Diane's Beautiful Bento Boxes

“Why is there a bear-shaped egg in your lunch?” Or, “Eating healthier and happier by learning to make bento boxes”, by Diane Verrochi.

 (Contents: Bear-shaped egg in a bed of non-fried kinpira, stewed zucchini & summer squash with tomatoes and onions, honeyed sweet potatoes, mixed fruit, and samosa-like lentil snacks.)

A friend of mine had been making Japanese bento boxes for months and posting pictures.  They ranged from very basic to very creative, but always looked better than the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches I was subsisting on for my work breaks.  So, when I started a new job, I decided it was a good time to try using the bento approach to packing my lunches.

Bento is a meal in a box.  Beyond that, it can be anything.  There are a few broad categories of bento meals, including the elegant lacquered boxes one might order in a Japanese restaurant and picnic-style boxes intended to feed several people.  The particular type of bento that appeals to me is “kyaraben” or “cute,” often (but not always) the province of lunches packed for children.  I'm a holistic nurse, and so the idea of a colorful and/or cute lunch that is also healthy makes sense to me as an added pick-me-up on the mental/emotional as well as physical level.

As you can see from the pictures, I use silicone cupcake cups to portion out my meal.  There are several advantages to these: they keep drippy things from getting all over the rest of your lunch, and if you want to heat only one or two items, you can easily do so in either a microwave or a toaster oven.  Sometimes, I even have time on my break to do that, though a prerequisite for anything I pack is that it also has to be edible and enjoyable cold.  The colors are an added bonus in the cheerful-looking department, and I've noticed that I tend to (not always consciously) load them with foods that contrast with each cup.

(Contents: Pork smothered in onions, cucumber-tomato salad, rice with rosemary-oregano seasoned olive oil, strawberries, and baby carrots.)

I haven't been doing this for very long yet, and a lot of the ideas I'm incorporating come from the Just Bento website (http://www.justbento.com) and Bento Love by Kentaro Kobayashi.  One thing that has become clear to me is just how useful it is to get into the habit of building a “stash” of ready-to-go foods.  If you are suddenly called into work on short notice, for example, I've discovered that it is entirely possible to throw together a healthy and maybe not so creative but still colorful lunch in a matter of minutes, so long as you have some items that are easily tossed into the cups and/or box.

Planning a box can seem daunting.  It helps to have a basic structure in mind.  For the most part, my lunches tend to have one main protein item, one starchy item, fresh fruit, and the rest vegetables, possibly with a secondary protein like the “lentil snacks.”  A more traditional bento would tend to have rice as a staple, possibly comprising as much as half the box, but since I'm including fruit, which has a lot of natural sugar, I try to minimize the starch.

If you're trying to work out the calories in a box, the rule of thumb is the number of milliliters the container holds should be a reasonable estimate, so long as you're not using lots of fried or sugary items.  This is useful if, like me, you could stand to cut your caloric intake but have no patience (or time) for actually weighing and counting things.  A 500-600 calorie meal is likely to fit well into a healthy diet, so long as it's balanced, and finding workable 500-600mL containers is fairly doable.  As an added bonus, the combination of having a variety of foods as well as the fiber from all the veggies and fruits tends to make the box sufficiently satisfying that, so far anyway, I've never felt like I'm “reducing” anything.  Compared to having PB&J every single day, in fact, I feel like I'm spoiling myself!

As a final bonus, unless you decide to go all crazy on what you cook to put in them, bento boxes are actually much, much less expensive than, say, ordering in at work.  You can use leftovers from earlier in the week.  Fresh veggies from the local farmer's market are often both less expensive and tastier than the over-waxed stuff in the grocery store.  Best of all, you don't have to figure out what to tip the delivery person.