• Buttered dark rye sandwiches with ham
• Emmenthaler cheese flowers
• Broccoli bits (hardly showing)
• Piggie container with Newman’s Ranch Dressing
• Mozzarella bites and cherry tomatoes on skewers
• Apple slices
• Sesame-honey bar in the lid

I decided to make a bento for a night at AiO (“Anime in Odense” which is the city where I live). It’s a club of sorts for people interested in Japanese culture and everything that entails. We have your typical nutty anime fans, asian ball-jointed doll collectors, manga readers, Dance Dance Revolution lovers and so on. ^_^; I think it’s really exciting to be around enthusiastic people like that.

Anyway, I emptied my fridge and this is the result. I hope to be posting more but I can’t make any promises. My bentoing is rather irregular these days.

• Coleslaw in smaller tier
• Shrimp salad in larger tier
• Thousand Island dressing in HK container

Yesterday’s bentos weren’t quite what I had imagined. I had purchased shrimps, lettuce and an avocado and thought I’d make a nice filling shrimp salad. Except the avocado kept staying hard and unripe… so in the morning rush we simply ended up with just shrimps and lettuce. Quite boring and not very filling. I’m always concerned with how filling my meals are ’cause I want to avoid snacking between meals.

Anyways, the coleslaw made up for it. Kamma from my class shared a neat and light recipe for coleslaw. It’s pretty easy so I’m passing it on to you.

Kamma’s Super Light Coleslaw

• Quarter of a green cabbage
• Couple of carrots
• Large dollop of greek low-fat yoghurt
• Splash of Dijon mustard
• Optional: Splash of white wine vinegar

How to

1. Chop up the cabbage. I guess a food processor can do it easily and quickly but using a knife is just as good. Make sure it’s finely chopped but not “cabbage paste”. You want it to still have a bite.
2. Peel and grate the carrots as finely as you prefer. I like to do a fine grate since the cabbage will have enough chew in them.
3. Add the yoghurt and mustard. You don’t have to mix it beforehand since you’ll be mixing it in with the veggies quite well. Everything needs to be evenly coated and have an even taste.
4. Optional: I like my salads (any kind of salad) a bit bitter so I add vinegar to the mix. If you like it sweeter, leave this out.

I’ve always considered coleslaw a bit of a greasy “non-salad” salad. Especially storebought coleslaw may have tons of mayo and sugar in it but I promise you: This tastes just as well if not better! And you can have seconds without the guilt.

Another happy update: I’ve ordered my birthday gift from my parents online. A digital camera! It’s either gonna be delivered today or tomorrow, but looking at the clock I’m guessing tomorrow. I’m sad to say that I don’t know how many bentos I’ll be making in the next weeks and months but at least I’ll be ready to snap some pictures. I WILL however surely be updating my new blog Beatie says with all other types of projects.

It was raining when I woke up and for a minute I was considering NOT going to class. That was a minute I should’ve spent cooking so when I got out of the shower and it was time to put together the daily bentos I was kinda in a hurry.

• Koka Instant Chicken Noodles with peas
• Koka Wasabi Noodle Snack
• Apple bits
• Yellow cherry tomato filler
• Castus Mixed Nuts Fruit Bar for me
• Pink lollipop for Martin

I feel a bit awkward bringing a bento to class. My classmates are always peeking and asking what it is and why there’s grass in my lunch. Most of them just buy sandwiches at the cantina or bring dark rye bread with leverpostej or salami – which Danes are apparently famous for.

In our marketing class we’re always discussing how people do and buy certain things to signal certain messages to the people around them. But I genuinely feel that my bentos aren’t a statement at all. In fact I’m a bit embarrassed that I respond to bentos and cute Japanese kitchenware the way I do… but I guess there are worse things to enjoy than that.

This time I tried cooking up some instant noodles to see if they’re worth anything in a bento. It was actually pretty good. First I boiled the noodles in a skillet au naturel, then fried them with a splash of veggie oil, the seasoning package that came with em and some veggies.

