Grilled Salmon with Lemon/White Balsamic Vinaigrette

There are two lunches that my children never seem to get tired of: Spam musubi and salmon. Today's salmon lunch has a lemon/white balsamic vinaigrette spooned over the top. I placed flaked pieces on baby lettuce leaves and included rice with furikake and some celery. There is a lemon wedge in there for them to squeeze over their salmon. Not pictured here is a smaller side box I included with cut up cantaloupe.

Smoked Sausage and Broccolini

Today the children got sliced, grilled smoked sausage, rice with Wakame Chazuke furikake, and sauteed broccolini. As a special treat, I included a small amount of Meyer lemon pound cake in the silicone cup.

Cornish Pasties Bento

I took advantage of leftovers today and made the kids meat pies. In the box are 2 cornish pasties, carrots, and a salad. Salad dressing is in the container. Recipe can be found on the recipe blog

new bento box

My first post of 2010!

Towards the end of January, my husband and I were in New York for a wedding. While we were there, we took a trip out to Mitsuwa in New Jersey. It's like a Japanese mini-mall. There's a huge grocery store, a food court with several restaurants, packaged confections and sweets, a hair salon, Japanese nail place, bookstore, video store, and stationary store.

Introducing my newest bento box!




It debuted last week with a Japanese-style bento with rice, napa cabbage, braised beef, and wakame (seaweed) salad.




The top compartment is divided into thirds. I took advantage of that design by packing a deconstructed Western 三色ご飯 today. It literally means three color meal. Traditionally, it's served in a bowl with rice on the bottom and the toppings in a stripe formation on the top. Today's version is kale, egg, and ground turkey. Growing up, my mom made a four color version: black shredded nori, brown ground beef, diced sauteed green peppers, and yellow scrambled eggs.

Galbi marinated skirt steak

They both ate everything!!! Enough said.

Not the prettiest bento by far, but successful indeed. Behind the giant pickle slices are thin sliced skirt steak that I marinated in a galbi marinade and grilled on the bbq last night. As you can see, there is some furikake sprinkled on the rice and I included some sauce in the container.

Asian Wing Bento

I made chicken wings for lunch, but it had to be packed to go so here is what I packed for the kiddos.

In the box: Asian inspired chicken wings and fried rice, recipe here .
Pickled cucumbers and a cherry container with extra soy sauce.

Long time no bento, bento

I used the homemade bread from yesterday to make salmon salad sandwiches. Because it is the last school day before Valentine's Day, I added some heart accents. I used a couple of heart food picks, made some heart peperoni cutouts, and used a heart-shaped Wilton food cup(it's squished in there though so you can't really see the shape).

Also in the box are plums, carrot and cucumber slices, and a mini cupcake for dessert:)

Love is in the air

I was thinking I would make a few Valentine themed lunches this month, and so I started today, the first day of February. DD loves to get pancakes in her lunch, so I made heart-shaped ones today. I colored the batter pink but forgot that the browning on the outside would hide the pink. I added a few pieces of turkey bacon, some carrots, egg flowers, and heart-shaped cantaloupe. I still really need to work on presentation. I'm always running out of time and feel rushed, so I don't take the time I should to make it all look prettier. *sigh*