Using Bento Boxes for lunches.

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  • SnuggleSmacks
    SnuggleSmacks Posts: 3,732 Member
    edited January 2015
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    Breakfast for Dinner bento:

    Greek yogurt mini souffle, spicy chicken nuggets and mini waffles, mini turkey sausages with peppers and onions, and potato wedges. Around 600 calories.

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  • mangrothian
    mangrothian Posts: 1,351 Member
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    Happy Sunday everyone!

    After some grocery shopping and a weekend at home, I can finally get back to my normal Bentos. The OCD part of myself is very happy getting back into this part of my routine.

    Everything you see in the pic totals 710 calories, with the actual 'lunch' part of my Bento totalling 360 cal.
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    Today's Bento has:
    - Babybel mini light
    - Matcha chocolate pocky (because I have an obsession with matcha flavoured food....)
    - water bottle with roasted green tea
    Small green tub:
    - 30g blueberries
    - mixed spice
    - 100g full fat greek yoghurt
    Blue tub:
    - 80g strawberries
    - 40g blackberries
    Pink tub (left)
    - 30g dry weight Matcha soba noodles (again with the green tea...)
    - 60g prawns
    - sauce for noodles/prawns: mirin, ponzu sauce, ginger, coriander, chili oil
    - 20g japanese pickles
    Pink tub (right)
    - hard boiled egg (i attemped to cut it in half all fancy-like, but failed :'( )
    - mixed vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, carrot, capsicum, asparagus, snow peas, daikon)
  • SnuggleSmacks
    SnuggleSmacks Posts: 3,732 Member
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    Ginger beef, sesame soba, butternut squash, sugar snap peas, gingered onions, and a couple of little chicken dumplings. Plus, a hard boiled egg made into a rabbit with my new egg mold!

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  • aSearch4Me
    aSearch4Me Posts: 397 Member
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    @mangrothian‌ mmmm...matcha pocky is my favorite pocky! So good!

    @SpecialKitty7‌ you SHOULD get a commission off of the monbento sale link! I ended up caving when I saw the sale was still going on last night and ordered the red panda box...and the bag...and the utensils :| ... Lol
  • mangrothian
    mangrothian Posts: 1,351 Member
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    aSearch4Me wrote: »
    @mangrothian‌ mmmm...matcha pocky is my favorite pocky! So good!

    @SpecialKitty7‌ you SHOULD get a commission off of the monbento sale link! I ended up caving when I saw the sale was still going on last night and ordered the red panda box...and the bag...and the utensils :| ... Lol

    Man I really want to grab something from the monbento sale. But I promised my wrist a Fitbit and since the prices are actually comparable in Aus, it'll have to wait :(

    As a consolation prize I'm going to Daiso after work today. If I can't spend $100, I can spend $2.80
  • satansees
    satansees Posts: 42 Member
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    I went to the Chinese supermarket/"oriental city" today and bought Thai matcha pocky! It is gooooood. No actual matcha there though. I bought a lot (it's far away), but not much that I can bento, except more sushi supplies and gyoza
    I bought dried Beancurd sticks, but they didn't make it home. I swear it's actual meat, I'm so conflicted.
    If I had a daiso, I would buy things from there too
  • SpecialKitty7
    SpecialKitty7 Posts: 678 Member
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    mmm matcha pocky...last time i had it, i had to order it from a japanese distributor. But, i also got matcha kit-kats, and dark chocolate matcha meltaways to make the shipping worth it.

    Here's tomorrow's bento. Lunch is white rice, sliced mini-peppers, shrimp, edamame & sugar snap pea stirfry.
    The bento to the right is my two snacks, vanilla greek yogurt with fruit and a star shaped egg with kiwi.

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  • mangrothian
    mangrothian Posts: 1,351 Member
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    @SpecialKitty7 teehee, your snack box is the same as my box for today (which happens to be the first box I ever bought!) ^_^ Looks yum.

    My egg moulds must be too big, or my eggs too small, because when I put them in my heart or star shapers, they never take. I think I'll have to get a bunny one instead.
  • SnuggleSmacks
    SnuggleSmacks Posts: 3,732 Member
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    Oddly, I cannot find small or medium eggs in my area. There are only large and jumbo. I'd never noticed until I tried to find medium eggs for my molds, but luckily the large ones worked.
  • mangrothian
    mangrothian Posts: 1,351 Member
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    I'm using large eggs - I'm guessing that my moulds are just too big :(
  • Jmatacz
    Jmatacz Posts: 14 Member
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    I love bento anything!!! I'm obsessed with making my 2yo son's lunchboxes healthy and attractive to encourage eating. I also take a yumbox panino to work for me and people always say how good it looks (I like the healthy portioning personally).

