Back to life...back to reality

Back to school means back to bentos...which I haven't done in forever...here's a quick and easy one...pasta salad and salad...just lacking some protein...but one step at a time :)

Some quickies

I love quickies :)....quick lunches that is...since I'm a working girl who has to get up o so early I LOVE food that is healthy and quick. So here are some quickies.

Egg roll (baked, no MSG) strawberry and raspberry salad(organic)
and snap peas.

Chicken salad (veganaise, chicken, celery, and LOTS of dill)
on whole wheat with organic pears.

Organic peanut butter and jelly on whole wheat
with organic kiwi and tangerine. (sorry about the flash)

Bad Week :(

So far this week my hard drive on my Mac crashed :( I have a horrible on its last leg PC that I am using. I HATE PCs :( Hopefully, I can get a good deal on a new Mac off ebay. Refrigdgerator was leaking water into the neighbors and I had to deal with my idiot landlord. That meant I couldn't cook my meals for the week when I had planned-so that has been all off. And I've lost my camera. I know its somewhere, but I have no idea where. So I can't take pictures on bentos. But on a happy note...we all thought my grandfather was on the brink of death but he seems to be making a great recovery! He is one VERY tough guy :) Well the oven is blaring at me...I have an old oven-it doesn't beep...it blairs. Hopefully, bentos will be back up next week.

PS-I changed my inspiration to green/healthy living...I'll try to put up more sites...if you have any good ones let me know.

My Week

So I've been sick this past week, like cold of the century sick :( Because of my sickness I only made 2 bentos.
Contents of bento: Enchilada, orange, grapes and apple

I am really unsatisfied with so many things about this bento, but part of me needs to accept that I can do everything 100% all the time.

Contents: Tangelo, apple slices, caprese salad and lemon pepper chicken

Lesson from this bento: Don't try to be all decorative when you don't feel well. I really hate the way the lettuce looks under the chicken.


On the school front:

This week was full of lots of fun!

Super cute art work done by one of my preschoolers. I wish I could have a room FULL of children's art work.

Some of my kindergarteners really love learning to spell. I have a bunch of clip art glued on to construction paper and they practice spelling words. This is done in their free time when they could be playing toys or computer. I love kids who love to learn.

My kindergarteners are learning about insects. I had a create your own bug project. I only had two that were student done. It makes me so mad that parents don 't give their children the experience of doing their own project. How does a child learn? I could on about this subject for at least another 4,000 words. But I'll stop :) PS. This bug eats monsters :)

Future Starving Artists

If you are in the Orlando area and are attending the Winter Park Art Festival be sure to stop by the student art exhibit, specifically tent number 9. My kindergarten students will have art work on display. And while I am not an artist, some how I have been given the ability to break down art and teach young ones how to recreate it. Here's a sneak peak of my favorite piece:


No the picture is not crooked. It is framed, but who cares about the frame. I guess this is my favorite because penguins are so dang cute and every penguin deserves an igloo, right? Here's one final sneak peak:




Now I am not a cat lover by any means, but what girl doesn't love a pink cat? Kinda reminds me of Hello Kitty. Actually, now that I think about it there is something that I really love about every piece. Maybe after the show I'll post the rest, but if I post them all now my Orlando readers will have no reason to check it out.

Now on to bento stuff. I LOVE LOVE LOVE lasagna. I didn't discover this love until around 1-2 years ago. I've always had lasagna, but was so so about it. Now my passion for lasagna runs so deep I have eaten it THREE times this week, including lunch today. So here's my lasagna bento:
Pretty easy. I think prep time was like 10 minutes (including making the salad and cutting the apple). Lasagna, mango, tangerine, apple, salad with balsamic dressing.

Caprese Chicken Bento

Today's bento was not that good...I mean it was tasty, but it was rushed and I wasn't thrilled with it. So this is one from my absence. This is one of my favorite recipes and I am proud to say I invented it. I'm not claiming that no one has ever made it before I am just saying I made it up from my head. I call it Caprese Chicken. It's so easy peasy it should be criminal.

