Back to bentou-ing. I have seven pictures for you here, it really has been too long and I will update more regularly now that I’m a little less busy. A lot of the bentous feature mango, well, that’s what you get buying three fresh mango’s for $1,-. They look so yum but you do have to eat mango continuously for the next few days…

First off, my boyfriends bentou. It was supposed to be a busy day for him with classes and a presentation, but since he had to wait for one of his classmates to send in the powerpoint slides for the presentation (I hate it when they do that), he missed his first class and ate his bentou at home. It contains two onigiri with mixed in furikake, five tiny home-made meatballs, stars-shaped yellow bellpepper, starshaped cucumber, cheese cubes, half a kiwi and a hello kitty candy which he threw away :p Morning preparation time was longer then anticipated because I wanted to make him a pretty bentou so that somehow that would positively influence his presentation (which is stupid I know :p), I guess it took 20 minutes, waaaay too long for any other day, but for some occasions it’s okay I guess.

Please, behind the cut, six other bentou’s from the past days.

   My bentou for the day, containing two onigiri with mixed in furikake, three tiny home-made meatballs. Half an egg, boiled and in pieces. A tiny cocktail sausage, half a kiwi, some dipping sauce for the meatballs and sausage. Also some seedless grapes and two easter eggs which I shared with my co-worker. Preparation time was about 15 minutes, mostly spent boiling the egg, I took a shower in the meantime and made the rest of the bentou then.

Boyfriend bentou containing half a kiwi, some seedless grapes. Some of those I cut in half, partly because this way I can fit in more grapes and partly because my boyfriend has this weird way of eating his grapes (de-skinning them first or something), two cocktail sausages which I tried to make into octodogs, but without succes, two cheese cubes, an egg sliced in halves, a slice of chickenfilet with herbs, some dipping sauce for the sausages. In the bottom tier were two onigiri with mixed in furikake, and some mini-meatballs. Morning preparation time was 15 minutes due to the boiling of the egg, again, I took a shower in the meantime.
My boyfriend did request his egg should be left whole in the future. He thinks that this will help avoid the smelliness of the egg in his bentou by lunchtime. It’s not really smelly, but it is your typical egg-at-room-temperature kind of smell. I figured he’s not a baby anymore so he should be able to eat a whole egg whitout difficulty, but I really like the yellow-ish colour the egg adds in this way. Anyways, he does have a point so I won’t cut up his eggs anymore.

Boyfriend bento, containing two onigiri with mixed in furikake, a steamed dumpling, some tiny meatballs, cheese cubes which did a good job as gap-fillers, a boiled heart-shaped egg (though the yellow part is ruining the hart a bit..) and star-shaped mango.

My bento of that day contained about the same, but I had seedless grapes instead of an egg and a slice of ontbijtkoek.

Boyfriend-bentou containing two onigiri with mixed in furikake, two slices of tomato, a star shaped egg cut in half *sorry, a cheese triangle, a piece of ontbijtkoek, some cut up and sakura-shaped mango. The boyfriend was pouting at the tomato before I closed the bentou so he was lucky that I found another dumpling in the freezer. I thought we were out but I still had one woo-tip dumpling, so I ate the tomatoes as a breakfast snack and put the steamed dumpling in his bentou. In the evening my boyfriend repaid me by making me a delicious lasagna, fair deal!

My bentou for that day, two onigiri with mixed in furikake, four slices of tomato in total, cheese cubes, a piece of ontbijtkoek and loads of mango. All in all the morning preparation time was about 15 minutes. Mostly spent inactive because I was cooking the rice and boiling the egg. I did spent some extra time with the dumpling, but ah well

 I’ve been so crazy busy with work and studies, I haven’t had any time to post up my pictures from last week.

This bento was for me and it contained two onigiri with mixed in furikake; some home-made meatballs; some apple slices, which I dipped in water mixed with lemon juice to prevent them from browning; some cherry-tomatoes; a laughing cow cheese cube and some sugar snaps from last nights dinner. In a separate small container is a fishsauce/chili-dipping sauce for the veggies and meatballs.

