Ice Cream & Bacon Bento

This bento is themed on two of my favorite foods, ice cream and bacon!

Contents

Bacon & Asparagus Roll-Ups: Just wrap steamed asparagus spears in bacon. Yummy!

Velveeta-Wrapped Bacon: I've been meaning to try this new Kraft product.

Red Jawbreaker with Seaweed Snack Star: This gave me a chance to use my star cookie cutter. Didn't work too well, actually.

Cauliflower Floret with Weevils: A concession to nutrition. I probably won't eat it.

ICE CREAM with Chocolate Sprinkles!!: This gives me a chance to try out my half frozen/half warm bento box! Hope it doesn't melt.

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Hummus & Dippers Bento

As I said on my Omaha Walks blog, hummus definitely makes everything taste better. Here's a bento with hummus and lots of stuff to dip in it.

Contents

Medium Container Hummus

Whole Wheat Pita: Cut it into wedges with a pizza cutter.

Medium Container Veggies: I like to include baby carrots, cucumber slices, broccoli florets, and mini sweet peppers.

Medium Container Roasted Baby Potatoes: Cut 4 baby red potatoes into quarters and put them in a baking dish. Drizzle a little olive oil over them and sprinkle them with salt. Bake them at 400 degrees for 30 minutes.

Mini Bag Pretzels: You can get an 8-pack of these at Dollar Tree for a buck.

Clementine: Or 2 mini mandarins, as shown in the picture.

Mini Container Dark Chocolate Covered Cashews: Look in your supermarket's bulk section for these.

Garden Veggie Bento

This bento has a fresh veggies from the garden theme.

Contents:

Chicken Salad Sandwich on a Whole Wheat Sandwich Flat: I like to make my chicken salad with a can of chunk white chicken, diced celery, chopped walnuts, mayonnaise, and dijon mustard.

Spinach, Bacon & Egg Salad: This is similar to a salad I remember my mom making in the summertime. I fry 2 strips of bacon and boil one egg. I make the salad from fresh spinach, sliced mushrooms, sliced hardboiled egg, and crumbled bacon. I make the dressing by adding a little cider vinegar, a little sugar, and a little pepper to the leftover bacon grease. This goes on the salad and wilts the spinach.

Sliced Tomato Salad: This is my own take on a salad I like to have at Wheatfields. It's sliced tomatoes topped with shredded Swiss cheese, chopped fresh chives, sweet onion dressing, and sunflower seeds. Unfortunately, the picture here doesn't do it justice. It's really a lot better than it looks, folks.

Small Container Assorted Garden Veggies for Dipping: This includes scallions, radishes, baby carrots, and red bell pepper strips. This brings back memories of my dad's garden, where radishes and scallions were always the first to be harvested.

Mini Container Dill Veggie Dip: Or whatever dip I can get a deal on. In the picture, it's French Onion.

Small Container Strawberry Shortcake: This is a mini confetti cake from Walmart (only 50¢!) topped with glazed strawberries (slice some strawberries in a bowl, add sugar, and let them sit in the fridge for about an hour or so, stirring occasionally--this results in a glaze forming on the strawberries) and aerosol whipped cream. I've discovered that the whipped cream does not travel well, so now I just bring the can with me in my lunch bag.

Kosher Bento

NOTE: This bento makes no claims to be genuinely kosher, as I am not even Jewish. It is just based on the theme of the sort of stuff one might get at a kosher deli.

Contents:

Medium Container Egg Salad: I make my egg salad with 4 hard boiled eggs, some diced roasted red peppers from a jar, some mayonnaise, and some dijon mustard.

4 Wasa Crispbreads: These went in a Ziploc bag, which was placed on top of the other closed containers before the box was closed.

Small Container Lox

Mini Container Spreadable Cream Cheese: You can now get spreadable cream cheese at Dollar Tree!

Mini Container Capers: This had to ride shotgun.

Small Container Cucumber Slices: This time, I just peeled a mini cucumber and included it whole.

Mini Container Ranch Dressing: For dipping the cucumber in.

Kosher Dill Gherkin

Clementine: Or 2 mini mandarins, as in the picture.

Mini Container Dark Chocolate Covered Almonds: I just included a single-serve Brookside packet.

