Bento Box

I thought I dedicate today's post to lunch.  That mid-day meal that helps you through your busy work day.  I've always had trouble coming up with ways to make my lunch I take to work interesting and it's not always easy.  Where I work we have a overflowing fridge, two microwaves and a toaster.  Not bad but still easy to get into a sandwich-every-day rut. (And yes, I do enjoy eating out sometimes. It's great for social reasons but not so great on my wallet so I try and bring lunch far more often.)

One interesting idea I've tried recently are bento box lunches.  I bought myself a bento lunch box and started researching recipes and such.  I found a great website, JustBento, that answered pretty much all of my questions.

So here's a bento box I made.  The larger half contains two halves of a turkey sandwich and some cut up banana and kiwi.  The smaller half has some vegetable stir-fry and egg tamagoyaki (a bento box recipe found on JustBento)

What's interesting for bento lunches is that they are supposed to be made fresh in the morning and then cool down by lunch.  I did in fact make the stir-fry and egg that morning and it was cold but not unappetizing by the time I ate it.  If I am awake enough to do a little extra work in the morning then bento boxes are a great way to mix up my lunch some days of the week. The only real complaint I have is that bento boxes are so small I was ready for a second lunch before the work day was up.  I know that larger bento boxes exist (usually advertised for American men) but I really do love the cute little one I have.

Have you tried bento box lunches?  Any ideas, tricks, tips for me? I'd love to make this a trend on this blog...new food ideas! (I'm not the best cook...so maybe if I write about cooking I can get motivated to be more awesome at it.)

J.