Pasta Salad with Honey Mustard Dressing

Here's a lunch that I made with various things that were in my nearly-empty refrigerator.

Starting from the left, this bento contains leftover egg noodles, cucumber slices, herbed goat cheese, apple chunks, grapes, onions, and homemade honey mustard dressing. When I ate this bento, I mixed everything together and squirted honey mustard dressing on everything. My honey mustard dressing is a little darker than the average honey mustard dressing because I used local organic wildflower honey in my dressing.

Honey Mustard Dressing
1 part mayonnaise
1 part mustard
1 part honey
Mix well. Adjust to taste.

Salad and Mac & Cheese

School has just started now where I live, and I've been pretty busy. Here's a bento that I put together last week.

On the left, we have four homemade meatballs, a cup of homemade mac & cheese, leftover sauteed zucchini, and a small piggy-shaped sauce bottle with Italian dressing. On the right, we have a simple salad, with romaine hearts and home-grown bell peppers.

Believe it or not, all the bell pepper - red and green- is from the same pepper. Our bell pepper plant tends to produce peppers that don't completely turn red. In this case, most of the pepper was green, with just a tiny bit of red.

The mac & cheese was something that I threw together just for this bento. I whisked together one creamy cheese wedge with about a tablespoon of milk until it was no longer clumpy. I also added a pinch of spicy Hungarian paprika to liven this mac & cheese up. I combined the cheese sauce and some leftover noodles in a silicone cup, sprinkled some shredded cheese on top, and then baked it in my toaster oven for a few minutes.

Biscuits and Meatballs Bento

Here's a bento that I made a while ago.

On the left, we have some sliced up leftover biscuits. On the right, separated by several pieces of reusable silicone baran, we have some meatballs, bell pepper slices, and cucumber slices. Almonds also appear in this simple bento, filling the gaps between meatballs.

If you take a closer look at the cucumbers, you'll notice that they are sliced in an odd way. I used this crinkle-cutting tool to achieve that effect. The crinkle-cutting tool is very easy to use, and feels very sturdy.

Teriyaki Meatballs with Pineapple Chunks Bento

Here's a bento that I made a while ago from dinner leftovers.

The meal that this was based off was Teriyaki Pineapple kabobs, so here we have some teriyaki pineapple meatballs, grilled onions, grilled bell peppers, and grilled pineapple chunks. I added some rice with a pineapple-shaped cheese cutout.
The Teriyaki & Pineapple Meatballs are from Aidells. They are very juicy and flavorful!

Crepes and Smoked Ham Bento

Here's a bento from a while back, using up some leftovers.

On the left side of the bento are two crepes and a few hidden slices of smoked ham, cut to fit the divider box. The scraps are on top of the crepes as a decoration.
On the right side are some baby carrots, trail mix, and cheesy corn.

This was a very easy lunch to make. Pretty much everything came from leftovers. I only had to assemble and cook the cheesy corn. The crepes were leftovers from breakfast. The recipe is from the big Betty Crocker cookbook.

Middle Eastern Inspired Bento with Lamb Meatballs

Long time no blog! I'm back with a great bento from the archives.

The main piece of this bento contains several (3, if I remember correctly) chopped up lamb meatballs, recipe courtesy of Sunset magazine. They made a great dinner, and an equally great lunch. I had to chop them up so they would fit in the box.

The rest of the box contains a checkered apple slice, green bell pepper, some sort of mixed whole grain rice blend, random basil leaves as a space filler, and homemade hummus.

Never heard of hummus? It's a Middle Eastern dip of sorts made from chickpeas/garbanzo beans and olive oil. My version of hummus is very easy, and can be made in your food processor.

Quick and Easy Hummus
1 can garbanzo beans, drained
Extra virgin olive oil
1-2 cloves garlic, minced (fresh is preferred, but I've used garlic salt or garlic powder in a pinch)
1 tsp or so lemon juice
Sumac (Bitter dark red spice. It may be found in the ethnic isle of some larger supermarkets. I buy mine from the local Persian market.)
Cumin (Another spice. This one is a lot easier to find. Trader Joe's has this for a decent price)
Salt, to taste

This is very much a recipe that needs to be tasted quite a lot.
Put drained garbanzo beans in food processor with 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil. Combine, adding olive oil and tasting every so often until you get a consistency that is relatively smooth, no chunks of garbanzo beans. You can add more olive oil as you wish, but I usually make my hummus pretty thick, so it can hold up well in the bento.
Add the garlic, lemon juice, sumac, and cumin, and combine them. You could leave out any of these, the most important ingredients are the garbanzo beans and olive oil. Taste, and add more of these as needed.
Add a sprinkle of salt or two as needed.
To serve the hummus (not in a bento), scoop out some hummus and place in the desired container. Use a spoon to make a small well in the hummus. Drizzle olive oil on top. Add a pinch or two of the sumac, cumin, or salt if desired.

