1 Bento #237 - Curried Chicken Salad & Purple Lettuce

I love chicken salad!  I happen to make a kick-butt chicken salad, but I love this curried chicken salad from Whole Foods - it's got red currants and slivered almonds.  So yummy.  I'm admittedly taking a risk giving this to E for lunch, because she's not the biggest fan of curry, and a container is a very dear $22 (don't tell my husband.)  What was I saying last week about extreme couponing?  I've gotta make a clone recipe....

The chicken salad is in a silicone cup nestled in a bed of purple artisan lettuce.

Bento #237 - Curried chicken salad, purple artisan lettuce, Stacy's Garlic & Parmesan pita chips, and a Clementine.  Snack - Apple banana spice muffin (not shown.)

Have a great weekend!

0 Bento #203 - Hello Kitty Onigiri & Thai Chicken Peanut Salad

My version of Thai peanut chicken salad was soooo good!  I made enough for lunches for all three of us.  I picked up some Amylu Caramelized Onion Chicken Burgers for the first time, and they are delicious!  They are all-natural, gluten-free and excellent.  I cubed a couple of patties and sauteed them in a bit of canola oil, along with some ginger-garlic paste, fish sauce, toasted sesame oil and a small handful of halved roasted peanuts.  In about 7 minutes I had a savory-sweet salad topping that everyone loved.  I had initially planned to do lettuce wraps, but I realized that all my lettuce was small-leaf variety.  This would be awesome on Boston/Bibb/Butter lettuce.

I also made a Hello Kitty onigiri of plain, cooked rice.  She is decorated with a few decorative sprinkles to liven up her appearance.  I also froze a container of vanilla yogurt, in lieu of the ice cream they allow the kids to have on Fridays.

Bento #203 - Thai chicken peanut salad over fresh artisan lettuce, rice onigiri, and frozen vanilla yogurt.  Snack - organic baby carrots, dip, multi-vitamins, and fresh raspberries.

0 Bento #201 - Steak Salad & Hello Kitty

Craaaaazy busy day yesterday!  I suffered mild sunburn all in the name of toxic shower curtains.  My local chapter of The Mommies Network was contacted by the Dr. Oz show and asked a bunch of us to come down with our old shower curtain liners and film a segment about their toxicity.  We filmed from 10am to 12:30pm!  I have several speaking lines, though who knows if my bit will ever make it on TV.  It was fun, and the show should air soon, during the next season which starts September 12th.

Goodness, my bento boxes are looking really stuffed lately!  I guess it's that snack.  This lunch consists of sliced steak and a little bit of mac n' cheese leftover from dinner and a whole lotta Hello Kitty.  The panda holds dip, and the little chickie holds two iron vitamins.  I finally found some without aspartame!!  Bluebonnet Rainforest Vitamins.

Bento #201 - Sliced steak, artisan lettuce, ranch, mac n' cheese, iron multi vitamin, and slushy applesauce. Snack: raspberries & granola bite.

2 Bento #149 - Dumpling Snack

This was a hearty snack I packed the other day when we went on a playdate at a local kids gym.  These chicken wontons are a new brand I found at Costco, Green Chopsticks, which look a lot like the chicken cilantro wontons from Trader Joe's.  We really like the TJ's one's better, but these aren't bad (especially with dipping sauce, otherwise they are kinda bland.)  I really like how fast they cook - 2 minutes!

Also, this is the last picture with my point-and-shoot camera.  After we got home from our playdate, my new DSLR camera was waiting on my doorstep!  Now to figure out how to use it....  Your photography tips are certainly welcomed.

Bento #149 - All natural chicken wontons on a bed of organic spring greens, organic baby carrots, Cheerios, dried blueberries and dried cherries.

0 Bento #126 - Eggy Flower & Nectarines

Here we have a couple hard boiled eggs sprinkled with a little sea salt and paprika, and some baby carrots in the middle as the stamens, surrounded by flower "leaves" of artisan lettuce.

Bento #126 - Hard boiled eggs, lettuce, baby carrots, fresh nectarine and ranch dip.

4 Bento #123 - Chicken Sandwich & Cucumber Flowers

First of all, my wonderful husband just installed a new kitchen light fixture for me with four 50-watt halogen bulbs, so I finally have much needed brighter lighting in there!  However, I now need to play around with the picture-taking a bit so things don't look crazy washed out.

Second, I have something awful - a phenomenon known as "Pine Mouth".  Sounds very strange, but apparently quite harmless unless you're the one suffering from it.  Everything I put in my mouth tastes bitter and metallic!  I started Googling for possible causes of such a terrible symptom, and after checking off liver disease and diabetes, discovered that pine nuts, yes, beloved pignolias, one of the star ingredients in the pesto I made the other evening, can cause a bitter taste for up to two months!  Anyway, I'm taking my half-used bag of pine nuts back to TJ's and getting my money back.  I really hope this is a short-lived disruption of my sense of taste.  I thought I was going... err...nuts while making tomato sauce last night.  Have you ever heard of  this?

