Had to get creative for this one! Out of cooked rice, no dinner leftovers… I did manage to keep it vegetarian.
So I broke into to the backpacking food stash and quickly made some plain couscous. I had some leftover veggies and garbanzoes, so I tossed those with Trader Joes yellow curry sauce. One boiled egg left, half and apple and a kiwi.
Whew! Time to restock the fridge!
It’s time to go grocery shopping! This was pulled together with what I had in the fridge.
Left-to-right: More of the daikon pickles, pickled ginger, tomago, cucumber-wasabi rolls, spam-avocado maki rolls.
There is soy sauce in my desk at work. Fruit! We’re out of fruit! I must remedy that stat!
Originally uploaded by dicentragirl
This took about 8 minutes, start to finish.
Rice with teriyaki furikake. This would have been a vegetarian bento, but there is fish in the furikake.
On the right: squash balls, quails eggs, carrots, heirloom cherry tomatoes, snow peas and quick daikon pickle.
No theme today, just pulling out whatever is in the fridge. It’s pretty though, isn’t it? And vegetarian!
That’s one of my New Years resolutions. Eat more vegetarian and vegan meals. Lunch is the perfect opportunity since I don’t have to share… bring on the quinoa! The chickpeas! The tofu! And mushrooms. Lots and lots of mushrooms… Nom! But I digress… Back to the box.
On the left: raspberries, baked savory tofu, heirloom cherry tomatoes, quails eggs and squash balls (based on this recipe)
On the right: yellow bell pepper and rice squares
I also have some banana yogurt and sliced kiwi for breakfast.
And since so many people have asked how long it takes to put my bento lunches together, I timed myself this morning. This box took 16 minutes, which includes getting everything out of the fridge, slicing veggies, packing the lunch, putting everything away and cleaning up.
Originally uploaded by dicentragirl
On the left: seaweed salad, quail eggs and grape tomatoes.
On the right: maki rolls with krab, egg and cucumber.
Doesn’t get much easier than this. Re-worked dinner leftovers!
I had leftover steamed cauliflower, so I tossed that with some frozen peas, garbanzo beans and a big drizzle of curry sauce from a jar (Trader Joes).
I managed to go vegan again with lunch today. Bonus!
Also in the box: rice, grape tomatoes, cucumber. The raspberries and pineapple are breakfast. RASPBERRIES! Fresh (nice looking!) raspberries in December! Yay! There’s also a couple of mini pitas and two gourmet chocolates for dessert.
I’m looking forward to lunch today. 
Originally uploaded by dicentragirl
Oh yes. Another box. I still haven’t shown you the other two I bought for myself for giftmas!
They had some really pretty family/picnic sized ones… I promised the kidling we’d come back and get one of those for this summer. It would be really fun to take a bento to the beach. We do a lot of picnics at the beach in the summer anyway.
I didn’t intentionally do a vegan bento, but I’m pleased it turned out that way. In today’s box:
Red container – mushrooms stir fried in sesame oil.
Yellow – onigiri with sesame-salt furikake and snow peas
Purple – heirloom cherry tomatoes, onigiri
Green – baked savory-flavor tofu, steamed bok choy
I also stuck in a jelly candy and a couple of containers of soy sauce. I am going to be eating a ton of those jellys. I bought a HUGE variety container of them (for just under $3). The lichi flavor is especially yummy.
Other stuff I managed to find at H-mart:
lots of veggies, tofu skins for inarizushi, two kinds of kimchi, seaweed salad, hijiki, fish balls, furikake, canned pork curry (it was good!) chopsticks and a bunch of various dim-sum to stock my freezer with.
I took a lot of time shopping (like over 2 hours) and it was sample day, so the kid stayed happy too. I’m am very pleased with myself that I am beginning to recognize some of these “strange” ingredients and know how to prepare them. The kid did want me to buy chicken feet. I had to say no to that one…
Look at the cute little bunnies!
I got this box at Daiso last weekend when we were visiting Santa and doing giftmas shopping at the mall. I also picked up two other boxes and a few more bento toys too – rice shapers and cutters. Fun!
Today’s bento is the same as yesterday’s. Rice with salmon furikake, pork chops in bbq sauce, carrots, pineapple and pomegranite. I included an apple today because eventhough the content is the same, the portions are a tad smaller.
Yesterday’s Bento. I basically raided the fridge and tried to put something interesting together…
There is pork chops in bbq sauce, onigiri with vegetable furikake, pineapple and pomegranite, carrots and a small container of green goddess dressing for dipping.
It looks like a tiny lunch, but it was just the right amount of food and I was appropriately hungry for dinner.
Hey! It’s vegan too! I didn’t even do that on purpose. Bonus.
I’ve been wanting to do a Greek-themed bento for a long time now. The only thing it is missing is some pita bread. Oh well.
Dolmates from the deli, hummus from a mix, olives, grapes, pineapple and veggies. Yummy lunch!
One Pan Wonders – Blog
