Lunch for Saturday, December 11, 2010

This last weekend we celebrated Christmas with my family.  A couple of my children asked for bento boxes.  And they received them.  I wish I had taken pictures of the outsides of the boxes but what was more important is we made bento lunches using them.  All three kids got bento lunches.  I didn't have much in the refrigerator as far as veggies but we were able to get some cool looking boxes done.

This bento was made by hand shaping some green rice into frog face shapes.  The white part is provolone cheese and the teal green is an egg sheet.  We were trying for a blue egg sheet but with a yellow egg it tuned teal.  There is also a egg molded to the shape of a bunny using an egg mold.  We were going to have a bear one too but I kind of murdered that egg when trying to crack the shell.  Also in this bento is roasted chicken, spring rolls, tamagoyaki and a checkered apple.

This bento has a black cat on the lid so we made a black cat to go on the inside.  We used purple jasmine rice, provolone cheese and more teal egg sheet.  Also in this box is roasted chicken, tamagoyaki and diced apple.

This bento was made using more of the green rice and I shaped it into a Christmas tree by using a cookie cutter.  I just added provolone cheese circles and picks to make the balls on the tree.  Also in this bento is spring rolls, tamagoyaki, ham, a rabbit apple and a couple of oreo cookies.

We had lots of fun making the bentos.  And I hope they enjoyed eating them too.  Now if I could only get the energy to make my lunches again.  It is just so much easier to pop open a can of soup.  Especially when it has been so cold lately.

Lunch for Friday, November 19, 2010

Yesterday's cabbage salad was so good I decided to repeat it again today.  I also added a leftover piece of chicken from dinner last night.  Mmmmm....  Hope everyone has a great weekend.  Mine will be filled with Thanksgiving prep.  I've got to get the house clean and grocery shopping done.  Can't wait for all the yummy food and time with family.

Lunch for Thursday, November 18, 2010

I can't believe it's been over a week since I made a bento.  I'm even falling behind on my blog reading.  I have been busy with preparing for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Which I enjoy this season.  I get to decorate, cook and get really creative.  Hmm maybe I need to make a bento with my Christmas theme this year.  We'll see.  But for today I have leftover fried rice that I had made for dinner last night.  I also put in some shredded cabbage with some onions, tomatoes, pecans and noodles.  I made a quick red wine vinegar dressing to pour on it.  And since it has gotten chilly here I added a packet of miso soup.  Sadly this is my last packet and I can not get this brand around here so I will have to order some.

Lunch for Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Ever since the kid said he didn't want me to fix his lunches I have just been grabbing a can of soup or whatever leftover there is.  So there have not been any pictures.  On this day I did put together some dumplings, chicken nuggets, corn, grape tomatoes and some grapes.  Those frozen pre-cooked chicken nuggets come in handy.  Now if I could only convince myself to splurge on some cute nori cutters to make faces on them.  But alas, Christmas is coming up and I need to spend what little money I do have on others.

Lunch for Thursday, November 4, 2010

For lunch today I took a couple of raw biscuits that were leftover from last nights dinner and filled them with ham and cheese.  I cooked them in the toaster oven with the spring roll.  I also cooked up a tamagoyaki and threw in some carrots and broccoli.  To complete it I added grapes and a couple of sweet gherkin pickles.  After the kid saw my lunch he was complaining that he wanted a lunch like that too.  SAY WHAT?!  He complained the first of the week and now he wants lunch!?  I told him too bad he had to eat a school lunch.

my lunch

Lunch for Monday, November 1, 2010

I know I am posting this late but I am finally over my cold.  We had taken a little vacation to Branson, MO and when we got back I was feel very icky.  So there were no bento's since I was eating soup for lunch.  And the kid told me AFTER I fixed this bento that he didn't want me fixing his lunches anymore.  UGH, kids!  The kid has leftover beef ribs, a spring roll, grapes, carrots and broccoli.  When I cleaned his box he had only eaten 3/4 of the ribs, the spring roll and all but one grape.  Fine, no more bentos for him.  For my lunch I have leftovers from Ted's Cafe Escondido.  Chicken tamale with green sauce, a mashed potato dish they call papas and a creame corn type dish.  I always substitute the regular rice and beans for these side dishes.  Every time I can only eat half of the meal because of all the free tortillas, chips, salsa, queso, relish. etc.  I also added some grapes.

my lunch

the kids lunch

Lunch for Friday, October 15, 2010

I am getting so lazy with our lunches.  I didn't make rice at all this week, no cute charaban, blah.  OK I am going to make excuses.  The weather is cooler and I want to stay in bed longer.  I am on my company's internal ISO Audit team and we are working on those this week.  And my man and I have been looking at travel trailers.  OK excuses out of the way, onto today's lunch.

