3 Bento #208 - Beef Stir Fry Noodles & Veg

So we are in the middle of our third week of school!  It's a bit of an adjustment (OMG, waking up at 6ish am every morning is KILLING ME) but we are excited about what the year holds.  I volunteered to be room mom again, so I have some work cut out for me, but since I'm crazy and love all that organizational stuff (charts, calendars and to-do lists) I think I'll do okay.  Once or twice a week I let Ella get school lunch, which is amazingly healthy, for the most part.  Yesterday they had a fruit/yogurt/peanut butter plate and salad as a choice.  Love it!  Takes a little pressure off me.  

Today's lunch is delicious.  I made my Korean barbecue stir fry with carrots, bell peppers and spring onions. 

Bento #208 - Korean stir fry with noodles, organic carrots, yellow bell peppers and spring onions, frozen blackberries, and multivitamins.  Snack - Applesauce and spiced nuts.  

1 Bento #204 - Thai Shrimp Dumplings & Champagne Grapes

Champagne grapes?  I'd never heard of them before, at least not for general consumption and availability at my local market!  They are the tiniest little grapes you ever saw.  They are tart, but not overwhelmingly so.

And, we have the sad giraffe picks.  Poor giraffes, why so glum?  The noodles are very yummy, though, sauteed with lots of veggies.  

Bento #204 - Thai shrimp dumplings, stir-fry veggie noodles, and champagne grapes.  Snack - Banana.

2 Bento #178 - Veggie Yakisoba & Fruit

We've been on spring break like most of the rest of the U.S., so bento lunches have been far and few between.  Today we have a simple tray with veggie yakisoba noodles with lots of steamed veggies like water chestnuts, snow peas, slivered carrots, mushrooms, peppers and edamame. E loves this dish and asks for it a lot.  Sometimes I'll add grilled chicken for protein. A tropical fruit salad rounds it out for dessert.

Bento #178 - Yakisoba noodes and steamed veggies, and fruit salad medley.  

8 Bento #175 - Shrimp Noodles & Mango

Here we have a medley of ceramic flower-shaped measuring cups I'm using as bowls.  They are just too sweet.  I made rice noodles and stir-fried them with shrimp and curry sauce, sprinkled with fresh cilantro.  Ella loves shrimp and noodles of any kind, so it's the perfect medium to introduce some Indian flavors.  She ate most of it [edit: this was a non-school day lunch.]

Bento #175 - Curry rice noodles & shrimp, fresh mango, dried cranberries, carrots and grape tomatoes.

9 Korean Barbecue and Asian Noodles

We took a field trip Monday to Super H Mart (I say field trip because it's about a 40 minute drive for us.)  How I'm awed by that place!  In fact, it was exactly one year to the day that I first discovered it.

In the fresh meat department I found fresh packed containers of marinated meats - chicken, beef, pork belly, etc..  There weren't any ingredients on the labels, but I took a chance on the chicken and the beef ribeye, hoping that they weren't too spicy.  I also got fresh heads of garlic, baby bok choy and some fresh pan fried noodles.  I also had veggies left from my produce basket for the week - some yellow squash, green scallions and sliced carrots, all of which I included in the stir fry.

I chose to use the ribeye for ease and speed of preparation because the slices were paper thin.  I wish I knew exactly what was in it, because it was delicious.  It definitely had sesame oil, sugar, garlic, soy sauce.  Hmm, sounds like Korean barbecue!

Here we have the prepared veggies - carrots, yellow squash, 5 or so scallions and 2 cloves of garlic.

I heated a couple tablespoons of vegetable oil in my wok (one that my mother brought me years ago on a trip to Japan...as you can see by the patina, it's been well-used) and threw in the squash and carrots, with a sprinkling of salt.

Next, over high heat I added the beef, a little at a time so that it didn't bring down the temperature of the pan too much, as well as half the scallions and all the garlic.  

When all the beef browned, I added the rest of the beef and the marinating liquid and cooked it until the sauce boiled.  Then I added some noodles to the sauce, and tossed through, cooking for about 3 minutes.

At the very end I threw in the baby bok choy.  They are very tender and only take moments to wilt, so it's the best time to add it.

Toss well with some cracked black pepper.

Top each bowl with a sprinkling of the reserved chopped scallions.

And have two bowls!  I was expecting leftovers, but the entire amount I made vanished during one sitting.  Even my noodle-hating husband had two servings!

12 Bento #133 - Double Noodle Bento

This double bento is from Friday evening.  We took E to have an evening playdate with our friend's daughter K (while we parents went to dinner AT the movie theatre) so I made them noodles and wontons.  They are just regular ramen noodles, but I always make the sauce that seasons them myself and throw the powder packet away.  There is way, way too much sodium and MSG in those things!  It's just soy sauce, garlic, ginger, dash of rice wine vinegar and toasted sesame oil, and some pepper.  Sometimes I get a little wild and add a dash of fish sauce and some sliced green onions.  I would normally add some frozen veggie mix (peas, carrots, corn, etc.) but Miss K is a little finicky, so I held off.  Of course, the animal chopsticks make it extra fun.

Bento #133 - Chinese noodles, chicken-cilantro wontons, yogurt stars, edamame, and an organic peanut butter-stuffed Aussie apple (not pictured.)

7 Bento #98 - Carbonara Twirls

This isn't really carbonara, but a less pungent, more kid-friendly version.  And no eggs.  We had a batch of some recalled eggs that my husband was actually sick from last week, and thus I have no eggs right now.  I took some Black Forest ham I'd cut into ribbons and sauteed it in some garlic-infused oil and a little butter, and then added some cooked Dreamfields low-carb spaghetti noodles and tossed everything with a bit of black pepper and cheddar cheese (rather than pecorino.)   I thought it was really tasty. E thought it was cute but ate less than half, even though I twirled it all for her (funnily enough, she mentioned that her teachers liked her lunch.)  The apples stayed nice and crisp after a fresh lemon water soak.

Bento #98 - "Carbonara" twirls, sugar snap peas, and a sliced Pink Lady apple.

0 Bento #57 - Veggie Ramen

I'm laughing at the wrinkled peas - some of them are and some aren't.  The ramen was cooked in a soy and miso-flavored broth, and I added fresh broccoli and carrots, and some frozen peas, then drained it.  E had it for the first time the other day and requested it for her lunch today.  I'm really pleased she's getting to be more adventurous in her tastes!  She also loves to use chopsticks, so we rigged the ones that matched this new bento set so they're easier for her to use.

Bento #57 - Veggie ramen, grapes, ABC cookies.