I'm Biggie: avid cook, speedy lunch packer, mom in San Francisco, & former expat fluent in Japanese.
Dashimaki tamago x 3 bentos
The shrimp dictated how the bento got packed — they were too long to go in vertically, so…
Today my husband gets fried shrimp with tonkatsu sauce, dashimaki tamago (tamagoyaki with lots of dashi: full tutorial here), Korean sauteed garlic stalks and red bell pepper, mango, cherry tomatoes, and jasmine tea-flavored rice with nori furikake and a sheet of Korean toasted/flavored nori. X-posted to my blog and Flikr.
My rice is mixed with shiso furikake, and my son’s rice is mixed with nori furikake and shaped into puchi onigiri.
READ MORE:
- Tutorial: How to make dashimaki tamago (tamagoyaki) omelettes
- Need for speed: A mommy’s lunch manifesto
- Food safety for packed lunches
- How to pack a bento lunch and use “gap fillersâ€
- Choosing the right size bento box
- Biggie’s list of top speed tips, tutorials and equipment reviews
August 8th, 2006 | Categories: bento, eggs, fish or seafood, for kids, glutenfree, lactose free, onigiri or sushi, rice | 
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Salad & lasagna lunches x 2
Today I’m trying out two different Fit & Fresh lunch containers with built-in cold packs for carrying salads.
This container is designed to keep soups hot in the top section (insulated and microwaveable 12 fl. oz. bowl), and two cups of salad cold in the bottom (cold pack in the lid, which also has a built-in 2Tb dressing dispenser). The lunch itself is warm lasagna a friend made us with Italian sausage and portobello mushrooms (and extra sauce), and the salad is red leaf lettuce, cherry tomatoes, mangoes, Swiss cheese, pine nuts and green onions with ranch dressing. X-posted to the bentolunch community & Flickr.
It fits together and has a strap similar to the Mr. Bento-type lunch jars, but is much lighter. Utensil holder is on the carry strap. This is a pretty good size and weight, but I think my husband is going to be embarassed carrying this on the subway (time to think about what I can rig up as a carrying case). (EDIT: I can’t recommend this product as the ice ring broke the second time I used it. Others on Amazon report the same problem — bad ice ring design. Too bad, it was an ingenious concept.)
Here’s the salad container:
Holding four cups of salad, it’s pretty huge (too much for me). Next time I’ll try packing a side dish and slice of bread inside the container. It’s also heavy because of the large cold pack in the lid and 4Tb dressing dispenser. I can see this being more useful for picnics where I’d pack salad for multiple people.
It also comes with a plastic spork and knife that I’ll probably replace with something nicer.
READ MORE:
- Need for speed: A mommy’s lunch manifesto
- Food safety for packed lunches
- How to pack a bento lunch and use “gap fillersâ€
- Choosing the right size bento box
- Biggie’s list of top speed tips, tutorials and equipment reviews
August 7th, 2006 | Categories: food jar, meat, pasta or noodles, salad, thermal lunch jar | Print This Post
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Orzo salad x 3
I cooked up all the orzo in the house and it was only enough for two orzo salad bentos — so I used leftover rice in mine. First, my son’s:
- orzo salad with yellow bell pepper, cherry tomatoes, green onion and a citrusy vinaigrette (everything cut up small for my son except the three stars on top)
- sliced fish cakes (slightly sweet) — one of his favorite snacks
- hard-boiled quail egg dyed light blue
- a cherry and a cheese triangle
My husband’s is here with some roast chicken and a snack container of blueberries and cherries:
And my rice salad is here with eggs cut up into it (I ran out of arrangement steam at this point):
READ MORE:
- Need for speed: A mommy’s lunch manifesto
- Food safety for packed lunches
- How to pack a bento lunch and use “gap fillersâ€
- Choosing the right size bento box
- Biggie’s list of top speed tips, tutorials and equipment reviews
August 3rd, 2006 | Categories: bento, eggs, fish or seafood, glutenfree, lactose free, pasta or noodles, poultry, rice, salad | Print This Post
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Korean bentos x 3
It’s a garlic day, so vampires beware! I found fresh garlic stalks this weekend at the Korean market! No more frozen stuff — now maybe I’ll try to recreate a great garlic stalk spaghetti I had years ago in Tokyo. My husband gets this one with:
- kimchi onigiri wrapped in toasted/flavored Korean seaweed
- stir-fry of garlic stalks and leftover grilled sausage
- purple cauliflower braised with tomatoes and garlic
- soybean sprout namul and daikon namul
Mother and son bentos here, as my son can’t seem to get enough kimchi. I’ve also got daikon kimchi in my box on the right.
READ MORE:
- Need for speed: A mommy’s lunch manifesto
- Food safety for packed lunches
- How to pack a bento lunch and use “gap fillersâ€
- Choosing the right size bento box
- Biggie’s list of top speed tips, tutorials and equipment reviews
August 2nd, 2006 | Categories: bento, for kids, lactose free, meat, onigiri or sushi, rice | Print This Post
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French toast: mother and son bentos
I finally broke down and used cookie cutters to make the French toast fit into my son’s bento box.
- French toast with containers of maple syrup, Nutella and peanut butter
- Greek yogurt with honey and blueberries
- cherries and blueberries
- two cheese wedges (Swiss and French onion)
I used the Laptop Lunchbox for its lidded yellow container, cool pack and insulated case to keep the yogurt cool and safe. We’ll share the yogurt and cheese.
READ MORE:
- Need for speed: A mommy’s lunch manifesto
- Food safety for packed lunches
- How to pack a bento lunch and use “gap fillersâ€
- Choosing the right size bento box
- Biggie’s list of top speed tips, tutorials and equipment reviews