Behind the cut, two more bento’s from last week…

This was a very very quick bento as I was running late. The onigiri are from yesterday. I made a batch of four onigiri, as if I knew I’d be running late the next morning. I just nuked the onigiri, as well as the meatballs to restore texture for the rice and to get the coldest out of the meatballs. I cut up the cherry-tomatoes, washed the cherries and grapes and put in some frozen raspberries. All in all, I guess this took me less than 5 minutes to prepare. Oh yea, there’s also a cheese cube and a piece of ontbijtkoek.

The bento below was for my boyfriend, it contained two onigiri with mixed in fishflavored furikake; a woo-tip dumpling; half an egg in slices; a cheese cube; cucumber-stars; pieces of a fuji apple and an apple bunny. My bento for that day contained exactly the same, so no pictures of that one. This took me about ten minutes to prepare. I guess making for two speeds up the proces a lot.

Yesterday also didn’t feature a bento as I didn’t have to bring one since I was supposed
to have a business-lunch and my boyfriend had class only until 11 in the morning, so he said he’d rather eat some ramen at home. It turned out that he went home to cook me an amazing valentine’s diner, and he also mad me a desert-gift, a cherry-cheesecake with little sugarharts sprinkled next to it and chocolate letters on top saying I love you. Too cute, and most of all very yum~!  –>

This is my boyfriend’s bento of feb. 13th. Mine featured the same.

It contained two onigiri with mixed in fish-furikake and the ever reoccuring dumpling. some cherry-tomatoes to add vegetables and color, some seedless white grapes, a piece of ontbijtkoek as a snack and jummy home-made meatballs.

Morning preparation time was a little under 10 minutes. Used to microwave the rice, mix in the furikake and make onigiri out of them. In the mean time I also steamed the dumpling. Microwaved the meatballs and let them cool and cut up the fruit and vegetables.                                                                                                                                                                                 

 My Lunch pictured below contained: some frozen raspberries; a piece of ontbijtkoek, a bento-favorite; some star-shaped cucumber; a cheese triangle; onigiri with mixed in green and red shiso and a dumpling.

Well, since I am a student and seem to be constantly broke, I try to make my bento’s as cheap as possible. Because even though I really like my bento’s, if it costs more than a normal sandwhich and a piece of fruit would, I can’t afford it. Luckily, it doesn’t. Yay~!

It’s not really relevant to estimate what my lunch has cost my, because first of all it would be only an estimation, and second of all, prices vary from location to location and season to season. But I do have some tips!

 (Behind the cut, the promised tips and my boyfriend’s lunch)

First off, my boyfriend’s very fruity lunch. It contained frozen
raspberries; two cucumberslices; a cheese triangle; seedless grapes; two onigiri with mixed in purple and green shiso; woo-tip dumpling.

Morning preparation time for the two bento’s together was 12 minutes. I microwaved the frozen rice, mixed in the shiso and made onigiri out of them, while chopping, mixing and microwaving I boiled some water in my waterboiler thingy and once boiled put it in a pan to let it boil further, on top of that pan I placed one of those good old bamboo steam baskets with the dumplings in it and the lid on. This way the dumplings were done by the time I was done chopping etc. I cut the grapes in half and used my vegetable cutter to slice cute stars out of cumcumber.

Cheap-o tips ‘n tricks:

Preparing a bento is not as hard as it looks but you have to keep a good eye on expenses. Even though you might come across loads of cute things in your grocery store, don’t be tempted to buy it everytime, otherwise you’ll face a whole-lot-of month at the end of your money! But ofcourse you can make your bento cute, have different foods in it everytime, have a nutricious lunch and maybe even save some money. 

 1) Buy your stuff in the right season and preferably local!

