Bento Box Blog

Switchback bento

I went a bit switchback mad! Here are some simple cheese wraps, surrounded by a tomato, a cucumber, an apple and a beetroot all done with the switchback method, as found here on bento.com

On our way shopping yesterday we decided to pop in at the Oktoberfest seeing as it was on our way. It was also Family Day which means a lot of the stalls have reduced prices on selected items. We bought some food (fish and chips!) and my little boy went on a ride and we got a stick of fluffy white Candy Floss (cotton candy). We’d already been in a Superdrug type shop (called DM here in Germany) where the kids got free balloons (so that saved about 10 Euros having to buy them at the Oktoberfest

I was a Doubting Thomas last week. My Nokia XpressMusic camera phone malfunctioned and had to be sent away for repair. I had very low expectations for any positive news about it being repairable or replaceable. Usually here in Germany as a consumer “No Quibble” certainly does not apply. In fact I once bought a pair of Rubber Gloves from Schlecker and they tore the first time I put them on, but even though I had my receipt they refused to exchange them. Call me petty, but you’d think for a 2 Euro pair of household gloves, it would be a no-brainer. I save my receipts for EVERYTHING in case the item goes wrong within the gurantee period and sometimes if you argue long and hard enough the sales assistant will eventually back down / give in / agree to replace the defective item, seeing as the price of the item (even a 50 Euro electrical item) will pale into insignificance when they realise it would just be easier to issue a cash refund and have done with it.

Since we’ve been living here in Munich, we’ve had disputes with Bauknecht (Dishwasher company), Alice (Telecom / ISP), Postbank, Saturn (electrical goods) and even the British Consulate IN Germany. Rarely has making a formal complaint helped to resolve the issue, but it does make you wonder if nearly every company has some kind of deal with the German version of the Consumer Advice Bureau called the Verbraucherzentrale, because if you PAY the Verbraucherzentrale a fee, they will try and get your dispute reolved by offering a COMPROMISE so that you only have to pay HALF the amount the company is trying to rip you off for. So an 80 euro unwarranted charge from the dishwasher company ended up being settled for 40 Euros PLUS a 10 Euro fee to the consumer advice place. I’m obviously a cynic, and was quite prepared for news that my Nokia phone would be not accepted for free repair due to something I had agreed to when I signed up for the 2 year contract (signed my life away), and that I would be paying for a broken phone for the next 12 months.

End: rant

But credit where it’s due, O2 took care of sending my phone off to Nokia for repair / re-installation of the software / replacement of the touchscreen. I was only without my phone for a few days and now I’ve got it back, I am a very happy bunny boiler. So thanks O2 and Nokia.

TRYING TO ORGANISE USEFUL CLUTTER

You can’t organise clutter, you have to get rid of it. I know, I know. But there are tools and gadgets we need on a daily basis that get shoved in drawers, left where they were last used or “put to one side”. You know what I’m talking about!

As I have been doing some SERIOUS decluttering this past week, I have found all sorts of USEFUL CLUTTER. I’ve found cables, adapters, connectors, memory cards, jigsaw pieces, belts, bobbles, nail varnish, lens cleaner, nail varnish remover, remote controls, batteries, covers for the remote controls, magnets, pegs, chess pieces, lego pieces, thingamijigs and whatdyacallits.

About a year ago, I made a list of the top 10 items that we seem to need on a daily basis that we need to lay our hands on and could never find. My husband put a new “special” shelf up – high enough that nosy boys and curious fingers can’t wreck the system hehe and I made labels for the edge of the shelf for each item on my top 10 list.

Here’s my list of items we need regularly but didn’t have a place for:

• Nail clippers/tweezers
• Glue
• Measuring tape
• Stapler / hole punch
• Batteries
• Pens
• Sticky tape
• Clips / paperclips
• Remote controls
• Keys
• Scissors

Each item has a  specially designated, labelled place on the shelf and has its own specially designated, labelled box / container on the correct part of the shelf. So since then, these top 10 items have been a LOT easier to find. This system  works best if you put things back straight after you’ve used them. We don’t always put things back straight away because we are not Born Organised. BUT when we are cleaning up (this is the royal “we” of course!) doing FLYLADY 5 min room rescues and stash and dash de-clutters then it is great to have a designated place for the item to call “home”.

Ok so there are 11 on my list but the last one was borderline so we had to include it, they are still referred to as the Top 10 on the “Top 10 shelf”

Well writing about it makes it seem over simplified… I mean, in my kitchen I don’t have labels for the spoons, the forks, the plates etc – everything (everything?! hmm maybe not!) already has its place, and these aren’t labelled. Although thinking about it, I wonder how many cupboards and drawers I could put in good order simply by assigning labels?

I used to have labels on my chest o’ drawers at home as a kid. That way, you could always find a t-shirt or socks. I’m having an epiphany today – I think I might start doing that with my all my drawers and cupboards too, in my bedroom and kitchen!

But first! I will make labels for all these 20 remaining “useful clutter” items, and then let’s see if our home will start to be tidier, AND we will be able to find things more quickly.

“A place for everything and everything in its place” umm, right, ok, lightbulb moment.

