Weekly Bento Round-Up #8

We're on Week 8 of this Bento madness, and for the time being, I'm still feeling pretty psyched about filling the Bento containers with all kinds of early-morning deliciousness. When I first started making these Bento lunches, I was usually preparing them the night beforehand, which was a bad idea for a couple of reasons: (1) that led to me staying up extra-late, and (2) as long as I was staying up, I was being a little overly-ambitious with these lunches, which led to me staying up even later. At this point, though, I feel like I'm in a pretty decent groove with the Bento-making. I've been getting up at 6:45 to make them (and usually get some thing going for breakfast for Jen, too--as simple as cereal or, at worst, pancakes with batter made the night before to save time), and I'm usually left with plenty of time before Jen leaves for work at 7:30.

Without further ado, let's take a look at this week's Bento lunches.



The first lunch this week was pretty simple and easy to prepare, but delicious nonetheless: a simple green salad with cranberries, cashews, and feta, along with a little leftover asparagus with lemon juice, EVOO, and kosher salt. It's too bad there wasn't more asparagus left over from Sunday night's dinner, but it worked out okay, as I just packed extra bagged snacks and fruit to compensate for a less-filling Bento.



The bulk of Wednesday's lunch (Tuesday was just a simple DIY sandwich I've shown on here before) was Inari, Jen's favorite kind of sushi. Inari are tofu wrappers stuffed with seasoned sushi rice. We just buy our tofu wrappers in a package from our local Japanese grocery store--if you have that kind of store in your neck of the woods, they'll probably carry this item. The remaining container consisted of just a small salad with a little EVOO drizzled over it.





Remember how psyched I was about that deli-sliced off-the-bone ham from Sprouts? Well, this week they added off-the-bone turkey to their deli section, and I eagerly picked it up. This lunch consists of a DIY sandwich on San Francisco sourdough with the turkey (which definitely did not disappoint), a little Colby cheese, and sliced Gala apple (along with plenty of bagged snacks and fruit, as always).



I ended up only having 15 minutes to whip up today's lunch, so I turned on the griddle (which, luckily, preheats very quickly), and then shelled and tossed on some precooked shrimp. After a couple of minutes I added a corn tortilla, then a little shredded Cabot extra sharp Cheddar, and then placed the warmed shrimp on top. Next, I added the second tortilla, and smushed the whole thing down with a spatula. After a couple minutes, I flipped the quesadilla, and allowed it to finish cooking for one more minute. Then I sliced it into quarters, and placed it in the main container of the Bento box. That all took about ten minutes, so I had just enough time to pack a little jarred pico de gallo in one container, a Gala apple in the other (with a little lemon juice to prevent browning), and the requisite bagged snacks.



Thanks for stopping by Beach City Cooking, and I'll see you all tomorrow for another post. Have a great night, and stay cool!