Bentos # 44 & 45 : Teriyaki noodles and bean sprouts

Almost-identical bentos again!

• Fried egg noodles with bean sprouts in teriyaki sauce
• Yellow and red cherry tomatoes
• Apple bites
• Organic sesame & honey bar for me
• Blue lollipop for Martin

Simple but GOOD. However, all’s not good around here. I broke my yellow banana Putifresh 2-tier snap box. *cry!* Dang… it’s the second snap box I’ve broken. I’m now down to 11 bento boxes, I think. It’s still haunting me, lying in the trashcan. It’s just wrong. *double cry!*

Hello Guilt!

I went and did it again. During my Easter free time I went online and checked eBay for the latest bento stuff. I found the cute Hello Kitty bentos I’ve seen on bentolunch So many times. I didn’t think I’d ever get ‘em though sice they’re only available at Dollar Tree in the US, to my knowledge.

Well, I went, I bid and I won. Even though I had promised not only myself but also Martin that I wouldn’t buy any more until we move to a bigger place. We can’t even fit my current bento collection in our teeny tiny kitchen as it is. It’s all stashed under my sofa in shoe boxes and on top of my cabinets in old cereal boxes (to avoid dust)

So I feel a little guilty… but to my defense: Those are some rockin’ bentos. And they are, according to the eBay seller, pretty scarce.

I’ve started embroidering pixel art images just for fun. I’m considering making a more personal blog soon aside from this one.  Maybe link them together in a clever way. For now I’m just holding my breath – waiting for b-day to arrive along with a Canon Ixus 75 that I wished for. Just you wait and see! I’m SO looking forward to sharing good quality pics with you.

Bento # 30: Bento-style Danish lunch

• 3 dark rye bread slices
• Butter in a Yasai spreader container
• Underneath that: Wrapped Rice Krispie treats
• Boiled ham slices on a bear skewer
• Cottage cheese with peas and leek
• Cucumber slices
• Italian grapes

This is the first time I’ve made and tasted Rice Krispie treats. I love ‘em! I’ve the got marshmellows and Rice Krispies to make more. And I will… as soon as I’m not feeling about eating the first batch as fast as I did. :3

This lunch is my Japanese take on a typical Danish lunch. Danes always, always eat dark rye bread with different cold meat on. Open-faced sandwiches. Most often salami (Denmark’s the piggy/bacon capitol of the world), ham or “leverpostej” (which means liver paté). It’s kind of gross, I guess, but we’re all raised eating it.

By the way, I’ve finally gotten a decent shot of this pink Putifresh box so here you go:

Cute, huh? It’s not too wide but instead the boxes are a bit higher so I can fit some things better in there than my other boxes.

Bento # 19 & 20 : Natural mood elevators

Bento # 19

• Front: Sliced banana, sliced canned peach and thawed raspberries
• Pink side dish container: Raspberry yogurt
• Mashed potatoes with parsley
• Millionbøf
• Lid: Sliced raspberry roll
• Apple juice

Bento # 20

• Muesli with dried strawberries
• Thawed rasperries
• Sliced canned peach
• Pink grape fruit bits
• Lid: Walnuts
• Hello Kitty container: Raspberry yogurt

I only did one tier for this one as I was outta time and outta “pack-in-a-hurry” foods.

So, school is rocking on steady and I’m keeping up pretty well. I’m loving my bentos and yesterday another girl from my class just ordered her first bento box on eBay. Cool, huh! I myself began to feel the eBay itch so I ordered some stuff:

• 2-tier pink Putifresh Apple square box
• 2-tier yellow Putifresh Banana snap box
• 2 condiment cases with happy veggies on ‘em
• a pack of Animal food picks
• a gift for my little sister: 1-tier pink Putifresh Apple snap box

I decided to get my sister a box even though she doesn’t have a lot of time for cooking stuff. She’s busy as a bee – working and studying. I’m so proud. ^_^ I’m thinking a single-tier box won’t be too overwhelming or even embarrassing for a non-bento-making person. Still, Putifresh is quite “bento” and there’s a bit of Engrish on it I know she’ll appreciate.

I think I’ll offer her the choice between the single-tier box and the Banana box in case she actually wants to do a proper bento.

*sending lots of love to sis!*

Oh and I wanna give you the recipe for “millionbøf”. Directly translated it’s “million beef”, heh. The reason for its name is the look: The many little dots of ground, fried beef in a sea of brown sauce. It is usually made quite fluid – though in my picture it’s straight outta the fridge and therefor a bit firmer.

