PixieGoddess wrote: »

I make my own onigiri (see here) and I've never like the little sausages so I use hot dogs instead

The hotdogs here don't curl up like into the octopus shape. I've tried multiple times, and it's severely disappointing =( Now I just make little fishy shapes instead. Also, as @moribunny said, tuna onigiri can be made. They're easy to do, it just takes practice to get them looking all neat and tidy.

Just a quick example of how lunches don't have to be gorgeous to be a bento:

This mug is a microwavable leakproof container just a little larger in volume compared to my normal boxes. If I could create a cross section of it you would see a layer of cooked spinach and garlic salt, beef chilli mac and on top some sweet potato cornbread cut into little triangles. I had it yesterday, today and maybe even tomorrow, which was planned for. It may not look flash, but everything was still neatly prepped and stored in the box with care to make sure it survived transport to work.

sarieth05

MikaMojito wrote: »

My first proper bento! An apple, some lychees, mini babybel and lettuce rolls filled with peppers, carrots, cucumber and chicken ham.

Those wraps look yummy! I have that same green container. It's fantastic for lunches!

MikaMojito

sarieth05 wrote: »

MikaMojito wrote: »

My first proper bento! An apple, some lychees, mini babybel and lettuce rolls filled with peppers, carrots, cucumber and chicken ham.

Those wraps look yummy! I have that same green container. It's fantastic for lunches!

Thank you. One of my colleagues looked longingly at the wraps so she got one, too.

Two questions: is the dressing pod leakproof? And how do you clean it?

PixieGoddess

mangrothian wrote: »

PixieGoddess wrote: »

I make my own onigiri (see here) and I've never like the little sausages so I use hot dogs instead

The hotdogs here don't curl up like into the octopus shape. I've tried multiple times, and it's severely disappointing =( Now I just make little fishy shapes instead. Also, as @moribunny said, tuna onigiri can be made. They're easy to do, it just takes practice to get them looking all neat and tidy.

Yeah, the hot dogs here don't curl up either They tend to look more like a giant squid than an octopus

bluefish86

I totally need those octo-sausages in my life...

sagj

Today's bento:

Bottom layer: Salad, tomato, carrot curls, mushroom, with dill garlic dressing and bacon (also have a hard boiled egg to add)

Top layer: chicken breast with blueberries and raspberries

dragon_girl26

Editme12 wrote: »

dragon_girl26 wrote: »

I was so inspired by this thread that I made my first ever Bentgo box for lunch this week (sorry for the photo

Box 1- 152g spicy green beans with oyster mushrooms and sweet peppers
2 clementines
Box 2 - 124g coconut ginger rice with 5 teriyaki glazed sirloin meatballs

Those meatballs look so good!!!

Thank you! Forgot to include the recipe for them. The nice thing is, it makes a ton so I have some in the freezer to use in th future: https://oneequalstwo.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/a-yen-for-chicken-balls/

dragon_girl26

MikaMojito wrote: »

My first proper bento! An apple, some lychees, mini babybel and lettuce rolls filled with peppers, carrots, cucumber and chicken ham.

The lettuce wraps look really good in this!

MikaMojito

Thank you for the encouragment!

Livingdeadgirl44

mangrothian wrote: »

PixieGoddess wrote: »

I make my own onigiri (see here) and I've never like the little sausages so I use hot dogs instead

The hotdogs here don't curl up like into the octopus shape. I've tried multiple times, and it's severely disappointing =( Now I just make little fishy shapes instead. Also, as @moribunny said, tuna onigiri can be made. They're easy to do, it just takes practice to get them looking all neat and tidy.

Just a quick example of how lunches don't have to be gorgeous to be a bento:

This mug is a microwavable leakproof container just a little larger in volume compared to my normal boxes. If I could create a cross section of it you would see a layer of cooked spinach and garlic salt, beef chilli mac and on top some sweet potato cornbread cut into little triangles. I had it yesterday, today and maybe even tomorrow, which was planned for. It may not look flash, but everything was still neatly prepped and stored in the box with care to make sure it survived transport to work.

Sweet potato corn bread recepie please

mangrothian

Livingdeadgirl44 wrote: »

mangrothian wrote: »

PixieGoddess wrote: »

I make my own onigiri (see here) and I've never like the little sausages so I use hot dogs instead

The hotdogs here don't curl up like into the octopus shape. I've tried multiple times, and it's severely disappointing =( Now I just make little fishy shapes instead. Also, as @moribunny said, tuna onigiri can be made. They're easy to do, it just takes practice to get them looking all neat and tidy.

Just a quick example of how lunches don't have to be gorgeous to be a bento:

This mug is a microwavable leakproof container just a little larger in volume compared to my normal boxes. If I could create a cross section of it you would see a layer of cooked spinach and garlic salt, beef chilli mac and on top some sweet potato cornbread cut into little triangles. I had it yesterday, today and maybe even tomorrow, which was planned for. It may not look flash, but everything was still neatly prepped and stored in the box with care to make sure it survived transport to work.

Sweet potato corn bread recepie please

Here's the link. Enjoy!

sagj

We have wraps today at work so I just packed a salad to go with it. The box contains salad, carrots, mushrooms, tomatoes, bacon, and two cherry peppers. I'm going to grab a hard boiled egg from the cafeteria to go on top as well. Yum yum

lilithsrose

I've been using a bento box occassionally. My mom got me one for Christmas that has 1 large portion and 2 small portions (which also come with sealable boxes). The lid has removable icepacks in it so you can keep everything cold.