Funny that, cos I had an epiphany this morning too as I was using my rubber scrubber to brush soggy cornflakes out of the carpet. I could have prevented the cornflakes being scooped out onto the floor if I’d cleared the breakfast pots away from the dining table STRAIGHT AWAY instead of leaving them out to be interfered with. A stitch in time prevents nine. Right, now I geddit LOL

Do you have a blogspot blog? Me too, come and follow me so I can follow you back: bentoboxuk.blogspot.com:

This bento is featured on What’s for Lunch Wednesday

Mushrooms and Toadstools bento

This is spaghetti in cheesy-tomato sauce or should that be tomato-ey cheese sauce? The grapes are scooped out and balanced on top of sticks of white tinned cheese (TINNED?! CHEESE?!) Yes! Cheese from in a tin, in brine. I was horrified too when I first saw it, but I have come to eat it with fond memories of my honeymoon in Denmark! I don’t know if this is a particularly European kind of cheese though – I haven’t seen this kind in England before, only Greek Feta but that is from sheep’s or goat’s milk, I believe. This cheese is from cow’s milk and it’s quite salty. I got this from a shop that sells mostly Turkish produce and it has Turkish writing on the tin.

The Babybel is balanced up there as well on the cheese sticks and the little round white dots are cut out from the white cheese with a drinking straw.

Weight Loss Scaredy-Cat-Challenge: I have put on a pound since I last posted but I expect that is just from finally re-hydrating myself, so nothing special to report other than it’s back to business as usual with the small portions and being sensible with particularly fatty / greasy food (although I will admit that I found some frozen Indian Paratha’s, which taste like puff pastry and I fried a couple up as a snack. So we know where the extra pound came from don’t we hehe!)
So I need to lose that 1 back and then 1 further pound then I will be halfway towards my goal of losing 26lbs.

We went to see Toy Story 3 at the cinema at the weekend in 3D! I was amazed at the 3D effects. I wasn’t too amazed by the price of the tickets, especially when I thought we’d booked to see it in English and it turned out to be in German, but despite that, a good time was had by all and my 3 yr old managed to sit through the trailers and the whole film without toilet breaks, fidgeting, wandering off, moaning or complaining, so I was amazed. That was our first ever time at the cinema in Germany and the first ever cinema visit for the kids. My 18mth old managed to get to 30 mins before the end before starting to cry so DH had to take him out. Overall I was really glad we went – it was fun and a new experience and nice to spend time together as a family. On top of that, we had a lovely meal afterwards in an Iraqi restaurant / kebab house.

It’s been a busy time recently – my son has been learning to ride a bike (with stabilisers) which was fun and cute, especially where I got him on video saying “I can’t Mama, I can’t, I can’t!” then the next minute – “I DOING it Mamaaaaa!!! I DOING it!”

I have done some online shopping and had deliveries going here, there and everywhere. One of the fragile things I got from Amazon was broken so I had to get a new printer so I could print out the returns paperwork. Total justification for getting a WI-FI printer, scanner, copier all in one, It’s a SX510W Epson Stylus all in one. Was impressed with how easy it was to set up the Wi-Fi and my DH can print from his laptop wirelessly as well.  Thanks to the kid who put a drill bit in the old one thus rendering it destroyed. All’s well that ends well.

Well, it will be if I can replace the broken Amazon item. Uh-Oh, I feel a Scaredy-Cat Challenge coming on…! I’d better psyche myself up to go to the German Post office to ship this package back…

Last time we went to the Post Office it was a complete nightmare – they had a Wendy-house thing made of cardboard – some kind of advert for house insurance or something, and my son kept hiding in it and knocking the chimney off it. It took us hours to get out and ended with me “betraying my cool exterior” and dragging him kicking and screaming out of the Post Office with everyone gasping in disgust, shock and horror! I don’t know if I’m brave enough to go back there!! Can’t I stay here?! Can’t someone else do it?! Maybe if I order a pizza, the delivery guy will take it back with him…. nice excuse to order Pizza LOL and a pretty good way to upsell on the Pizzas… offering a courier / forwarding service! now there’s a neat idea! Seriously!

Not in England though because the Post Offices are becoming extinct and “communities” need them so they can buy  tokens for British Gas’s abominable Pre-Pay system, collect the “Giro” and get the DVLA tax disc for the car windscreen…. or the mobility scooter if it goes more than 4mph!!!.  Oh and don’t forget the bottle of bubbles with a little maze on the lid.  Not stamps, because no-one sends letters any more do they?!  I worked at a place once where I actually bought a franking machine with the company’s money to save us having to trudge to the Post Office and stand there waiting for the boxes to be weighed and labelled up. Shudder. So I admit I am guilty of playing my part in helping to get them extinctified.

Check out a new FLYlady-style game I blogged about here: Clock Patience Housework and a variation of the game here.

Happy Anti Procrastination Day!

Oktoberfest Heart Bento

Yesterday I mentioned Oktoberfest and how I love the colourful gingerbread hearts (Lebkuchenherzen) which gave me an idea for today’s bento! Of course this one is not made of gingerbread; it is a meat sandwich on brown bread cut into a heart shape and decorated with coloured cheese hearts, flowers, leaves and a bow. The swirly lace / icing and white writing is actually mayonnaise (Thanks Diane for your suggestion!) I put a couple of spoonfuls into a homemade piping bag and squished and squeezed away, finally adding a drop of blue colouring for the extra layer of swirly “icing” for the edge.

“i mog di” is Bavarian for “I love you”!

