Bento No.49

Quick post for a fantastic Bento (if I do say so myself). Had this wonderful gem yesterday and I was ecstatic the whole of the day because of it. I’m not sure whether it’s the colours, or the range of foods in it, or that I managed to fit that much food in a small bento box!

In this tightly packed sistema box, (starting from top left) I had beetroot, sushi rice with  sushi vinegar and furikake on a bed of lettuce, mixed salad with lettuce, pepper, olives, mange-tout, carrots and baby sweetcorn, crunchy cheese rounds (microwaved cheese crispy things), pancake muffin topped with grapes (cut into tulip shapes), cherry tomato and carrots.

How pretty does that look?? 😀

What super colourful meals have you made recently?

Exciting news!

First, we all need a foodie picture to start the post off with a bang 🙂

This is a lovely picture of my lunch on Saturday, enjoyed in the glorious spring sunshine. The picture is sort of to make up for the lack of bento pictures today (I had a salad again, so boring to look at!). The lunch above however, looks fantastic 🙂 and tasted even better. I had carrots and cucumber with hummus (under the veg), Rivita with cream cheese (2 of them), sliced chicken, and rollmops (pickled herring) with the onions from the rollmop jar 🙂 I know rollmops aren’t for everyone, but I love them!

Also, I did say I’d posts about my exciting news on Monday but I am a very bad person and I didn’t, sorry!!

Another picture for you! Cookies!

I made yummy cookies at the weekend 🙂 cranberry, chic chip and flaxseed shortbread. Quite crunchy but yummy 🙂 I made some for my (spoiler alert) Foodie Penpal this month, and my cousin (who’s just had a little baby girl). Not too indulgent as a replaced almost half of the sugar with milled flaxseed 😀

So, finally, my exciting news, which may or may not be completely uninteresting for other people, is that I have signed up for my first 5k running event thingy.

Yes…run :S

It is completely unrelated to Bento, but it is starting to be another hobby of mine. And I want to share my exciting hobbies with you guys and girls 🙂 And I have shared food photos with you today to make up for the extra non-bento related info 🙂

I’ve signed up for my local Race For Life event and I’m going to be running the 5k circuit. I could have signed up for the 10k, decided on a fun run idea rather than a proper run but I know I can complete a 5k and I want to push my time to the best ever 🙂 This Race for Life, for me, isn’t just about fund-raising (although I am fund-raising for two charities – Macmillan and Cancer Research) its about a target date. It will be the date that I will be at the peak of my fitness (and health) and will have fulfilled all my health and fitness goals.

The date for the run is July 7th. Halfway through July last year I had my gallbladder removed. I was pretty ill beforehand and although I was only consuming mainly vegetables (due to the problem gallbladder), I was not healthy or fit. After the op, I have been improving my health and fitness in leaps and bounds and currently, I am at the healthiest and happiest I have been in my teenage/adult life (I’m only 21). We always want more though don’t we? I want to improve my fitness and health further. And the target date of the Race for Life event is a perfect goal date for me 🙂 So, stay tuned for mini updates on my new health and fitness goals (I promise the next updates will be smaller!).

On a side note, I’m pretty sure that Bento has been the primary focus and drive behind my health goals. If I didn’t have the increasing passion for healthy, homemade food, the love for Japanese food, the love for creating new and exciting foods for my family and sharing my love with as many people as possible, I’m not sure that I would be as healthy as I am now. So give it up for Bento. Three cheers for the humble, but lovingly prepared lunches that fuel our day. Spread the love for Bento!

Ok, end of post now 🙂

What health/fitness goals are you working towards? And what has Bento done for you?

Bento No.48

What a cheery Friday today. Over here, the weather is mild, I had an amazing lunch, and I’m going to be doing something even more amazing this weekend (more on that on Monday!)

The main in my bento today was amazing! I said yesterday that I was going to make myself some sushi rice for today, and make it I did! I mixed it with rice vinegar, a little salt and sugar and sprinkled it with store bought furikake. The rest of the bento is filled with leftover roasted vegetables (in a cool stripe pattern!). The leftover vegetables were sweet potato, green peppers (capsicum for you guys and girls across the pond), yellow and red peppers and courgette (zucchini).Yummy!

For snacks I had cherry tomatoes, a satsuma, grapes and a couple of Fox’s Crunch Creams (so good!!). I snacked on these throughout the afternoon.

Oooh, have you noticed?? This bento is in a new bento box!!! I got it the other week but have been trying out different ways of packing it before showing it off to you guys and girls. I bought a 2 pack of the Sistema sandwich boxes when they were on offer for £2.50 at my local supermarket (below is a picture of a paxk of three in slightly different colours). The colours that I got were purple with orange clips and pink with blue clips 🙂 They are quite small but perfect for the size of lunch I eat. I will look into doing a bigger review for these soon.

