Oh my.. this was so good!  Thanks for bentolunches (Flickr) for the cute picks and the yummy candies.

Finally went grocery shopping the other day. Trader Joe’s now has gelatin free gel cups! WIN!

(I didn’t iron the fabric…. Fail.)

Box 1: Cheese tortellini salad Box 2: Strawberries and carrots, Cottage cheese. Side items: No gelatin gel cup and strawberry choc candy

Discovered a new favorite today.  Kimchi and noodles.  I bought the cabbage kimchi in a jar and thought I’d use it for something.  I had left over egg noodles from dinner last night so decided to do cabbage and noodles (one of my fav things from childhood anyway).  Just sprayed the pan with olive oil, added the cold noodles and the cabbage and stir fried until brown.  EASY!  We likey.

Top box: cherry tomato, mini quiche with low fat cheddar and spring onions, kimchi and noodles. Bottom box: apple, carrots, grapes, cucumber, celery, greek yogurt with mango, kiwi flowers and a strawberry

I need to try to stop buying so much stuff at once. I have ideas in my head of things to make for dinners that I don’t end up making and get stuck with strange ingredients in the fridge. Today’s bentos are a testament to that. A mish mash of ingredients and items from the freezer. This is ok for bentos, because in my opinion different tastes and textures are key. But they also end up making my bentos look sloppy. I’m never going to be one to make awesome charaben (character bento) like some of the amazing talents of the ladies I’ve become friends with on Flickr. Their bentos are win! At the same time I want to try to have a bit more of a theme and consistency with mine. I’ll get there, but for now it’ll probably be a bit more of “I but in my bento whatever is in the fridge” kinda thing!

My bento:

Box 1: Spicy tofu and veggies, radish, tomato, grapes, strawberry, cheese wedge, caramel rice cakes Box 2: Onigiri, veggie dumplings, sweet potato patty

The Hub’s bento:

Box 1: Chicken dumplings, cherry tomato, radish, onigiri Box 2: Spicy tofu and veggies, grapes, strawberry, cheese wedge

Yesterday’s bento, a bit of randomness but I think it came out pretty cute still.  Tried a couple new things and tried to use up some stuff in my fridge too.  I keep buying stuff to make bento lunches then get too lazy to do them!  I need to get myself back into the grove!  This was my first time for quail eggs.  Tasted like, um… eggs!  xD  Kinda freaked me out first bite, although I’m lacto-ovo-veg some eggs and milk still gross me out after my 6 months of being vegan.  All in all, tasty lunch!

*One small complaint – The strawberry tofu pudding was bought like this.  “Nayosa” brand has a new line out of dessert tofu and I picked up both the chocolate and the strawberry.  The chocolate was great.  Tasted exactly like chocolate pudding would.  But the strawberry was very strange.  The texture was weird, the taste was very sweet and it has a very unappealing after taste.  I’ll stick with my homemade recipe of just whipping fresh strawberries into soft tofu, it works out much cheaper and a whole heck of a lot better tasting!

I also played around a bit more on this pic with the light studio and Photoshop.  Think it came out decent, added in the watermark too.  I still need to sort out some new backgrounds.  I have fabric bought, just need to get it all put together.

Box 1: Okinawan purple potatoes with cinnamon, mini babybel light (cheese), quail eggs, Vegetarian turkey slices with green olives, radish on top of left over brown rice with green radish seasoning. Box 2: strawberries, apple, kiwi, strawberry tofu pudding

Bento boxes and supplies have taken over my life in the last couple of months. Any shop I go to these days I’m looking for accessories. I’ve orders stuff on sites and have a few things coming in from Ebay. I’m officially, without a doubt, 100% addicted. Needless to say, my house has been over run by all of this stuff! Last night I went on a mission to find something small to store all of the gear in. I came up with this little cupboard from Target. This is from their Itso line. I’m pretty happy with it. It’s not going to last forever, but it was a good price and will work for what I need it for right now. Once I out grow it – I can always use it in the office or one of the bedrooms. It was super easy to put together too, I did it all by myself (which if you knew me – you’d know that never works out well!).

Closed, it looks very sleek. You’d never guess it was full of crazy bento gear!

When you open it, I have the boxes on the top shelf. On the bottom, I got two green storage containers for the smaller cups and cutters, etc. Then on top of those I bought a fabric cube that stores bags, chopsticks, etc. Everything is easily accessible. Now I don’t need to look in 2 different cupboards and 4 different drawers to find everything!

Hubby bought me a portable lightbox kit and I am in love with it! The backgrounds suck so I’m going to have to get to the fabric store and sort something else out, but I love not having to use the flash on my bentos. I just need to play around with the lighting a bit more since the one box is showing up a bit dark. Bento #33 was made using an Indian tiffin box.

Box 1: Spring onion tamagoyaki, strawberries and grapes, cheddar cubes. Box 2: brown rice with sushi vinegar and radish green rice seasoning, mixed veg kinpira

Kinda a lame Easter this year.  No kiddies around, no family to go to for Easter dinner.  I had to do something to make me not be so homesick!  I decided a couple of Easter bentos would do the trick.  These were fun ones to do!

My dyed eggs this year - Kawaii Faces

Bento #30 & 31 ---- Garlic Veggie Stir-fry, Spring Onion pancakes, carrot flowers, dyed eggs

And for dessert…..

Bento #32 ---- Chocolate tofu pudding, grape and brie kabobs, kiwi slices on top of pound cake muffins

While I haven’t been blogging lately, the shopping never stops! I’ve been building up my bento collection gradually. I finally got a free second today to get everything out and take some pictures.

This is my entire collection to date. Some items have been through flickr swaps, some I’ve ordered online and others I’ve managed to find at the few shops we have around here.

My bento collection

This is one of my favorite little boxes I found while up in Pittsburgh @ Kawaii Gifts. They also have an online shop: Shop Kawaii

Dreamy Friends Pig Bento

The two stackable snack boxes below are so cute!  I found them at Borders of all places.  They make great sidecars.

My mom is coming in from FL today then we are out of town for a couple of weeks so I’ll be taking a little bloggin break.  Stay tuned in April as we feature some new bentos, recipes, bento gear and even some new amigurumi I’ve been working on!

Hope everyone has a great rest of March and see you all in April !!