Today was a quick sandwich day.  I made one sandwich out of ham and cheese and the other is Spam and cheese.  I halved the mini sandwiches with the kid.  We'll see what he says about Spam.  I also put in the rest of the Strawberries and some sweet Gherkin pickles.  One thing I can say with making the kid lunches too is, things do not get a chance to spoil.  When I was only making my lunches the strawberries would start to mold before I could use them all.

my lunch



the kids lunch



Lunch for Thursday, October 14, 2010

Today just felt like a Chicken nugget kind of day so that is what we are having.  Chicken nuggets, spring rolls, strawberries, broccoli.  The kid gets what was left of his sushi from the store, carrots and black olives.  I get to have the rest of the sweet pepper and carrot confetti.  It was ok at room temperature but I think I preferred it warmed up.  I will probably pop it in the microwave before I eat it today.

my lunch



the kids lunch



Lunch for Wednesday, October 13, 2010

For today only the kid has a lunch.  The company I work for is having a lunch for the employees so I let the kid pick up some sushi at the local grocery store.  I was surprised he picked the one with eel and egg but he likes it.  And I put some in his box along with other items.  He was happy to see all the strawberries.  Got to use them before they go bad.

the kids lunch



Lunch for Tuesday, October 12, 2010

My experiment with feeding the kid the chicken he wouldn't eat for dinner the night before worked.  He ate it and liked it.  But he didn't eat the pepper and carrot confetti.  He said it smelled funny.  I never know what he will eat and what he won't.  I mean, he is the one that request broccoli in his lunch. 

For today's lunch we have teriyaki salmon, tamagoyaki, parmesan filled mini ravioli's, broccoli and strawberries.  And instead of the sweet pepper and carrot confetti that I have in mine I put black olives and carrots I cut into square shapes in the kids. 


my lunch



the kids lunch



Lunch for Monday, October 11, 2010

For today's lunch we have some leftover chicken from dinner.  Actually it is the kids piece of chicken.  He didn't want to eat dinner last night because he said he does not like chicken.  Huh?  He eats chicken almost every day for lunch.  So I was an evil mom and put it in our lunches today.  I did wash the sauce off of his to make it look different.  For our starch I cooked up some stir-fry noodles and put in containers of teriyaki sauce.  This weekend I made sweet pepper and carrot confetti using the recipe on Just Bento.  The colors are so autumn like.  I loved the taste of this hot out of the pan so we will see how I like it packed in my lunch.

my lunch



the kids lunch



Lunch for Friday, October 8, 2010

Finally Friday!  This has been such a long week for me.  But now it's the weekend and I will have plenty to do and it will pass too quickly.  Always does.  As I was pulling things out for our lunches this morning I noticed I was getting low on everything.  The kid got all that was left of the grapes.  I got the rest of the mandarin oranges that were in the jar.  We split what was left of the yellow carrots.  I didn't prep anything the night before and my protein stash in the freezer is gone.  So that meant either frozen chicken nuggets or corndogs.  And when I was putting everything together I thought I might as well go for a monochrome look for mine.  So I added some frozen corn and all the yellow baby tomatoes I had.  The weather has gotten a little warmer so I left the corndogs and corn frozen so they would keep everything cool and be perfectly thawed by lunchtime.  I have got to go to the grocery store this weekend.

my lunch



the kids lunch



Lunch for Thursday, October 7, 2010

Last night we had tacos, so today for lunch I put all the leftovers together to make taco salads.  Mine turned into a graveyard.  And my salsa container is a full moon.  My man told me I had it backwards and the ground beef should have been the ground.  I pointed out the lettuce grass and the fact that I wanted a dark sky.  What? A tomato sky?  I don't think so, I'm trying to use leftovers here.  I made a jack-o-lantern using a cute organic cherry tomato that still had the stem attached.  The tombstones are sharp white cheddar with RIP written with food markers.  Under the grass are tortilla chips and the lower levels of purgatory are onion and tomatoes.


my lunch



the kids lunch



Lunch for Wednesday, October 6, 2010

This morning I had no idea what we were going to have for lunch.  I looked at my stash and there was just a little bit of Balsamic Sesame Chicken.  So I thought we would share that and have sandwiches.  As I was in the middle of fixing our lunches the kid announces he can not find his homework that he swears he left on the kitchen table.  So I had to stop and help him find it.  I was getting angrier and angrier and finally gave up and told him to keep looking.  I was so angry because he had spent all night working on it.  I was so mad I stopped trying to pack our lunches, threw a few things to fill it in and as I was walking out the door the kid was grabbing his school things.  When he picked them up there was his homework.  UGH!!!  He's going to drive me insane.

