hapa bento

Here we go… starting off 2012 with a relatively healthy bento: baked salmon, egg omelette, fried brown rice, and broccoli.  Embellishments include a sprig of kaiware (radish sprouts), black sesame seeds, nori, and beni shoga (pickled red ginger).

I consider this bento healthier than not because  I used sprouted brown rice,  just a dash of olive oil and low salt shoyu for the fried rice.  The two-egg omelette is missing one yolk.  And the mayo on the broccoli is made from grape seed oil.   The baked salmon is… um…baked!

Most of the ingredients are organic as well!

We try our very best to eat the better options, a practice that we abandoned during the holidays.  So now with the new year we are focused and ready tackle our cravings with smarter choices.

I hope to keep it up to at least through February.  Do you think we’ll make it? Ha ha!

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Summer is in session…finally.   Sunny skies and warmer temps have finally arrived in Seattle!

And you know what that means?  Correct.  Cold noodles for lunch!

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I have a new bento box— compliments of our friends from JaponMania!  They asked me to review their new “Keep Cool Palette” boxes and I of course I agreed.  As a bento-nerd, I love talking about anything that has to do with bento boxes, bento-gear and bento shopping!  Bring it on.

The  first thing you probably noticed is that I did a charaben or kyaraben.   I know, right?  It’s not my usual approach for packing lunches… I’ll tell you more about this along with a special JaponMania discount later in this post.

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Today’s lunch (really yesterday’s but I “ran out of Sunday” and didn’t post) is a speedy omelet bento.  Or shall we call it an “Omuben?” 

“Omelet Bento”…too long.

“Omuben”…easy to say and even simpler to pack!

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Every last Monday of the month, our twitter food-gang tweets out photos of a dish featuring the agreed-upon theme.   A #twitterfoodparty!

There are no hard rules and we participate for the pure joy of it.  Everyone is invited for our own purely selfish reasons… we want to see what you’re eating!

I was so excited about this month’s theme, hot-dogs, that I actually posted two dishes.   And I ended up packing the same for Saba Man’s lunch.

His bento is filled with lup cheong, a Chinese pork sausage—my choice for the hot-dog theme. Very oily, very fragrant, and very delicious!

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The stainless steel and yakisoba love continues with this holiday themed bento.

This one is not new but it is a favorite and I suspect if we counted, this box would win as The Most Featured Bento Box on this blog!

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Our carb-fest continues! 

You can make an omelet out of almost anything… why not an omu-chowmein?

Shoyu chicken and the last (for now) of the amber cup squash are perfect compliments.

And since it’s  near Halloween, I placed a token “Jack” cut from a watermelon radish.

Green onions and nori provides the finishing touch.

Chinese long beans are yummy!  And no need for special prep, peeling, or exotic seasoning!  Really.

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Shh…there’s an ingredient in this bento that Saba Man doesn’t care for.  Can you guess?

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I  have to sneak one more back-to-school bento on the blog before school officially begins!  And today’s bento features one of my favorite meals…noodles! Read the rest of this entry →

Today’s Back-to-School bento features a “no nonsense” approach to packing your child’s lunch.  No cuteness allowed?  No time to stock your “bento-stash”?  This bento style may help you.

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You can always tell when I’ve been shopping at Costco because I post repetitive bento boxes with  similar contents!  Read the rest of this entry →