Yesterdays bento was an attempt at a reindeer:

Sandwich with nori and tomato accents, shrimp, carrots, broccoli, and a babybel cheese.  Yogurt in the monkey.  I was not too happy with the antlers, I was originally going to use pretzels but when I opened the bag it was empty.  C'est la vie!


Santa onigiri, broccoli, apple shapes, babybel cheese, hot dog hearts and a milkshake candy.  I did something I have seen in Japanese bento blogs and packed it in a tin as opposed to a box:

The tin was a bit deep for B, so I lined it with some decorative foil.

As for Santa onigiri, I tried something new and am quite happy with the result.  Instead of using the food markers  to decorate it after molding the rice, I mixed some red food coloring with part of the rice and pressed it into the mold where I wanted it then proceeded to finish filling it with plain uncolored rice.  It came out nicely and was much faster!

bentosupply.com is almost ready to debut January 8th,2008! information on the endeavor is on the home page.

Santa is a PB&J sandwich with nori, bell pepper, and food marker accents and shrimp hair.  He is surrounded by broccoli and rainbow fish crackers.  The hat is a plastic cake decoration my dad sent .   He got  a big bag of cake  topper  samples  and my mom sent them my way!


This was a quickie, less than ten minutes.  Woke up to snow and had to hurry to get B to school on icy roads.  Went with a star theme- star cutout PB&J, broccoli, a milkshake candy, rainbow fishies, and a babybel with a star cut in the wax.  This is in the clickety click bear onigiri box, which works well for sandwiches too!

Now for the news!  A new bento article will be posted every Tuesday.  Weekly lunch pictures will be posted on Fridays.  I will still continue to respond to comments and questions on a daily basis.  The new shop will be opening as planned.   Not only will I be selling m handmade bags and furoshiki, there will also be a collection of boxes, dividers, sauce bottles and more.  Coming spring, the book will be available in a full color print version or a PDF version, so keep our eye out for that.   It  will cover the basics such as Octodogs, chick eggs, as well as more advanced techniques.  There are sections on speed bento, theme building, and so much more!

Here are some lunches from the past couple of weeks:

Broccoli; penguin is rice, nori, and carrot; shrimp; milkshake candy;  chick of soy sauce; tiger side container of yogurt.

Shrimp; babybel; broccoli; pepper; smokies;             
PB&J w/ nori accents                                                         


PB&J with nori & pepper accents; shrimp; broccoli Cheese;  smokies


Babybel; PB&J w. nori and peppers; shrimp;     
smokies;orange bell pepper strips                        

Meowth is an onigiri with boiled egg & nori accents;Babybel under the egg pokeball; smokies, green pepper

PB&J w/ nori, tomato, & cheese accents;        Onigiri on a bed of blue rice w/ carrot and nori accents;
Broccoli; edamame; tomato & cheese;            Soy sauce; edamame;carrots; smokes; cookie crisp; furikaki
Milkshake candy


PB& J wreath with tomato bow and candy sprinkles; broccoli; babybel; edamame; shrimp; PB& J tree with nori and tomato accents.  Yan Yans for dessert!


PB&J with nori; cheese on a cool light pick; edamame; star shaped PB&j; broccoli; smokies; peach yogurt drink.

B is addicted to shrimp right now.  He also has a bunch of fourth grade girls that insist he eat lunch at their table everyday.   This is making him the happiest first grader in the world!

    It has been awhile, hasn't it?  I never expected to be gone this long!  Things have settled down finally.  One thing that kept me from returning as planned was a wonderful person decided it would be fun to hack into my Paypal account and drain it of all funds then attack my bank account as well.  Paypal has been wonderful in helping me to solve this as has my bank, but it has taken some time, a lot of phone calls, and reams of paperwork. 
    For this reason I will be closing both my Etsy and Ebay stores and opening my own storefront online.  I want to be responsible for my own online security and not have to trust any third parties anymore.  
    I had to issue several refunds due to this mess, and being unable to access my paypal did not make this any easier.  My dear husband, who took over shipping while I was away, was unaware  that paypal receipts were no longer being routed to our email but to the scammers and a cross in communication between us led to many problems with a few orders, which I apologize wholeheartedly for.     I once again have access to that paypal account and am sending out any refunds that  were not originally processed.   This is speeding up the process a lot  since I no longer have to email  paypal to check the account records then send the refunds from another account.  
    It could have been worse.  It could have been our personal bank account they got into.  They could have gotten a lot more.  A lot more of my wonderful customers could have been burned as opposed to only three, and of those all have now been refunded or received their products.   There could have been more paperwork!
   
    Bento Baby is back, and over the next few days I will be updating photo's and articles on the blog.  The new shop has a tentative launch date of January 11th, 2008.  The Bento Baby book will be available in both print and PDF versions late spring 2008.  