So for today's lunch we have ham and cheese sandwiches, Balsamic Sesame Chicken, grapes, grape tomatoes, yellow carrots and a sweet gherkin pickle.  Sure do wish I had had more time to cut out my jack-o-lantern.

my lunch

the kids lunch

I am entering this post in What's for Lunch Wednesday.  I have seen others posting to this every week but I am not able see the entries or enter into it on the computer I sit at all day, so I pulled out my handy iPhone and did some fancy tricks to get it entered.  Too bad I didn't do my Angry Birds post today instead.  I liked the looks of it better.  And it reflects my mood today.  LOL

Lunch for Tuesday, October 5, 2010

OK I have downloaded a new game to my iPhone that I love.  I had been seeing it in the iPad commercials and looked and it is currently the #1 purchased app in the App Store.  It's Angry Birds.  It is so much fun.  You take a sling shot and launch birds at the greedy pigs.  There is even a YouTube video.  The following are some screen shots of the video.

While I was playing this game last night I thought it would make a great bento.  The yellow bird is my favorite.  He seems more pissed off than the others and I like the fact he can barrel though things fast.  So I cooked up some rice and added saffron to the water to make the yellow bird.  Then I cooked up a different pot of rice using yellow and green food coloring to get the green pig.  I shaped the rice by hand and added cheese and nori accents.  I also boiled a couple of eggs since that is what the pig is trying to steal and thought it was only fair to put in some ham with green onion and cheese rolled inside.  I also put in some grape tomatoes, yellow carrots and grapes.  The kid also gets a couple of chicken nuggets.  I really wish the kid would let me makes his lunch cute.  But it does take time.  It was also ironic that this morning the batteries in my camera were dead and I had to snap these photos with my iPhone.  Hope you enjoy my Angry Bird and pig.

my lunch

the kids lunch

Lunch for Monday, October 4, 2010

Lunch today was a bit of a struggle for me to get made.  Guess I played too much this weekend and was too sleepy.  I was even having trouble trying to find enough stuff to pack.  Ugh.

For today's lunch we have leftover ribs, spring rolls, yellow carrots, grapes.  Look at all the gaps and lack of creativity!  I gotta get with the program!

my lunch

 

the kids lunch

Lunch for Friday, October 1, 2010

Finally October!  Woo Hoo!  I'm going to start the decorating when I get home from work tonight.  And for today's lunch I did add a little rice ghost.  I used one of my cookie cutters to make this.  The hands of the ghost were a little hard to pack in the rice.  I had to use a chopstick to get it in the cookie cutter.  I also added some frozen pre-cooked chicken nuggets.  They keep our lunch cool and thaw out nicely by lunch time.  Happy October everyone!

my lunch

the kids lunch



Lunch for Thursday, September 30, 2010

Last day of September.  Wow this month flew by.  I am very excited that I get to start decorating for Halloween tomorrow.  Maybe I can theme my bentos for the month of October.  Hmmm... we'll see.  And I have to mention that the flatbread we ate yesterday did not get any better with added ingredients.  Even the kid said it was blah.  So I will be tossing it out for the birds.

For today lunch in honor of our local fair starting we have mini corn dogs.  I also cooked up a tamagoyaki for add protein.  I'm sure the kid would have though all fried foods would be fine for his lunch today but I decided that corn dogs were enough. 

my lunch



the kid's lunch



Lunch for Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Today's lunch is real simple...sandwich, chips and fruit.  The kid had to be at school at 7am again today and I only got a few hours sleep last night.  After yelling at the kid for his grades, etc I was too wound up to sleep.  And now I am paying for it with being extremely tired.

