Falafel Sandwich Laptop Lunch

Ugh, I have been super lazy about packing my lunches lately. So, in an effort to eat healthier and save money, I pulled out my trusty Laptop Lunchbox and packed myself a (somewhat) healthy lunch. Okay, so it's not a very pretty bento, but there is a cute little kitty in the tomatoes, so that should count for something right?

What's included:

The falafel sandwich is made from Falafelim frozen falafels. I defrosted a few, shaped them into a patty, then baked them. These falafels are the best because they don't have any additives like many of the pre-made ones or dry mixes do. The sandwich is on Rudi's gluten free bread with Whole Foods hummus, sprouts and thinly sliced cucumbers.

The little salad is some leftover Beets and Greens salad (kit from Eat Smart) from last night's dinner.

If you are a Pinterest addict like me I'm sure you have seen the two-ingredient muffins/cookies. Basically it's a cake mix and a can of pumpkin puree. Well, I modified the recipe a bit. My mini cake bites are made from a Betty Crocker Gluten Free Devil's Food Cake Mix, a can of pumpkin puree, two tablespoons of coconut oil, a tablespoon of ground flax, a tablespoon of ground chia, and a cup of dairy free chocolate chips. So, this dessert isn't exactly healthy, but it's not that bad...right?

Lastly, a cup of cut tomatoes to add a few more veggies to my lunch. 

Om nom... I'm already looking forward to lunch.

Cookbook Review: Babycakes

Babycakes is a well-known NYC bakery which offers gluten-free, soy-free, vegan baked goods. I have never been there myself, but people just rave about it. I recently spent a week with my cousin who made a different babycakes recipe each day, and upon my return home, I ran out to get the cookbook.

Warning! Not all of the recipes are gluten-free. Several call for Spelt Flour which is easier to digest than wheat flour, and therefore may be o.k. for some people, but shouldn't be eaten if you are on a strict diet. Some recipes also call for soy due to product availability, but substitutions can be made.

I love this cookbook! It does have its faults, but when a recipe comes out, it is amazing. If regular baking is Chemistry, then Babycakes is AP Chemistry, so be sure to avoid substitutions as much as possible, measure with painstaking accuracy, and follow the directions exactly as they are written. Some factors can't be helped, like the difference in oven temperatures, or the quality of different brands of ingredients.

Several of my recipes didn't come out well on my first attempt, but I was able to identify the problem pretty easily, and my second batch came out great. The only thing is, it's an expensive lesson to learn. The ingredients are pricey!

My favorite recipe is the Brownies, my cousin's is the Blondies. I also really enjoyed the chocolate chip cookies. I haven't perfected the frosting yet, which is frustrating, but is apparently the most difficult recipe in the book. If I can achieve frosting, I can do anything!

The author has compiled a FAQ on her website, and will answer questions via the cookbook's Twitter if you are in need of help:

http://www.babycakesnyc.com/books.html

http://twitter.com/#!/BabyCakesBook

Have you tried Babycakes? What was your experience?

Star Wars Bento

A few weeks ago I splurged on a Star Wars cupcake decorating kit from William Sonoma. I'm a huge Star Wars geek, and would love to buy everything they have, like the awesome cookie cutters, and the apron, but they are really expensive IMO.

Today's bento is pretty simple. A nice salad and a star-shaped, triple layered, peanut butter and nutella sandwich on gluten free bread (in a Star Wars cupcake liner).

Bento Product Review: Justin's Nut Butter

Look at these fantastic little nut butter packets! Aren't they perfect for bento lunches, or snacks on-the-go? I particularly liked the selection. As you can see in the photo, there are several nut butters and several flavors.

Because I couldn't wait to try them, I didn't pack a fancy bento lunch. As I type I'm eating some Justin's Chocolate Peanut Butter on Udi's Gluten Free bread. One packet, at 170 calories, is perfect for two slices of bread. The ingredient list is impressive, being mostly organic and sweetened with evaporated cane juice. There is a perfect combination of chocolate and peanut butter, with neither flavor overwhelming the other. Yum.

