Back-to-School Bento

If you've read my last post, you'll know that this is my first attempt at bento. I thought it would turn out a lot worse, so I'm actually quite pleased with the results ^.^

Lower Tier

At first, I was planning on using steamed rice for the carby bit in the bottom tier, but my sister and I made Hard Rock Cafe mac & cheese for lunch and there were leftovers so I figured...why not? Normally, we make it with cavatappi pasta. The picture on the left shows it made with elbow macaroni and (several dashes of) cayenne pepper.

Upper Tier

 There are four different foods in this tier: Grilled salmon (my absolute favourite!), steamed spinach, baked potato, and Filipino spring rolls (also known as lumpia). I figured that instead of including fruit, I would just double up on the vegetables since I normally don't get enough of those in my diet anyway.

Everything was so delicious! The salmon was not as warm as I wanted it to be, but I was too lazy to go back downstairs to the caf to reheat it. But other than that, I would say that this bento was definitely successful. One of my favourite lunches I've had all year ^.^ In terms of taste, I give it 5/5. I don't think I can rate it in terms of aesthetics though (I'd probably be pretty biased); someone else would have to do that. 

I'm not sure how filling this was, though. Like, I wasn't hungry until I got home, but that could be because my friend brought some kind of Greek cake to school and shared it with me. That was awesome too, by the way. Overall, I think that this bento was good considering the weather. It was quite cold. My phone said the lowest was -29 C (not sure if that includes windchill or not, though?). My toes spent the majority of the morning defrosting from the hour-long bus ride. All the foods in the bento were warm foods, making the day feel extra fuzzy ^.^

A Sort-Of Introduction-Ish

 I've never "bento-ed" before. Not because I didn't know what bento was, though. I was vaguely aware of their existence thanks to anime, and only became more aware this summer while watching some cooking channels on YouTube that made some bento lunches. I've always wanted to try my hand at making a bento lunch myself, but never actually have. For one, I didn't have any materials (namely the bento box itself). Also, my meal plan for the week largely depends on what my parents buy at the grocery store. With bento, I'd have to be more on top of what food goes in and out of the house and how to ration everything for the week. Thirdly, I'd have to spend time actually preparing the meals and well...I can be somewhat lazy. Well, it's not even laziness actually. Mostly, it's busyness with homework and school assignments, sigh.

But this Christmas, my dad got me THIS SUPER KYOOT PANDA BENTO BOX 

  

Isn't it adorable? I love pandas <3 パンダが大好きです！

I originally found out about this panda bento box from YouTuber ochikeron in the video (shown on left). Anyway, I figured that...well, I have the box now. Why not try my hand at making bento lunches? So that's my goal for (at least) the next couple days.

I don't know if this will just be a phase or not. The bento box looked like it was of an average size in the video, but in real life, it is quite small. In fact, I'm kind of doubtful as to how I'll manage to fit anything in it haha. Oh well, challenge accepted. From the other bento blogs I've been reading, it seems that a lot of people use cute dividers, toothpicks, sauce bottles, and other cute little additions. Again, since I'm not sure how invested I'll actually be in bento (maybe it's just not for me, you know?), I decided to only purchase silicon baking cups for now. My sister loves baking, so even if I end up not using them, at least she will. 

I'm thinking that if I can go three weeks doing this, I'll buy another box. A flat one, not a circular one. I feel like it will be a lot easier to fit things in that way. And maybe other supplies. I don't want to buy a bunch of stuff and then end up not even using it. The reason I decided on three weeks is because that's when second semester starts. My schedule is a lot friendlier in the mornings second semester, so I can pretty much head down to the caf whenever and use their microwave before the lineup starts.

Anywho, I'm super excited for the week. Well, excited to (attempt) bento. Not to go back to school. (maaaaaaaath blaahhhgggh). I'll be using this blog as a sort-of food journal. I may not update every day as I may be busy with homework, summatives, assignments. But when I do update, I'll make sure that all the meals of the week have been included somehow.

If anyone's reading this...thanks for reading <3