Colour Coded Bento

Goodness, I made this so long ago i can barely remember what was in it! I know ideally bento should have a range of colours but for some reason i really wanted to colour code this lunch, So the 'yellow' box has some smoked salmon, shu mai dumplings, tempura king prawn, and mini chicken fajitas, and the 'orange' box has a mini applesauce and carrot muffin and some baked mango.

Winter curry bento

Now the winter is well and truly here, I want spicy, warming food for lunch. oh, and lots of cheese. So this bento has it all- Magalorean tomato and beef curry with rice, mini cheeses and bruschetta (with a small bottle of chilli oil for drizzling) and some crispy vegetable balls. Yum!

I Heart Pasta

I've been getting a lot of kale in my veg box recently, and I wasn't to sure what to do with it. Luckily, I found a recipe for slimming world creamy kale spaghetti. I topped it off with some happy little hearts because I made this bento for lunch the day after my third wedding anniversary!

It Ain't Pretty

... but it's my bento! (sung to the tune of 'he ain't heavy' of course!

This very brown and dull looking bento was actually a super delicious winter warmer lunch- leftover Spanish fabada (Remember my recipe post?) with Thai chicken patties on top, then the bottom of the box has yummy mini cheeses and bruschetta, with the little monkey cup being filled with mayo. I've also got a mini carrot and apple sauce muffin (I'll definitely do a recipe post on those- they were scrummilicious) and a little raisin box.

Lunch and Snack Bento

This looks like a rather large bento selection for one person, but its actually meant to be my lunch and a snack because i'll be at work later tomorrow. The yellow bento contains a selection of dumplings- shu mai, prawn dumpling, and a vegetable ball, with some yummy spicy edamame beans on the side. The orange box contains mini fajitas and some potato wedges, then the small box contains wasabi peas, perfect for afternoon munching. I've also got some fruit boxes as well.

Spooky Lunch

 another halloween theme bento- chicken katsudon with spooky cheese and nori shapes. yummy and warm for a cold October day.

Autumn Leaves

Again, I took some inspiration from the weather and yum yum bento box to make these autumn leaf friends. This box contains pasta bolognese, cheese leaves, a fresh salad, and a a berry mix. 

I do love when the leaves are on the ground, and they are dry underfoot like crispy corn flakes.

Mushroom Friends

As it has been very damp this autumn, there has been an abundance of mushrooms around. There's also been some programmes on tv recommending foraging and picking wild mushrooms, which has led to quite a bit of work at my workplace (we give poisons advice to healthcare professionals). There has also been an alert from the HPA warning people to be very careful if picking wild mushrooms. So with that in mind, I thought I'd do a mushroom bento... a safe one though. It's from Yum-yum bento box.

the happy mushrooms are made from cheese and salami with nori faces. The bento also contains some tomato prawn noodles, some crispy courgettes and green beans with courgette.

Another Halloween bento

I continued with the halloween theme for today's lunch:

This bento contains crackers and pumpkin shaped cheese with cucumber face, chilli and coriander prawns, some chicken roll, and a cucumber ghostie, then the upper layer contains pretzels, edamame and pea salad, olives, pickled onions, celery, and a quorn sausage roll.

First bento in a while!

Hurrah! back into the world of bento, and i noticed that many of those in the bento blogging world are making their halloween themed bentos now.

Here's my first attempt at a halloween bento:

My lunch for tomorrow contains an edamame and pea salad with a small pot of dressing, jigsaw sammies, tomato skewers, a quorn sausage roll, and some spooky mini babybel... Alright it's not the most inventive bento in the world, and its nowhere near as good as the other folks, but i'm going to try and go supplies shopping to get some cutters and things during the week. The hub's lunch is similar:

We also have separate small bentos filled with beef dhansak which i have made today... I really will get round to posting my curry recipes at some point... honest!

By the way, we are having a halloween buffet at work, instigated by me, so i'll need to make some impressive frightening feast foods- does anyone have any ideas?

Red and Yellow bento

Ugh, as I am writing this post, I can hear very heavy rain outside:( Today has been the first day that I've truly realised that summer is over. Yack yack yack.

I think I've subconsciously made an autumn coloured bento! Its very yellow and browny-red. It contains homemade sesame prawn toasts, which I've never made before They seemed fairly easy to make but because I used Fry light instead of oil they look a little burnt in areas instead of going a nice golden brown. I've also got some spicy chilli dip, olives, quorn satay skewers, and some leftover vindaloo.