   

Fast Food Friday will be up soon, I promise!  First I need to find my camera cord though, eep!  By  all reports, it was last seen in my two year olds possession.    All likely places have already been searched, and so far nada.  Going to give it another day before I break down and buy another one.  we all know if I buy another one I will find it!  So stay tuned for more bento goodness!

I have fallen behind the past couple days, but am finally catching up!  All recent orders will be posted tomorrow, yay! 

I will be starting a new feature on Friday, called, Fast Food Friday.  No, I will not be waxing poetic about Micky D's.  It will feature either a quick recipe, technique, or food item for bento.  I know many of the things I write about are child related, but many of the Fast Food Fridays will be helpful no matter your age. 

On another good note, I have an article on Bento's that will be published in the Dollar Stretcher in January!  You can find the online version of the publication at stretcher.com


The top two were B's lunch on Tuesday.  the bottom one was Monkey's lunch.  B had 2 onigiri in Pokemon wrappers, some One Piece furokaki, a bottle of soy sauce, an octo dog, fish shaped deviled egg, carrot flowers, edamame, and a reeses peanut butter cup.

Monkey had octodog, deviled egg, ranch, cucumbers, and a peanut butter cup.


Wednesday, B had a car boiled egg, cucumbers, carp hot dogs and cheese, a boy shaped PB&J sandwich, edamame, ranch, and a small piece of cake.

One thing I am asked over and over again is this:
"I would love to start doing this for my kids or myself, but where do you find the time or inspiration? "

So to answer this question I am going to give a peek into my kitchen.  Keep in mind that bento's are my hobby and my job, so you are not required to have quite as much bento things as I do!   As I go through the tools i use, I will add an item using one of the tools to the bento boxes pictured.

First, you need a box.  Below you will see a few of the boxes I use.  They range from authentic Japanese bento boxes, smiley boxes from the dollar aisle at my local Rite Aid, to just plain tupperware.  Also is a collection of bags and furoshiki to carry your lunch in.


After the box, really all you need is food.  A good rule of thumb is is to follow this ratio: 4:3:2:1.  4 parts rice, 2 part protein/meat, 3 part veggie, and 1 part serving pickles (I usually substitute this with dessert or fruit).  For rice you can substitute any carb such as bread or pasta.  Don't worry about getting these ratios exact, but try to stick as close as possible to get the most healthful bang out of your box.  Also try to cover these colors in your box-red or orange, green, black or purple, and white.  For red/orange you can use fruit, bell peppers, carrots, or any orange veggie or fruit.  Green is easy with peas, edamame, grapes, kiwi, or any green veggie.  For black/purple think purple sweet potato's, eggplant, or nori/seaweed.  White can be rice, pasta, or bread.  Feel free to substitute brown rice!


Now to add more appeal, you can start collecting tools.  Many of them are probably already in your kitchen or can be substituted with things you already have.  First is the vegetable/cookie cutter.  below are some in different sizes I have collected over the years and yes, I also use them for cookies.  The tube like ones I ordered from Japan and are actual veggie cutters.  The only reason I bothered to order them though was because I really wanted the sakura (cherry blossom) shaped one.
 

The next step is food picks.  I have heart shaped ones, plastic Korean style picks found on holiday clearance at the grocery store, colored wood ones found on the relish aisle, and some Japanese flag style ones I picked up at Daiso on a trip to Seattle.  Stick edamame, small vegies, or ham and cheese on them for some bite size cuteness.   If you have small chunks of melon, they can also do duty as forks, especially the Korean style ones.  Here you can see tortilla rollups held together with picks (PB and jam) and edamame on cute picks.


 Then we have the dividers.  For dry items, ordinary cupcake liners work.  There also are nearly liquid proof liners from Japan, but you can use foil if these are not readily available.  I also picked up some small metal tart pans at Cost Plus, and they work great.  Plastic ramikans are also an easy to find item.  There are also silicone cupcake and mini cake pans, some come in shapes, or Reynolds makes foil pans in heart and star shapes.   I also have a small collection of divider strip picked up at Daiso or that came with some of my bento's.  You can fake these by using scalloped scissors to cut wax paper or foil into strips. The tart pan is perfect for holding a small piece of leftover cake.


Most of my sauce bottles I ordered, though the plastic fruit containers that sugar candy cmes in also work well.  Check out the camping section of stores like Walmart or Target, often they have small condiment containers that can be used for bento as well.  Most of my sauce cups are also from Japan, though you can find small lidded cups in the aforementioned camping aisles, or find mini tupperware type containers.  If the box isn't going to bounce a lot, wrap a ramikan in saran wrap to keep your sauce separate as well.

