Bento Box 2.

My second attempt at making cute Bento boxes for lunch (first attempt here).  his time I made some Teriyaki chicken to go with some rice balls and vegetables.  And I added wee bottles of my posh soy sauce.

I was going to make my own Teriyaki sauce but as we were rushing round Tesco with two impatient little boys, I saw bottled Teriyaki sauce and decided just to use it.  I removed the skin from some chicken thighs and deboned then cut them into slices.  I then let the slices sit in the Teriyaki sauce for about an hour while I made the onigiri.  I then simply grilled the chicken and added to the Bento boxes.  The vegetables are sugar snap peas, sliced red pepper and carrots.

This was a lovely lunch - enjoyed by all of us.  The boys and I had ours sitting in the living room but it was nice to have lunch ready when we got back from nursery.  I received a text a couple of hours later from Steve at his work saying that the smiley face on his rice had made him smile.  Well, that's a result!

I had an extra couple of rice balls so I used those for Steve and I to take lunches to work the next day and replaced the chicken with seafood sticks out of the fridge.  Not nearly as nice but took two seconds to make lunch that day.

My First Bento Box.

I got the Yum-Yum Bento Box book by Crystal Watanabe and Maki Ogawa for my birthday from the boys.  Prior to that I had bought The Just Bento Cookbook by Makiko Itoh (see her blog here).  I have been itching to try making these cute little packed lunches for myself.  I am frankly amazed, however, at the lengths some Mums go to to make beautiful looking lunches for their kids.  When my two go to school, they will be getting a cheese sandwich and an apple like everyone else!

You may have seen my beautiful totoro bento boxes in a previous post.  We are totoro daft in this family.  In fact, Kei introduced us to My Neighbour Totoro and we now have a cupboard full of Studio Ghibli films and loads of toys, T-shirts, whatever we can get our hands on!  

I also got to treat myself to a few bits and pieces for making fun Bento boxes as part of my birthday present.  I got a few things from J-List.

Of course, I started off with a very basic Bento box to let me dip my toe in the water.  I basically just made some onigiri into the shape of fishes.  Here is a great page from the basics section on Just Bento.  Beware, though, I can spend days and days looking through this blog.

I simply served the onigiri with cucumber and carrot sticks and Jumbo prawns.  I also included a wee bottle of soy sauce and a little tub of Marie Rose sauce.  The boys definitely loved the novelty of the way the lunch was packed for them.  We ate them at the kitchen table, though - ha ha - not hugely adventurous!

Now, as this post is relevant to Japan, if you want to help the people on Japan rebuild their lives following the earthquake and tsunami, have a look at Bento 4 Japan.  There are auctions where you can get great items if you want to start having a go at making your own Bento boxes or for us in the UK, you can donate to Justgiving which gives you a chance of winning the raffle to win some lovely Bento stuff.