Here's what you need:
Chicken Breast
Bread Crumbs (I use Italian)
Tomato Slices (cut to fit the size of the chicken breast)
Mozzarella Cheese (sliced to fit the chicken)
Olive Oil

Directions: Preheat oven to 350. Cut chicken breast to desired size. For the bento I cut it smaller. Pour olive oil and bread crumbs into separate cereal bowls. Dip chicken in olive oil then in bread crumbs. Place on pan lined with tin foil (makes for easy clean up). Place tomato, then cheese on top of chicken. Cook until chicken is done...maybe 20-30 minutes...maybe more depending on how thick your chicken is.


Also in this bento: Underneath the chicken is ravioli, in the bear is pasta sauce for the ravioli, green beans with balsamic dressing, grapes, kiwi, tangerine

My favorite bento

Sorry for falling off the planet! I was sick and had to throw my sister a baby shower and then last week I was just too tired. This is one of my favorite bentos. On the left is organic yogurt (it's plain, which is for sure an acquired taste) with mangoes. I buy a HUGE bag of frozen mangoes and just plop them in the yogurt frozen.

Frozen fruit is a working girl's best bento friend. It is SO nice not to have to chop up fruit and deal with that mess. Frozen fruit is perfect for bentos whether you refrigerate or not. You can just plop them and they'll be ready by lunch time.

On the other half is cherry crepe. Ohhhhh SO delicious. It's SO easy. And crepes are a moderately healthy "pastry". With hardly any fat or sugar. To keep it healthy in a small sauce pan add whatever frozen fruit your little heart desires and put the heat on medium and "melt" the fruit. (This week I had cherry and last week I had mixed fruit, both were SUPER yummy.) You DON'T want to make a sauce. You want to keep most of the fruit "in tact", meaning only let about 1/8th-1/4th of the fruit become a sauce. To make a bento sized crepe cut the crepe in half and layer them on top of each other. This also makes your crepe extra sturdy. Also in this bento are strawberries and grapes.

Wednesday and Thursday Bento

Okay, so maybe I am a little obsessed with Mediterranean inspired bentos. Wednesday's bento was steak gyros, kiwi, caprese salad, green beans, and strawberries. Thursday's bento was Greek pasta salad, tomato, mozzarella, and green bean salad with Balsamic dressing, and grapes.

Here's the recipe for the pasta salad which is SUPER yummy!

You'll need:
chopped garlic
olive oil (to coat the fry pan)
1/2 box of pasta- I used whole wheat rotini
3 chicken breast-chopped
3/4 cup of Feta cheese
2/3 cup of tomatoes-chopped
Dill
Lemon


In a pan simmer chopped garlic and olive oil. Add chopped chicken and cook throughly (about 6 minutes). While you are cooking the chicken in a pot boil water. When the water is boiling add pasta. I used whole wheat rotini. Cook the pasta al dente. (If you don't know how to cook pasta-CALL YOUR MOTHER!!!!) After the chicken is cooked at the feta cheese and tomatoes and cook until the cheese is melted. While it's cooking add dill. I LOVE dill so I add a ton. After, it's all done squeeze some lemon juice over your chicken creation. I am a weekend cooker-meaning I cook on the weekend for the rest of the week-so I let it all cool down and popped in the fridge. Since there is no sauce with this, you'll need to eat it hot. If you want to eat it cold I suggest tossing with Greek dressing or making a sauce maybe with Feta cheese and tomatoes, and a tiny bit of Greek dressing. Enjoy!

Field Trip Bento

So on Tuesday my class took a trip to the Orlando Science Center. This was to correlate with our unit on Space. Since I was going on a field trip and would have no morning snack and no water I wanted a lunch that was healthy and hearty. I made the most WONDERFUL salad-grilled chicken, apples, golden raisins, and walnuts topped with a poppy seed dressing. I need to find a low fat recipe for poppy seed dressing because the label has a little too much fat for my liking. Added to the salad were a blood orange, kiwi, and strawberries. YUMMY!!! This was the perfect field trip bento and provided me with the energy I needed to chaperone energetic kindergarteners. In my 5 years of teaching I have learned that on a trip the teacher is the only chaperone, no matter how many parents come.

