I'm Biggie: avid cook, speedy lunch packer, mom in San Francisco, & former expat fluent in Japanese. 
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Speed bento technique: jello cups
Another speed bento. I had made a stash of homemade juice jello cups, so I was able to just drop one in along with a shaped egg from the fridge. The scallop okonomiyaki was leftover from last night’s dinner, so this took about 5 minutes to pack. The containers have okonomiyaki sauce, Worcestershire sauce and katsuobushi, and next to the jello cup is a tiny spoon and an Anpanman pick for the kiwi.
To speed up bento making in the morning, I made extra-firm jello with straight blueberry juice and unflavored Knox gelatine (no sugar), poured into reusable plastic food cups for packing in lunches. They’re thicker than regular Jello, so they’ll hold up for several hours at room temperature (recipe is on the Knox packets). Just drop one into my son’s bento in the morning and go! Big time saver.
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February 14th, 2007 | Categories: bento, eggs, fish or seafood, for kids, parenthacks, phyllo or pancake or other, recipe, tips, tutorial or how to | 
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February 27th, 2007 at 11:21 pm
I’m curious, where did you find such cute little cups (the ones you have the jello in)?
February 27th, 2007 at 11:30 pm
I got some at Daiso (a Japanese dollar store chain that recently opened a store near me in San Francisco), others on eBay. You could always use cupcake liners (silicone, foil or the coated paper ones) set down in tupperware if you don’t have the kind I do. My two-year-old gets a big kick out of these containers, though!
February 27th, 2007 at 11:41 pm
I think my 5 year old would love them! Hmm, time to go e-bay shopping! ^_^
February 28th, 2007 at 12:06 am
Another question for you…. I went looking through your old entries, and I notice all the molded eggs. How did you do that? They’re so cute ^_^
February 28th, 2007 at 12:17 am
Last year I figured out how to use Tovolo ice cream sandwich molds as egg molds and made a tutorial.
I also picked up a number of traditional egg molds when another Japanese dollar store near me (Ichiban Kan) started stocking them. Cooking Cute has a tutorial on those here: http://www.cookingcute.com/using_egg_molds.htm
March 14th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
The potato salad looks wonderful. Any chance you would be willing to share the recipe?
Eva
eva [at] trueepicure [dot] com
March 15th, 2007 at 12:48 am
I had leftover Cuban-style mojito sauce (made from Daisy Martinez’s cookbook “Daisy Cooks!”, with garlic, vinegar, onions, olive oil, salt and cilantro) for tostones, so I boiled a couple of pounds of scrubbed purple potatoes, cubed them while still warm, and dressed them with the mojito sauce. Adjusted seasonings to taste, added some fresh cilantro, and voila!
March 20th, 2007 at 11:11 pm
Cute! My daughter would love that ; ) How long do they last? If you make 6 little cups, do you use them up in a week? I may try to put some fruits in it, too, like strawberries or blueberries.
March 21st, 2007 at 4:23 pm
You know, once Bug realized that there was a stash of jello cups in the fridge, he started begging for them as an afternoon snack. So the 6 little cups definitely disappeared within a week or ten days or so (it was only a cup of liquid total, after all). Funny you should mention the fruit — I was going to make more jello cups today with light-colored juice and the rest of our strawberries! I want to use more common containers this time, though — you don’t need special little food containers to make these.
November 23rd, 2007 at 11:22 am
[...] as I was thinking of something non-savoury for my bento boxes. I was reading how LunchInABox uses jello-cups in her bentos and she mentioned melting. In comparison, agar has the advantage of not melting, [...]
February 3rd, 2008 at 10:47 am
my jello cups melted in her bento.
i used the jello “jigglers” recipe. we opened the bento 3 hours later and it spilled all over her other food. (fyi, 3 y.o.s don’t like mushy green jello rice balls)ha ha! i also bought a box of knox gelatin but it didnt have the ratio to make extra firm jello. can you provide me with the knox ratio that you use? thanks biggie!
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:07 am
Piling on Jane’s comment, is there a way to make commercial jello firmer? I have a ton of it in my pantry that needs to be used up before I even think about buying any knox.
January 28th, 2009 at 7:29 am
[...] I so enjoyed making Bentos again. This week I am making Juice Jellos to go. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)nothing to see here.Galley Gossip: HAPPY [...]