• Koka Instant Curry Noodles with bean sprouts and peas
• Mozzarella with cucumber and sliced cherry tomatoes
• Castus Abricot Fruit Bar for me
• Blue lollipop for Martin

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!*

Yesterday I went to school to print stuff for my portfolio – even though Friday’s my day off. Martin doesn’t have Fridays off so I made bentos for both of us. You need a lil’ something to keep the motor running, right?

By the way, the bentos were identical:

• Naan bread chunks with koriander
• Hummus in cute pastel reuseable container
• Cabbage, sultana raisin and pineapple salad
• Piggie container with mustard vinaigrette dressing
• Pear slices
• Carrot sticks

All in all a pretty healthy lunch. And yummy too. Cabbage is SO good for you as it keeps you full for long with all the chewiness and fibres. It’s also a good source for vitamin C and animo acids. Wikipedia even states that it has anti-inflammatory properties. Gimme some o’ that!

I made two bentos yesterday. One for me and one for Martin. I was going on a fieldtrip thing.

• Scrambled eggs
• Fried bacon slices
• Fried brunch sausages
• Lightly fried chorizo slices
• Emmentaler cheese sticks
• Red seedless grapes
• Green banana jelly in animal cups
• For Martin only: Wasabi noodle snack

I’ve never been too keen on wasabi so I only packed some for Martin. I found the noodle snack in Søstrene Grene, Odense. It’s dry noodle bits, like out of a instant noodle pack, flavoured with wasabi powder. They’re supposed to be eaten uncooked.

When I came home from the fieldtrip I was starving and decided to give them a try. After 30 mins I had eaten the entire pack. Maybe it’s time to introduce wasabi to my own meals?

I’m sorry for the lack of pictures in here. It seems I lost a bunch when one of my domains were cancelled. I totally forgot to back them up. And as for these bentos, I can’t take any pics. No camera. I’m getting one for my birthday, my parents promised, and it’s coming up in 1 month and 1 day from now. That’s May 6th.

Oooh, by the way: I got my 3 new HK bento boxes from eBay this week. Awesome! I love em. I’ll be sure to take pics of my entire collection – as soon as possible!

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.

I wanna return to bentoing. I miss it…

Yes, it’s me Beatie – alive and breathing. Sadly I’ve been taking quite a break from bentoing for a while. I’ve even come as far as getting sick of buying lunch already and making a plan for shared lunches with a friend from school. It’s alright but it’s not bento.

I guess what’s holding me back is… well, there’s two things:

a. I have no room in my kitchen for any creative cooking. Seriously. If I’m making gyozas I have to take all my cutting boards and put on my bed to fit all the dough and stuffing everywhere. It’s a nightmare. I really hope I get an internship very soon so we can move accordingly. My boyfriend has been very patient with me but nothing has been settled yet. *sigh* So until my career moves along we’re stuck here.

b. I don’t really bother making two bentos. Since my boyfriend started at the same school as me I had all these ambitious plans of making us bentos every day. That was really the killing blow. It’s not even that big a stretch but… I dunno. Maybe I’ll be able to do it after we move.

I have steamy fantasies about getting a bigger freezer one day. That’ll definitely help, I think.

Okay, back to business. I’m not posting today to show off any bentos. I’m posting as a warm up. I’ve talked to my parents about getting a digital camera (since I used to borrow my dad’s old broken cam) for my birthday this May. I can’t wait! I SO want to take delicious pics and throw ‘em in Photoshop for touch-ups.

I really really miss posting. I miss my only semi-decent hobby. So hopefully I’ll be back around May with lovely bento creations.

Ps. It seems some of my old pictures aren’t there anymore. I think I uploaded them on an old school server so they’re probably lost. Anyways, I’m not gonna go looking – I’d rather spend my time preparing newer better shots of bentos. Or at least thinking about it for now.

• Tortilla bread and hummus for dipping
• Cherry tomatoes
• Chicken nuggets
• Rice with peas
• Extra container with apple slices
• A can of cola for him and an apple juice for me

We bought the hummus at a local fast food joint run by an Eastern European guy called Jamil. To be honest I have no idea where exactly he’s from but he sells amazing home-cooked delicacies like hummus and baba ghanoush. I always forget that his little shop exists but every now and then I have a tasty rediscovery. I hope this time I remember!