Rubiks Cube Bento

As featured on Whats for Lunch Wednesday

Hello! Long time no see! Here is one I have been wanting to make for ages, but never got round to it until now, due to not having any food colouring left!

Not having lettuce in is another excuse but I think maybe my perfectionism was trying to get the better of me so I got some new colours and finally just jumped in!

This is a “musubi” type bento – inside the cube is tightly pressed boiled rice and in the centre of the rice is some chopped meat, cucumber and remoulade sauce. The cube of rice is then covered with nori seaweed sheets and decorated with coloured cheese squares. Surrounding the centrepiece are grapes, orange segments, tomatoes and cucumber slices.

Did you know I am a big fan of the Rubiks cube? I have the 3×3x3, the 4×4x4 and the 5×5x5 ! I learned how to solve the 3×3x3 from Dan Brown on his YouTube Channel (user name PogoBat)

I have not forgotten about my Scaredy Cat Challenges! I have given up smoking Praise God! And I have been able to colour in 10 little squares from my weight loss chart – yes each square is worth 1 lb in weight! So gradually very gradually the weight is coming off!

We are currently fasting for the muslim holy month of Ramadan from dawn until sunset.  I am trying not to over eat when we break the fast and drinking plenty of water, and although this has helped me to be able to colour in 3 more squares off my chart, I must expect that my weight will go back up slightly after the fasting is over, unless I seriously start to do more exercise. God willing, in October my son is starting Kindergarten so that will be at least 30 mins of exercise per day walking him there and back every day!

For more Scaredy Cat Challenges visit DianeDenmark.com. Diane blogs about life in Denmark, the good things in life and the FlyLady system.  She’s currently planning ahead for Christmas, using Flylady’s techniques.  I have already started making a list of people who I want to buy presents for, for Eid, birthdays and Christmas.  Yes, me! It’s not like me to be this organised LOL (BTW if you ever wondered why there are a lot of birthdays in November, it’s because Valentine’s day is in February!) I have even placed a couple of online orders with Ebay and Tesco. Tesco have already got the huge tins of Roses and Quality Streets in on a Buy One Get One Free!

Oktoberfest is starting here in Munich on the 18th September. The gingerbread hearts are so cute. I think it’s just given me an idea for some more food / cheese art – Watch this space! (Though I don’t know how I would do the white writing – so let me have a think about it!)

Another Scaredy Cat Challenge that I have set for myself is to get a YouTube video done. This means finding the battery charger for the camera and learning how to use video-editing software, and sorting out the lighting. I might be able to use my phone but I think the image will be grainy and not up to much. God Willing, I’ll be able to get something sorted out and achieve another Scaredy Cat Challenge Goal!

How have you been?

Piece of Cake Bento

It’s a bento! It’s not a real piece of cake! It’s curry flavoured rice, topped with mayo and the “Dolly Mixtures” sweeties on top are made from boiled egg whites, chopped into shapes and coloured with food colouring!

Not exactly a piece of cake to create, but lots of fun! I’d better go and clean up my kitchen now!

Cootie bento

Here are some “Cooties” to eat for lunch! Cooties (typically in the USA) means bugs, germs or infectious disease microbes, usually yelled out by kids in the playground “He’s got Cooties!!”

In England, where I come from, they generally shout “She’s got Bugs!” or “He’s got Lurgy Bugs!”

I was in a gadget shop the other day looking at Fathers Day Gifts and I saw a Compact Microscope and on the label it said “there are more microscopic organisms in 1 teaspoon of soil than there are people in the world”. So it made me ponder and marvel at the awesomeness of our planet, the universe and the creations in it.

I have recently been watching Prof. Brian Cox (who started his career as a Rock Star in band D’Ream!) on his BBC series The Wonders of the Solar System. I’d highly recommend it – he’s a particle physicist who can explain science in a fascinating and easy to understand way.

Richard Hammond’s Invisible Worlds is thrilling to watch too. There is a video on youtube showing how to engrave a single strand of hair using an atomic laser.  You might have better luck than me at finding it – the only one I found was unavailable outside of the UK… (copyrights, nuff respect!!)

Here is one that will make you itch!

Back to my bento. My Mama Cootie or Microbe is made from a hard boiled egg cut in half for the head and tail, with processed meat and cheese for the body, and the baby cooties are made from stuffed green olives with cheese and nori seaweed eyes!

This is my homework assignment for week 2 of Bento Summer School! I have joined the KBC Cootie Club too !

Good night, sleep tight! Don’t let the bed bugs bite LOL

Why not send a Bento E-Greeting Card for free!

(edit: this is now on What’s for Lunch Wednesdays too!)

Bun Tin Beans

We are back from our holiday in England! A grand time was had by all, spending time with friends and family, enjoying events such as picnicking, BBQ food, partying, visiting a fun fair, the seaside and a wildlife park. Food was in abundance – fish and chips, chinese and indian take-away. And Monkey Tea (PG Tips) by the bucket-load. Not to mention the Mr Kiplings, spare Easter Eggs and HobNobs! Oh and a Tesco Finest New York Cheese Cake, and scones with jam, strawberries and cream!  Good job I lost 5lbs in the run up to this trip! <scrubs off all the progress from the Scaredy-Cat-Challenge weight loss chart>

Now we are back home to Germany and it’s time to get back into my “eat like a thin person” attitude!

