The 3 minute bento...

I almost didn't even bother to post this one since it's ugly, uninspired, and probably really doesn't qualify as a bento; other than being packed in a bento box ;P lol

I made baked ziti for dinner last night - it was probably my best ever.  When I asked Rob if he wanted a bento or just leftover ziti, he said 'ziti is fine' - so, since this box is microwave safe, I decided to just pack it in it.  Hopefully, being cheesy, it doesn't ruin the box (but if it does, I'll just have to replace it - the lid is starting to fade a bit anyway, even though it is supposed to be dishwasher safe :P  As you may have noticed, I use this box a lot!)

In the bottom tier, he has a salad w/ a couple halved grape tomatoes, a piece of wheat garlic bread and some strawberries.  I see a lot of red, beige and green - definitely no 5-color bento here!

We have a friend visiting from Cali who has requested a bento while he's here, so hopefully there will be something much better to post in the next week! ;)

Happy Bento-ing!

Reminder! Contest Deadline is Saturday :)

Just a quick post to remind you that the deadline for entering my theme bento contest is this Saturday!

http://anamericaninbento.blogspot.com/2010/05/contest-time.html

Happy Bento-ing!! :)

Flowers! :)

So, tell me, do you all prefer the larger pictures I have been using the last couple days, or do you prefer it smaller?  Not that it will necessarily change my mind - lol

This was a fairly quick bento, but I felt like doing a little more to it, so I did the grape tomato roses on his usual salad, with a car shaped egg this time and the usual ham, turkey and swiss pinwheels and a few carrot flowers.

The other tier contains the last of the chipotle macaroni salad and is topped with cucumber, carrot and grape tomato flowers, hummus w/ some black sesame seeds - I tried using a small flower cutter as a stencil, but it just looks like a circle.  Then he has a couple strawberries cut up and topped w/ an extra carrot flower.

We both took the day off tomorrow as we have a friend visiting from California, so there will likely not be a post tomorrow.  How often do you get to know that in advance!? lol

Don't forget to enter my theme bento contest!

It must be the time for giveaways and contests; If you haven't noticed it yet, I added a little list for other contests, challenges and giveaways on the side bar :)

What is this thing? lol

Here is Rob's bento for today.  The 'design' in the center didn't quite work out as I had envisioned, but at least it was something a little different - lol

I cut the ham into wedges and placed them in a circle into the centerof the salad to make a cup - stuck in the swiss cheese, also cut into wedge shaped, filled in the middle of the ham 'cup' with turkey cut into strips and topped with egg slices andtopped those with flower shapes cut out of nori.  Then I stuck in a few grape tomatoes :)

The top tier has the chipotle macaroni salad I made the other day, topped with smaller flower shaped nori cutouts, cucumber slices, strawberries and blackberries.

I had planned to put a couple baby carrots in the bento, but when I opened the bag of the organic baby carrots my daughter picked up the day before, they felt all slimy :(  What a waste!

Don't forget to enter my theme bento contest - only 3 entries so far, so chances are great so far!

Another day, another bento :)

Last night for dinner I made guacamole - I think I may have mentioned before that we like to sometimes just have guacamole and chips (baked) for dinner.  I must say, I do love my guacamole :)

I make mine with avacados, chopped onion, chopped tomato, cilantro, lime juice, garlic, salt and a little hot sauce - soooo nummy!  I use plenty of lime juice and it keeps it from browning so it works in Rob's bento for the next day - if there's any left :)

For today he has a little hummus, a little guacamole, baby carrots, cucumber slices, blackberries and strawberries in the top tier.

In the bottom I used red leaf lettuce to make a cup for the chipotle macaroni salad, then used more torn up for a small salad w/ a star shaped boiled egg and ham, turkey and swiss pinwheels.

I then slivered some green onion to make it at least a little different and added the carrot flowers :)

Happy Bento-ing! :)

The usual... And don't forget to enter the contest!!

There's really nothing new in today's bento, but here it is :)

He has blackberries and strawberries - I'm so glad to see them on sale and looking so nice right now - yummy and healthy - and colorful! :)  Berries are a bentoists best friend - one of many! lol

I also made another batch of the chipotle macaroni salad, but I may need to add more dressing to the remainder before I pack it in another bento.  Since I actually had some red leaf lettuce, I lined that section of the tier with it before adding the macaroni salad - it does add something to it, don't you think?  Then there are the familiar carrot flowers w/ green onion stems and black sesame seed ground.

In the bottom tier is his usual salad with a bunny shaped boiled egg, carrot flowers and turkey, ham and swiss pinwheels.  As you can see, I still need to work on my photography - especially ith those white eggs...

In case you missed it, I posted the contest Friday. 

I also extended the deadline to May 22 - wasn't thinking that we would have company for the first half of that week and I may as well give you more time of I won't have time to review them until then! :)

Once again, the contest is to do a theme bento - any theme you want it to be; the sky's the limit :)

http://anamericaninbento.blogspot.com/2010/05/contest-time.html

Contest time! :)

This is yesterday's bento and was packed pretty darn quickly after a few Cinco de Mayo Margaritas - lol :)

The top tier contains hummus, sliced strawberry and the chipotle macaroni salad I had made the evening before w/ carrot and green onion flowers.