Trying to buy strawberries in the winter in Norway will cost you…(as will trying to buy strawberries in winter  anywhere.) It’s really not difficult trying to figure out when certain fruit’s or vegetable’s seasons are. If you seem to be seeing it a lot whereas you didn’t before, it’s in the season. Think of the same strawberries or asparagus for instance. Same goes for the price, if you catch yourself thinking whoa, why is this so expensive? stay away from it and try again in a month or two (or seven).

2) Don’t waste food!

In today’s lunch I used my star cutter to make cute star-shaped cucumber slices. What you can’t see in the picture is that I didn’t throw away the left-overs from the stars. They’re hiding under the stars in my bento and serving as perfect gap-fillers and stabilizers.

3) Anything goes in a bento!

Don’t be tempted to use exclusively Japanese products. A bento may be a traditional Japanese lunchbox, but it’s just a lunch, it is not a better bento if it contains endamame or onigiri. If you would rather eat pasta instead of rice, go with pasta. If you like bell pepper, like I do, use it! I like fruit in my bento better as opposed to vegetables like brocolli and zucchini etc. I do like those vegetables hot, but I don’t particularly like them cold, as does my boyfriend. So the sollution is simple, fruit and raw veggies it is.

4) Don’t be a fashion-slave!

These bento-boxes, gear and equipment are all very cute and oh-so handy, but they are also expensive. Do you really need them? Or are you just taken by the cute picture on top of your whatever? Your gear does not need to come from ebay and it does not need to be expensive in any way. I will make a post on cheap, local bento later.

5) Do use your left-overs!

If you are cooking dinner, why not cook a little extra rice for the onigiri for tomorrow’s bento, or a little extra pasta if that floats your boat. This way, it will save you a lot of time in the morning, and more importantly it will save you money. Normally when I cook rice for just two onigiri I find myself cooking too much and throwing away some. Be making your onigiri at night you can save the rest of the rice for dinner. If you have any leftovers from dinner, like small pieces of chicken or maybe a bit of vegetables or even a yummy-sauce, save it overnight in the fridge, and in the bento it goes in the morning. Easy-as-pie, fast and so cheap.

6) Love your freezer…

Making big batches of stuff like meatballs, will pay off. Not only will it save you time in the morning when you just pop it into the microwave, things like meat etc. are usually cheaper in larger quantities. It’s also a good idea to be on the look out for large batches of dumplings if you like those, and stuff like frozen fruit which is usually a lot cheaper than normal fruit. My raspberries cost me about 3 dollars for a 500 gram box. Yay!

7) Think green…

While you’re at in, try to think about the environment a bit. By using re-usable cups, sauce bottles and dividers you are not only being environmental-friendly but you also save a lot of money on cute items that are disposable. Just wash up your stuff instead of throwing it out.

Well, that’s it for now!

Yay, today was another bento day~!

I tried frozen raspberries for my boyfriend’s lunch today, to see how they would hold up. Unfortunately they didn’t really hold up like I had hoped. Because the raspberries thawed in the bento during the day there was more fluid in and around the raspberries than normal, making them even more fragile and making everything else wet. But, since my boyfriend did really really like the raspberries he suggested I would put them in a small plastic bag or in some plastic foil. So I guess I’ll try that next time.

This bento contains a heart-shaped hard boiled egg with a small bag of salt; some grilled chicken with Italian herbs and spices, a small piece of ontbijtkoek and the raspberries. In the bottom tier are two onigiri with mixed in furikake and a piece of nori to prevent sticky fingers. And last but not least, a woo-tip dumpling.

(Behind the cut, my bento.)

 This was my bento for the day. It was actually a leftover from a salad I had for dinner last night. It contains rucola or rocket salad, a torn-up garlic-coriander naan bread which served as a natural divider; some grilled chicken with ground black pepper; a mustard-garlic-french herb dressing in a small sauce container; some steamed potatoes. Also there are some pieces of bellpepper which serve as gap fillers mainly.