So, big thumbs up for Justin's nut butter products. I still have traditional and honey peanut butter to try, so I will update you if my opinion changes (but I doubt it will). I regret not buying more (I don't live near the store I found them in), but it's o.k., because I found them on Amazon:

Justin's on Amazon

You can check out the company profile on their website: http://justinsnutbutter.com/

and visit them on Facebook

Pikachu Bento Lunch

Today's lunch is a Pikachu bento. I don't know a lot about Pokemon, but since I have the food picks, and the characters are cute, I like to make Pokemon themed bento boxes. Pikachu is made from yellow soy cheese. The black accents are Nori, the white accents are white soy cheese, and his rosy cheeks are tomato. He is perched on an egg salad sandwich. Brussels sprouts, cucumber, and tomatoes on the side. This bento is a bit too green, but I didn't have any more colorful veggies to go with my sandwich.

Since I went Gluten Free, I have found many awesome alternatives for desserts and snacks, but I really missed sandwiches. Every brand of Gluten-free bread I tried was terrible. But I'm happy to say that I found a great brand. Udi's Gluten free products are great. So far I like their whole grain bread and their plain bagels, although the bagels taste more like bread rolls than actual bagels. My big complaint with other brands is the thick gooey-ness of the bread. It doesn't toast because it doesn't dry out. So weird. I love the bread mixes that I make in my bread machine, but they are difficult to slice thin enough for sandwiches. Udi's isn't gooey and it toasts up nicely. It tastes great too. Udi's is a bit expensive at about $6 a loaf, but so are every other gluten-free brand, so I can't complain about that.

Flickr Kyaraben Highlights

Since I have been horribly lackadaisical about my bento making/blogging lately, I thought I would highlight some of the awesomely creative and inspiring bento lunches our friends have been posting over at the Kyaraben Flickr Photo Group.

 

Are these amazing or what?!?! This is just a random sampling from the group. You can click on any photo to visit the original Flickr page. Many of these Bento artists have blogs so make sure you check them out. 

I'm regretting the fact that I didn't make a Halloween Bento. It is a really fun and creative holiday and I wish I had taken advantage of the excuse to make a creepy or scary bento. Maybe I will just make one now and call it a "gothic" bento! 

Winnie The Pooh Bento Lunch

Well, once again my bento posts have become infrequent. It's just what happens when fall rolls around and I find myself back in school. I have been eating a lot of soup, which isn't very bento-pretty, or just being lazy about my lunches because I'm busy. I promise I am still making bentos, just a little less often than in the summer.

Today's lunch is salad, an egg salad sandwich on gluten free bread, a gluten free piece of cake, and some tortilla chips. This gluten free bread is yucky (I can't remember the brand right now). I have yet to find one I really like. Pooh is made from rice cheese and nori. Pooh is an easy face for cute bento making. It is all packed in my laptop lunchbox, which is an excellent bento system, but it is always too much food for me. I have to learn to pack less.

Hunger Games Bento Lunch

In honor of the release of the third and final book in the Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins, I decided to take a break from reading to make a Hunger Games Bento. The bento is a tomato, yellow pepper, and tofu salad. The mockingjay pin logo, and flame details are made from Nori. I thought this bento would be easy to make. Just cut some veggies and nori into the shape of flames right? Well, it was much more difficult than I had anticipated, and I'm not satisfied with the results. But, I haven't posted a bento in a while, so here it is. On the side is some delish gluten free pizza with vegan cheese. Ever since I went gluten free I have been craving pizza. I'm so happy I found a local pizzeria that has gluten free and vegan pizza.

If you aren't familiar with the Hunger Games, it is a hugely popular middle reader/young adult dystopian series. If you are looking for a good read, definitely check it out.

   

Happy Star Bento

Today's bento full of fresh veggies (corn on the cob, tomatoes, and cucumber), grapes, and two store bought falafels. In the front is some hummus to eat with the falafels, and the two happy stars are vegan cheese and nori.

Laptop Lunches

I promised myself I wouldn't buy any more bento boxes, but when I saw Laptop Lunches at a local natural food store, I couldn't resist. So, here is my first ever lunch packed in my Laptop Lunches lunchbox. It is pretty ordinary. I included a salad, some cottage cheese, some vegetarian chik'n salad on gluten free bread, some rosemary garlic potatoes and green beans, some cashews, and two gluten free cookies. I love this cute lunch box but it was way too much food for me.

And just because I haven't posted in a while, here is a bento I made on July 5th including some picnic leftovers

A vegetarian BLT, potato salad, corn on the cob, fresh pickled cucumber, and apple pie.