And, as todays Friday, here’s an awful bonus picture. As I had made sushi rice the night before, I fancied having a japanese breakfast this morning! I had sushi rice, sprinkled with furikake, sushi ginger, vegetables, mackerel in tomato sauce, nori, and soy sauce. It was so yummy!!

What is your favourite style of breakfast? Western, Asian or Continental?

Bento No.47

 

 

I’m still ill!! What is this!

 

Yes it has been affecting my bento making, but only because I’ve been trying to avoid carby foods to try and load up on the vegetables to get rid of this cold!

Today I had a salad with pickled onions mixed in and a side of potato salad. Very boring, but I’m trying to fix myself! Haha! I may make some rice tonight to make sushi, as that must make me feel better 🙂 As well as the salad today, I had and apple, orange, a little pack of popcorn and lots of water!

Bring on getting better!

How do your bentos fare if you are ill/ in a rush?

Bento No.46

Still feel rotten, so here’s another bento from the other week.

To start off, I love vegetables. They are amazing and I prefer them over meat/carbs anytime. So in this bento, it is mainly vegetables 🙂

In the main part I packed half a cheese sandwich (as I thought there were too many vegetables, haha, silly me!), a packet of soy sauce, rice vinegar and sesame, and vegetables! The vegetables I have in this bento are carrots, mini courgettes (zucchini), mushrooms, broccoli, peppers and tomatoes 🙂

For sides I had grapes, ham wrapped dates, a nest cake, a pack of almonds (from my foodie penpal parcel) and a pot of sweets 🙂

Hope everyones weekend is sunny and lovely!

How do you make yourself feel better when you have a cold?

Bento No.45

 

 

I have a horrible cold today 😦 so I have only eaten one boiled egg and a little yoghurt 😦 It was meant to be a fast day anyway, although I will eat if my body tells me to.

To make me feel better, I will post one of my bentos from last week 🙂

The main side of this bento (made in a Sistema Lunch Cube), had chicken dim sum (not homemade!), steamed broccoli (with sesame seeds), mushrooms (with kewpie mayo), cucumber, peppers, tomatoes and soy sauce.

And in the other side there was sliced pear (excuse the bruising, I eat them however they look),chicken slices, satsuma, nest cake and a little pot of sweets.

There, that’s made me feel better (pulls ill face). At least you guys and girls get to see a bento post regardless of my woes.

I really do need to work on my photos though!!

Do you use a camera or your phone to take blog/food photos? I can never be bothered to get the camera out! Bad me!

Fasting of Yesterday

x1 Tea with milk (13c)

150g Blueberries (86c)

x1 Tea with milk (13c)

1/2 miso soup sachet (about 20c)

100g steamed sweet potato (90c)

6 steamed mange tout (6c)

400g tinned chopped tomatoes (74c)

1 and 1/2 tablespoons Balsamic vinegar (21c)

x1 Tea with milk (13c)

1/2 teaspoon peanut butter (45c)

So, total of 381!! Not on purpose but a very good fast day 🙂 mostly I didn’t have the brain power to think of eating. Do you get that sometimes, where you can’t think of what to eat, so you just don’t?

What is everyone up to this weekend?

100th Post!! (Bento No.42/43/44 – Special)

Today is a special post!!

This is my 100th blog post!! And of course it has to be a bento post! To mark this special occasion, I am including not one, not two, but three bentos in todays post!

First up is my bento. I have told you that I have boring lunches so no apologies for this one! The bento has deconstructed lettuce sandwiches. I don’t have a lot of bread as I’m not a fan, so I use lettuce instead to make wraps/roll-up type things. To go in the wrap I have sliced carrots and cucumber, chicken slices (on top of the lettuce leaves) and hummus sprinkled with milled flax seed (hiding in the top left corner). I did have snacks to go with: satsuma, mini pack of popcorn, cereal bar, blueberries and grapes. Lovely and healthy 🙂

Next is my brothers lunch. I make it simple and easy to eat as I never know whether he’s off out or college or something (he’s college age). He has cheese, cucumber and mustard sandwich on seedy bread, unsalted cashews and salted peanuts in the small green lidded box, sliced peppers, cherry tomatoes and a homemade nest cake in the foil. Again, nice and balanced and healthy 🙂 with a little treat. My brothers bento has no accompanying sides.

This last one is my bf’s main dish bento. He had leftover tagliatelle in tomato and cream cheese sauce with mushrooms and leeks and cheese on top, and a side salad of cucumbers and carrots (with a little cheese on top too) with cherry tomatoes down the middle. The bf usually has lunchbox additions (aside from the main bento) of malt loaf, fruit (apple, satsuma, grapes or banana), a treat (so in this case a homemade nest cake) and other bits and pieces. Nice and healthy again! I’m on a roll!

Well, what a post for my 100th one 🙂 hope everyone is having a fantastic day!!

How long ago did you start blogging?