Time out for a tip from a teacher: If you are a chaperone please remember that the teacher has spent a lot of time planning this field trip so your child can have an active learning experience. A field trip is NOT a time to chat with the other parents. Please conduct your socializing at happy hour, play dates, birthday parties, ect.



Though the science center is no MOSI it was my first time experiencing it with kids since I was a kid. It was really awesome. They have a really fun place for ages 3-8 called Kids Town that has a lot of really neat stuff that is totally kids sized and interactive and not over their heads. There was also a sports area that has the science of sports, but is totally interactive and fun. We had an awesome lab with a super instructor and 4 hands on space demonstrations. She even had a mini projector (about 2 feet in diameter) of picture number 4 so we got to learn a lot about all the planets in a 1:7 experience.

Picture one: They had a really awesome robots exhibit based on the movie robots. The best part of this exhibit for kindergarteners was make your own robot. My boys totally loved it.

Pictures two/three: They had a dinosaur exhibit. What 5 year old doesn't get blown away by seeing huge dinosaurs. They had a place to "dust" for fossils. Surprisingly, my girls loved dusting.

Picture four: A brand new exhibit is about the Gas Giants (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune). This Earth is actually a 6 foot projector that shows surface images of all the planets. They have bleachers you can sit on to watch and learn. SO amazing!

I would have to say that my kids favorite was probably the sports room, petting a baby alligator and the hurricane experience. They have a cylinder that around 3-6 people can go in and experience 77 mile an hour winds. Since we live in hurricane central the kids really related.

Teacher tip: If you live in the Orlando area and are planning a field trip make sure you go the beginning of the week and arrive at 9. For an hour and a half we had the whole place to ourselves (OSC opens to the public at 10, but hardly any people were there until after lunch)

Monday's Lunch

This is an Indian bento...and I mean Indian like Diwali day, Mumbai, and Bollywood type Indian...It's kinda an Indian flag or at least in Indian flag colors and order.

Contents of bento: star Nectarines, Tandoori chicken (hence the India theme), kiwi covered in coconut to keep the colors of the Indian flag, and peas.

The Tandoori chicken was pretty good. Here's the recipe:

In a crockpot put in the chicken breast ( I did 3) . In a small bowl add olive oil about 1/4-1/2 cup... then add 1/4 teaspoon of the following spices: tumeric, cinnamon, ginger, and paprika. Then, add 1/2 teaspoon of the following spices: curry and red pepper. Mix well then pour over chicken in the crockpot. Cover and cook for 4-6 hours on low. Enjoy!

Italian Bento

I guess this bento has kinda an Italian flair to it. Whole wheat pasta with garlic chicken, green beans, caprese salad skewers, kiwi, Clementine orange, nectarine stars, and pasta sauce in the puppy.

Overall this was pretty yummy! Although it's hard to mess up leftover pasta! Have a great weekend see you on Monday!

Glass Container!

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Originally uploaded by thebentogirl

I found this glass "bento" (it's really Pyrex) at Walmart for just under $4! I am so excited! I just eat my cold stuff first and then microwave and feel safe. And it is exactly the recommended bento size for a woman! I am SO excited. Sadly, I still haven't visited the asian stores, but I did get my big ebay box :)

Valentine Bento

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Originally uploaded by thebentogirl

This is a super healthy bento! Flax seed whole wheat waffles, fat free organic Stoneyfield yogurt with mango, pineapple, kiwi, organic chocolate chip cookies. The cookies were from a mix I bought at Whole Foods. They were some of the most disgusting cookies ever. At least they looked cute in the bento! Happy Valentine's Day!

