This is the last of the pizza bread, and I swear this half was totally different than the other. This one had potato, peas, ham, onion, green pepper, crab, mushrooms, cheese, and who knows what else. Some yummy grapes and a tapioca pudding that didn’t make the shot here.
Wow, I just realized this is my four-hundredth post! Sorry there’s nothing more exciting for this, but it’s my bento for today! I think I did a good job of filling in all the extra spaces and having a good balance of fruit, vegetable, and carb.
This is a new bento that I purchased from Rakuten (via Crescent Trading). It’s hard to find sandwich case bento when you’re on a mission! There are only like two readily available designs and I didn’t like them.
The top is lined with wax paper (I took some small sheets from my local store’s bakery section) and contains Pizza Bread from my local Korean Bakery. Pizza bread is actually quite common in Japan and I ate it many times when I was there. This one seems more like a “leftover” pizza, and it has a weird layout of plain bread + ham + toppings. The toppings are also weird, and seem to have no rhyme or reason. I saw onions, mushrooms, cheese, crab, and sauce. It tasted pretty good and was quite filling.
The bottom holds dragonfruit stars, a chinese leek & scallion bao (xie ke huang 蟹殼黃), pretzels, raisins, and apple cinnamon “cheerios”. I’m struggling to find out how much food I actually eat because even though I only had half of the pizza bread today for lunch (the other half is already cut and will be used for later this week), I am incredibly full right now. Sometimes I pack more than this and I’m hungry throughout the day!
P.S. the furoshiki is from Japan and has Chu-Totoro and Chibi-Totoro on it with flower blossoms. I really must get/find more furoshiki~. I’m sure I bought more than two in Japan! I guess I can make some out of the fabric I bought in Japan as well.
I was quite lazy today, and I’m trying to clean out the fridge. Seedless watermelon, homemade potato salad, strawberry/rhubarb & peanut butter whole wheat sandwich, diet green tea.
Bento on the left is a little Totoro one I picked up in Japan, the sandwich box on the right is from a dollar store. I stole it from my house, so who knows where it came from. Below the Totoro bento is my Totoro silverware set. I keep it at my office so that I don’t have to use utensils, and I don’t need utensils at home, so why not. Freakin’ awesome Wall-E bag in the back. Never gets old…
I was given lunch Monday, made a sad sad lunch on Tuesday (furikake rice with a peanut butter/jelly sandwich), and bought lunch on Wednesday, so Thursday was the first bento that actually had some semblance of bento-ness.
I wrapped this in a furoshiki I got from Japan. The top level of our local department store in Mizonokuchi (OI/NOCITY) had cute furoshiki and bento stuff, and I think I thought these were crabs when I bought it. Either that or I have a similar one that has a crab print on it. The reason I needed a furoshiki was because my Wall-E bag is a little too small for this Miffy lunch box. The Miffy box is only one teir, but extra horizontal. When I was making my Wall-E bag, I based it off of a Rilakkuma bento bag I bought for my sister which came with a smaller two teir bento. Oh well. So long as I have something to keep the bento together and serve as a protective barrier between food and my Coach purse.
On the search for an onigiri bento… I decided on one, but the site said it was out of stock! I refused to accept it as that, and I e-mailed the company in hoped that they’d stock it for me, and they did! (here), at Bento & Co. I also got these cute picks, all for a reasonable price (and straight from Japan).
I also bought these from J-Box (it’s not my fault, they’re one of the only stores that has Bento!):
I am quite proud that I resisted purchasing the snazzy new Totoro bento that I saw.
See, I don’t know about this bento book I bought. I have no problem reading or understanding it, but the fact that I live on the East Coast means that I don’t have all the ingredients! Though, that may all change when I visit the new Japanese market in DC! (And yes, the only reason I bought it was because of Poyo and Totoro! I resisted buying the Kindergarten Bento book (bottom right), but still appreciate the Pokemon cuteness.
To explain the purchases:
I’m buying one onigiri holder for me and one for my sister. My little sister is graduating from high school in a few weeks, and she has hypoglycemia. She’s not one to make bento (even though I’ve bought her 2 bento and she has a tiger insulated bento!), and only knows how to make a few dishes I think. But, I think that she can make a rice ball, or put a snack bar/snacks into this and it’s small enough to carry around in a backpack or purse while not taking up too much room (I also plan to get her some dry shampoo and I bought her a book called “When the Night Bird Sings”, which is filled with inspirational and motivational Cherokee-based essays. I might also get her an eyeshadow quad.).
I was actually looking for collapsible mesh sandwich bentos, but stumbled upon this “push” sandwich maker. I thought it was just a sandwich maker that removes crusts, but then I saw it would ‘seal’ the sandwich and make those oh-so-beloved konbini-style sando that I came to love when I was in Japan! Sorry, had to do it.
Milk Tea. I love love love milk tea, but I can’t seem to find any kinds that I like around here. I imagine that this bag will last a very very long time. Mayo cups are for Dan, since he refuses to use any container shaped like an animal or shape. Black Black gum is also for Dan. Everytime I went to Japan I bought one of these for him, and he raves about them every chance he gets. He (unfortunately) took this to work and he always gets inquiries about the gum and ends up giving it out! Coffee Jelly. If you’ve been to Japan, you know what this is. I plan to make some Wendy’s Frosty / Starbucks Frapp drink and put some jelly squares in there. I also plan to eat it in its plain awesome-ness.