Seeing as it is Muffin Tin Monday AND part of Bento Summer School’s week 1 homework, I thought I would offer a version of cutely presented typically British food,  link to Muffin Tin Mom’s Monday collection, and try out my new Silicone Cupcake cases, which are from Asda, one of my favourite brit supermarkets. By the way, where I come from, we call it a “bun tray” or a “bun tin”. Buns are cupcakes, fairy cakes or muffins. Not to be confused with a “sticky bun” which generally means a cream cake, such as a “vanilla slice”, “cream doughnut finger” or an “elephant’s foot”.

For this Muffin Tin Meal, I filled the silicon bun cases with baked beans in tomato sauce, some soft boiled eggs and mini toasted “soldiers” for dipping. I shared this with my baby boy, and he seemed to enjoy it as much as I did!

I have a lot of catching up to do with my blog subscriptions reading, comments and tweeting, but I have added a couple of new Giveaways to the Bento Contests Page – Let me know if there are any others!

A big Thank You to everyone who sent in a link for the British Themed Bento Event! It was lovely to see the wonderful edible adaptations of all kinds of things British-related!

Do you know anyone who would like to receive a Bento E-greeting card? You can now send them one! Try out this dinky link from bravenet.com

Tomorrow, God willing, I’m taking my babies to see their Grandparents in England!

So I will be away for at least 1 week and not able to do any bento-ing. But I thought it would be fun to have a British Themed Bento Event! You can send in a bento previously made or make a fresh one! Simply click the blue “Add your link” button to upload an image and a link, and don’t forget to link back here from your bento blog, if you have one, to spread the word!

Some information about Britain: from Wikipedia

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain) is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of the island of Ireland, and many small islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK with a land border, sharing it with the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border, the UK is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel and the Irish Sea. The largest island, Great Britain, is linked to France by the Channel Tunnel. The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy and unitary state consisting of four countries: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. It is governed by a parliamentary system with its seat of government in London, the capital, but with three devolved national administrations of varying powers in Belfast, Cardiff and Edinburgh, the capitals of Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland respectively.

Weepul Bento

I was looking at Bentovention’s site the other day and noticed that her Makkuro Kurosuke (Susuwatari) bento characters reminded me of those Weepul pom-pom stickers that you used to see everywhere in the 80’s.

Weepuls

So I thought I would make my own “Weepul sticker” out of rice and cheese! I coloured the rice purple by mixing red and blue food colouring, made the eyes from some egg white and used a hole punch on the Nori seaweed for the pupils. The cheese letters for “Have a nice lunch” were cut free hand using my pergamano needle pen. You can learn how I do my cheese colouring on my Cheese Food Colouring Bento Tutorial

This was fun and simple to do and although it’s not really a full bento today, it’s still a nice Sandwich Topper decoration to brighten up lunch! I have put this on “What’s for Lunch Wednesday” – Go have a look it’s like a bento party where you can show off your Wednesday Bento!

Did you know? I love puzzles! I love rubiks cubes, logic problems, jigsaws etc. I also love Moroccan Tilework which is called “Zelij” or (Zellij / Zellig / Zellige).  I wanted to try and do some kind of swirly mosaic and was entranced by this “How to draw Zellij” Tutorial

I ended up reading about Wang tiles / Wang Dominoes and aperiodic tiling, Penrose tiles and Quasicrystals…!

To keep things simple, I decided to go with these Penrose Tiles to make a “tile and dart” design, from coloured cheese. It was only to experiment and play really, but I ended up making it into a Bento by adding some of the home made pizza and Ginger and Choc Chip cookies (from my trusty Be-Ro recipe Book!) that I had made previously the same day.

Penrose Tiles bento

Happy Anti-Procrastination Day! Here is the special pen I use to cut my cheese:

Pergamano Perforating Tool – Single Needle – PG10241

Listed On Amazon Buy It Now for only: Buy it now

Alvin and the Chipmunks bento

I don’t usually enter the online bento competitions, (I’m not a gambling lady LOL!) but I wanted to try to make something for the “Rock My Bento” competition from The Kawaii Bento Club seeing as this one is a voting contest.

I like the  album covers of Alvin and the Chipmunks Original Sound Track and Alvin and the Chipmunks, the Squeakquel!

My kids love these kinds of songs, along with the “Spongebob singing” on Youtube and The Gummi bear songs.  I have to admit they are all quite catchy. I love this one – Chipmunks – FunkyTown

Chipmunks

I used biryani spices in the rice to get a lovely aromatic flavour and just the right colour brown for the chipmunks, and I used cheese to cut out the chipmunks’ clothes. The white bits are boiled egg white and the dark is Nori seaweed. The rest of the bento is made up of chequered cucumber, cherry tomatoes, grapes and a baby apricot. I also used some spinach for the borders. It’s completely edible (or should I say “was completely edible” – my DH enjoyed munching on this one today!).

Pergamano Perforating Tool – Single Needle – PG10241

Listed On Amazon Buy It Now for only: Buy it now

Kiwi Fish Bento

Today’s bento is a fancy tailed fish made from a kiwi, with apricot fins and radish gills, in a “tank” of blue cous-cous, and I made the clam shell / oyster shell from a piece of apple.