Some of the things I've been including in my boxes:

Pickled Eggs (Hard-boiled eggs soaked in white vinegar with garlic powder, onion powder and dill)
Lunchmeat & Cheese Rollups
Prunes
Homemade Trailmix (Chocolate Granola Clusters, Dried Cherries, Peanuts, Shredded Coconut)
Carrot Sticks
String Cheese
Baked Sugar Snap Pea Crisps
Baked Chickpeas

PixieGoddess

Forgot to post yesterday's bento, so here's 2! They're exactly the same except yesterday had chicken and today has fish. The rest is couscous, veggies, edamame, and half a boiled egg.

Afura

I've been mia from the forums for awhile, so I had about 40 pages to catch up on, and got into the bento-want craze again (let's not talk about what my amazon shopping list looks like right now..). I spent way too many hours running around trying to find stuff, but I did find things! And now I'm passing the savings of ideas on to you people wanting to get started as well, hopefully this will be useful for those of you, if not, skip it, move on. And I promise to try real hard to remember to take pictures of what I've done (kept eating then remembering, seems a common theme).
I found bento boxes (ones labeled as such I should say) at Bed Bath and Beyond, and some on clearance at Walmart as well as some of the everyday plastic sets (the ones with large and small containers) at Ross, Marshalls, World Market, Walmart, Target,etc. IKEA's Pruta set of a billion (alright 17) is also fantastic for mix and matching and is around $5 (I have a set still, love the little squares). I've been using regular square sterlite ones with a divider, and since I already own them I've opted to skip on a new box (ok ok I got a yellow owl one being shipped).
I found circular silicone cups at Target (Wilton), AC Moore (Wilton and Nicole's Kitchen), Walmart was out, but could be ordered. I was able to get square cups at JoAnns (Wilton).
AC Moore had some decent large/regular cookie cutters for $0.69, and all the craft stores had a mixup of different types/sets. Mini cookie cutters in the Wilton section at AC Moore, Jo Anns and Michael.
Sword and regular plastic toothpicks at Party City, cupcake decoration toothpicks can be found at pretty much any craft store like Hobby Lobby, Jo Anns, Michaels, it seems just too big on the top for my tastes and I wanted something reuseable or tossable, and you can find wooden toothpicks with that little decorative plastic at the top at most grocery stores/Target/Walmart.
I went to the international food market (as we don't have a dedicated Asian market) and was able to find nigiri and onigiri molds (the nigiri I'll use for onigiri as well, just wanted something smaller ) and if you have an Asian market they should have some bento stuff, even if it's just a small box and chopsticks.
I'll likely buy some smaller food cutters, interesting toothpicks, etc online, but things are out there if you're interested in getting going! Remember if you hit a craft store, take your coupons. This is just in my area (Charlotte, NC), so there may be varying options where you're at.

Windchild

Afura wrote: »

I've been mia from the forums for awhile, so I had about 40 pages to catch up on, and got into the bento-want craze again (let's not talk about what my amazon shopping list looks like right now..). I spent way too many hours running around trying to find stuff, but I did find things! And now I'm passing the savings of ideas on to you people wanting to get started as well, hopefully this will be useful for those of you, if not, skip it, move on. And I promise to try real hard to remember to take pictures of what I've done (kept eating then remembering, seems a common theme).
I found bento boxes (ones labeled as such I should say) at Bed Bath and Beyond, and some on clearance at Walmart as well as some of the everyday plastic sets (the ones with large and small containers) at Ross, Marshalls, World Market, Walmart, Target,etc. IKEA's Pruta set of a billion (alright 17) is also fantastic for mix and matching and is around $5 (I have a set still, love the little squares). I've been using regular square sterlite ones with a divider, and since I already own them I've opted to skip on a new box (ok ok I got a yellow owl one being shipped).
I found circular silicone cups at Target (Wilton), AC Moore (Wilton and Nicole's Kitchen), Walmart was out, but could be ordered. I was able to get square cups at JoAnns (Wilton).
AC Moore had some decent large/regular cookie cutters for $0.69, and all the craft stores had a mixup of different types/sets. Mini cookie cutters in the Wilton section at AC Moore, Jo Anns and Michael.
Sword and regular plastic toothpicks at Party City, cupcake decoration toothpicks can be found at pretty much any craft store like Hobby Lobby, Jo Anns, Michaels, it seems just too big on the top for my tastes and I wanted something reuseable or tossable, and you can find wooden toothpicks with that little decorative plastic at the top at most grocery stores/Target/Walmart.
I went to the international food market (as we don't have a dedicated Asian market) and was able to find nigiri and onigiri molds (the nigiri I'll use for onigiri as well, just wanted something smaller ) and if you have an Asian market they should have some bento stuff, even if it's just a small box and chopsticks.
I'll likely buy some smaller food cutters, interesting toothpicks, etc online, but things are out there if you're interested in getting going! Remember if you hit a craft store, take your coupons. This is just in my area (Charlotte, NC), so there may be varying options where you're at.

Oh how I wish I lived closer to a bigger town! I have to travel nearly 100 miles to get to the nearest Marshall's, Bed Bath & Beyond, Target, or IKEA. We do have a Ross's here (25 miles away), but it mainly has clothing and purses, not much else. And we have NO Asian/International food markets of anykind (unless you count the tiny section inside Wal-Mart and Kroger).