The bottom tier is the usual organic spring greens with more carrot flowers and grape tomatoes.  I also put a bag of triscuits in his bag to go with the hummus.

So, now on to the contest!

Here is what I have decided to do this time - a bento theme contest!

Here's the deal - it can be any theme you want, let your creativity flow :)

I am asking that each person enter only once.  Entries can be emailed to me at tammy@robtammy.com and please use the subject line Theme Bento Entry - you may submit 2-3 photos if you'dlike, but only one will be used in the voting.

The deadline for entries will be Saturday, May 22 at midnight EST.

Please pack a new bento for the contest - The idea is to get everyone to get creative - Also please include a description to be posted with your entry - Thanks! :)

If I have 20 or fewer entries, I will place all of them in a poll to be voted on here on my blog - If there are more than 20, myself and my daughters will choose the 20 finalists and the poll will be among those entries.

The winner will receive the bento box, belt and bag set below:

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

I realized when I looked at the photos from the SD card that there really is no protein in today's bento to speak of...  Oh well, C'est La Vie!

I decided to give the macaroni salad a little extra kick for Cinco de Mayo and added some chipotle seasoning to it.  I thought it tasted pretty good :)

His salad is a little plain today as I just wanted to get it finished and go to bed last night - so lazy of me...  Making the macaroni salad was enough for me :P  So, I just cut some grape tomatoes in half and arranged them in flowers and added a couple carrot flowers.

In the other tier is sliced strawberries and the chipotle macaroni salad w/ carrot and green onion flowers w/ black sesame seeds for the ground.

He also has his gummies in the lid and I threw a bag of raspberry shortbread cookies into his lunch bag just in case he was still hungry :)

I plan to definitely post the 50-followers contest either tomorrow or Friday, so stay tuned! :)

Last night for dinner I grilled chicken tenders sprinkled with chipotle seasoning, which we ate pretty much as it is in Robs bento for today.  I love when leftovers can be used in the bento for the next day :)

In the top tier, we have hummus, strawberries and carrot salad.

In the bottom tier, we have a mixed spring greens salad w/ cucumber, grape tomato and carrot with the chicken tenderloin sliced on top.

He also has gummies in the lid for a little treat and I packed him a few triscuits for the hummus and light ranch dressing for his salad.

This is Kat's bento for today.

In the top tier, she has an onigiri filled with spicy tuna, some broccoli, strawberries and Aidelle's Teriyaki Chicken Meatballs.

In the bottom tier she has the last of the carrot salad, japanese pickled cucumber, baby carrots and banana.

Chewie is delicious!

I totally and unabashedly stole this idea from veganf at Disposable Aardvarks: http://disposableaardvarksinc.blogspot.com/2010/04/chewie-soba.html

Rob loves Star Wars - he even has a curio in our bedroom full of Star Wars goodies - lol - so when I saw this, and realized I had soba and that Rob would probably eat them made into sesame noodles, I was excited :)

I made a sauce of peanut butter, a little sesame sauce/tahini, sesame oil, rice vinegar and say sauce - whisked it all up and mixed into my soba noodles.  I think my ratio is off and it could have used more sauce, but Rob said Chewie was delicious, so score! :)

I did my Chewbacca first, getting him shaped a little and then filled in around him with carrot salad.  I then added some parsley for foliage and cucumber flower halves and grape tomato slices were added.

The other tier has the usual organic spring greens mix, tuna salad in a food cup in the center with a grape tomato flower w/ green onion stems and sesame seed ground.  Cucumber and carrot flowers top the salad.

I also packed crackers in his bag to have with the tuna salad.

For some reason when I went to get the pictures off the camera, they weren't there! :o  Thankfully I had decided to get them off the camera to upload to FB last night and was able to get it back out and take them again - otherwise I would have discovered they were missing after Rob was gone with the bento :o

Another simple bento :)

Rob's bento for today was packed pretty quickly. 

The first tier contains fresh pineapple, carrot salad, kiwi slices cut into flowers and curry pumpkin seeds.

The second tier contains tuna salad (or tuna mayo as I've noticed many in other areas call it :), and salad w/ carrot flowers.

I also put a baggie of multigrain crackers in his bag to go with the tuna salad. 

We often have the tuna salad mixed into a leafy greens salad with cucumber and tomatoes in the summer and he always likes crackers with that, so I wanted to be sure he could eat it either mixed into the salad or just the way it is on the crackers.

Unfortuantely, I didn't have tomatoes or a cucumber to add to it for today (I do now since I sent Ahmetia to the store today :)

Last night I decided to use these star and heart shaped foil baking cups from Reynolds.  I like that they are shorter and fit into the shallower tiers of this bento box and the shallower top tier of most of my other bento boxes.