Morning preparation time: Since I had already made my bento the night before while I was cleaning up from dinner, this didn’t cost me any time in the morning. My boyfriend’s bento officially has cost me about 20 minutes to prepare, but I have to say that this was mostly spent boiling the egg. I used the time in which the egg was boiling to take a shower and get dressed, so this wasn’t totally wasted time. After the egg was done I peeled it, popped it into my egg-mold and let it cool in a bowl of cold water. During that I prepared the rest of the ingredients.

As you can see above I have a number of paper- and sillicon cups to use as dividers, or for when my lunch can do with a touch of colour.

Molds and cutters~! At first when I bought them I felt a bit guilty because I was convinced this was a waste of money. But it turns out I actually use them quite a bit~! After all, who can say no to cool star-shaped eggs?

Tiny cocktail skewers which I use to make mini-skewers of either vegetables or sometimes meat; some larger sauce cups with lids; coloured food picks; my mashimaro-bento spoon; grass dividers~! And sugarhearts. I sometimes sprinkle these on top of the lid of the bottom tier of the Totoro bento my boyfriend uses. Just to show him that his vegetables were made with love

All kinds of different sauce bottles. I use the hello kitty sauce cups for thicker sauces like the tonkatsu sauce, as well as for furikake. It turned out that one full bottle of furikake is exactly enough to sprinkle over two onigiri.

Furikake; small packs of salt, peper, sambal; packs of ketchup; wasabi, etc.

This is my korean Mashimaro bento box which I actually bought in the Netherlands. (Wah-Kiu bookshop in Rotterdam, they don’t regularly sell bento stuff there, the owner just seems to buy stuff that he comes across on his trips to HongKong or so, I guess you just have to be lucky.) This came with a small spoon which fits needly in between the two layers of the box. As you can see it has a removable divider in the top layer.
I only use this bento box on very busy or very long days as it is slightly larger than my other bento boxes. This one is about 750 ml in total, which I find quite filling. I usually pack it with some fruit or a snack which I eat later on the day. 750 kcal in one go is a no-can’t-do for me.

This bento box was a gift from my mother and it comes from Muji in London. I like the fact that it is so clean and crisp. Every colour you use in your food stands out in this box. The downside is that it is a bit small for a normal day. In total it measures about 400. But it does do fine for lunches on less busy days. This two-tier box also has a removable divider in the top layer.

This two-tier Hello Kitty box is the box I most regularly use. The measurements are just right for me (620ml) and this box is conveniently shaped in my opinion. The top-tier has a removable divider and the lid of the top-tier nests hashi which is actually quite nice, because I usually forget them if I have to bring them seperately.

This two-tier Totoro bento is my boyfriend’s. I bought it for him as a gift and it’s the only one he uses. Quite explainable given that the others are either too small or too pink for his taste. This box is of exactly the same measurements as my Hello Kitty box, it also looks the same on the inside.

I also have a small two-tier box shaped in the head of a pandabear with some fun english written on it. (Panda, day after day sounds a bit depressing to me, as if the panda woke up this morning hoping he’d be an ice-bear but wait… no… he’s still a panda, day after day :p).
This box needed some washing up as I had used it that day, so no pictures of that one.

 And finally:

This is what I use when I have to bring my chopsticks seperately. I don’t like the fact that they have travelled all through my bag by lunchtime since I don’t have a seperate bag for my bento box so I decided to find a sollution for that. It is actually a toothbrush-container for children, and it fits my child-size hello kitty chopsticks perfectly, keeps them clean before lunch, and it keeps my bag clean after lunch.

Ofcourse my bento shopping hasn’t ended yet… and I do have a wishlist of things I “need”.