Laptop Lunches are described as "American-style bento boxes" and are free of phthalates, BPA and Lead. The makers of Laptop Lunches are proponents of healthy and waste-free lunches.


Laptop Lunches are also available on Amazon.

I'LL EAT YOU UP!

So, here is Max from Where the Wild Things Are. This was a frustrating bento to make. First of all, it has been oppressively hot in my neck of the woods, and my AC couldn't keep up. My veggies wilted before I could snap the picture. Second, I made Max too small, so his face was really hard to cut out, especially considering the way the heat and humidity effected the nori. In the book, Max is a line drawing with heavy outline and shadow. To try to mimic this, I created a nori sheet shaped like him (but a bit bigger, and with a tail) to act as a background.

Max's costume is cheese and nori, while his face is tofurkey lunch meat and nori. He is resting on half a sandwich, surrounded by veggies. In the side dish area, I put some potato salad which was totally delish, but looks nasty in this picture.

Twilight Bento featuring Edward Cullen

A while back I made a Twilight Bella Swan bento. Bella came out o.k., but I didn't put much effort into the rest of the bento, and I was much less experienced in creating charaben bento lunches. Despite this, it is still my most popular blog post, probably because Twilight is so popular. Anyway, I decided to do a new Twilight bento to make up for it. This time I chose Edward.

Like last time, I used the illustrations from the Japanese translation of Twilight for inspiration. These three books comprise the first Twilight book. I used the picture of Edward on the cover of the second book (part 2 of Twilight) for this bento.

Edward is made of white and yellow cheese, vegetarian turkey, and nori. The rest of the lunch is a PB and J sandwich and some fresh veggies. You can check out my Bella blog post for detailed instructions on how I made these Twilight characters. This time, I like the bento overall, but Edward didn't come out as well as I had hoped. Oh well. 

This Edward bento is also featured on my squidoo post: How to Photograph Your Bento Boxes.

Tamago Branding and Two Lunches

I'm pretty excited. A while ago I was looking at sushi and bento box photos on flickr and found one with a tamago that had an image burned into it. Naturally, I have been wanting to do this myself ever since. I looked into mini stainless steel steak branding irons but they are expensive and I'm not a fan of the designs. I looked into making one, but I certainly don't have the equipment or knowledge to do so. I found an interesting version made from a wire hanger on the blog "A Radiused Corner." This site links to a great YouTube video showing tamago being made and branded (skip to 1:20). Great idea, I just don't trust a wire hanger to be food safe.

So, last night, after I made my bento lunch for today, I had a brainstorm. I have a ton of stainless steel cookie cutters in cute shapes! So, I cooked up a tamago and gave it a try.

I used pliers to hold the cookie cutter (the dull end) near the flame of my gas burner. I didn't get it hot enough on my first attempt, then I got it too hot on my second, causing it to stick to the egg. Finally I found a happy medium.

Here is a close-up of the final product. Isn't it cute? I'm not recommending that you try this at home. Unless you have extra long handled pliers, you have to get pretty close to the flame. If you don't mind spending some money, you can have a branding iron made, or purchase one for about $20. Just make sure you choose a small one.



So, I threw together a small bear bento to put my branded tamago in, but like I said before, I had already made my lunch.

This is a pretty simple lunch. Two PB&J pocket sandwiches, some veggies and dressing for dipping. I wrapped the bottom half of the sandwiches in decorative foil for something to hold on to, and packed them all in a sanwich bento box. I lined the box with a paper napkin to prevent crumbs from falling out all over my lunch bag. The pocket sandwich maker I use is from Pampered Chef. It works o.k. if you have really soft bread, but I'm not entirely happy with it.

So hopefully I will be hungry enough to eat two lunches today.

Oscar the Grouch Bento Lunch

Today's lunch is Oscar the Grouch surrounded by fresh veggies and two Morningstar Farms "Buffalo Wings." You may have noticed that I rarely use rice in my bentos. I'm not a big fan of rice, and when I do make it, I end up throwing half away because I can't make a small enough portion in my rice cooker. Today is an exception because I was making sushi for dinner.

Oscar is made of sushi rice dyed with green food coloring. His mouth is nori and tomato, his eyes are nori and cheese, and his eyebrows are baked potato skin.