To pack the hummus in a bento, I use some of that Press N Seal stuff to cover the top, or at the very least, some wax paper on top. If you have any of that clear plastic baran, that would work just as well as the wax paper.

Carnitas Taco Bento

This bento is a deconstructed taco bento.

 In the upper left of the bento box is some homemade carnitas, or Mexican pulled pork. We made the carnitas in the slow cooker. There's two different colors of bell peppers, some avocado, some onions, and some Monterey jalapeño jack cheese. The avocado doesn't look the best (it really needed to be used up) but still tasted fine.

I also packed three little tortillas for my tacos. They're a corn-wheat blend, which has a nice texture.

Bento with Chard

It's getting about to the time when my family rips out our winter garden and starts planting the summer garden. We planted lots of Swiss chard last fall, so it is in no short supply now.

This bento has white rice with furikake, the infamous chard, thinly sliced salted cucumbers, and some homemade meatballs.
Furikake is a sort of topping that you put on your rice. This furikake contains seaweed, sesame seeds, sugar, and salt. I picked this up from the local Asian grocery store.
The chard is sauteed in olive oil with some garlic.

Tulip Bento

This is a little bento that I made the other day. I'd started experimenting with making little pictures in Jello.

The top tier of my bento box has a checkered apple slice, green bell pepper, roasted cauliflower, dried cranberries, some random mixed nuts, and a little container of Jello with a tulip decoration made out of apple and cucumber skin.

The bottom tier of my bento box isn't quite as cute, but it still tasted amazing. I have some homemade meatloaf. Underneath the meatloaf, there is some pasta. I put one of the noodles on top for the picture so you could see what I used.

Another view of my cute bento.

Horse Bento

This is a simple bento with a special cheese cutout!

Starting from the top, this bento has green bell peppers, leftover chicken strips, leftover carrots and onions Lyonnaise, leftover pasta, and a cheddar cheese cutout in the shape of a horse.
This little cutout was one of the more challenging cutouts I've made. Because I draw the templates for most of my cheese cutouts, this drawing took a bit longer. Even though this cutout didn't require lots and lots of tiny little detail work, there's a lot of little areas that need extra attention. This cutout also has an inside cut near the horse's neck. which isn't something I've ever done before.

Easter Bento with Pho Salad

This cute bento has Vietnamese pho noodles!

Under the giant cheese (cheddar and swiss) Easter egg, there are pho noodles. I also have jalapeño pepper slices to the right of the pho. In the little pink cup is chicken and peas. I have some herb salad mix, balsamic salad dressing in the little piggy, and a lime.

Not familiar with pho? Pho is a Vietnamese soup, with thick, flat rice noodles. Most of my bento is leftovers from a "make your own pho soup" dinner. Soup doesn't pack well in this bento box, so I made the pho into a salad.

Reptile Bento with Pasta

This is a simple reptile-themed bento that I made to practice my cheese figures.

This Bento has a cheese turtle and a cheese snake on a bed of penne pasta. Also in this bento are leftover carnitas (Mexican pulled pork) and cucumbers. In the cute little tomato bottle is salsa dressing.
I've tried to practice as much as I can with the little cheese figures. I've gotten better at carving the figures. I actually use a double-ended grapefruit knife to cut them. It has really small blades that help with detail.

Spring-themed Bento

Spring is finally here, and we've actually had some rain! The first big storms of the year, or of the colder half of the year, really, are here! To celebrate the end of the dryness, I made a cutesy little Spring-themed bento.

This bento has a cheddar cheese bunny and a cheddar cheese flower (both hand-cut, no cookie cutter used) on a bed of chopped up naan bread. I also have two meatballs, crinkle cut cucumber slices, a mini orange, carrots and onions Lyonnaise, and some leftover cauliflower (it has a bit of cheese on it).
The naan bread is the same as the naan used as the crust in my pizza a few posts back.
I think I've gotten a bit better at cutting shapes out of cheese. No limbs have fallen off while making this bento! Practice has certainly helped me.

Pasta bento with Meatballs and a New Bento Box

This bento features a new bento box!

 In the top tier: bell pepper, cucumber, cheese, almonds, and some jalapeño chutney.

In the bottom tier: meatballs, homegrown organic snow peas, meatballs, and some pasta (hidden underneath it all).