My Scaredy Cat Challenge is to lose 26lbs and get fitter. This bento contains not a trace of fat! I was absolutely amazed at how much this filled me up – I ate it with the rest of the radishes, the apricot and apple, and some garlic cloves in chilli-oil.  (ok so maybe trace amounts of fat LOL) You can get an idea about how small this bento box is from the size of the kiwi – it’s not a particularly large kiwi!

The lettuce came out looking not too bad, even though it was on its last legs! I can’t tell you how much I am enjoying playing with and eating this curly lettuce and the price of it has gone down now so it would be more than justifiable to buy 2 of them next time!

I know, I know, I need to get some protein – I might have some scrambled egg on 1 slice of toast later, if I have room!

I am wearing my “thin” jeans today! Ok, they are a bit tight still, but I am really pleased because I found an old abandonned “Weight Loss Plan” from August 2009 where I was 186lbs (count ‘em Diane!),  and now I’m 170lbs, so it means I have already lost 16lbs since then! Woopee! I am tempted to add more boxes to my weight loss chart, just so I can cross them off, to spur me on! 16lbs sounds a lot more encouraging than 5lbs! (Is that cheating?!)

I went on my cross trainer again today and burnt another 100 cals, and did 50 sit-ups today and yesterday.

I am eating lots of low fat things as snacks to keep my metabolism up and to prevent my body from going into “starvation mode”  so I’m having popcorn and cereals / cereal bars, yogurts, apple, carrots. I know when I hit my plateau, these will be the last things to go, but I imagine that’s still quite a way off, seeing as I still have 21 more lbs to go before I reach my goal, God Willing! Well there’s no time limit and I don’t want to get unrealistic because I have a trip to England coming up and I know there will be a mandatory Fish and Chips (with mushy peas of course!) washed down with Dandelion and Burdock, and an Indian Takeaway (Chicken Tikka Korma with a Peshwari Naan please!) washed down with Red Bull and Grenadine Syrup… Ah bliss!

But!

This time I don’t have to go overboard – I will still enjoy the food, but maybe just have half-portions instead of the full lot.  Even more calories to be saved!

Another Scaredy Cat Challenge (in other words a big job I have been putting off for far too long) was to get my computer desktop de-cluttered, and my disk de-fragmented using De-Fraggler, run the Disk Cleaner and CCleaner and back up some precious photo files.  So I have been working on that this week (seeing as I have finished watching LOST series 3 now!!) and now it feels like my computer is not as slow as it used to be! Either that or I’m becoming more patient in my old age LOL Who am I kidding?! I am still DYING to see LOST series 4!!!

By the way, The Kawaii Bento Club has got a Summer School Program and a cool Rock Your Bento Contest – Looking forward to seeing everyone’s entries! I have already seen Susan’s KISS bento – it is totally amazing, you have to check this out!

Wishing a great weekend to all my friends, family, bento buddies and FlyLady gal pals! Mwah!

Fruity Bento

I’m not having mayonnaise these days, due to trying to slim down, so I couldn’t put a ball of Tuna Mayo, my staple bento-ing food in this one.  I could eat this with celery and peanut butter or maybe some walnuts and some chunks of cheese.  Though I imagine this will be quite filling as it is! It has rice balls with nori stars, radish, strawberry, cherry tomatoes, a baby apricot, kiwi, grapes, and carrot decorations. I am one third of a pound away from losing 5lbs now.

Fruity bento

Peacock Bento

We had a fantastic day out at “Wildtierpark Poing” in Munich (a wild animal park) on Wednesday! We were able to stroke some rabbits and guinea pigs, and feed antelope, goats, ponies and donkeys! We also saw some huge bears. There were random peacocks wandering around the picnic area as well as chickens and ducks.

Here is a bento that I made inspired by the beauty of the magnificent bird, the peacock! I also wanted to try out the sealed sandwich idea that Lia from Bentolicious blogged about.

I don’t have a bread mold / sandwich shaper (apart from the toastie maker) but after rummaging through my plastics box which is mostly full of old baby bottles and lids, I thought I would try using a large teat ring and a smaller one, that seemed to nest inside each other quite well. I made some chocolate spread sandwiches from brown bread and pressed the larger ring onto it to get my first circle, then I turned it over and used the smaller ring to seal the sandwich. I was pretty impressed because they came out quite neat and tidy considering the improvised tools for the job!

These are the teat rings from the old baby bottles that I used to make the pressed sandwich with sealed edges.

And then I put coloured cheese peacock decorations on and carved the same design into a red apple. You don’t get a zoomed out photo today seeing as this was only a snack experiment bento and there isn’t really much else in it apart from some cucumber slices, but someone has been messing about with my fridge settings and the cucumber was frozen solid so it does not look how it is meant to, and I don’t have any other salad or fruits to do much bentoing with. But I’m a big believer in making do with what you have got, so here it is!

The rest of the bread offcuts went into a bread and butter pudding, which I am told was delicious, but I didn’t try it seeing as I am trying not to have any empty calories. I have lost 4lbs so far since I started doing my daily exercise and watching my portion sizes, using the weight loss tips on this blog post and I have proudly marked it on my progress chart on my wall! only 22lbs more to go!

