Fast and Easy Everyday Bento Lunches
By Deborah Hamilton, Lunch in a Box
For lunch packing tips, as well as, more information about Deborah, visit her blog at:
http://lunchinabox.net/
Dubbed "the Rachael Ray of bento" by The Washington Post, Deborah Hamilton runs Lunch In A Box; an award-winning blog about making speedy bento-style packed lunches for her son. Fluent in Japanese, Deborah worked in Japan for nine years before moving to San Francisco. Too lazy to make intricate food art, Deborah (aka “Biggie”) uses tips and a trick found in Japanese bento cookbooks to speed up lunch prep, and applies them to her family's western kitchen and global diet. Her focus on fast, simple, balanced meals shows how packing lunches can help save money, encourage healthy eating, and be ecologically conscious while still being fun and playful.
It’s a new school year, and you’re excited for the year ahead but dreading one thing: packing lunches. How do you put together a variety of delicious, balanced meals that your kids will eat, without spending hours in the kitchen? We all get into lunch ruts where it seems easiest to reach for sandwich fixings, but with a few speed bento tricks you’ll be making them effortlessly.
Now when I say bento, you may have doubts. “Wait, aren’t bento lunches all crazy food art with hot dogs carved into little sculptures? I don’t have time for that!” Full-on food art is intimidating, but everyday bento lunches can be simple, fast, and doable over the long run. Just focus on incorporating a balanced variety of different foods arranged in an appealing way – this will tempt even the pickiest eater. My bento blog, Lunch in a Box focuses on tricks of the trade I’ve picked up from Japanese speed bento cookbooks. These are tricks I've used in making bento-style lunches, with world food, for my young son. Here are the basics to help you make simple and economical bentos that your kids will love.
Organize for Speed
* Keep all of your child’s lunch gear in one place, including extra containers, utensils, bags, and packing accessories, like food picks and silicone baking cups to use as dividers. If you like to make decorative food, keep all of your shaped cutters in one place. When it comes time to pack lunch, you’ll have everything you need at the ready without searching around the kitchen for just the right tool.
* Keep a “bento stash” on hand with easy frozen or prepackaged foods that you can grab and quickly throw into a bento lunch. I keep small baskets of these items in my pantry, refrigerator and freezer, with foods I’ve thought through earlier This makes morning packing a breeze. The refrigerator has a selection of pre-sliced vegetables, fruits, cheeses, and even homemade jello cups; the freezer holds frozen appetizers like crab cakes, mini quiches, dumplings, tamales, and seasoned rice balls. Good pantry items include pre-portioned servings of nuts or crackers.
* Package up individual servings of leftovers in small containers like baking cups, and freeze in batches. This makes it easy to include a variety of different foods in a meal, taking advantage of the time you’ve spent cooking earlier. When making rice, I package up single-serving portions of any excess and freeze. Just re-warm in the microwave or steamer to restore the texture before packing.
Cook for Speed
* You don’t need to make everything fresh in the morning to put together an appealing bento. I aim to make one new dish for a meal, with the remainder made up of leftovers and easy items like cherry tomatoes or wrapped cheeses.
* When making dinner, make extra to yield planned leftovers. To ensure that your family doesn’t eat up all of the extra food you’ve made, hold back planned leftovers in the kitchen and only serve your regular amount of food at the dinner table.
* If your child gets bored eating the same thing again and again, get creative by giving leftovers new life as “Leftover Remakes.” Leftover roast chicken becomes filling for a quesadilla, risotto becomes fried risotto cakes, and mashed potatoes become mini shepherd’s pies.
* Japanese bento cookbooks tout the time-saving technique of cooking multiple items simultaneously: in the microwave, toaster oven, frying pan, etc. This saves time and energy. The trick is to select foods that will cook well with the chosen method and to periodically check to see when they are fully cooked. (Don’t assume all dishes will be done at the same time).
Pack for Speed
* Once you’re organized and have a variety of foods on hand, the challenge is putting together a balanced lunch. I like to pack by color, including three to five different colored foods in a bento lunch: a green vegetable, a brown or white starch, a red fruit, etc. When you think in terms of natural food colors (“What’s my red or green for today?”), the nutritional balance happens effortlessly.
* Get a head start on the morning school rush by packing the next day’s lunch as you’re cleaning up from dinner, and store in the refrigerator overnight. Some foods do better when prepared fresh. I like to slice any fruit in the morning for maximum freshness, and warm up any rice I’ll be sending, to restore texture. (Cold rice is hard and nasty.) If you have the rest of the lunch packed and ready in the fridge, it’s simple to add the finishing touches in the morning.
Special Kids’ Issues
* Don’t over pack the lunch. Kids like to be able to finish a whole lunch in one sitting; you can do your part toward portion control by packing a manageable lunch in a small container.
* Don’t forget the fun! Kids especially respond to the fun aspect, and picky eaters are more likely to try foods presented in an appealing way. This can be as simple as adding cute food picks or other bento accessories, or including a little container of a dip for fresh fruits or vegetables (kids love dipping). For special occasions you can try your hand at food art where you sculpt faces or animals out of food, but don’t feel that you need to do this every day. You’ll burn yourself out!
