Archive for the 'tutorial or how to' Category

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How to care for your bento gear

Because I like shortcuts and can get bento gear cheaply in San Francisco, I’m tough on my equipment and push the envelope when caring for it. I experiment with putting everything in the dishwasher for speed even when the care instructions say not to. As a result I’ve lost or damaged some equipment, but I’ve also figured out what can take a little more abuse than the manufacturer recommends.

Dishwashers are uncommon in Japan (I didn’t have one until my last year there), so a lot of bento boxes and accessories are made with hand washing in mind. If you have time and the inclination, hand washing all of your bento gear with regular dish soap will make it last the longest, but I wanted to put together bento care guidelines for people either looking for a shortcut or wanting to know what the Japanese care instructions say. At the end of this post I’ve included translations of common Japanese-language care instructions if you’re trying to decode what’s in your cupboard.

Do you have a clever bento care or cleaning tip? Share it with us in comments! (Click here for the full post…)

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Published by Biggie on January 22nd, 2008 tagged Laptop Lunchbox, bento, equipment, food jar, sandwich case, thermal lunch jar, tips, tutorial or how to | 53 Comments »

How to make zig-zag kiwi fruit

My series on simple garnishes for bento lunches continues with kiwi fruit. Kiwi fruit is high in vitamin C and can be found in both green and gold (more yellow and citrus-tasting than green). I usually cut kiwi into large cubes, but a reader suggested I try slicing one in half and sending along a spoon. This is appealing because when I cut kiwi into wedges, the fruit often turns a little translucent and softens in transit — keeping it mostly whole helps it retain its original character.

A simply cut kiwi is already visually interesting, but I got a kick out of this style when I ran across it in a Japanese bento cookbook. It took about one minute to cut, which is not unreasonable in the morning if you’re looking to change things up a bit. Add it to your repertoire with apple rabbits and decorative banana wedges! (Click here for the how-to…)

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Published by Biggie on January 17th, 2008 tagged glutenfree, lactose free, tips, tutorial or how to, vegetarian | 29 Comments »

How to make decorative banana wedges

I don’t have anything against making children’s food cute as long as it doesn’t take me much time or effort (yeah, I’m lazy!). Like making little rabbits out of apple slices, this simple garnish that I found in a Japanese bento book is fast and makes a slice of fruit look interesting. Use it to pack a bite of banana in your bento lunch without worrying about a whole banana getting mushy in your bag. Of course, if you’ve got one of those Banana Guard gadgets popular in Japan, you don’t have to worry about a whole banana getting mushy, but this is a cheap, fun alternative. I’d say this could help coax picky eaters into eating banana, but I think bananas are already an easy sell. Am I wrong? (Click here for the full tutorial…)

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Published by Biggie on January 12th, 2008 tagged glutenfree, lactose free, tips, tutorial or how to, vegetarian | 28 Comments »

How to make apple rabbits

Making food into decorative shapes is a favorite children’s bento lunch technique in Japan, where it’s become an art form. Cutting fruit into fun shapes is one way to get your picky eaters interested in their food; I’m game as long as it doesn’t take much time or effort.

My three-year-old has recently decided that he doesn’t like apple peel, and so doesn’t like apple rabbits any more. In my farewell to apple rabbits the other day, reader Ahricat asked for some pointers on how to make them, so here’s a quick tutorial. Apple rabbits are basically just apple slices with the peel cut to resemble rabbit ears, and can be made in either full size or half-size to tuck into a bento lunch.

To make an apple bunny, first cut an apple into eight wedges and remove the core. With a sharp knife, cut a shallow V-shape into the skin about an eighth of an inch deep. If you’re making a half-size miniature apple rabbit, first cut the apple wedge in half so it’s short, then score a V-shaped incision in the skin with the tips of the ears pointing towards the squared-off, cut end. I like to start the tips of the ears about two-thirds of the way up the apple to expose a little apple ‘body’, but that’s just personal preference. Play around!

After making the V-shaped incision into the apple skin, run the knife just under the apple peel (a shallow cut), stopping at the base of the “V” halfway down the wedge. The excess peel should lift right off (you can snack on the leftover scraps if you’re inclined). If the peel doesn’t come off, run your knife along the “V” again until the peel is freed up. The remaining peel should look vaguely like rabbit ears.

The key to making the ‘ears’ curl up is to give them a short soak in ice water after cutting the peel (3-4 minutes, depending upon how thick you cut the peel). Feel free to omit this step if you’re running short on time, but you can build it into your morning lunch-packing routine pretty easily by starting the apple bunnies at the outset, and letting them soak in ice water while you pack the rest of your bento.

