Bento: Time saving tips for creative lunches

You are what you eat,” or they say. Around our home we eat very little meat. Actually, my husband eats more than his fair share, but my daughters and I are vegetarian. Before our eldest daughter was born, my husband and I decided that we would raise our children as vegetarian. We would, of course, allow them to sample meat after they’d gone through puberty. One of the reasons we planned for the girls grow up as vegetarians, was that we believed it was important to avoid the many chemicals, pesticides, hormones and fillers in processed food. So, we began our adventure to provide our children with the best quality food possible.

The first step in this quest for healthy food began with baby food for our eldest daughter, Chicka Rose. Rather than rushing out to the nearest local grocery for baby food, we rushed into our kitchen and made our own. It was easy! The first food was a smashed avocado.

Avocado baby food (in three easy steps):

Step 1: Take a ripe avocado slice it in two

Step 2: Scoop out 1/2 a ripe avocado and mash with fork

Step 3: Add baby spoon and serve to your little one

 

Then, as our children grew so did their palates. We added foods, textures, and flavors by blending, pureeing, and mashing different fruits and vegetables. We were surprised at the simplicity of it all. It was almost as easy as opening a jar of baby food. Best of all, we were able to rest easily knowing our children were eating the very best.

Providing our girls with the best quality, healthy food became more difficult as the girls grew. They became picky eaters. Chicka Rose, would eat veggie chicken nuggets at every meal, if she was given the opportunity. Our younger daughter, Munka Moo, carefully picked through her food making sure there were no onions, cooked mushrooms, spicy foods, etc. before thinking about taking a bite.

What could we do? Was it time to surrender to daily lunches of peanut butter & jelly? Quick! Pop open that bag of chips or grab a Lunchable for each girl on the way out the door? Gotta admit, we tried convenience foods, such a Lunchables, but couldn’t shake the tugging twinge that we were feeding our girls the chemicals, fillers, and other junk that we had so tried to avoid.

Sooo, we made a decision that junk food type lunches weren’t going to be our girls’ midday staple lunches. Then, we began to provide healthy, well-balanced, fun, cute lunches by embracing bento.

Bento is defined “as a meal usually served in an elaborately decorated box that is divided into sections for holding individual portions of food.”

There are many different types of bento. The most popular form of bento in the U.S. is character/artistic/cute bento. This form of bento can be highly competitive and is often seen on Pinterest, but also can be used to simply create a pretty lunch that appeals to your child’s personality while encouraging them to eat more healthily. And no, the bentos don’t all need to contain Japanese food.

In fact, I don’t believe any of mine have ever contained Japanese food. I can just see my daughters’ looks of dismay if all I packed were Japanese lunches. Bento would be over, in our home! Instead, I pack sandwiches, kabobs, supper leftovers, and more in our bentos.

Amazingly, the bentos have helped to continue widening our daughter’s palates. The pickiness has decreased and our girls regularly talk about how much they ate during lunch and how much they enjoyed it. “I ate all the butterfly watermelon,” or “I didn’t quite make it to my ants on a log.”

Needless to say, making Bento lunches successfully met our goals head-on. The added bonus was that creating and packing bento lunch was almost as easy and quick as packing a regular sack lunch (especially once we had the right supplies.

One of the basic bento supplies is the bento box. Since I am a busy Momma, I don’t get wrapped up in the competitive nature of bento, but I do love the attractiveness the bento food presentation and even the cuteness bento boxes. Chicka Rose has a frog bento box as well as a Thomas the Train bento box. Munka Moo is hoping that we will buy a Frozen bento box this year for her school lunches. She’s obsessed with Frozen almost as much as she loved Dora and Diego. I suspect I’ll definitely be looking for a Frozen bento box soon after school begins.

Please know, deciding to bento doesn’t mean that you have to purchase a special lunchbox to match. But I’ve enjoyed doing so, but it isn’t required at all to bento. So, if you decide to stick to simpler lunch boxes: TagAlong Rectangle divided boxes are a perfect option for as are Rubbermaid Lunch Blox.

And you can bento with no supplies, although it may be harder and more time-consuming. I’ve done it, as have most parents who are just beginning to bento. So if you are tempted to try Bento, here are some of the accessories you may want to look into:

1)Silicone muffin cups and mini muffin cups

2)Sandwich cutters and stampers

3)Containers for condiments, yogurt, and other semi-liquids

4)Fruit Vegetable Cutters

5) Character Picks

Once I had built up my tool stash, I began working on how to best streamline my bento creation. Some days were more efficient than others, but the most useful tips that I’ve heard and semi-practiced are:

Meal & theme planning. During the school year, I plan my meals monthly. In the summer, this often slacks off so I only plan weekly. Planning my meals includes planning out my bentos themes and necessary ingredients too. Planning these lunches out ahead of time saves money, and time. I’m not as likely to be scrounging for a side for one of my bentos if I know what I’m doing beforehand. Regularly, my girls get re-purposed leftovers in their lunches. This can be as simple as molding into a cute form, or even changing its format all together.

