3 Bento #246 - Quesadilla, Pico de Gallo & Lime-Cilantro Crema

Sunday evening I made my delicious Baja shrimp tacos (and if you haven't tried them yet, you don't know what you are missing!)  For E's lunch I packed a small cheese quesadilla on a toasted corn tortilla, along with a small handful of chips.  Yummy and also vegetarian, and gluten-free.

Accompanying it is lime-cilantro crema, fresh cilantro and homemade pico de gallo, (roma tomatoes, white onion, cilantro, garlic, jalapeno, lime juice and salt.)  Dessert is raspberries!

All packed up.

Bento #246 - Corn cheese quesadilla and chips, raspberries, cilantro, lime-cilantro crema and pico de gallo.  Snack - Clementine and yogurt stars.

0 Lemon Pepper Pappardelle with Tuna

I dreamed up this recipe several years ago. It was so good! Trader Joes has this delicious, tender pappardelle pasta infused with lemon pepper, and it's great by itself. It's also wonderful with tuna, and I decided to use two tuna steaks I had on hand, but you could use canned chunk tuna in a pinch. This dish is perfect for a spring or summer evening!

You'll need:

1 8oz package of Trader Joe's Lemon Pepper Pappardelle (cooked according to package instructions)
2 medium 1" thick tuna steaks
4 Tbs white wine
3 Tbs dijon mustard
3 Tbs lemon juice
1 1/2 Tbs mayonnaise
1 Tbs thyme
1/2 tsp salt
pepper to taste
olive oil

Set oven to broil on High.

In a small bowl whisk together wine, mustard, lemon juice, mayonnaise, thyme, salt and pepper to taste. Pour half of mixture over tuna steaks and let them marinate for 15 minutes.

Put tuna steaks on lightly oiled broiler pan and broil on High for 6 minutes (or according to thickness.) Turn and brush with additional marinade, broil for additional 4-5 minutes. Remove from oven and let rest for 10 minutes.

Cook pasta and transfer to serving bowl, and drizzle some olive oil. Lightly chunk tuna and place on top of pasta. Pour remaining sauce over pasta. Garnish with thyme and sliced lemons.

0 Bento #243 - Chow Mein & Grapes

We have a reprisal of the chow mein from the other day, another vegetarian lunch.  E just adores these noodles, her bento box is always empty when she comes home.

Cute grapes!  Letter picks spell...GRAPE.  SHOCKING!  And Trader Joes yogurt stars.

Snack is dried apricots and granola.

All packed up.

Bento #243 - Chow mein with steamed vegetables, grapes and yogurt stars.  Snack - Dried apricots and granola.

4 Bento #239 - Green Eggs & Ham

That's a green egg!  This is Dr. Seuss week, and also the debut of the new movie The Lorax (which we can't wait to see!)  I made these eggs very simply with some prepared basil pesto. Delicious!  I couldn't bear to color the "ham" green, (it's actually pastrami) so it appears here au naturale.

Bento #239 - Basil pesto deviled eggs, pastrami, carrot coins, and grape skewers.  Snack - organic peanut butter pretzel bites and mandarin orange.

3 Bento #235 - Hello Kitty Onigiri & Cucumber Rounds

Here is my very non heart-sy February 14th lunch. Why not?  I've already done a few hearts in recent bento boxes.  Also the fact that we don't celebrate, so there's that.  However, if you are looking for some really cute heart-sy bento lunches, here is a link where you can hop from one bento blog to the next for some heart-stoppingly adorable creations.  All together now {awwww!}

Why Miss Hello Kitty, why do you look so mean and mad?  Poor girl.  She must be upset that her favorite bow accessory is not showing up all that well in her mug shot.

More [novice] Baby Bel carvings and some sliced cucumbers.

Grapes and TJ's yogurt stars.

Bento #235 - Jasmine rice onigiri, Baby Bel cheese, cucumbers, grapes, dip and yogurt star biscuits.  Snack - Apple-banana spice muffin (not shown.)

0 Bento #219 - Vegetarian Cheese & Crackers

Enter the Bon Ami Giveaway!

Me and my gimpy thumbs are back in bento business!  My poor kid had to buy her lunches all last week (thankfully they really aren't bad, and she will usually grab a salad anyway.)  I decided that I didn't want to pay a $50 copay for 5 seconds so that a nurse could remove my stitches, so I did it myself yesterday MacGuyver-style with a pair of new sterilized cuticle nail clippers.  One-handed, even!  Looks pretty good, but I'm still black and blue over my entire thumb.  

My last few lunches have been vegetarian, not wholly by design.  This bento also happens to be vegetarian.  She's got an assortment of fresh veggies and dip, along with some cheese cubes and saltines.

Dessert is sliced apples (NOT done with an apple slicer...in fact I bought these in one of those pre-cut packages...can you blame me?) and grapes.

We have a special snack of a bunch of yogurt star cookies and an apple sauce.

Bento #219 - Celery sticks, grape tomatoes, baby carrots, broccoli, ranch dip, cheese, saltine crackers, sliced apples, and grapes.  Snack - Yogurt Stars and applesauce.

6 Bento #216 - Frog Prince Sandwich & Edamame

I just love these Lunch Punches!    This one is a frog prince, though I wish the features showed up better in the pictures.  Super cute.   As you can see below, I did an inside-out layered sandwich with 36 16 grain bread (doesn't it seem like they are now putting out bread with crazy amounts of grains?  This one was dropping flax seeds and nuts all over my counter.)

