What the heck is a Bento, do you say? Check out Wendolonia! I ran across her blog when I was searching for some lunch box ideas for Zoe. I am sooooo tired of packing the same old thing for her when she doesn't want to buy the "too weird" lunch cafeteria food or when we are strapped for cash. These days it's mostly our bank account that is screaming no to buying a lunch. So I have been trying to save us some bucks by getting Zoe to pack more often. Anyways, Wendolonia has some awesome ideas for packing a cool lunch!
Bento is a single-portion takeout or home-packed meal common in Japanese cuisine. A traditional bento consists of rice, fish or meat, and one or more pickled or cooked vegetables as a side dish. Haha, my kid would probably faint at the sight of that lunch! We had our own take on the bento! Containers range from disposable mass produced to hand crafted lacquerware. We used some airtight lock and lock containers and some pretty colorful silicone baking cups for ours! Although bento is readily available in many places throughout Japan, including convenience stores, bento shops, train stations, and department stores, it is still common for Japanese homemakers to spend considerable time and energy producing an appealing boxed lunch. Bento can be very elaborately arranged in a style called kyaraben. Contests are often held where bento arrangers compete for the most aesthetically pleasing arrangements. Kyaraben is typically decorated to look like people, animals, or characters and items such as flowers and plants. There are similar forms of boxed lunches in the Philippines (Baon), Korea (Dosirak), Taiwan (Biandang), and India (Tiffin). Everything is separated neatly in little compartments. I just thought it was a much better presentation than wrapping the sandwich up in saran or foil and throwing it along with a bag of chips into the lunch box.
Zoe's first bento!
I kept it real simple!
Red seedless grapes
Pirates Booty! AKA : cheddar puffs
PB&J finger sandwiches cut into pumpkin shapes with a cookie cutter. Sorry, no pictures of the pumpkins!
Cinnamon and sugar crisps!
The recipe = EASY!
Take a flour tortilla, spread a thin layer of butter over top, sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar mixture, slice in strips with a pizza wheel and bake in oven at 350 degrees for approximately 5-8 minutes. When the edges are slightly browning and the top is bubbling they are ready!
All together now!
For the record : She loved every bit of it!!!
.JPG)
9 comments:
Isn't it a cute way to package food. My mother being Japanese would do that for us at times. Another cute Japanese thing my mom would do for me once I somewhat outgrew the lunchbox at school was folding my lunch bag closed origami style...I'll probably do that for my kids too.
I loooove the bento boxes! What a good idea to use the silicone baking cups, I just use the boring old clear plastic Gladware! I have to keep lunch interesting for my extremely picky son, so I bet he would like seeing those colors. That lunch looks delish, glad Zoe liked it!
My girls LOVE Pirate Booty. I think they could easily go through a bag of that stuff in an afternoon by themselves! Of course, I could too... :o)
Love the lunch idea, will have to keep that in mind for when the girls need to take lunches to school. So...Thanks! :o)
Oh it looks so pretty and I think that the lesson you gave us was awesome. I love learning about new cultures. This is a very cool idea! Once Pres is ready for real school I would love to do this.
Also I just watched Sonya tackle the couch and I am SUPER impressed. I love how once she gets up she falls back like "Phew! That was some work!" She is such an adorable little girl with such a great attitude!
That's cute. Where did you get that cute bento boxes? I need to get that silicone baking cups. Where do I get them?
Thanks for the information. I plan to hit Michael's & dollar stores for those. I made cinnamon tortilla & girls love 'em. ~ Dawn ~
So cute and yummy looking! Love the idea of the silicone baking cups! I got Jason a bento box for Christmas last year, and that is what he takes to work with him every day.
That is definitely a better idea than the stupid Lunchables that Taylor won't even eat, yet demands to take for lunch. I'll have to pick up some baking cups! Thanks for the idea!
That walker is such a good idea. My 86 year old mother just got one to help her walk more easily. Life is kind of a circle. I love those "bentos". I wouldn't mind having my lunch prepared like that. There would probably be a big market for them here, as well as in Japan. Sonya certainly looks happy and, my, isn't she active!
Post a Comment