Then we have my collection of random tools I couldn't do without.  An exacto knife and scissors for kitchen only use, and my collection of food markers that can be purchased in the baking aisle of most grocery stores.  We have nori punches.  Mine are actually paper punches picked up at dollar stores and dollar bins at craft stores. Also pictured is a onigiri mold.  You can also use cookie cutters lined with saran wrap or your hands to form onigiri.  There is an egg mold.  Not a necessity  but definitely cute!



I hope these idea's help you get started or hone your bento skills!  The lesson here is to use what you have, that you can do this without buying lots of expensive so called authentic items.

The stolen lunches have been solved, I purchased  a file box and a padlock for the teacher to put them in!  We had one lunch box returned, not he authentic bento, unfortunately,  but one parent noticed their child took something that wasn't theirs at least.

Here B's bento for Friday:

Pb&J sandwich, tortilla chips,banana with kiwi stars, and cucumbers with green pepper flower centers.  Ranch in the container and a box of yanyans for dessert.  Another quickie courtesy of the all purpose cookie cutter!  With B's party over (YAY!!!) I hope to get some fancier bento's out next week.

Today is a lesson in an empty fridge and making a bento quick.  B's birthday party is Saturday, and I am putting off shopping til afterwards, so their is room in the fridge for the cake and party food. 
On top with have tamago, cucumbers, green peppers and carrots.  Tamago is the easiest thing in the world.  It is a rolled Japanese sweet omelet..  A super simple recipe can be found here.  Once again, the veggies are ade more fun with a cookie cutter.  This time I stuck the green peppers  into the leftover bits of carrot I had after  I cut the stars out.  Waste not, want not!  (The  leftover bits of green pepper were mixed into the tamago.)
The bottom tier has onigiri  adorned with food marker and nori, cheese shapes on a pick, animal crackers,  a carrot full of soy sauce ad a container of ranch.  The onigiri are made with leftover rice, I just sprinkle it with a bit of water and nuke until warm!  The food markers, while seeing a bit pricey for 3.99 for four, have been invaluable for adding a quick bit of cuteness!  

On another, more annoying note, B had his empty lunch box stolen again.  That is two so far.I refuse to send him to school with his actual Japanese bento boxes until something is done about this.  I have informed the principal that if I see anyone at his school using a box like his blue bear one, I will personally haul that child to the office and I will wait until the parents show up.   I want to see the type of parents that wouldn't realize that their elementary school child was packing their lunch in a box that the parents did not purchase that has return to B written all over it.  I will not be responsible for y actions thereafter, my boy has come home in tears twice now because of this.  Hell hath no fury like this mama bear pissed off!

This one took less than 10 minutes to make with the help of some cookie cutters.  We have a PB&J sandwich, carrots, cucumbers, and green peppers, and some animal crackers.  Ranch in the sauce cup.


Cookie cutters are an awesome way to make a boring lunch fun!

I've been tagged by Stitchblade!  First let me show off today's bento for B:


Showing off the Pokemon onigiri wrappers I ordered :)  with a packet of Hello Kitty furikaki (sprinkles for rice, such as small bits of noro and sesame seeds).  The small blue has cucumber stars and hot dog flowers with little carrot pieces, a panda with soy sauce and a container of ranch.  And a banana, we mustn't forget the banana!

Now on to my tagging!  I must tell seven awesome things about myself:

1)I am double jointed in my fingers, I used this quite a bit to get out of class in highschool by claiming I had broken a finger, hee hee:

2) I rock Halloween!My most favoritest of holidays by far, I go to my son's school dressed up with treats, and spend weeks making Halloween costumes for my family.

3) I can bake an awesome looking cake:

4) I have pink bangs.  No picture, but what could be more awesome than that?!?!?!

5)I got a kid who is a rockin artist himself, and can showcase it on any medium:


6)My Husband is also a rockin artist, and a great guy!


7)I've backpacked through Scotland!


Only seven things, but there is more, I am pretty awesome after all :P

And I tag....
Aikokutora
Alesyira

B is 7 today! His party isn't until the 15th, since his birthday is in the first week of school, though.  We'll do something small with  the family tonight, and I sent him to school with cupcakes for the class as well.  I also sent him to school with this special birthday bento:

He has a small slice of birthday cake, blackberries, carrot sticks, green pepper flowers and a container of ranch in the white box.  The blue box contains a turkey sandwich with cheese and nori decorations (I colored the cheese balloons with food coloring), edamame picks, and an elephant of soy sauce for the edamame.

His blue bear clickety click set "disappeared" from school the other day.  The principal insists it will turn up, but I am afraid is was stolen.  He was in tears, poor thing (B, not the principal).  They stack their lunches next to the gym when they go to recess, anyone could have grabbed it.  So I am on the lookout for a new 2 tier clickety click and the matching bag and belt. 

