Boxes in Advance

Today I made a bunch of lunches in advance. I have three part-time jobs and go to school practically full time and am often on the go. As a result my bentos are pretty "boring," consisting of items I KNOW will keep in the fridge and will not require reheating. Occasionally I make more interesting boxes with cooked foods, if I have time in the morning before I go someplace, but these boxes are examples of my routine, made in advance, lunches.

Box A: Basic Grape

Tier 1- grapes, saltines, cheese stars

Tier 2- almonds, celery, baby spinach, snow peas, broccoli, carrots

Box B: Basic Apple

Tier 1- apple slices, saltines, cheese acorns

Tier 2- same salad as Box A

Box C: Basic Banana (actually, the first time I have USED banana in a bento)

same salad as Box A, banana slices, saltines, cheese leaves

Box D: I Had Half An Apple Left (and did something a little different)

apple slices, raisins, celery, saltines, cheese slices (no shape this time)

I am one of those people who will eat the same thing every day if it works. This does, but I also want to try more things and work in some "actually Japanese" foods. I am a picky eater who is trying to branch out slowly, which will hopefully be helped by blogging. It would be boring if I only posted apple bentos, wouldn't it?

The dollar store Bob the Builder box is about the same size as the Snufkin one-tier, the only set back being the lack of divider. Luckily, apples and cupcake papers solved that "problem." (I may go back to the dollar store and grab the Strawberry Shortcake box of the same size at some point, but I do not think I will need it.)

I have left an open invitation to my little sister to take one of the boxes to school if she wants to. We will have to see if she does!

EDIT: Mom is taking the bird box tomorrow (replaced the saltines with rice crackers), kid brother is taking a one tier (not sure which), little sister possibly taking the other. I will take the apple bento because it is my favorite box and my favorite lunch all in one! If the family likes the lunches I may HAVE to get the other dollar store one tier in order to keep up.

Food-making is Serious Business

The fun thing about a bento is that you have to think not only of what goes into one, but where that food comes from. I don't know how long Colleen has been trying for, but I've been attempting a decent food garden since I was in grade school. It's only last year that I actually got a clue as to what I was actually doing!

So, as a reward for being so productive today (including getting groceries, partly for said bento-making), I went out to Home Despot to pick up the beginnings of the season's seed-starting. (I have no idea what it is with me and hyphenated nonwords tonight.)

Tonight's purchases:
Burpee ecofriendly seed starting 36-cell greenhouse kit
1 x "" Catnip
1 x "" Basil
1 x "" Pea, Super Sugar Snap
1 x "" Carrot, Royal Kuroda
1 x "" Cucumber, Early Pride Hybrid
1 x "" Tomato, Sweet Snack Hybrid
1 x "" Tomato, Super Sweet 100 Hybrid
1 x "" Spinach, Bloomsdale Long-Standing
1 x "" Spinach, Early Prolific Hybrid
1 x "" Sunflower, Super Snack Hybrid
1 x Burpee Booster, soil inoculant for beans and peas (I have no idea if this will work, but it was on a limited run so I figured I would grab one of the three there before they were gone.)

First off, you'll notice I have two different kinds of some plants. I'm going to be watching them pretty closely; the Sweet Snack Hybrid tomato is more a grape size and one of Burpee's "Prizewinner" line, and the Super Sweet 100 Hybrid is a cherry type billed as being very prolific. Prolific in my small space is good. As for the spinach, the Early Prolific is ready for harvest only about a week before the Long-Standing, but they both have different resiliencies (Bloomsdale is slow to bolt, giving more harvest time, but the Early Prolific is resistant to rust), and I don't know what's going to crop up this year (haha, "crop" up), so I want to be prepared.

At worst, I will have a LOT of spinach.

These may or may not be the only plants that end up in the garden -- it's a lot considering the 6' x 8' space I'm working in, which gets limited light and seems to have fairly poor soil. I'm going to see what I can do about rigging some sort of reflection cape to make the most of what we're getting. The space is right under the overhang of a tree that I couldn't possibly hurt just for the sunlight. I'm also going to see what all I can't do about setting up some tiers or raised beds, if that might make things a little easier/allow for more plants. I do know that I'd like, eventually, some strawberries and cantaloupe.

I just crunched one of the Super Sweet 100 seeds with my elbow. Might move these now.

And then, there's the seed-starter -- last year, I used cardboard egg cartons and potting soil sitting on a cooking pan too big for the stove. I wanted so badly to be eco. It didn't work well -- the cardboard didn't like being so wet so frequently, and our cats did. Potting soil and water consistently ALL OVER the windowsill. Bad move. So this year -- something different.



True to its eco name, you can see that it has very limited packaging, I would hardly call it "excess" -- that shiny lump of plastic wrap is the only part that isn't specifically useful or biodegradable. I was super-pleased to find too, on taking off the cardboard collar, a "Burpee Plant-O-Gram to help you keep track of your seedlings," even if I can pretty much guarantee I'm going to lose it immediately.

The kit also comes with a little packet of plant food, and each cell is equipped with a "super growing pellet." I figure when the seeds are germinated, I can move them to another container and start another set in the cells with new pellets. The pellet refills were refreshingly cheap -- only three dollars for the 36 -- and when you've used the greenhouse cells as long as you care too, they're made of PLA, a completely biodegradable plant-based plastic.


So, this is what I'm up to at this hour...that, and trying to figure out what's going into the bento for tomorrow.