You went to a Chinese restaurant again?? – Bento boxes
Another challenge I had with making bento boxes was being concerned they might get teased for taking nontraditional lunches. Of course their nutrition is more important than some silly kid drama, but kids have it hard enough with peers who make fun of pretty much anything they can. I didn’t want to add to that.
I started making the boxes with more traditional items like a fair bit of rice, for example, but have shifted to some more “American” items to help balance some of it out. This is why it made me giggle even more when B told me a story about her friends.
Yeah, I got out my lunch and Jacky yelled “You went to a Chinese restaurant AGAIN??!!”
Talk about an American mindset, huh? Hehe. I had sent spaghetti that day even, and nothing “weird” but B said she didn’t think her friend believes that I make the food. And we don’t have Japanese cuisine here where I live, so it makes sense that the assumption was Chinese takeout.
Some more boxes, mostly very far from Japanese food
- Saltines
- Tuna salad
- Pretzel sticks
- Homemade pineapple mango fruit rollup leather
- Grapes
- Frozen mixed fruit
- Leftover pasta
- Bacon!
- Pretzel crackers
- Carrots
- Frozen apple slices
- Bean and rice burrito
- Crackers
- Cauliflower
- Raisins and grapes (“Uh, Jessi, those are like, you know, the same things….” Yeah, I know, sorta, shush it.)
More bentos – Not always the healthiest, but still better than school’s?
One of the challenges I ran into while making bento boxes is making sure the food I sent was both healthy *and* something they’d really enjoy eating.
After all, I didn’t want them to feel like they were missing out on what other kids were eating at school. Fortunately, they dislike a lot of the cafeteria foods, but when I’m sending lunches, I want them polishing most of the food off instead of discarding various bits like they would off a lunch try.
Here are some more attempts, which aren’t always the healthiest (see those fries? yeah….), but still manage to balance out quite nicely:
- Homemade pizza pockets
- Peanut butter and crackers
- Dried pineapple chips (they taste like laffy taffy!)
- Cauliflower
- Orange slices
- Homemade roasted red pepper hummus (not pictured)
- Pork onigiri rice balls with soy sauce
- Baby dill pickles (they look like sweet gherkins, but they’re dill)
- Vegetable straws
- Pretzel crackers
- Fresh strawberries
- Peanut butter and banana sandwiches
- Spaghetti
- Orange (I ran out of time to peel or slice)
- Cucumber, tomato, red onion Greek salad (but they call it Canadian salad because I made it the first time after a trip to Vancouver)
- Overstuffed chicken fajita with chicken, peppers, onions, salsa
- Boiled egg on a bed of sprouts
- Homemade beef jerky
- Peanut butter banana sandwiches by request
- Spaghetti with meat and olive tomato sauce
- Chopped pink eggs with funky colored yolk sunshine
- French fries
- Homemade dried pineapple chips
- Frozen strawberries
- Ketchup packages for the fries (totally going with the traditional Japanese bento here, huh?)
Bento, bento, bento – Filling a 2.5 cup box with randomness
Japanese bento boxes are measured in milliliters, so that 2.5 cups is a 600mL bento. The really cool part about portion control like this is that for authentic boxes, the capacity is supposed to also line up with about how many calories are in the box.
LIAB has some really awesome charts for how large bento boxes should be based on age or height. It also has various breakdowns of ratios of food groups to be in each box. So for example, the general rule is 3 parts grain, 2 parts vegetable, and occasionally things like meat, fish, dairy or fruits, but no candy, junk food, or fatty foods.
On some days, that 600mL of food seems like an absolute ton. Other days, I feel like I’m not sending enough food. It just depends on what I’m sending that day and just how crammed I make the boxes. I haven’t been following a set ratio, but tend to lean toward having a main grain dish, sometimes 2, a veggie portion, and fruit. They’re big fruit eaters and this meal is when they usually get their fix for that.
Most days tend to be completely different (read: completely random), even if I’m repeating various sides and using the same proportions
Here’s some of the boxes from the last few weeks:
- Brown rice with peas, onions, soy sauce
- A row of green beans
- Steelhead nuggets
- Grapes
- Peanut butter with crackers, alternated with banana slices
- Salmon with spicy diced tomatoes
- 12 grain cracker things for the fish
- Boiled egg
- Sliced oranges
- Pretzel sticks
- Ants on a log, celery with peanut butter and raisins
- Taco pockets (recipe soon)
- Twix bar from Easter (shhh, it’s breaking the no-sugar rule)
- Boiled egg
- Celery and peanut butter
- Prunes (yay for them liking prunes, woo)
- Blueberries in the ziploc bag
- Leftover fish taco, rolled like a burrito
- Vegetable straws
- Homemade pineapple mango fruit roll up leather
- Half a banana
- Leftover jambalaya
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