Oscar didn't really come out as well as I had hoped and planned. I don't have a lot of practice molding rice.

Check out my "Sesame Street Themed Bento Boxes" page on squidoo which features this Oscar lunch.

Grateful Dead Dancing Bear Bento

This is my entry for the "Rock My Bento" contest over at the Kawaii Bento club on Squidoo. I decided to do a Grateful Dead themed bento because they have such great images associated with the band. I had lofty ambitions, and am a bit disappointed with the final product. Not that I don't like my cute little dancing bear, or the mix of multi-colored tomatoes (because I think of bright colors and tie-dye when I think of the Grateful Dead), it's just that I cut out an intricate "Steal Your Face" skull that I didn't end up using because it was just way too big.






 Steal Your Face

I imagined tie-dye and roses and skulls and bears all rolled into one fantastic bento lunch. Oh well, I guess next time I should think before I start cutting out my nori.

If you want to enter the Kawaii Bento Club's Rock My Bento Contest, head over to the contest page for all the details:

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          A Couple of Good Grateful Dead Albums

Doctor Who Dalek Bento & Nori Cutting Tips

Last week I wanted to make a Doctor Who bento. I immediately thought of either the TARDIS or a Dalek. Since I figured the Dalek would be seriously detailed, I went with the TARDIS (see my  Doctor Who TARDIS Bento). Today I was feeling more ambitious.

First, I chose an image online and printed it. I then manually reduced it to black and white with a pen (this can be done with photo-editing programs, or simply by choosing a black and white image to start with). Luckily I was able to find a mostly monochrome Dalek image.  I then traced it onto tracing paper (wax paper can be used as well).

My tools are an X-Acto knife, a pair of tweezers, and a pair of small scissors, all dedicated to food. Remember, clean and thoroughly dry these tools after using them to prevent rusting.

Next, I put the image over a sheet of nori and used the knife to cut out all the internal white areas. Remember to save the internal black areas that you remove during this part.

This may take some practice. Nori rips easily and can be brittle. I suggest starting with less detailed images. Next, I cut along the outside and immediately place the image on my food surface (in this case, a piece of rice-cheese).

You will notice that there are some areas where the nori ripped during the cutting. I also don't like how the bottom right came out. So, using small pieces which I cut out with scissors, I use the tweezers to fill in the mistakes. It is much easier than redoing the whole thing.

So, here is the final product again. After cutting out the rest of those tiny dots (so hard!) I cut the excess cheese from around the outside and placed the whole thing on top of a vegetarian BLT sandwich. The lunch also includes a small salad with half a hard-boiled egg, some vegetarian "beef tips," asparagus, and broccoli sauteed in a garlic sauce, and two cherries for dessert. The cat pick is a nod to the New Earth cat-people, since I didn't really have any Doctor Who related food picks.

So, this was definitely challenging to cut out, and I'm reasonably satisfied with the result.


Check out a few more details at the Kawaii Bento Club. 

Doctor Who TARDIS Bento

I love Doctor Who. I only started watching it a few months ago and managed to plow through four seasons and several specials. I am only three episodes/specials away from the new season which is currently airing (on BBC America for me). I can't wait for my next Netflix delivery.

Since Doctor Who is a BBC show, I decided to do a British themed bento to go with my TARDIS.

A lot of my entertainment comes from England. I love Monty Python, Harry Potter, Ricky Gervais, Neil Gaiman... the list goes on and on. I don't know a lot about British food. "The Kipper and the Corpse" episode of Fawlty Towers comes to mind, and I wonder why that guy wanted to eat fish for breakfast. The one thing that is mentioned in nearly every British show/book I like is curry. Since I am assuming that they mean Indian curry, I decided to do a vegetarian curry and rice for my Doctor Who bento lunch.

I used a leak-resistant container for this lunch, because the curry is a bit gooey, and a microwave safe container, because I plan to heat this one up at work. Also, I chose a blue container because I couldn't easily make the TARDIS blue, as it should be.  

The TARDIS is made from nori on rice-cheese. To top it all off, for dessert a Mars Bar! Get it? Because he travels through space... and Mars Bars are from England. I would have loved to include a Cadbury Flake, the best candy bar ever, but they are hard to find around here. Plus that wouldn't have fit the theme.

So, I'm off to watch Torchwood while I wait for my next episodes of Doctor Who to arrive.