As for the lunch today, we went out to eat yesterday and E had one chicken tender left, so I made a sandwich of it on a toasted bun.  I seriously cannot stand to waste food.  And yes, that is my granola bite I bought from the bake sale yesterday. ;)

Bento #123 - Mini chicken sandwiches, organic banana chips, tango lettuce, cucumber flowers, homemade spinach and onion dip and a granola bite.

5 Bento #106 - Chicken Cilantro Wontons

These are the yummy chicken cilantro wontons from Trader Joe's, we love them in soups, with noodles or lightly pan-steamed and eaten all by themselves.  Today we have some on a bed of lettuce!

Bento #106 - Pan-steamed chicken cilantro wontons, artisan lettuce, goldfish crackers, and fresh frozen raspberries.

3 Bento #104 - Spinach & Artichoke Deviled Eggs

Whew!  I literally just woke up again.  After carpool this morning I had to go right back to bed.  I have either a cold or a really bad allergy episode, and I just couldn't hold my eyes open another second.  Three days of this has exhausted me, which is sad since we have big weekend ahead of us!

Today we have deviled eggs, and I made them very quickly with some really good spinach & artichoke dip I had in the fridge, and nothing else - it had all the flavor I wanted without needing to add anything extra. I topped each with a sprinkle of paprika and a cheese flower slice.

Bento #104 - Spinach & artichoke deviled eggs, colby cheese flowers, baby carrots and fresh lettuce, fresh raspberries and granola bites (not shown.)

7 Bento #101 - Mac n' Cheese & Fruit Salad

This mac n' cheese is Trader Joe's brand organic white cheddar, and it's my favorite when I don't have the ingredients or inclination to make my own.  This is a bento box that I don't use much because it's an odd shape, but it's cute and has good space inside, so I must try and use it more often!

Bento #101 - Organic white shells and cheese on a bed of artisan lettuce, fruit salad, and flower cucumbers.

Sushi Popper giveaway winners will be posted in just a bit!

12 Bento #100! - Gyoza & Fruit Kebab

Hooray!  I've finally arrived at my 100th published bento, just over a year since I started this crazy thing.  I'm using a new two-tier bento box to commemorate this momentous occasion, with - Hello Kitty!  Won't E be surprised?  Hopefully she can get it back together, since it's one of those tricky ones that require precise reassembly.  It's a toss up.

Bento #100 - Chicken gyoza on a bed of artisan lettuce with ponzu sauce, goldfish crackers, strawberry and yellow tomato kebab, flower cucumbers and cherry fruit leather cutouts.

Yay for 100!

2 Bento #84 - Mini Gyoza & Veg

Why so much veg on this plate??  It's because Miss E and I just finished making some totally amazing no-bake granola bars, and when they're entirely cool, she won't be able to keep her hands off them!  She already licked the mixing bowl clean.  I figured she needed some extra veggies to counter-balance the extra sweetness of the granola bars.  I'll be posting the recipe tomorrow.

Bento #84 - Mini pork & leek gyoza on a bed of artisan lettuce, ponzu sauce, carrots and ranch, and alfalfa sprouts.

1 Bento #82 - Egg Flower & Wild Blueberries

Today we're going to help my SIL pack up her classroom, so I packed a lunch for E to take and eat there while we work.

Bento #82 - hardboiled eggs with a blackberry, wild blueberries, artisan lettuce, mini oatmeal cookies and banana chips.

Also, this is in a new bento box that I picked up from Niko Niko this weekend.  I'm impressed by the locking style - instead of the handle hinges being the locking point, it's those tabs on the bento box itself that lock into the handles, so a lot less chance for hinge breakage.  I can see this one lasting a long time!

0 Bento #71 - Grilled Chicken & Artisan Lettuce

So, E is on a grilled cheese kick.  This is another grilled cheese (on Italian bread) with chicken.  The lettuce is really fancy artisan lettuce I picked up at Costco.  It's the first time I've seen it, so I snapped it up, and it's super pretty.  The container came with five different varieties of lettuces, and they were gorgeous.  I made it to look like a flower with leaves, and the blackberries are the "flower" at the top.  The other neat thing in this bento is the sauce container.  I picked it up at REI, and it's really for stuff like shampoo and lotion, but it's perfect for sauces!

Bento #71 - Grilled chicken & cheese, artisan lettuce, dipping sauce and blackberries.