• I really really want a one-tier box, which is slightly larger and deeper. I’m looking forward to experimenting with the different foods and shapes of the containers. I’ve seen some I like, one was an aluminium from hamtaro another one was from rillakuma bear and I’ve seen a white one they sell at Muji which I will buy this summer.
• I actually do really need some of those elastic band thingies to hold together my bentobox. I kinda lost one to fungus (it was a tragic death) and the other one I just erhm, lost, I guess.
• Things to make my lunch cuter are always good. I like those punchers which make faces out of nori. I also like those mold for really tiny onigiri.
• Well, I do kinda need some kind of bag or furoshike or something to wrap my lunches in. So that way I won’t be so afraid of the box opening in my bag, and it will prevent smelly bags after lunch.
• A Canon Eos 400D please, to take pretty pictures of my lunches~! (Not gonna happen though)

Ah well, you know what, the list is endless…

Here’s my boyfriend’s bento:

Containing two onigiri with mixed in furikake; some torn up home-made meatballs; a small pack of salt to sprinkle on the hart-shaped hardboiled egg; a cheese triangle; a woo-tip dumpling; green seedless grapes.
My boyfriend isn’t a huge fan of (cold) vegetables in his bento, so I usually put in a lot of fruit to compensate and let him get his vitamines…

(behind the cut: my bento.)

As I was gonna have a really busy day I decided to use my slightly larger mashimaro bento which contains about 700 ml.
In it are three onigiri mixed with furikake; some bell peper; cup of canned pineapple bits; some home-made meatballs hiding under the pineapple; a dumpling; a pack of salt and a star-shaped hartboiled egg. The packed cell-phone thingy is a small slice of ontbijtkoek, a kind of cake which is apperently typically dutch. It contains practically no fat and also very little sugar. Since it is very cheap to buy here in the Netherlands, nobody ever takes the effort of home-making it. I’ll try to figure out the recipe though and see if I can post it. This is a children’s favourite, and works for me too

Here for a bento example of what it should look like a little bit:

Ingredients (serves 4)

- 4 roti (if you’re a big eater you might want to add more…);
- 750 grams of boneless, skinless chicken, cubed, not too small;
- 4 to 6 sweet potatoes, depending on the size;
- curry massala (Chan’s);
- 4 tomatoes in chunks;
- 3 large onions, or 4 to 5 smaller onions;
- 3 strings of kouseband/yardlong beans;
- 6 cloves of garlic;
- 4 eggs, hardboiled;
- 4 bouillon (stock) cubes, pref. chicken flavoured;
- 2 Mme. Jeanette peppers, if you can’t find these, habanero peppers will do too;
- oil;
- a big frying pan.

* Cube the chicken, not too small, and mix in a bowl with 3 tablespoons of (olive)oil and 3 tablespoons of the curry massala mixture. Leave it to marinate in the fridge for about half an hour.
* Set water to boil for the potatoes. Peel the potatoes and cut them into big chunks, add to the boiling water and cook for about 7 to 10 minutes, after they’ve cooked, drain with some cold water to prevent them from keeping cooking.
* If you haven’t boiled your eggs yet, now is the time to hardboil them in about 15 minutes.
* Cut the beans in pieces of about 5 cm (cut the ends) and wash them, peel and slice the onions in rings, then halve the rings. Peel the garlic cloves and press them with a garlic press, save on a plate or something for now.
* On a high fire heat (olive)oil in your big pan, and sautée the chicken cubes until slightly coloured and no longer white on the outside. Lower fire, add half of the onions, all of the tomatoes and let simmer for a while. After about three to five minutes add half of the pressed garlic, the Mme. Jeanette peppers (don’t cut them! they go in whole) and carefully add the sweet potatoes. After mixing well, crumble two of the bouillon/stock cubes and add to the mixture. Let simmer on low fire for about 5 minutes, but keep stirring.
* On another fire, heat (olive)oil, add the other half of the onions, and sautée for a minute, add the beans and the rest of the garlic. crumble 2 bouillon/stock cubes above the onion/beans mixture and mix well. If you like it spicy you can add some sambal to taste, if you can’t get sambal, small chopped chili’s could work, or you could add a little bit of gochujang (the Korean equivalent of sambal). Let this cook for about five minutes, then remove from fire and keep warm somehow (tinfoil usually does the trick for me)
* After this stirr the chicken/potato and see if the tomato has fully dissolved yet. If so add another 3 to 4 table spoons of the curry massala and mix well. Carefully add the eggs, make sure not to break them, and cover them in the curry. Let set for another 3 to 5 minutes. Remove the Mme. Jeanette peppers and throw them away, or if you like things really really spicy you can by now slice one of them in small rings and add it to the mixture. I usually don’t do this, though I’m used to quite some hot and spicy food, this is too much of a good thing for my taste.
* During this time prepare the roti, if you have them storebought, they will probably go in the microwave for about 2 minutes.