On the tuna, I simply sprinkled some black sesame seeds on top to quickly add a little visial interest without spending much more time on it. 

I'm still trying to decide what I want to do for the 50-Followers Contest; I know I want to have people submit bento photos this time, but I need to decide if I want to do a theme or what... 

Stay tuned!

I do know the prize will be the following bento box:

Prize is subject to change (just in case I decide to go up to Mitsuwa and find something different before I post the contest - lol)

Everyone should play with their food!

This is from Rob's bento for yesterday - I had a little fun with it - can you tell? :)

I recently bought some new food markers at the grocery store that I discovered with the cake decorations and candles.  These are much more fluid than the ones I purchased previously - which I found to be both a good thing and a bad thing.

I used them directly on the press part of the sandwich cutters rather than on the bread (except for the little bit of extra coloring I did on the one flower - hehe).  I was a little concerned that the color would dry too quickly, but it seemed to work great.

Here is the full bento.  I packed it earlier than usual since we were going to see Flogging Molly Monday night :)  The show was awesome - love them! :)

The tuna sammies are just propped up on a plain organic spring green salad.  He also had his light ranch dressing for the salad once he ate the sammies.

In the other tier he has a homemade carrot salad - I even grated the carrots instead of buying shredded carrot :)  He also has fresh pineapple and strawberries.

This was Monday's bento. 

Amazingly, I did not pack one bento last week :o

He has his usual salad w/ the ham, turkey and swiss pinwheels and a car shaped boiled egg (sliced to make it easier to eat), strawberries, pineapple, hummus and celery and carrot sticks.

This is one of Kat's bento from last week.  One of my favorite meals is simply homemade guacamole and baked tostitos - yummy!

I use plenty of lime juice so that leftovers don't brown before the following day, so she was able to take some in this bento.

In the other tier she has a homemade apple and poppyseed slaw I had made over the previous weekend, edamame and plum.

The slaw was really good, though over the following days, it did get a little watery - but still tasted great (maybe because I use light and fat free products?)

The recipe for the slaw can be found here:

http://www.deliciousorchardsnjonline.com/archive/arc114.html

I used apple cider instead of the apple juice concentrate because that's just what I had.

This is another of Kat's bento from last week.

She has dumplings and sauce in the kiwi container, bean sprout namul that she made, strawberries and stuffed banana leaves we purchased frozen at the Asian market.

Below are some photos of bento we have packed over the last 2 months - I am going to forego the descriptions - at least for now, but wanted to get them on here :)

First, bento I packed for Rob:

And Kat's:

And Ahmetia's couple:

Stay tuned for that 50 Followers Contest!  I plan to post that very soon! :)

OMG! I hit 50 followers in my adsence :o

Hi everyone! And welcome to the new followers! I apologize for being absent for so long :( Between computer issues, sadly, a bit of a loss of inspiration etc etc, I didn't realize how long it had actually been since I posted! :o

So keep an eye out for a contest to celebrate reaching 50 Followers! Woot! :D

I think I will start small tonight before I go back and post a few bento from the last couple months - there were many days I didn't need to pack bento and still others that I was just bored with and didn't bother to photograph, but I do have a few and some that my girls packed to post.

April 16:

Fresh strawberries and blackberries, hummus and Curry Pumpkin Seeds :)

In the bottom Tier is a wrap cut into 3 pieces. It is Arugula Blend Salad, Goat Cheese, a drizzle of Olive Oil, Red Onion, Roasted Red Pepper and Sundried Tomatoes - yum!

He also has Pub Mix, red and green Bell Pepper strips and baby carrots :)

So, lately I have been trying to use less pre-made, processed foods - some of which started before I stopped posting, but watching Jamie Oliver has inspired me to try harder :)  I grew up eating healthy foods - My Mom was into healthy, natural foods - and I grew up in WV! :P  lol  Not Huntington, but the Parkersburg are (Waverly, WV mostly).

Last week a friend of mine and a super Mom to two little ones posted on Facebook that she was making fruit leather - I just had to be a copycat and make some too! lol

I had strawberries and raspberries in the fridge that were still good, but not as fresh and beautiful as I'd like for eating fresh and packing into bento, so I decided it would make great fruit leather.  I've mentioned before that I don't tend to measure, so I can't tell you exactly how much, but I pureed the strawberries and raspberries (probably between 2 and 3 cups), juice of half a clementine and a little lemon juice - maybe 1/2 Tbs and added maybe a tsp honey.

I have a food dehydrator that I have had for many many years, so I pulled it out, lined it w/ plastic wrap and spread in the puree.

The next morning, it was just about done:

and tore it into 3 and rolled them up! :)

It was pretty tasty and something I definitely think I'll do again :)

I also got the new appliance I have been eyeing for a while - but it ended up causing my poor, dear hubby a bit of work - lol :)

Can you see it?  It's a triple frikkin' crock pot baby! lol

I don't know why I didn;t ask Rob to add a shelf to this table sooner - I always thought it needed one and really wasted that space...