I used some Flatout brand flat bread and put in some mayo, ham, cheese and lettuce.  I did try a little bit of the end of one and I'm not sure if I will like it.  It has an over processed wheat taste.  But I am still willing to give it a try with the other ingredients.  I put in some honey wheat pretzel sticks in mine and Flaming Hot Cheetoes in the kids.  He loves those.  I know this is mostly carbs but at least I put something together.



my lunch



the kids lunch





Lunch for Tuesday, September 28, 2010

For today's lunch we have Lemon Chicken, dumplings, yellow carrots, broccoli, strawberry and grapes.  Not much going on with this lunch.  Just yumminess.  The kid did complain about the grape tomatoes I put in his lunch yesterday.  And I was in such a hurry I forgot some for mine today.  You would think 30 minutes was enough time to put together two lunches and cook the kid some breakfast.  Oh how I wish I could freeze time in the mornings.



my lunch

the kid's lunch





Lunch for Monday, September 27, 2010

This weekend I went to Whole Foods and bought some yummy goodies.  Most of what I got was snacks.  But I did manage to pick up strawberries and grapes in addition to all the goodies in the pictures.  I know I go overboard at Whole Foods but I just get excited when I see all the things I can't get at my regular grocery store.


Yellow Carrots!





Organic Cherry Tomatoes

  

Coconut pieces with lime




Purple Jasmine Rice



Trail Mix

 

Wasabi Trail Mix

  

For Today's lunch I have Sweet Sour Red Wine Vinegar Chicken, yellow carrots, broccoli, grape tomatoes, wasabi trail mix, spring rolls, grapes, strawberries and a chunk of that coconut.  I almost ran out of items to put in my lunch.  Especially since I cut back on the carbs in this one.  Not making any rice sure does leave a lot of room.  But I'm sure there will be rice tomorrow.

The kid did talk me into fixing his lunch as well.  He had been spending WAY too much money at school for lunch.   I had the cafeteria manager print me a report and he had been spending roughly $5 a day when the regular lunch price is only $2.25.  I told him I could not afford to have him eat like that.  So we did agree that my lunches were cheaper.  It just takes extra time to fix his as well as mine.  Only difference in his lunch is he has Teriyaki chicken and some Fruit by the Foot instead of the coconut and trail mix.  He had been buying a Fruit by the Foot at school for .70 cents a day.  I bought a pack of 12 for $3.50 which makes them around .30 cents each.  Less than half the price of the schools!

Lunch for Friday, September 24, 2010

A full week of bento's.  I'm proud of myself.  And the kid stated that starting next week he wanted me to start making his bento again to take to school.  Not sure how I feel about this.  Guess I am going to have to get back in the habit of using a planning sheet.  But I think this time I am going to make him sit down with me and tell me what he prefers so that I don't have uneaten items in his bento.

For today's lunch I have the rest of the garlic green beans.  I really like these but I am glad that this is all of them for the week.  I'm going to have to find something else for next week.  I also added some rice balls, chicken nuggets, grape tomatoes and mandarin oranges.  I left the chicken nuggets frozen since they are precooked.  We'll see if they thaw out by lunch time.  And I did manage to stab a couple of pics for feet into them.  Pretty much the same thing all week.  I need variety next week.

I really wish I could buy some more bento accessories such as punches.  But I am trying to save money.  When I look back at the things I thought I had to have when I was spending money, I realize I was spending it on the wrong things.  I thought I needed all those nifty bento boxes.  Now I know I would have been happy with just this one blue box since I seem to use it most.  If only I knew what I really needed was punches and food cutters.  Oh well, lesson learned.

Lunch for Thursday, September 23, 2010

It's the first day of fall.  My favorite season is fall.  I love the way the leaves change colors, the cooler temperatures, and the holidays.  Especially Halloween!  I am trying to wait patiently for October 1st so I can start decorating my house.  A self imposed scheduled I have followed for years.  October 1st I decorate for Halloween.  November 1st I decorate for Thanksgiving.  Day after Thanksgiving I decorate for Christmas and mail my Christmas cards if they are done.  I do make my own Christmas cards.  Then New Years Day all the Christmas things come down.  I have made some new things for Halloween this year and should be posting them on my other blog soon.

For today's lunch I heated up some Sweet and Sour Red Wine Vinegar Chicken, put in some of my garlic green beans, grape tomatoes and mandarin oranges.  I also made peanut butter mini leaf sandwiches with white cheddar on top.  I hope everyone enjoys their first day of fall.

Lunch for Wednesday, September 22, 2010

This morning I was ever so thankful for my bento stash.  The kid had to be at school at 7am and I was trying to hurry.  We normally don't leave the house until 7:15 so my morning was cut 30 minutes short.  So for today's lunch I grabbed the rice and Balsamic Sesame Chicken from the freezer.  Then I threw the chicken into a pan until heated.  I let it cool while pulling the green beans, grape tomatoes and mandarin oranges from the refrigerator.  Placed everything in my box, sprinkled some black sesame seeds on the rice and volia!  It was done.