I recently placed a couple of orders with Cake Balls UK to have a box of Gluten Free coffee and walnut cake balls and a bag of chocolate and orange cake balls sent to my relatives in the UK as birthday gifts. As agreed the balls were sent out for delivery before the recipient’s birthday and I’m told they are really delicious and came packaged really neatly too. PippaD from A Mother’s Ramblings recommended Cake Balls on her blog and that’s where I got the idea, so thanks Pippa, and thanks Anna from Cake Balls UK for delivering the fantastic birthday gifts! You have my recommendation too!

You can follow Anna from Cake Balls Uk, Pippa from A Mother’s Ramblings and Lia from Bentolicious on Twitter and their Blogs.

I have never placed a bento items order before, I still consider myself a beginner seeing as I only started making bento in January 2010, and I have never bought any “proper” bento tools, preferring to try to make the best use of what I already have such as cookie cutters for shaping rice or cutting cheese or vegetables, craft punches for the nori seaweed and my craft needle pen for cutting the cheese. There are definitely some basic items that I would suggest could be bought as a bento starter bundle if you don’t already have any tools for making your bento. And I am very tempted to order them myself very soon too! The items I think would be the most useful are the nori face punches, the egg moulds, the  onigiri presses, the flower shaped vegetable cutters and the the decorative food picks.

Have fun and happy bento-ing!

Pergamano Perforating Tool – Single Needle – PG10241

Listed On Amazon Buy It Now for only: Buy it now

3 cool dudes bento

I’ve been really trying to stick to my FlyLady Routines recently and my house is looking better than it has in a long time! I’m doing Room Rescues, Hot Spot Fire Drills, Using a “Do It Now” approach, taking babysteps, beating perfectionism, just “jumping in” and using my FlyLady Timer and Feather Dusters!

My Scaredy Cat Challenge with the Twisters (Twitter Sisters!) is to lose 26 lbs (about 12kg). I have been trying to get into the habit of using the Weight Loss tips listed here, and I’m finding it’s not too hard to stick to! I’ve had a couple of challenges this weekend though, like when DH and DS3 were eating bubbled cheese pretzels, but I managed to keep temptation at bay, whilst focussing on watching Lost Season Two!

Without boring you with the details of what I’ve eaten over the last week, I’ll summarise!

• Instead of eating 2 or sometimes 4 slices of toast (It’s a small loaf!)  I’ve only been having 1, and leaving out the butter and having Marmite instead of jam.
• Brown instead of white bread
• Kid’s sized portions of the  main meal instead of my usual big plate
• Salad without Mayo or dressing
• Tea and coffee without sugar
• Pumpkin seeds  as a snack
• I’ve resisted chocolate bars, pretzels, sweets and biscuits!

And the main achievement is that I have been on my cross trainer for 3 days in a row now, burning 100 cals each time!

To make this bento, I added some curry powder to the rice while it was cooking, to get this sunny yellow colour for my charaben cool dudes.  This is a mini bento (compared to the other bento box), and to give you an idea of the size of the rice balls, they are smaller than a golf ball, more like the size of a table tennis / ping-pong ball.

I have a new method for cutting the carrot flowers, seeing as I don’t yet have the vegetable cutters. I will try to post a tutorial later. And the apple design is new too, which is done using tubes of apple and carving away a cross shape out of the skin. I forgot to mention in my previous bento that I discovered it is possible to use the craft punch on red apple skin too! Check out the red apple skin hearts here.

I used some sliced courgette in this bento, and I only put half a teaspoon of oil into the pan just to finely coat the bottom of it, and then (almost-)dry fried them, til they got this nice charred look! They were really tasty!  The other ingredients in this bento are green and yellow peppers, some sandwich beef, carrot, apple and lettuce. The faces on the rice balls are hand cut from Nori seaweed.

This is the zoomed out pic:

This is a new box that I got from the local supermarket “Penny” for 1 Euro! It holds about 300ml. I’ve read that if you prepare the bento in the “correct or guideline proportions” (some say it’s 4:3:2:1 and others says it’s 3:2:1) then the bento should equate to approximately the same number of calories as the number of mls of water it can hold.

Well I’m no maths whizz but 4 parts of carbs, 3 parts protein, 2 parts veg and 1 part of something else means 10 parts altogether, so that means 40% rice or noodles, 30% meat or fish, 20% veg and 10 percent dessert or pickles.

If, however, the rule is 3:2:1 then that’s only 6 parts, but 3 of those would be the carbs, so that’s 50%, then 33% protein and only 17% veg.  So either I’ve misunderstood what I’ve been reading, or there is some mis-information or contradictory schools of thought on this issue.

I personally usually try to make sure there are plenty of brightly coloured fruits or vegetables in there, and not go too mad with the amount of rice,pasta or bread that I’m putting in. I’ll also usually try to make sure there is some protein, with meat, fish or cheese. I’m a big believer in artistic license so trying to stick to guidelines or rules will usually play havoc with my creativity, so I don’t generally pay much attention to it, to be honest!

While we’re on the subject, I had my first ever negative comment recently!   I’d topped a sandwich with some coloured cheese, and a comment came in that it was a “lazy cop out” and not a real bento. The actual words were: “Using cheese in bentos at all is cheating. It’s a lazy cop-out.”  Of course, I was wounded to the soul when I read that!

I suppose technically none of my bento are “real bento”, if I’m not adhering to the 4:3:2:1 / 3:2:1 law, (or if I am not living in Japan and using only Japanese ingredients if you like a bit of over-zealousness!) but I’ve never heard of cheese being condemned in such a way. Bad cheese! However if you are a hardened bento rebel like me, and you do indeed like to sneak a bit of cheese in your bento making, check out my Cheese Colouring Tutorial!

