Halloween Colors Bento and Giveaway Winner!

Hi bento friends! Sorry I did not post this sooner, I got distracted by something shiny. LOL. So here is a quick bento filled with lots of great Halloween colors. I was so thrilled to find the two shades of cauliflower at the Farmers Market this weekend. They rock! And they taste good.

In this bento: purple and green steamed cauliflower from Ma and Pa's Garden, tamagoyaki omelette slices, leftover emerald chicken curry from California Thai, a yakionigiri rice ball from Trader Joe's, a cherry tomato, steamed edamame, and champagne grapes from Schletewitz Family.

And now for the winner of the simple recipe contest... there were 18 different entries. And the randomly selected winner is...

mommypants! mommypants sent in a great recipe for a simple pasta salad. This would be a great addition to any bento and the fun thing is that you can make endless variations depending on your tastes and what you have in your cupboard/refrigerator. Thanks mommypants! Be sure to check out her blog for more fun parenting ideas. 

Mommypants Simple Pasta Salad

2 cups pasta cooked al dente (I like bow-ties or ziti)

2 cups fresh diced tomatoes

1/2 cup fresh chopped basil

6-8 oz fresh mozzarella (can be diced, or those tiny balls from store)

1/8-1/4 cup low fat balsamic dressing 

Just mix them all together in a bowl, and let it marinate. I like to bring some extra balsamic with me to add a bit of freshness to the salad.

Goes great with a piece of bread and last night's Chicken Parmesan (I always make lots of extra breaded chicken to go along with lunches).

Thanks to everyone who entered and for sending in great recipes for bento lunches. I will have the rest of the simple recipes up on its own page on Sonoma Bento soon. Thanks! Have a great week!

Sweet Potato Stars Bento

I used some slices of okinawan sweet potato for this bento. Locally I buy this purple fleshed potato at Asia Mart on Guerneville Road. It tastes like a regular orange fleshed sweet potato, but look at that color!

Also in this bento: steamed edamame, a piece of steamed corn from the Santa Rosa Original Certified Farmers Market, shishito peppers fried in olive oil and tossed in salt from Beet Generation Farms, a slice of Gravenstein Apple from Walker Apples, an orange cherry tomato from the Oakmont Farmers Market, and a yakionigiri rice ball from Trader Joe's.

I am coming up on another milestone and another donation to Redwood Empire Food Bank, so get ready for a fun giveaway. I'll probably do it sometime next week!

I started a new blog for my nail art, so if you like seeing nail art (mostly hand painted, although I will do some stamping as well), then check out sonoma nail art, my new blog! This is a little crow picking at a shiny ribbon. I like how it turned out. :)

I also included this lunch on Shannon's What's For Lunch Wednesdays. You'll find a great collection of bento lunch ideas on her blog every Wednesday. Happy bentoing!

Mochiko Chicken Bento

A lovely visit to the Santa Rosa Original Certified Farmers Market yesterday means I can now fill my bento lunches with local veggies and fruits. This bento has items from a few different local farmers.

In this bento: lime mochiko chicken, a hard boiled quail egg, slices of armenian cucumber from Redwood Empire Farm, orange cherry tomatoes from Ridgeview Farms, padron peppers and a mini Pink Pearl apple from Triple T Ranch and Farms, and a yakionigiri rice ball from Trader Joe's.

I was super excited to try these gorgeous apples from Triple T Ranch and Farms. The interior has a bright blush of pink extending from the skin towards a white interior. Larry of Triple T helped me pick out a few small apples perfect for bento. Some of the apples in this photo have apple scab, which is just an outer flaw on the apple, it doesn't extend into the rest of the fruit. These are tart, juicy little apples. I just love them!

Pasta Bento with Lychee

I made this pasta dish last night for dinner, and the leftovers are perfect for bento. You'll also see something I rarely include in bento: fresh lychee fruits! I found them at Trader Joe's. Yum.

In this bento: pasta salad with red onion, tomato from The Patch, basil and armenian cucumber from Redwood Empire Farm, carrots, and shredded chicken. Also a hard boiled quail egg, a mini Gravenstein Apple from Redwood Empire Farm, edamame, and lychee fruit.