I did the world famous thing of setting the alarm for PM instead of AM this morning, oops!  I woke up 30 minutes late, got the boy up, fed and dressed, then rushed this bento together:

he has a turkey sandwich with a green pepper frog (cream cheese and black sesame seed eyes), a jelly straw, blackberries, fish shaped boiled egg, cheese cubes, flower cut cucumbers, and cream cheese in the spreader.  A jelly straw is a a yummy alternative to Jello.  It  is made with kanten, a type of seaweed, and doesn't have to be refrigerated.  We get them in giant containers at our local Asian grocery.

We packed it in this tiger bento that is for sale at Bento Baby.  B loved this design so much I had to make an extra one for him!  That s my stove top in the background  ;)

Tomorrow is B's birthday, so I have a batch of cupcakes ready to follow  him to school, and a special bento in the works for tomorrow  :)

Knowing how hectic tomorrow morning is going to be (plus I have to ship out 7 items tomorrow, thank you so much everyone!) I made B's lunch tonight:

Forgive the slight blurriness, I  just couldn't get a clear pic for some reason tonight :)

It is the character Kon from the anime Bleach.  A turkey sandwich with nori, cheese, kamaboko (fish cake) and food marker embellishments.  Some blackberries, cucumber stars, carrot flowers, ranch in the sauce container, and a car shaped molded egg with food color "paint".

I was also busy sewing today, and have listed some new items in my Etsy shop, here is one of my Happy Onigiri sets:

Fruit is a wonderful way to get your kids to eat something healthy, as every Mother knows.  Unfortunately, it can get expensive.  Here are some tips to save money while placing fresh fruit in a bento box!

1)Buy in season.  Look up your county's extension office online or look for information from your local master gardeners program to find what is in season for your area.
2) Farmers markets are a wonderful places to find fresh fruit and vegetables at good prices.  Go towards closing time and find some bargains!
3)Visit a "U-Pick" farm.  It can make a great educational and fun outing for the whole family. Find local farms at pickyourown.org
4) Preserve what you find. Canning is an option if you have the urge to take that route.  A simpler method is freezing.  For berries you spread them in an even layer on a cookie sheet and pop in the freezer.  Once they are frozen dump them in a freezer bag. (Make sure the berries are not wet before freezing.)  Also buy items that have a long shelf life, such as apples, can help.
5)If you have no fruit and it doesn't work into the budget, try making veggies fun.  Take whatever veggies you have on hand- carrots, edamame, bell peppers- and cut into bite size pieces. Place them on a skewer or food pick, mixing up the colors.  You can also slide cubed cheese or ham between the veggie pieces to make it even more appetizing.

I made this little number here


In my never ending quest to bring affordable bento to the Western world, I have now begun making my own. (Not the boxes themselves....yet muahaha!)



I hope you enjoy, and if you have any design request let me know!

I am selling a few bento sets on ebay.  I only accept paypal, but you don't need a paypal account to pay!  Here is one of the sets-

It is a 2 tier box, a snack box, a thermos, some divider grass and food picks all for $11.99!

To be fair, if you have a Dollar Tree store near you check for these items there first!  I want to make a profit, but I do not want to rip anyone off.  

Andrew has a deadline looming and really needed some peace and quiet to get the project done.  I decided to pack the boys up with me to run some errands with the promise of visiting the park if they behaved.  Now, a lot of people would stop at McD's for lunch, but not our family!  Who needs a Happy Meal when you can have this:


Packed in my husands sushi bento as it is larger and more suited to a picnic instead of carrying three separate boxes.
Incudes:Kiwi, turkey & cheese picks, cucumber flowers, sleeping bear onigiri in nori cones on a bed of carrot sticks. Sauce bottles filled with soy sauce and ranch.

I also took a box of Yan-Yan cookies and cold drinks for us.  Another trick I use is to always bring a thermos of ice water, that stops us from wasting money on sugary  drinks we don't need anyway.

This is the reason to always shop with bento in mind.  Out of curiosity today I stopped at a small dollar store I had never been too.  Inside, I found bento heaven!I purchased two of these boxes.  They had any different designs including some larger ones that had a knife and fork attached to the lid!  I also picked up the heart shaped food picks and the fruit bottles.  The fruits have sugar candy inside, but from now on they will be sauce bottles!

With my new toys I made the boys some lunch-



The moral of the story? Even if you are broke you can still find cute bento stuff on a budget!

I am a 31 year old mother of two and freelance author.  For years, I have been exploring the Japanese art of bento, or obento.  I am not an expert on Japanese culture though.  The foodie in me fell in love with the idea of the bento box and the rest has been history! 

Today, my goal is to back healthy, cute lunches for my eldest son for under $2. (A hot lunch at his school cost $2, and the goal is thrift in my household!)  Sometimes the lunches include traditional bento or Japanese food, other times they are completely American. 

I hope you enjoy seeing the neat things I create in my kitchen!