French Dip Bento

This bento has a slightly French theme (yes, I know that a French Dip Sandwich is not really French; that's why I said "slightly").

Contents

French Dip Sandwich: This is deli roast beef with horseradish cream sauce on a whole wheat mini bagel spread with mayonnaise. These are small, so I usually include two.

Mini Container Beef Consomme: From a can. For dipping the sandwich in; that's why they call it a "dip" (stop that snickering!).

Medium Container Steamed Green Beans in Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing: Steam the green beans for about 10 minutes. Here's the recipe for the vinaigrette dressing.

Small Container Baby Carrots

Mini Container Dijonnaise: That's just Dijon mustard and mayonnaise mixed together, for you puzzled Brits. For dipping the carrots in.

Brie Wedge

Cornichon: That's a French word for "kosher dill gherkin".

Small Container Grapes: AKA raw wine, for you raw-food fanatics.

Gingerbread Muffin: I ended up not liking this as much as I thought I would, so in future, I'm replacing it with a French pastry from the Most Interesting Convenience Store in Omaha.

Creative Sushi Bento

This bento is based on the concept that I got from Pinterest that you can make "sushi" from flattened bread and fillings, rolled up and sliced. These are basically based upon regular sandwiches, but making them sushi-style is a twist that I find to be quite tasty and fun to eat.

This bento is "creative" in the sense that I came up with a bunch of different "sushis" that you can mix and match to make the bento. I haven't tried all of them yet, but here they are, to give you ideas. The bento in the picture has Egg Salad Sushi, Indian Curry Sushi, Smoked Salmon & Cream Cheese Sushi, and Pistachio Chocolate Banana Sushi.

Contents

Choose 3 main dish sushis and one dessert sushi to make for this bento.

How to Make Creative Sushi

1. If using regular bread, remove the crust from the bread and flatten it with a rolling pin (or you can use an unopened can of something if you don't have a rolling pin handy). After you flatten the slice, pick it up off your work surface before adding fillings, to make sure it doesn't stick to the surface and be difficult to roll. Lay the bread landscape-style on your work surface.
2. If your filling is a spread, spread it on the bread. If it's flat and thin, like deli meat, just lay some on the bread. If it's not flat, than arrange some on the bottom third of the bread. Less is more with the fillings.
3. Roll the bread slice up so that it is seam-side down. Take a sharp knife and cut it into four slices (this is for a regular slice of bread; if using a tortilla or some other flatbreads, it will be longer and you can cut more slices).
4. Lay the slices cut side up in your bento container. Now you have sushi!

Main Dish Sushi

Egg Salad Sushi: Make some simple egg salad with chopped hard boiled eggs, mayonnaise and dijon mustard. Put it in flattened rye bread with some cucumber strips and shredded carrots.

Indian Curry Sushi: Mix a drained can of chunk chicken with some mayonnaise and a little bit of curry powder. Put it in whole wheat naan with some cucumber strips and shredded carrots. When I tried this, I had trouble rolling the naan, so next time I will try flattening it first.

Mexican Sushi: Spread some soft cream cheese on a whole wheat tortilla. Add some salsa along the bottom third, along with some avocado strips and chopped green onions. This can be cut into 8 pieces, instead of 4.

Smoked Salmon & Cream Cheese Sushi: Spread flattened rye bread with soft cream cheese. Add Chicken of the Sea Smoked Salmon, from a pouch, avocado strips, and cucumber strips.

Tuna Salad Sushi: Mix some canned tuna with mayonnaise and a little dijon mustard. Put this on flattened whole wheat bread, along with cucumber strips and shredded carrots.

Dessert Sushi

Berry Crepe Sushi: Get some pre-made crepes from the deli or produce department of a supermarket. Spread a crepe with strawberry cream cheese and arrange some raspberries and blackberries on the lower third.

Lemon Raspberry Crepe Sushi: Spread a crepe with lemon curd and add raspberries.

Melon Raspberry Spring Rolls: Dip a spring roll wrapper in water to soften it, then fill it with cantaloupe and watermelon strips and raspberries. This doesn't get sliced; it's just a spring roll.

Pistachio Chocolate Banana Sushi: Follow the link for the recipe.