Edamame and some berry Yogurt Stars.

Ninja Aussie apple.

And all packed up in her PlanetBox.

Bento #216 - Whole grain bread and Colby cheese sandwich, berry Yogurt Star cookies, edamame, dried cherries and vitamins.  Snack - Aussie apple.

1 Bento #211 - Mac n' Cheese & Watermelon

Ella wanted to have mac and cheese for dinner last night, but we ended up going out for burgers instead, so I made it for her lunch today.  It's her favourite TJ's white cheddar, to which I add some extra shredded cheese to make it extra good.  Lunch today also happens to be unwittingly vegetarian for Meatless Monday.

Fresh watermelon on skewers and those green beans she picked out the other day.  I just blanched them in some boiling salted water, and then dunked them in an ice bath.  I also included a bit of dip on the side.

Bento #211 - Macaroni & cheese, organic green beans, organic watermelon and dip.  Snack - Craisins and Goldfish crackers.

0 Bento #202 - Vegetarian Yellow Day

Ladies & gentlemen, I think we have a theme.  Today is Yellow Day in Ella's class, and so I planned a nice lunch with all yellow(ish) foods. At least she's getting her daily doses of vitamins A, C & D. Yesterday happened to be Blue Day, but I really couldn't think of all that many natural blue foods (and I don't like to use artificial dyes.)  I let her go through the school lunch line that day for the first time, after discussing her choices.  Instead of popcorn shrimp, she decided to get a vegetarian Caesar salad, peas & carrots, mac n' cheese, cornbread and her ubiquitous water, which is her favourite drink in the entire world.  That sounds good to me!

This lunch is packed in a Greentainer.  It's a two-tier, so what you see above is all combined into one container.  I have a little yellow "Y" in the spicy yellow lentil hummus, with a sweet apricot salsa topping from Eat Well Enjoy Life that we just discovered at Costco.  Delicious!!  They also have edamame hummus which is also great.

Her snack below (which isn't yellow, unfortunately) is packed in a separate Greentainer.

Bento #202 - Fresh corn-off-the-cob with sea salt and cracked pepper, sliced yellow bell pepper, yellow lentil hummus, Pasta Prima five cheese ravioli with herb Parmesan and extra-virgin olive oil.  Snack:  Mozzarella cheese and fresh strawberries.

One last note - if you haven't "Liked" Bentobloggy on Facebook, you are missing out!  I just started doing some Facebook-only giveaways for my fans (simple, simple!)  Click here to check it out.  Oh, and please vote for Bentobloggy on Parents.com!

2 Bento #193 - Egg Fried Rice & Corn off the Cob

This is the second-to-last school bento of the year!  I can't believe school is out on Wednesday.  Wow!  And a big congrats to my baby sis who graduated yesterday from UMD with her Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism! 

We got two nice ears of organic yellow corn in our CSA basket this week.  Delicious!  It's kind of a rarity in our house because corn is really starchy, but it was nice for a change, very sweet.  The rice is leftover restaurant fare, not my usual, but E liked it. It's just got egg in it, which makes this bento vegetarian.

So, when is your last day of school?  Any vacation plans?

Bento #193 - Egg fried rice, organic corn, organic cantaloupe, pistachios and a cheese stick.

0 Bento #189 - Rainbow Farfalle & Romanesco in Garlic Butter

Today we have some simple (but beautiful) all-natural rainbow farfalle which is tossed in some cauliflower, romanesco and garlic butter.  

I'm also using a new stainless steel container from Greentainer!  In fact, I will be doing a Greentainer giveaway in the next week or so.  They have some awesome and versatile lunch containers made of stainless steel that are really easy to use and care for.  I'm loving them so far!  The one I used above is a two-tier variety.

Bento #189 - Fresh frozen blackberries, organic cucumber slices, rainbow farfalle pasta, cauliflower & romanesco.

1 Bento #183 - Earth Day Lunch

First, this lunch is in a Planet Box, and the pasta is Barilla PLUS with Omega 3s and a lot of other goodness.  I made a huge batch for the volunteers at school, and packed some for Ella as well.  It's tossed with roasted organic veggies in a balsamic butter sauce and Parmesan cheese.

Bento #183 - Vegetarian organic pasta salad, dried blueberries and cherries, pretzel sticks, roast turkey slices and vitamins.

Officially, Earth Day is today, but E's school had their Earth Day celebration on Wednesday, marked with a school-wide parade, awards, booths, activities and presentations.  It's such great fun, and so informative!  This year we had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Marcus Eriksen, co-founder of the 5 Gyres Institute.  He spoke about the pollution, specifically plastic, that is inundating the Pacific with huge floating garbage patches.  He and his colleagues built a raft out of thousands of empty water bottles and an airplane cockpit and floated on it for 3 months from California to Hawaii, braving the elements and studying water and sea life along the way. It was so interesting!  Certainly makes one think twice about using disposable plastics.  One tip he gave which I hadn't even thought about was to skip the plastic straws when you go out to eat.

Dr. Eriksen speaking in front of the Earth Balloon in the community center.

Showing some of the empty cigarette lighters he picked up on remote Pacific islands that wildlife is ingesting.

A sea turtle which grew around a plastic milk jug ring.

 Later I sat with E's class as they ate.  Her friend L also brought a PlanetBox lunch!