By Deborah Hamilton, Lunch in a Box
For lunch packing tips, as well as, more information about Deborah, visit her blog at:
http://lunchinabox.net/
Dubbed "the Rachael Ray of bento" by The Washington Post, Deborah Hamilton runs Lunch In A Box; an award-winning blog about making speedy bento-style packed lunches for her son. Fluent in Japanese, Deborah worked in Japan for nine years before moving to San Francisco. Too lazy to make intricate food art, Deborah (aka “Biggie”) uses tips and a trick found in Japanese bento cookbooks to speed up lunch prep, and applies them to her family's western kitchen and global diet. Her focus on fast, simple, balanced meals shows how packing lunches can help save money, encourage healthy eating, and be ecologically conscious while still being fun and playful.
It’s a new school year, and you’re excited for the year ahead but dreading one thing: packing lunches. How do you put together a variety of delicious, balanced meals that your kids will eat, without spending hours in the kitchen? We all get into lunch ruts where it seems easiest to reach for sandwich fixings, but with a few speed bento tricks you’ll be making them effortlessly.
Now when I say bento, you may have doubts. “Wait, aren’t bento lunches all crazy food art with hot dogs carved into little sculptures? I don’t have time for that!” Full-on food art is intimidating, but everyday bento lunches can be simple, fast, and doable over the long run. Just focus on incorporating a balanced variety of different foods arranged in an appealing way – this will tempt even the pickiest eater. My bento blog, Lunch in a Box focuses on tricks of the trade I’ve picked up from Japanese speed bento cookbooks. These are tricks I've used in making bento-style lunches, with world food, for my young son. Here are the basics to help you make simple and economical bentos that your kids will love.
Organize for Speed
* Keep all of your child’s lunch gear in one place, including extra containers, utensils, bags, and packing accessories, like food picks and silicone baking cups to use as dividers. If you like to make decorative food, keep all of your shaped cutters in one place. When it comes time to pack lunch, you’ll have everything you need at the ready without searching around the kitchen for just the right tool.
* Keep a “bento stash” on hand with easy frozen or prepackaged foods that you can grab and quickly throw into a bento lunch. I keep small baskets of these items in my pantry, refrigerator and freezer, with foods I’ve thought through earlier This makes morning packing a breeze. The refrigerator has a selection of pre-sliced vegetables, fruits, cheeses, and even homemade jello cups; the freezer holds frozen appetizers like crab cakes, mini quiches, dumplings, tamales, and seasoned rice balls. Good pantry items include pre-portioned servings of nuts or crackers.
* Package up individual servings of leftovers in small containers like baking cups, and freeze in batches. This makes it easy to include a variety of different foods in a meal, taking advantage of the time you’ve spent cooking earlier. When making rice, I package up single-serving portions of any excess and freeze. Just re-warm in the microwave or steamer to restore the texture before packing.
Cook for Speed
* You don’t need to make everything fresh in the morning to put together an appealing bento. I aim to make one new dish for a meal, with the remainder made up of leftovers and easy items like cherry tomatoes or wrapped cheeses.
* When making dinner, make extra to yield planned leftovers. To ensure that your family doesn’t eat up all of the extra food you’ve made, hold back planned leftovers in the kitchen and only serve your regular amount of food at the dinner table.
* If your child gets bored eating the same thing again and again, get creative by giving leftovers new life as “Leftover Remakes.” Leftover roast chicken becomes filling for a quesadilla, risotto becomes fried risotto cakes, and mashed potatoes become mini shepherd’s pies.
* Japanese bento cookbooks tout the time-saving technique of cooking multiple items simultaneously: in the microwave, toaster oven, frying pan, etc. This saves time and energy. The trick is to select foods that will cook well with the chosen method and to periodically check to see when they are fully cooked. (Don’t assume all dishes will be done at the same time).
Pack for Speed
* Once you’re organized and have a variety of foods on hand, the challenge is putting together a balanced lunch. I like to pack by color, including three to five different colored foods in a bento lunch: a green vegetable, a brown or white starch, a red fruit, etc. When you think in terms of natural food colors (“What’s my red or green for today?”), the nutritional balance happens effortlessly.
* Get a head start on the morning school rush by packing the next day’s lunch as you’re cleaning up from dinner, and store in the refrigerator overnight. Some foods do better when prepared fresh. I like to slice any fruit in the morning for maximum freshness, and warm up any rice I’ll be sending, to restore texture. (Cold rice is hard and nasty.) If you have the rest of the lunch packed and ready in the fridge, it’s simple to add the finishing touches in the morning.
Special Kids’ Issues
* Don’t over pack the lunch. Kids like to be able to finish a whole lunch in one sitting; you can do your part toward portion control by packing a manageable lunch in a small container.
* Don’t forget the fun! Kids especially respond to the fun aspect, and picky eaters are more likely to try foods presented in an appealing way. This can be as simple as adding cute food picks or other bento accessories, or including a little container of a dip for fresh fruits or vegetables (kids love dipping). For special occasions you can try your hand at food art where you sculpt faces or animals out of food, but don’t feel that you need to do this every day. You’ll burn yourself out!