This new bento box has two tiers: the top tier is 200 ml and the bottom tier is 300 ml.

Bird themed bento with cheese cutouts

I've been dabbling a little bit in making my bentos cuter. I wanted to make a bird themed bento, so I cut my own shapes out of sliced cheddar cheese.

This bento has the cheese birds on a bed of leftover noodles. Also in this bento are leftover carrots and onions Lyonnaise, leftover homemade meatballs, crinkle cut cucumber slices, two Medjool dates (stuffed with slivered almonds), and two spicy chili peppers
I cut the birds by hand. They were really annoying! This would have been so much easier if I had a cookie cutter to use. Instead, I drew out a template for the birds on scratch paper, cut it out, and used it as a guide for these cheese birds. The bird at the bottom was not cooperating at all; His legs fell off!

Lentil Bento with Sausage

This is a simple bento that I made the other day using only leftovers. I didn't have to cook anything new for this bento :)

 

From left to right: Crinkle-cut cucumber slices, leftover kielbasa slices, leftover carrots with marmalade, and leftover lentils (there's a little bit of cheese in there somewhere)

I have a special knife that makes crinkle cuts very easy :)

This was one of my fastest bentos ever. No cooking, no reheating, no cuteness, just a little bit of slicing and arranging.

Pretty spaghetti and meatballs

Most of the time, I don't add very much decoration to my bentos. Sure, they're organized in a way that makes them pleasing to look at, but I don't put cute faces on every rice ball or make cartoon characters out of seaweed. The simple approach also is a lot faster. But sometimes I want a little bit more decoration in my bento.

This bento has leftover spaghetti and meatballs for the main dish. I also included some jalapeño monterey jack cheese, a checkered apple slice, some cucumber slices, some baby carrots, some basil-infused olive oil for the spaghetti, and a little container of peach jello.
The jello is decorated with a grape flower with cucumber-peel decorations.
I felt like making jello for my bento, so I made up a quick batch, pouring it into various tiny containers. I used the regular directions, which worked OK, but I would recommend using the "jigglers" recipe. Not only would it be more sturdy and hold up better in transit (although this batch was sturdy enough most of the time), but the jiggler recipe makes less jello! For several weeks I've had jello, jello, and more jello! Because I'm the only one eating the jello, I wish I had made less!

Cornbread bento with sausage

This bento was basically all leftovers. I liked that I didn't have to make anything from scratch for this bento.

 

In this bento, clockwise from upper right: green bell pepper strips, leftover kielbasa sausage, leftover cornbread (freshly made from a boxed mix), Medjool dates, peanut butter granola bar, and spreadable cheese triangle.

The dates are one of my favorite parts of this bento. You can't see it in the picture, because I did a sneaky cutting job, but I removed the pit of the dates (there's two in there, stacked on top of each other) and stuffed the dates with slivered almonds. A bit of a surprise, biting into a date expecting a pit and finding almonds! Also, that is an easy way to get some more food in the bento without taking up much space.

The granola bar is cut into triangles because I needed something to fit that space so the contents of the bento wouldn't slide around. I ate the scraps of the granola bar as I was making my lunch :)

Pasta bento with random meatballs

I always have lots of homemade meatballs in my freezer, so I can pull out however many meatballs I need for my bento. No meat in the fridge? No problem! Meatballs to the rescue :)

 This bento has, clockwise from left, leftover pasta swirls (Maybe some kind of Fusilli?), homemade meatballs from the freezer, leftover veggie mix (peas, carrots, broccoli, and water chestnuts), and two chocolate coins.

This bento was very easy to make, with only four things. The little inner dividers that the box came with really helped make packing easy. While the meatballs were defrosting, I packed the rest of the box. The divider for the meatballs was a nice placeholder, so the meatballs didn't have to be ready to pack the rest of the bento snugly.

Pizza bento with a side salad

One night, I found myself looking at a nearly-empty fridge. There wasn't any leftovers besides some whole-wheat naan bread. I usually try to avoid making things from scratch for my bento, but this time I had to improvise if I wanted a nice lunch.

I made a little "pizza" with some naan bread as the crust. Naan is a type of Indian flatbread. I spread some tomato sauce on the naan, and added various shredded cheeses, pepperoni, and onions. I baked my "pizza" in the toaster oven until the cheese looked melted. I sprinkled some Parmesan cheese on top. The picture doesn't show that there are actually two layers of pizza in the bento box.

I also made a little side salad to eat alongside my little pizza. The salad is just some bagged lettuce, topped with cucumber slices and some feta cheese. The little container has some balsamic dressing for the salad.