A quick update on bento lunches

In an unprecedented move, I have managed to make my lunch in advance three days in a row this week. That has never happened, unless I'm eating leftovers of the same thing for several days.

My Hello Kitty bento box is actually way too big if I stuff it with heavy, filling food. The only way I won't end up the size of a house is if I continue to fill it with fruit and salad. I can't believe that a few days ago I was fretting that I would still be hungry after my lunch. No chance! In fact, I have now purchased another, smaller lunchbox, for those days when I just don't have something like lettuce and tomato to hand, and have to go with something more compact but filling.

Tomorrow's office lunch, which I already have sitting in the fridge, is:
- large portion of couscous with red onion, cucumber, red pepper, and a splash of sesame oil
- cooked chicken pieces and a tiny plastic fish full of soy sauce
- cherry tomatoes
- peanuts
- grapes
- barbecue flavour rice crackers
- triangle of soft cheese

I guarantee I won't be hungry after eating that lot!

Bento lunches

A discussion on an internet forum that I regularly read led me to spend some time over the last couple of days reading about bento lunches. In case you don't know what those are, here is some information from Wikipedia:

Bentō (弁当 or べんとう, Bentō) is a single-portion takeout or home-packed meal common in Japanese cuisine. A traditional bento consists of rice, fish or meat, and one or more pickled or cooked vegetables as a side dish. Containers range from disposable mass produced to hand crafted lacquerware. Although bento are easily available in many places throughout Japan, including convenience stores, bento shops (弁当屋, bentō-ya), train stations, and department stores, it is still common for Japanese homemakers to spend considerable time and energy producing an appealing boxed lunch.

Bento can be very elaborately arranged. Contests are often held where homemakers can compete for the most aesthetically pleasing arrangements. The food is often decorated to look like people, animals, or characters and items such as flowers and plants. This style of elaborate bento is called kyaraben.

That is a bit dry to read, so I will illustrate with a couple of examples taken from the internet:


There are some fantastic and delicious-looking lunches on sites like LiveJournal, Just Bento, Lunch-in-a-Box, and others.

It has become very apparent over recent months that my lunchtime eating habits are atrocious. I am disorganised, don't buy anything in advance, and end up eating expensive and unhealthy sandwiches and junk food purchased from the dairy round the corner. So I have gone out and bought my own bento box (Hello Kitty! It's pink! And sparkly!) and intend putting it to good use.

How cute is this for a lunchbox?


Here's my first attempt at putting lunch into it. Our kitchen is a mess at the moment and I'm not doing any cooking in it today, but I think I did pretty well (although not at all Japanese style) with what was in the fridge and cupboards.

Top layer - six cheese and poppy seed crackers, soft cheese triangles, and cherry tomatoes.
Left layer - mandarin orange halves, cherry tomatoes, ham, grapes, and blueberries.
Right layer - mixed salad leaves, red pepper, sliced radishes, some sort of green sprouting things, and salad dressing which came in the same pack as the salad leaves and green sprouting things.

I haven't a clue if I will find this lot filling or not. The box holds a lot of food, but I've put mostly fruit and salad into it, so I could end up ravenous or happily sated. I'll find out tomorrow lunchtime!

Slow cookers

When we got married about 18 months ago, one of the presents that Skry and I received was a slow cooker. I can't remember where I got the idea of putting one on our wedding list, as I can't think of anyone else I knew at the time who had one, but it was a very welcome gift and we have got lots of use out of it.

The beauty of the slow cooker is that is can be left on overnight, or all day while I'm at work, without using up much electricity at all (about the same as a light bulb, I believe) and without requiring any attention. It's so nice to come home from work and smell dinner ready to eat, or to come downstairs in the morning and have a hot lunch ready to pack up and take to work. Since we moved into our new place in Christchurch I have used ours quite a few times, and our friend Don (who is staying here at the moment) also bought one and uses it often. We are all very domesticated, aren't we?

My favourite recipe at the moment is extremely simple:

• one tin of creamy tomato soup (the dreaded Wattie's brand, but more tolerable than their tomato sauce)
• two chicken breast fillets
• sliced carrots and potato and onion if I can be bothered
  

1. Switch on slow cooker.
2. Place chicken (on top of veggies if using) in base of pot.
3. Pour soup over chicken.
4. Replace lid on pot.
5. Leave for 7 or 8 hours.
6. Wake up/return from work to find lovely tender chicken in a thick tomato sauce, ready to be eaten with mashed potato or chips.

Don has being getting very creative with sausage and vegetables, so I think I'll copy him soon. Maybe chuck in some lentils - there are some great ideas on allrecipes.com so I just need to go shopping and then do my Nigella routine. Now that the nights are drawing in and the colder weather is somewhere around the corner, it'll be good to have a store of comfort-food ideas to see me through!