And talking of comments – I’ve been messing about with the site and you will probably notice the sidebars are looking a little different recently, and the comments section is temporarily not visible due to a “Hide / Show Comments” button that is not configured correctly. I think you can still post comments, if you would like, and they don’t all have to be positive, I was kidding with the sarcasm earlier, honestly, constructive criticism is welcomed! I’ll try to get the comments visibility problem fixed asap! Thanks to everyone who has ever left lovely comments for me, it really is a motivation and inspiration for me to keep trying to come up with new designs / themes or techniques to share!

manga anime bento

This is from weeks ago – must have forgotten to click “published” as I found it in my drafts… weird

I’ve been a fan of the manga / anime style for a few years. I learnt how to draw a basic manga face from a “How to Draw Manga” book, a few years ago. I haven’t drawn or sketched in a long time, but I decided to see if I could refresh my memory and make a Manga style cartoon character out of cheese for my bento. So I had some fun this afternoon, with my parchment pergamano perforating pen, and of course lashings of food colouring. I made a caulifower in cheese sauce to sit at the right hand side in a scooped out green pepper (not having any lettuce again, and having run out of broccoli… sigh! ) Then there was not much room for much fruit, just a few apple segments. Today nothing went right really, because the dishwasher wouldn’t work – Put it on last night but it just sat there defiantly refusing to wash the pots, so this morning I had to either wash everything by hand (not my style!) or wait for it to get fixed…so the pots are still waiting to be rescued from their filthy state, and I have to keep going in there to get a spoon or plate or whatever to wash it by hand… I suppose I will have to eventually get the whole lot out and do it. Can’t someone else do it?! And then my camera kept taking fuzzy/blurry pics… yeah I know a bad workman blames his tools…but I can’t understand why I have been able to get crisp photos in the past and now I can’t. Winge over! I must remember to be grateful that I have the priviledge of hot running water, a luxury that I often take for granted. In some countries, they have to wash their pots using water pumped from a well, if they even have access to water that is. It makes you wonder doesn’t it? Maybe I WILL go and wash those pots now and stop being so ungrateful!

Pergamano Perforating Tool – Single Needle – PG10241

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Cupcake bento

It’s not a real cupcake – it’s a slice of apple in the shape of a cupcake with cheese on top!

There is tuna-mayo underneath the cupcake, and to the side are some rice ball mushrooms / toadstools.

I was really scratching around for ingredients today to be honest. The radishes have gone and the black olives had an incident this morning at 8am – they got yanked out of the fridge and ended up all over the kitchen floor (not mentioning any names but watch my eyes! *Looks over at baby*)

So I ended up putting some digestive biscuits in there to fill in some space – they are at the back, which you cannot see in this picture, but you can in the full, zoomed out  photo.

Cupcake bento

Don’t forget to have a look at the Contests page and the Bento Book Shop

I have been collecting Bento tips, tricks and tutorials and have put all the links together on one page, for your easy reference.

In addition, there is now a Bento Articles Page and the Badge is now easier to grab.

Have a great Anti-Procrastination Day!

Pergamano Perforating Tool – Single Needle – PG10241

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Aubergine bento

My DH cooked again. He knows I have 2 favourite dishes of all time (apart from Fish and Chips and Cauliflower Cheese!) ; Iraqi Tapsi and Moroccan Lamb with Prunes. Well, today he made something extraordinary! He made the Iraqi Tapsi with Beef, but it had elements of the flavours of the Moroccan Lamb with Prunes, with a sort of sweet, cinnamonny taste to it, with piquant snatches of hot chili… Totally mouth watering, juicy, aubergines, sumptuously served in a thick, delicious sauce, textured with small bites of tasty beef steak and red onions… What a heavenly meal! And although I tried to be good and only took a very small second helping, I did eat more than my fair share, and as John Cage would say, I will not be disparaged! I realise my efforts to eat low fat, little and often are in vain, but you have to realise a dish like this does NOT come along every day! I am still committed to doing all the other reductions of fat and sugar and portion size, (My Scaredy Cat Challenge!) but it’s the weekend so this can count as the “treat”! And I do not feel guilty – I feel happy! 

And of course the leftovers went in the bento box, along with some rice, black olives, cucumber and cherry tomatoes.

The olives made me think of Spain, and you wouldn’t believe the lettuce I got from the supermarket – It was like bringing home a bunch of flowers! A huge, curly, astonishingly beautiful lettuce! I have never, ever in my life been so drawn to a salad vegetable! And I carefully broke off just 1 leaf of it and held it in my hands and saw …

… a flamenco dancer!!

So I made this:

Flamenco Dancer

With black olives for the hair, a tomato hair flower, cheese arms and face, a cucumber body and of course the lettuce leaf for the dress.

And if you’re looking for a connection between an Iraqi-Moroccan dish and a Spanish Dancer – it’s the word “Flamenco” which is believed to have come from the Arabic word fellahmengu, meaning “fugitive peasant”,  derived from a root meaning “to flee.” The term came into use in the 14th century, and was first applied to the Andalusian Gypsies themselves, who were called either gitanos or flamencos.

You can see the Wikipedia entry about Flamenco here

Ay, ay, ay!