To prevent browning, I added lemon juice and a little Splenda to the ice water to tone down the sourness, but you could use lime juice, orange juice, cream of tartar, a ground-up vitamin C tablet, or even chili powder for the same effect. Dry the apple rabbits before packing, maybe affix a single black sesame or poppyseed ‘eye’ to the white side with a dab of honey for stability, and you’re set!

Anyway, Biggie out and happy voting! I’m actually out of town visiting my husband’s relatives in Florida right now, and will be away at my Dad’s with only occasional Internet access next week (Internet cafe in Oklahoma with a three-year-old, anyone?). My apologies in advance for being far less responsive than usual!

* * * * *

We interrupt this bento tip with a final shameless plea.

If you have a moment today, please click over to the respected 2007 Food Blog Awards and vote for Lunch in a Box in the “Best Theme“ and “Best Family/Kids“ categories (no registration required). Voting closes in less than 24 hours (11:59pm EST on Friday, Dec. 14), and I’m up against blogs like “Fatfree Vegan” that are twice my size. Help!

If I win in either category I’ll take a deep breath, crawl out of my comfortable cave of anonymity, and post a photo of myself on my About page. Promise or threat? You decide. Now back to your regular bento programming! (EDIT: Voting has closed and Lunch in a Box won the award for Best Family/Kids Food Blog. Thank you!)

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Published by Biggie on December 13th, 2007 tagged for kids, glutenfree, lactose free, parenthacks, recipe, tips, tutorial or how to, vegetarian | 65 Comments »

Weird Pokemon lunch bag cloth

When I was shopping at Ichiban Kan in San Francisco the other week, I stumbled across a strange Pokemon lunch bag that I initially thought was an ordinary lunch cloth (like a cloth napkin or furoshiki wrapping cloth). When I got it home, however, I discovered that it was actually a weird cross between a wrapping cloth and a lunch bag.

The bottom and sides are sewn together so that you can just drop in a bento box and any other lunch gear, then simply knot the top to close it securely (similar to the Otsukai Tsutsumi illustrated in this cool wrapping chart). I’ve used furoshiki, cloth napkins, and dish towels to tie flimsy bento lunches together and throw into a backpack before, but I can see this being a fun way to ease a child into lunch wrapping without a lot of skill involved. I’d seen a similar Shinkansen-themed lunch bag on Amazon before, but it hadn’t really sunk in that this was how it was supposed to be used — now I get it! Ingenious. (Click on any of the photos for a larger view.)

Here I put Bug’s two-tier pasta lunch inside (shown below), along with a fork, cloth napkin, and damp oshibori hand towel and case. It looks cool, but he went on strike when I asked him to practice opening it, and requested his new Cars lunch bag instead (”I can use just two fingers to open that one!”). We’ll practice some more before I send him to preschool with it so I can be sure he can open it by himself, but it’s hard to compete with Cars!

Contents of Wednesday preschooler lunch: Radiator-shaped radiatore pasta with leftover slow-cooked salmon (salmon recipe here) mixed with tomato-based sauce and sauteed onions with bell peppers. The fruit tier holds gold kiwifruit, tangerine slice and a strawberry.

Morning prep time: 4 minutes, using leftover pasta. The night before, I packed the pasta tier when cleaning up from dinner. So in the morning I just cut the kiwi, cut another wedge off the rapidly shrinking tangerine from the fridge, and quickly microwaved the pasta to restore texture. Very simple lunch this day, nothing fancy.

Packing: Packed in two tiers (180ml and 100ml) of a 4-tier nesting and stacking Thomas the Tank Engine bento box set. I included a small Anpanman pick for the kiwi.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Bug ate everything at preschool except the kiwi, which he ate in the car afterwards.

Contents of Thursday preschooler lunch: Half of a bagel sandwich with cream cheese, grapes, grape tomatoes, and a tiny Manzano banana (smaller and drier than a baby banana, with a slight apple flavor).

Morning prep time: 4 minutes

Packing: I started peeling the banana by cracking open the stem end to make it easier for Bug to peel himself. The interesting thing about this lunch is that I lined the child-sized Snoopy collapsible sandwich case with decorative aluminum foil to keep any cream cheese from escaping through the holes in the bottom or sides. Although I usually pack sandwiches directly in these kinds of ventilated sandwich cases without any kind of lining, my friend Mami (Japanese mother of one of Bug’s classmates) tells me that she always lines hers with colorful plastic wrap to keep things tidy and clean. Her theory is that Japanese-language bento cookbooks don’t often show photos of the plastic-wrap-lined boxes because it looks nicer without the wrap. What do you think?

Verdict: Bug ate the bagel sandwich and a couple of tomatoes at prechool, then ate the banana and remainder of the tomatoes in the car afterwards. For some reason the grapes were uninteresting to him, so I wound up eating those myself.

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