    Thanks for starting this thread. It sounds like there are lots of us around :)

    I bought all of my bento gear from littebentoworld online as she is a local Perth lady and I like to support small businesses.
  • KuroNyankoSensei
    KuroNyankoSensei Posts: 288 Member
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    These are pretty old pictures, but since the thread is here anyway >>...<<...>>...
    I have 14-15 bento boxes total, not counting the onigiri cases I have. I also have the piggy, square, and fish-shaped sauce containers ;3.



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  • PhatAv8r
    PhatAv8r Posts: 153 Member
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    ummmm, am I missing something? I mean, I have 4-5 LOCK-LOCK boxes that I use for different things I haul to eat. Sometimes it' also zippies, but isn't BENTO just taking lunch in a box?
  • chloeelizabethm
    chloeelizabethm Posts: 184 Member
    edited February 2015
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    Lamb Kofta bento with cous cous and salad :) love bentos but still getting used to doing them! Sometimes I just seem to forget that I need a few little things to make it look pretty then it just goes back to being a normal lunch! I'm getting there though!
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  • mangrothian
    mangrothian Posts: 1,351 Member
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    PhatAv8r wrote: »
    ummmm, am I missing something? I mean, I have 4-5 LOCK-LOCK boxes that I use for different things I haul to eat. Sometimes it' also zippies, but isn't BENTO just taking lunch in a box?

    @PhatAv8r lol yes, in the end it is just lunch in a box.

    The idea of the "Bento" lunch box is more about the general principles of portion control, packing a box that's tight so that -hopefully- even if a box flips over or moves around in transport it will still all look the same and not be smooshed, and is survivable at room temperature for sometimes 6+hours before being eaten.

    The other premise, or at least the one that I preach to people, is that the majority of the food can be pre-prepared and frozen, so that when you make a lunch, you have controlled portions of food right on hand for use. You have no excuse to not pack your lunch if it will take you a couple of minutes to zap some pre-prepped meat and rice(or carb of choice) and 5mins chopping up a cup of veggies and blanching them in boiling water for about 3mins. Since you've pre-weighed a lot of your lunch, it's really easy to log as well.

    The boxes are also a lot smaller, in most cases only 500ml or 700ml in volume. The idea of it can help people who have issues with portion control, or have a compulsive 'completion response'. I still have a habit of no matter what the size of my lunchbox, I will always a) fill it up when I'm cooking and b) attempt to eat EVERYTHING in the box. Having a 500ml box in my case satisfies me as much as a 1L, or in the past 2L, box did.

    My other premise, is that a Bento lunch should LOOK very appetising as well. People eat with their eyes as much as their stomachs, and having a well presented, colourful lunch is always nicer than something that is not.
  • mangrothian
    mangrothian Posts: 1,351 Member
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    New shiny things! New box, new barans (orange froggies pictured), new elastic straps, new tamagoyaki pan!
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    a 500ml 2 tier box, filled with rice, furikake, umeboshi, prawn dumplings, a 2 egg tamagoyaki, veggies and narazuke (japanese pickle). Comes to just over 450 calories. Total intake of breakfast/lunch/snacks you see here is about 685 calories.

  • LizN63
    LizN63 Posts: 129 Member
    edited February 2015
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    Some really nice bento in here! Here is mine for today, seemed to work out at about 400cal all in.

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    Rice with seasoning, sesame balsamic chicken, car-shaped egg, cherry tomatoes and babybel. And a little soy sauce bottle.

    Oh the little bag for the boxes made it into this one at the side too!
  • Revonue
    Revonue Posts: 135 Member
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    The pictures are awesome, guys! I may have to order one or two of my own.
  • SpecialKitty7
    SpecialKitty7 Posts: 678 Member
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    @mangrothian I normally can't get the heart or star ones to work either. This last batch of large eggs I bought seem overly large, they squished out of my bunny and fish molds. I thought I'd try them in the heart and star since a normal large egg is too small. I was pleased it worked!

    Some of these pictures are giving me real inspiration to branch out. Time's tight until April 15th, so most of my bento look the same or have the same stuff.
  • Arianera
    Arianera Posts: 128 Member
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    I've always been a big "brown-bagger" and we consciously plan to have enough for lunches. Y'all inspired me, so rather than bringing separate containers, I tried my first bentoish lunch using an old takeout container. Broiled Salmon, Avocado, Salad and Caesar dressing (about 350 calories). Monday is bagel day at my office, so I plan to add 1/2 toasted bagel with butter to what is pictured here.

    Ari

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