If you are interested in getting into bento making or want to improve or simply try out some new techniques, try this list of tricks, tips and bento tutorials

Bee and Butterfly Bento, with apple flowers topped with cheese

We had tuna, sweetcorn and pasta mayo today for lunch, and I made rather a lot, so I put the leftover into a bento for later or tomorrow. I put some of the macaroni tubes together in a row to make the body of the butterfly and gave it a tuna-mayo ball for a head. It started off Life as a Caterpillar and and then got its wings! That link there is to my new Twitter friend LesleyDH’s blog, which I have been reading recently and has pushed me to commit to using FlyLady babysteps and Jonathan Roche’s No Excuse Work Outs mentality to start getting fitter and healthier!

bee and butterfly bento

So although the wires keep getting ripped off my cross trainer, and I have already used masking tape to repair it 3 times this month, I will yet again repair it so I can go on and burn more calories whilst watching Ally McBeal tonight! Just finished watching season 1, so I can’t wait to get started on season 2.

Even though my efforts are being sabotaged! My DH is a feeder – Last night he brought  me a bowl of ice cream with actual chucks of chocolate on top, and before that he brought me a “bento biscuit selection”, which was some little teddy bear shaped savory biscuits arranged in a little dish, and this morning he made me a fried egg sandwich and then made me a second one with chips in it, even though I begged for only 1 egg. But I am not complaining – it is nice to be waited on sometimes! I have issues with wasting food, and you can’t really save a fried egg for later can you? So down the hatch it went. It was very yummy. I enjoyed it!  So the whole idea about this new attitude is to not get de-motivated by the sabotage. Just carry on, taking it day by day, and continuing with the babysteps and little things that over a long period of time will make a difference. Such as:

1. Drink a glass of water before a meal, to help fill you up
2. Get off the bus one or 2 stops before the usual stop and walking the rest of the way
3. Take the stairs instead of lifts (cannot do this one because of the buggy, oops there I go making excuses LOL)
4. Swap fried foods for grilled or poached
5. Reduce the amount of butter, mayo and cheese
6. Reduce portion sizes
7. Try to eat little and often rather than big meals.
8. Drink water instead of fizzy drinks and reducing the sugar in coffees
9. Use low fat milk in the milky coffees
10. Snack on apples and yogurts carrots and celery  instead of chocolate and crisps
11. Never give up!
12. Always eat breakfast
13. Don’t reduce calories too much incase you go into starvation mode
14. Kick start metabolism by always having a wholesome breakfast with plenty of fiber
15. Eat before you get hungry so you don’t overeat.
16. Drink water to keep the body functioning / metabolising efficiently
17. Have a small treat (not a binge!) every now and again, otherwise you will get bored or de-motivated
18. Aim to lose only 10% of your body weight at a time
19. Elevate heart rate for 30 mins at least 3 times per week
20. Consider it a lifestyle change instead of a diet

These are tips I collected and stored in my memory from various magazines (Rosemary Conley, Weight Watchers, Slimming World) years ago when I went through my Fitness Freak phase. They are very sensible tips and not too extreme, and helped me to lose 30kg (66lbs) over 2 years ALONG WITH going on my cross trainer for 30 mins 3 times per week. So I know it is possible to do. I just have to do it again (I’d be happy to lose half that amount this time!), God Willing!

I think the bento making is already helping me to snack more on healthy things like carrot, apple and salad, and the portion sizes are brilliant and I am not going hungry at all.

Patience, strength, motivation, determination, Can. We. Do. It? Yes! We! Can! )

Here are some of the Top 25 Bento Boxes and Accessories:

Pergamano Perforating Tool – Single Needle – PG10241

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The Weakest Link Bento

I made this bento for my DH who wasn’t home for dinner today. I had done well to remember to get chicken out of the freezer this morning but as 5pm approached, I still had not got a clue what to do with it. Luckily, my good Blogger, Twitter and Flylady friend @dianedenmark jumped to my rescue and suggested making chicken dippers, by cutting the chicken into strips, dipping them in egg and then coating with breadcrumbs, frying then putting them in the oven to finish! It sounded easy and tasty so I gave it a go, and ended up with these savoury treats.  A big thank you for the idea Diane, it was a hit with me and the kids and DH has just come home and seen the dippers and they were well received with flattering comments, so although I’d be happy to take all the credit , I’ll pass some of the Kudos your way too!

This bento contains 2 onigiri pressed rice balls with nori seaweed hearts, some apple and carrot, and chicken dippers with lettuce.

I was going to call this bento “The weakest link” seeing as I made some carrots  all linking together in a chain and it was the first phrase that sprang to mind, but after thinking about it, “Weakest” sounds a bit negative and today has been a really positive and jolly day, weatherwise, moodwise  and mental health wise! I have kept on top of the housework, did some jobs that I’d been procrastinating on, had a lovely play session with the kids outside in the  sunshine, and even managed to do a little bit of weeding. So this bento deserves to have a more positive, powerful, go-getting name, especially seeing as it was Diane’s idea to make the main ingredient of the bento dish! And she is a very “strong link” to the FlyLady world, and to the realm of Motivation and Creativity! Be sure to check out DianeDenmark’s Blog – Each day there is a theme, such as Pampering, Laughter, Recipes, Crafts, Music, you even get a Scaredy-Cat challenge that you can join in with!