Sunday cooking day is definitely the way forward- it's lovely not having to worry about making tea after work. I know some of you would like the recipes so I'll definitely get around to putting them on here soon.

Raindrops keep falling on my head...

monday bento

Its been a busy day today- I've made all of our evening meals for the week in one go, so i don't need to worry about cooking for the rest of the week hoorah! I've made a pork vindaloo, a mandalorean beef curry, kofte curry, pork and parsnip stew, and picadillo... all lovely warming autumn meals. 

I'm out of the office training folk tomorrow. My bentos usually cause a bit of a stir and make a conversational point. This one isn't very cute however, but I've got a lot of different flavours so it should be good. It include salmon and quark wraps, pickled onions, ham rollups, mini babybels, duck wraps, olives, and some salad.

Rabbit Ryvita

Today's lunch consisted of a cheese bunny with ham and quark on a Ryvita, with another one hiding underneath. These were resting on some sweetcorn cobs as well. I also had some lovely fresh steamed organic courgettes and leeks, and some Thai mini bites with a chive dip, then a few grapes as well.

18 followers now! I'd love to get to 20... I know its not a huge amount in the grand scheme of blogging but i very much appreciate you all and hope you enjoy my little blog. Thank you all muchly.

Falafel friend

Tuesday's bento was a bit of a mish mash! It contained leftover sushi from our Bank Holiday Monday sushi feast, a healthy coleslaw salad, pickled onion and olive picks, lemon and pepper smoked salmon (yum!) and devilled eggs, with a mini babybel to top it all off. The devilled eggs are also a slimming world recipe and i thought they were really tasty.

Mini burger bento

a last minute bento idea tonight, although it seems to have worked out alright. I've used left over risotto (see the previous recipe) with ham and carrot decorations, then I defrosted some hamburgers I'd made for a bento a while back. I reshaped them into smaller mini burgers, then grilled them, and made mini cheese burger bentos using salad and mini babybel cheese. They are held together with skewers and a piece of gherkin, then I have a gherkin and pickled onion skewer and a tomato and ham skewer.

Noodle Soup

A pretty boring  lunch  today from a kawaii or exciting perspective but it was rather yummy! lovely spicy miso prawn noodle soup.

Piggle Sammie

Cute piggy prawn sammie lunch for him...

(two piggies= Man size portion)

...and for her:

Dainty slimming sized portion for moi! These boxes contain low fat prawn cocktail sandwiches (1 healthy extra and syn free filling) with some salad (free), Low fat cheese triangles (healthy extras), a quorn sausage roll (2.5 Syns), tomato and grapes (free). See I'm getting used to this complicated Slimming World malarkey now!

Monday's bento box

C

Tomorrow's bento contains mini quiches (these arre very clever, using ham as the case... I'll do a post dedicated to them later I think), heart shaped egg, salad, onigiri, strawberries, and my favourite bit, an egg chick:

Its all syn free on Slimming World as well.

stuff-a-doodle!

I recieved my copy of Yum Yum bento box the other day, and I'm really not sure how I ever lived without this book in my life. Its very beautiful, and it seems to have many useful bits of information in. I would highly recommend it.

Oh and another thing- My colleague Vince has a sweet little blog called allotment year, all about his adventures growing lovely veg in his allotment. His courgettes are absolutely fabulous. Take a look here: http://ryhopeallotmentyear.blogspot.com/

See you later alligators

The Claw is My Master!

My bento summer school homework for Week 7 'Finding inspiration':

Well I've taken some inspiration from recent movies at the cinema, and in particular, one of (if not the) best animated films of all time, and my favourite character...

oh yes, it's Clive the alien. Actually, I know they aren't called Clive, but for some random reason i can't recall, these cute little aliens all ended up being called Clive. This stuffed Clive is great- when you squeeze him his head lights up and he says either " The Claw is my master", "i have been chosen" or simply "ooooooooooooooh!". To tell the truth, years ago he used to live on my bed, and if I rolled over onto him in the night time he gave me huge fright- a big green face lighting up and saying "ooooooooh!"

So here is my bento homework:

Clive is made of coloured sushi rice and he is on a bed of couscous and carrots, and surrounded by some tomatoes and grapes. I probably could have packed him better but its been a rather long day at the office today so I was short of both time and ingredients.  Hope you like him though, let me know what you think.