Ingredients

• Onion
• 500 grams of ground beef
• Can of tomatoes
• ½ litre of milk
• Flour for thickening
• Salt and pepper for taste
• Brown food coloring (I don’t know English term, sorry! ;_;)

• Optional: Beef stock for taste

How to

1. Finely chop the onion and fry it in a pan with some oil/butter/margerine/whatever-you-prefer.
2. When the onion is soft and clear, add the ground beef.
3. The beef should be thoroughly browned before you add the tomatoes. If you’re using very lean beef it might be neccesary to add more oil/butter/whatever during the browning.
4. Mush the tomatoes in there. This sauce is supposed to be quite smooth and not with a lot of big tomato chunks. Part of the charm is the fact that this dish hardly looks edible in some cases.
5. Now, pour in the milk and get ready to reconsider this whole meal. Looks gross, doesn’t it? Perfect!
6. You want it boiling for some time. The longer it’s on the stove, the better it gets (as it usually is with ground-beef dishes). You can choose to add some beef stock any time here to make it taste like it’s been simmering all day. I let it boil 20 mins.
7. Water up some flour and whisk it in. Thicken it like this to your liking.
8. Last, but certainly not least, add the brown food color. It’s typically made very dark. Chocolate dark.

Danes have a dangerous and unhealthy love of brown sauce. This, for me, is the mother of brown sauce. I’ll eat it with pasta, mashed potatoes or nothing at all! Gimme gimme brown sauce!! *drool*

Bento # 7 : Spaghetti carbonara

• Spaghetti carbonara
• Lollo rosso salad with tomatoes & cucumber
• Half a blue car egg
• Vinaigrette in a tiny bottle
• Fritt wildberry candy

I’m back and bentoing! It was a wonderful trip to France and I had so much good food. I can’t say I’ll be making some of it myself though since I hardly knew what I was eating half the time. >_<

I was happy to discover a little slip from the post office when I got home. My package was waiting for me and I went to get it straight away. The pink box I used for yesterdays bento and the stuff on the following pics are all new. Take a look:

This blue box I bought at Føtex for 20 dkr (approx. $3). It’s called a hobby box and I just had to get it. My old green wicker box has become too small for all my bento accesories. The grass dividers I ordered online – the piggie bottle and the non-animal food picks were free gifts with my order! Neat – and thanks Aramonoya for the lovely surprise.

This bright baby I found at Bilka. I’m always checking out the lunch boxes at EVERY store I go to these days. It’s quite “heavy duty” and the only cute thing about it is its bright magenta color. (I didn’t touch the contrast or saturation on this photo.) What you can’t see (’cause I forgot it at my parents’) is the cooling element that goes on the top tier. It’s a blue slim box that contains water which you freeze and put in there – and it’ll keep your lunch cold for a LONG time. Love it!

I ordered a green Putifresh box and these egg molds as well. I used the car mold as you can see on yesterdays bento. I love these items and I keep going in to the kitchen and checking my stuff ’cause I can’t get enough of it. ^_^ It’s so damn cute.

I bought some snacks and canned foods in France for my lunches but I didn’t take pics of those ’cause I’ll be making them very soon for you to see.

Keeping it cool

I just had a great idea! Even though this may be old news to some, this struck me a moment ago: How about using plastic-coated cocktail ice cubes for keeping your bento cool? Imagine using something like these:

They’re fairly small so you can stuff them with your fruit to keep it fresh and basically squeeze a few in where needed. Isn’t that clever? The best part is that they’re fun in shape and color and would compliment any bento. And since it’s shaped like edibles it doesn’t seem too far out.

Neat! I will definitely get me some of those.

On another note, I’m beginning to fear that my eBay order for bento boxes has been lost. That makes me really sad. And I have no idea how to track something like that or who to blame or turn to. Ow. This sucks. The mailman better ring my doorbell soon…

Love you, eBay!

Here are the links to the items I ordered, I think it was a week ago or so.

Panda box
Orange box
Vegetable print dividers
Animal print dividers
Animal shaped sauce bottles
Furikake
Animal shaped food picks

Gotta love eBay. I get all my weird/good stuff from there: Hair dye, Japanese games, bento stuff, etc.

Both the panda bento and the orange one look really cute. I can’t wait to unwrap it and fit delicious, colorful foods in there. And I’m especially excited to treat my boyfriend to a nice packed lunch. I think the first thing I’ll do once I get the boxes is pack a picnic basket with bentos and drinks and take my man out to the park. Summertime equals lots of outdoor dining and fun times! Yay!