Friday, September 12, 2008

Bentos

This summer is the first time I've been spending the majority of my time at a 9-5 job. I work right on Santa Monica's 3rd Street Promenade, which is full of shops and tempting food. Eating out every day can really put a strain on your diet and wallet. I balanced eating out at healthy places with bringing my lunch.

I love bento! It is really fun to try to make a lunch from home exciting to eat. Nine times out of ten, in a match between a packed lunch and a bought lunch, the bought lunch wins. But bento makes me excited to eat a yummy, cute, nutritious lunch.

I use lots of leftovers and some frozen food in my bento to minimize time. Egg molds, cute bento boxes, and fresh ingredients with lots of color makes the lunch more exciting.

Here are some lunches that I made recently:



Chicken milanesa, fried rice, grilled zucchini and tomato, fruit mooncake
This was a leftover bento, from my restaurant lunch the day before. I sliced up the leftover chicken milanesa to go on top of fried rice. The grilled zucchini is from the restaurant; I combined it with some tomato that I grilled at home. The mooncake is a new kind that I bought at a Chinese bakery, a fruity apple flavor instead of the traditional nuttier or bean flavors.

Soy burgers on wheat bread, diced watermelon, carrot sticks with peanut butter, little package of cheddar
This was a delicious and nutritious lunch. I grilled up a frozen soy burger from the freezer section of the grocery store, and cut up watermelon and carrots.

Fried rice onigiri on bed of lettuce, eggs and tomato and corn, steamed green beans

The fried rice and eggs are leftover dishes. I prepared the veggies in the morning and this was ready to go!


I recently bought new bento accessories, so expect to see those soon!!

2 comments:

pureed lemming said...

This is splendorifically nerdy and cute!! The pictures are so pleasing to my eye :>

much love,

your avid fan/Kim Sam Soon slash Kim Sam Soon look-alike.

p.s. since I resemble so much like the main character in your favorite korean drama, perhaps you should make me some tasties because, y'know, I'm sort of your inspiration. Pahaha! Jay Kay. :-*

Cat said...

yules,
I will continue the KSS series... maybe with the oat cake next? hehe!