Mexican Bento #2

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Originally uploaded by thebentogirl

This is Wednesday's bento and it was SUPER yummy! Mexican soup I made in the crockpot. Kiwi, mango, grapes, banana, caprese salad skewers with mozzarella bunny cheese, and green beans.

The soup is so easy. In a crockpot combine salsa, chicken broth (I prefer Pacific brand, organic, low sodium), corn, chicken breast (I put it in frozen), cumin, red pepper flakes and chili powder. How much you add of each will depend on how many people you are making it for. If you put in 32 oz of broth (which is one Pacific box) then I would do around a cup and half of salsa, 1/2 cup to 3/4 of a cup of corn, and one or two chicken breast. Then, add spices to your taste. I think I cooked it on high for around 6 hours. I know it's done when you can easily shred the chicken with your hands.

Woo-Woo

I copied the owl from this bento. Hers is much better :) I don't eat eggs so I had to be creative with the eyes and my temporary bento is square and hers is rectangle. The "nest" is udon noodles and chicken, the eyes are mango, nori wings. In the bunny is organic peanut sauce. The other side is kiwi, Clementine orange, grapes and blueberries. My prep time is like 10 minutes. I cook all my meals for the week on the weekend. I have a rotating schedule so I don't eat the same thing for lunch and dinner in the same day.

I've also been really trying to expand what I eat. My first experience with udon noodles was NOT good at all. I got some from the Asian Super Duper Market (as it is called by my Asian students) and they were horrible. I found some organic udon noodles at whole foods and mixed them with peanut sauce...MUCH better!

On another note, one of my favorite bento blogs posted today about glass vs plastic. I'm glad she posted some ideas because I don't microwave my plastic. I am stopping by one of the Asian stores by work tomorrow to see if they have some glass containers (I was going to stop today but didn't want to get caught in the rain). Hopefully, they'll have something for cheap :) I don't even like to put my plastic in the dishwasher.


Tomorrow's clue: USA meets Mexico

Bento Means Cram It In There

Okay after looking at a lot of different bento blogs my brain finally got it. Bento means fill every available space. So hopefully, today's bento is more bento than my previous bentos (if that makes any sense). Today's bento has mango, kiwi, grapes, rice, green beans, soy sauce in the bunny and the best steak I've ever made, but sadly forgot the recipe.

Also EVERY single container here was purchased at the dollar store!!! I am still anxiously awaiting the opening of Ichiban Kan website in April. So I can buy bento stuff for cheap, cheap, cheap! I have two more stores I am going to check out this week to see if I can find one scrap of bento stuff in Orlando.

Tomorrow's bento clue: Konnichiwa

Happy Year of the Rat

chinese bento
Originally uploaded by thebentogirl

In honor of Chinese New Year I had Sesame Ginger Chicken Salad with oranges (dressing in the bunny). I made a rat with nori and banana, some oranges, and topped it off with a fortune cookie...which I know are not Chinese and more Chinese-American.

Mexican Bento

Meixcan Bento
Originally uploaded by thebentogirl

This is a Mexican Bento...adobo flavored grilled chicken (one is a bunny :)) homemade pico de gallo...bunny and chick cheese...homemade "mexican rice" flavored with chili pepper, red pepper and cumin...pretty kiwi, orange, and pineapple. It was VERY yummy :) Tomorrow's bento: Gung Hay Fat Choy :)

My First Bento!

medbento
Originally uploaded by kelleyirv

Okay I hope my mom has my baby book out because here is my very first bento! I spent WAY too much money ordering bento stuff off ebay but it's coming from Japan so while I wait I am using stuff I picked up at the dollar store. This bento has a Mediterranean theme. Caprese salad (cute little mozzarella bunnies) inside the pink bunny is the dressing. Then, some not so Mediterranean fruit-kiwi and bananas. Part two is dill chicken for the chicken gyros, hummus with pita triangles and bunny pitas (so cute!!! i could just eat the little boogers...oh wait i did :) ) and gyro sauce. Hasta manana (that's also a clue about tomorrow's bento)