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
Peanut butter and raisins – Let the art begin
For me personally, I’m not a huge fan of peanut butter and raisins. Part of that might be because I can’t stand celery, and therefore “ants on a log” are out of the question.
The above rice cakes? Uh, yeah, please keep the cardboard to yourself. I’ll pass.
But raisins are awesome, nonetheless, because you get to draw with them…..create faces and shapes and abstract art and even just piles of fruitiness that are somehow better because you make them yourself. Raisins are incredible like that….even if they are just dried up, wrinkly fruit blobs.
Shrimp hearts – Simple makes the difference
I know I’ve said it before about how a simple smiley face added to the top of a dish can make it 10x more appealing.
The rice beneath those shrimp tastes good, but it looks boring. The shrimp is pretty boring, too, really, but it doesn’t matter. Make it look like a heart and suddenly an 8-year-old romantic is swooning. Dangle shrimp from edges and it’ll blow the mind of a borderline OCD child who ponders if it’s okay for the food to be on the outside.
Prepare four bowls in identical ways and watch the Libra in me twitch that they’re not -quite- identical. Before moving the out-of-sync bowl, I had the girls look to see which one didn’t look the same. Even putting this picture on the site makes me delete, reupload, delete, reupload, delete, reupload slightly uncomfy because while I don’t mind if pictures look messy, out of focus, etc, I crave balance.
Hmm. Maybe I’m that borderline OCD child referenced above. :P
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