* Serve the roti, the yardlong beans and the chicken/potato curry mixture and enjoy!
A simple salad of tomato and cucumber is usually good with this ^^

As promised before, here is a very long post with some of the bento’s I made in the past. In time I will give some of the recipes for the items in the bento and crosslink it with this post. Photoheavy behind the cut! Bear with me

Bento #1 containing:
2 Yaki onigiri; cucumber bits to fill up the empty space; mandarin parts; a star-shaped hardboiled egg; grilled fishcake with a bottle of dipping sauce.

Bento #2 containing:
Plain white rice; Kung Pao Chicken with cashews, simmered snowpeas and carrots; fresh strawberries; small bottle of soy sauce to flavour the rice; a small home-made chocolate pudding; piece of ontbijtkoek – a bento favorite for me

Bento #3, this is actually a bento made for my boyfriend, containing:
Plain onigiri; Kung Pao Chicken; two steamed Chinese dumplings (Woo Tip); cashews and some pieces of cucumber.

Bento #4 containing:
Plain white rice; mini-yakitori plus a small bottle of soy sauce; pieces of cucumber; Laughing Cow light cheese triangle; mandarin parts; a Liu Wei Qi Chinese candy, these are haw-flakes I think, this one is peach flavoured. On the side is a small bag of furikake to sprinkle on the rice.

Bento #5 containing:
Again plain white rice, some spring onions for colour, delicious miso-glazed chicken (which was actually better still warm.); cheese triangle; Slices of apple; cucumber bits and some home made tonkatsu-sauce to go on… well, anything!

Bento #6 containing:
Corn!; apple slices; a steamed char sieuw bun; Tonkatsu made with chicken instead of pork

Bento #7 containing:
More Tonkatsu with chicken; a cheese triangle; cucumber-stars; apple slices; Pasta with springonion, sundried tomato, mini-mozzarella balls and some olive oil.

Bento #8 containing:
Pink grapes; a cheese triangle; Roti; delicious and spicy curry of chicken and sweet potatoes next to some yardlong beans mixed with onions and sambal. This is definitely one of my favourite dishes to eat at home. (Recipe here.) Though you can make your own Roti, I usually don’t find it worth the effort as it is time consuming and you can buy them at a reasonable price ready made.

Bento #9
I guess this would qualify a bit as a his’n'hers bento with pasta as they are exactly the same. Containing:
Pasta with fresh basil, sundried tomatoes, small mozzarella chunks and a tiny bit of olive oil; Mandarin parts; grilled skewers with thinly sliced beef, with a layer of sundried bellpepper pesto and some basil leafs; skewers with halved plum tomatoes, mozzarella and basil.

Bento #10 containing: 
Two yaki onigiri, two dumplings (woo tip), a bottle of soy sauce and a bottle of home made tonkatsu sauce; mandarin parts; home-made meatballs, some chili-rice crackers.

Bento #11 containing:
Two onigiri, one plain and one with garlic flavoured sesame seeds; fishcake quickly sauteed with some bell pepper; two woo tip dumplings; a heart-shaped hardboiled egg, some furikake to sprinkle on the plain onigiri; apple stars and a apple bunny *which was brutally beheaded at lunchtime by my boyfriend…*
A great tutorial for the apple bunnies can be found here at lunch in a box