For instance risotto can almost pasta like at supper, and easily turned into risotto mini patties for your lunch that are fried up the night before as I clean up my suppers leftovers.

Take an inventory of your freezer/refrigerator: If you have can make a running list of the available produce and items contained in your refrigerator, cabinets, and freezer.

I’d love to tell you I’m organized enough to produce a list of all the available food in my house. I’m not! Once upon a time, before children, I had just that list in a neat folder ready to be viewed by any interested party. Yes, that was definitely, B.C. (before children). Since I’ve had children, it’s been a dream of mine to get organized enough to recreate that list. I have no doubt, it would make bento creation, and all meal creation much easier. I’d know exactly what I needed to buy at the grocery store. I’d never be scrounging last-minute for a side for my daughters’ bentos, or suppers. I can hardly wait to achieve this goal again. And I have no doubt that it would infinitely ease the bento creation process.

Just remember to make your list and check it twice, bento Santa.

Pack/prep ahead: This sounds difficult, but really isn’t. All you really need to do is pack up leftovers cutely rather than dumping them into Tupperware (or glassware) and putting them into the refrigerator. And the other component of this is, when you meal plan (assuming you did, this week) then prepare the ingredients you’ll need for the lunches for the week over the weekend or in a moment of free time.

AND

I don’t always manage to complete this task either. But when I do, I let my girls help by cutting produce with a butter knife. It’s good practice for them and there’s no danger of them getting cut in the process. Then, as Chicka Rose is doing, I (or my children) put the cut produce into a Tupperware container to wait its turn in the bento lunch plan.

 I try to come up with multiple ingredients that can be used a variety of ways so that my child isn’t having the same lunch every day at school. For instance, hummus can be used as a dip for your child’s fresh veggies in one lunch and as a spread on a pita or sandwich for another one. Flour tortillas are another ingredient that can be easily reused. They can be baked to turn them into chips. They can be rolled and cut to create pin wheel type sandwiches, or they can be used to make a quesadilla! This is one tip that I actually do practice regularly and it truly cuts down on the amount that we spend at the grocery.

Buy in bulk! Not only does the buying in bulk ensure that we have the items available for lunches, but it saves us money too. As a stay at home momma, I’m all about saving money! So go ahead and purchase a large amount of non-perishable food for bento lunches. Dried fruit, nuts, crackers, ingredients for things you’ll make from scratch, juice packets to turn water and into a variety of lovely flavors are all our favorites for bulk purchases.

Use your helper: Let your child join in the fun! Little ones can make kabobs out of cut up fruit or picking out fruits/veggies or even themes they’d like in their lunches.

My girls usually pick out 2-3 items for each of their lunches and often help assemble the lunches too.

Add color-carrots, cherry tomatoes, cheese cubes, and grapes brighten up any bento!

If you buy prepared foods for the bento buy appetizers. They’ll fit and are the perfectly proportioned for the bento lunches. Mini quiches, mini pizzas, organic meat balls are just a few examples of appetizers that would be great main dishes in a bento. These foods definitely make bento making easier and can easily be found in organic versions. And they are yummy! Best of all who doesn’t like cold pizza?

But do remember to stay away from foods that need to be heated. Most children won’t have access to a microwave.

If only the lunchbox sized microwave I created during a junior inventors fair had won (back in the 1980s). If it had, I’d not have to remember not to include foods that tastes better heated. Alas, it only got honorable mention so please try to choose foods that tastes good at room temperature or cold.

And, try to make the lunches as colorful as possible. I love rainbows and so do my children. So when I add a variety of colorful fruits and vegetables to each bento, I enjoy knowing I am making my daughters their own personal rainbows. An added bonus, the more colorful each of these rainbows is the better they are for my daughters, nutritionally.

Now just a few more bento tidbits/suggestions:

Don’t get stuck in a lunchbox rut: Instead, repackage old ideas in new ways! Sandwiches on a stick as a kabob may get eaten better than just a cookie cutter sandwich. Or go with the pin wheel idea and roll up a tortilla. Or think further outside the box and use mini waffles for your sandwich bread. The sky is the limit with bento and it’s fun!

Truthfully, I always feel accomplished and proud of my daughter’s cute bento lunches. And,why not? They definitely deserve an Attagirl! Healthy food presented in a fun, healthy way should be something to be proud of, don’t you think?

And no, I don’t slave over these bento lunches. Most of my cute bentos can be fully assembled in 10-15 minutes.

So join me in the bento lunch realm, won’t you? As you do, enjoy yourself, let your children join in, and remember to keep it simple!

Good luck, and welcome to the bento lunch world! It’s a great way to show your love to your children through their lunches.

Dusty Dara