Simple yet cute. I didn’t originally have cute faces, but I had a little bit of time and figured I could put a little cuteness in the bento for my kiddos.
The chicken is leftover from a luau we went to yesterday. It’s really good! My daughter likes the chicken, but firmly said no to the kalua pig and poi. Lol!
As I mentioned before (I think…???) every Monday for a month I’m making my daughters friend a bento as her mom won it at our school auction. Given the mount she paid, I’m trying to do something special. Yesterday’s bento were bears under an egg “blanket”. Under the blanket were a few pieces if chicken.
I have a bunch of bento photos ready to upload, but just haven’t had a chance. Sorry for the delay and blog posting absence.
This bento was inspired by a recipe from Jolene’s “What’s Cooking Chicago” blog. I was looking for easy freezer friendly recipes and found a few, but just made them this week without preparing them for the freezer.
This bento has a chicken and apple cheese burger. You can’t really see it as it’s hidden in the bun. But quite frankly, it’s kinda bland looking that I don’t think it would look as appetizing in a picture. The happy mochi was made by Ms. Little Bubbles and in celebration of Girl’s Day. It was so super easy to make! I think 10 minutes total in the microwave!
I hope everyone is doing well and I hope to get back into bento making once work slows down.
Happy March everyone! Be happy!!!!
Chicken Parmesan Meatloaf
Okay, you might just think I’m crazy, but this is what we had for dinner last night and it was so good. I found this recipe on “What’s Cooking Chicago” blog. I had to think twice about this recipe, but it was really good. You have to check out Joelen’s blog and this wonderful recipe. Honestly, it’s delicious. I added homemade mashed sweet potato and I can’t tell you how much my family loved this dinner. Even my Little Sweet Pea loved it. 🙂
Chicken Parmesan Meatloaf (Recipe by What’s Cookin’ Chicago)
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a loaf pan with cooking spray, set aside.
In a large bowl, combine the ground chicken, egg, breadcrumbs, thyme, oregano, basil, garlic, onion, salt, pepper and Parmesan cheese. To not over handle the mixture otherwise it will get tough. Place the mixture in the greased loaf pan and form into a loaf. Top the meatloaf with pasta sauce.
Place filled loaf pan on a baking sheet and bake in the preheated oven for 40-45 minutes. Remove the meatloaf from the oven and sprinkle the top with the remaining shredded cheese. Place the meatloaf back in the oven and bake until the cheese is melted.
Remove the meatloaf from the oven and allow to rest for 5-10 minutes before serving/slicing. Garnish with parsley if desired.
Chicken Stew?
Sorry, it’s been a busy week and I haven’t had time to post Ms. Little Bubble’s bentos. This is from Monday. On Sunday I made, what the recipe called, chicken stew in the crockpot. I don’t think it’s stew, but I’m not sure what else to call it. I was a bit disappointed by the chicken as it called for chicken breasts and it was super dry, even after being in the crockpot for six hours. The flavor was good, but soooo dry. That recipe gets a thumbs down for me.
Putting Monday’s bento was pretty simple. I started out with rice, then I made a ditch in the rice to put the chicken and veggies and then I poured gravy over the top. I added strawberries and given I still had a hole, I filled it raisins and a fruit roll up. I considered steaming some carrots and putting it there, but I ran out of time.
Contents: Chicken and veggies, strawberries and a fruit roll up
Good ol' Standby Bento in a Hello Kitty Bento Box
This was from Thursday. I didn’t have time to post a picture. 😦 It’s pretty much a good ol’ standby bento in a Hello Kitty bento box. I timed myself on this bento, and it took me 8 minutes. I think I could have done it in 5, but it took me some time to figure out what to do with the apples. LOL. So, you got the apple flowers again. I need to get more inspiration from my recent additions to the bento book collection, but with the holidays here, I seem to be concentrating on gift, cards and Santa pictures.
Not to digress (and not related to bentos) but today we stood in line for an hour to take a picture with Santa. When Ms. Little Bubbles was a baby, we were casually shopping in a mall and saw that Santa was free, so we decided to have her take a picture with him. Then when she was two, I was at the same mall with my friend and we again saw that Santa (the same Santa) was not busy. So, we took her picture with Santa. Well… little did I know that I was going to get sucked into this Santa thing. I now refuse to take Santa pictures at any other place because I want the same Santa in all my pictures. And according to my kids, that’s the REAL Santa and all the other Santas we see at other malls and stores are fake. 🙂 LOL. I usually like to take my Santa pictures before Thanksgiving to avoid the crowds, but life got busy and we didn’t have time. Thus…. today we stood in line for 1 hour!! My goodness. Thankfully, the kids were all happy and smiles when it was their turn. I guess they knew they had to be “good” for Santa. In fact, now that I think about it, all the kids that were waiting in line were amazingly calm and good. It must be the holiday spirit!
Contents: Teriyaki chicken, rice with furikake, carrots, kamaboko broccoli and apples
Another Cute Hello Kitty Box
Ms. Little Bubbles recently got this Hello Kitty bento box as a present. It’s a standard sized bento box and is perfect for my little one.
Last night I decided to fancy up the rice and use a Japanese beans and seasoning packet in the rice. I added the mixture to the rice cooker right before it started to cook. Now, my Japanese s a little rusty (to say the least), but I think it said to put 2-3 cups of rice and then add the packet, but truly I was just winging it. Luckily, the rice turned out okay, and Ms. Little Bubbles loved it.
Now, I made the rice earlier in the afternoon, without a clear thought on what the main dish was going to be. Unfortunately, the chicken dish I made didn’t really go with the rice, but that’s okay.
For fruit, I added apples cut into flowers and added sesame seeds for the centers. Sesame seeds is an easy way to complete a flower. However, I do have to say that I had to use tweezers to place them. And using tweezers early in the morning, without coffee, can be a challenge sometimes. 🙂
Yummy Rice
Contents: Chicken, onigiri, kamaboko, and apples
Humm... My First OK Bento
Okay, so this is what I consider my first “OK” bento. After my pudding mishap, I searched for a bento box that would separate my food with inner containers. I found this box online at Marukai and love, love, love it! I was so paranoid at the time that I would never find another bento box like this, that I ordered two! I still have a spare in my pantry.
When I got this bento box, I remember studying (call me crazy) other bloggers and bento books trying to see and understand the style that I like and how I would like to present my food. One thing I really liked about this bento was the color. For the longest time, I insisted on putting blueberries in Ms. Little Bubbles bentos because it made for a much more beautiful bento. But she hates blueberries! And given the cost of a small box, I had to give up my blue. 😦 This particular bento had too much food for my Little Bubbles, but she did like it. 🙂
Contents: Onigiri, teriyaki chicken, strawberries, blueberries, oranges, carrots and edamame
Which is cuter?
This morning I made a quick leftover bento. This bento took les than 10 minutes to make. The teriyaki chicken and rice was from last night’s dinner. I threw the carrots and broccoli in the microwave for a quick steam, cooled them in the freezer before putting them in the bento.
The picture on the left was the bento I was about to put in Ms. Little Bubbles lunchbox. But I felt something was missing. So I put a cute bunny baran food partition next too the carrots. I think it adds a quick bit of cuteness, that required little effort. 🙂 What do you think?
Contents: Teriyaki chicken, rice, carrots, broccoli, and strawberries
A Simple Birthday Gift - A Bento Lunch
Earlier this year I made my co-worker a bento for her birthday. Of course that morning, it took me longer than 15 minutes to make my bentos, but it was well worth the time. Each bento is made of the same food, but they each look so different. Ms. Little Bubbles’ bento is on the bottom and is in one of my favorite bento boxes, a two-tiered elephant box. The other two bentos are also two-tiered and are my personal favorite bento boxes. I got them at Shirokiya in Hawaii and they were 20% off! Whoohoo!
A bento tip based on these bentos – start with rice. I put the rice in first and flatten it to one end of the bento. I then sprinkle some furikake on it for taste and design. If you look at Ms. Little Bubble’s bento on the bottom, I started with the rice, then layered the chicken next to it, and then added the veggies.
Contents: Teriyaki chicken, rice with furikake, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, strawberries, cantaloupe, peaches
loveinabento 