Airplane Bentos

I just got back from a nice long visit to see my family in Washington State. This was the longest vacation I have had in over 5 years, so it was really nice to not be rushed and have the time to relax. Of course, it was also a great reason to make airplane bento box lunches!

My first bento for the trip from Santa Rosa to Seattle contained falafel from Trader Joes, a few kalamata olives, cherries from the Neufeld Farms, caprese skewers, and spinich bolani made in the Bay Area.

Of course, while I was in Washington State, I had to go bento shopping. I found some fun bento boxes for my sister in law, my brother, and even baby sized bento boxes for my little niece. My bro decided to make bentos for us for a picnic to a local winery. I have to admit I got a little bossy and assembled my own bento, so he was kind of peeved. But I really do like his bento, it's the larger black one with the sandwich wrapped in wax paper. Our bentos had either eggs or egg salad sandwiches, radishes, cucumber, carrots, apples, bell pepper slices, and broccoli. Very healthy!

And here's the bento I made for my plane trip back from Seattle. My sister and I stopped at a great asian market in Kent, Washington called 99 Ranch Market. We got some delicious roasted duck, which I included in this bento. Also edamame, carrots, rainier cherries, and cucumber slices.

Here's a video of the shenanigans I got up to playing with my little niece. I made shirts for the Aunties to celebrate Auntie Palooza 2011. Hee hee!

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Can't wait to get back to bento making now that I am all rested up. Have a great week bento pals!

Cauliflower Hugs a Bao Bento

Tee hee!! After I made this bento it totally looked like the cauliflower was giving a hug to the bao in the bento. I should have put eyes on the tangerine. :) Oh well.

In this bento: leftover marinated flank steak, a few kalamata olives, a tangerine from Schletewitz Family, steamed orange cauliflower, and a char sui bao from Trader Joe's.

I also finally did a new nail polish design. This was suggested by a friend of mine a while ago. I love to paint my nails with fun designs, and I love bento, so he thought I should combine the two. Here's what I painted on each nail: thumb: an edamame pod on a blue background; index: a tamagoyaki omelette; middle: a smiling onigiri rice ball; ring: a strawberry; and pinkie: an apple rabbit. Nom, nom, nom! :)

My one year blog-iversary is coming up this Friday! Check in to see a re-do bento, tips on what I consider my bento essentials after one year of bentoing, and a fun prize package. I'm so excited!!!!

New (Kind of) Bento Box Bento

I am debuting my new pink "Floral Time" bento box today! It's not technically new, since I purchased it from someone on eBay who was selling her gently used bento box. I have been trying to win some of the awesome bento boxes that are part of the Bento4Japan eBay auction, but I keep getting outbid. WHICH IS AWESOME! :) I'll keep trying though, lots of great things are up for auction. Make sure that the Bento4Japan auction you are bidding on is donating 100% of the final sale price to the Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Fund - a GlobalGiving Project. There are (sadly) some people trying to profit from the Bento4Japan auction. You can easily tell if a bento auction is legit, because it will say that 100% of the final sale price is going to the Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Fund - a GlobalGiving Project. Find Bento4Japan items by clicking here.

In this two tiered bento: leftover udon noodles with veggies and leftover chicken, a few turkey and provolone cheese rolls, and slices of radish. In the lower tier: a char sui bao from Trader Joe's, steamed edamame, a few slices of red bell pepper, steamed Okinawan sweet potato (cut in a flower shape), and a little carrot from Triple T. The leftover noodles have some asparagus from Triple T (first of the season!!) and green garlic from the Santa Rosa Original Certified Farmers Market.

And here's my cutie patootie new(ish) bento box. I just love it. PINK! And the flowers on the lid are so adorable. Have a great Monday, bento friends!

Irish O'Bento

Get it, O'Bento?? Ha ha! Anyway, Happy St. Patrick's Day! This is an international bento, filled with corned beef and cabbage.

In this bento: boiled red potatoes, boiled carrots, boiled corned beef (from Trader Joes), and steamed cabbage. Also a cute little green monkey pick, and a monkey container filled with some mustard.

Beverage Pairing Suggestion: Guinness, natch!

Our Bento4Japan ebay auction is going strong, with more items added and some great bids. Today I added a fun bento starter kit with a handmade onigiri bento box strap. You can add your own auction items, just be sure to put Bento4Japan in the title of the auction. Get more details on how you can help at the Bento4Japan website. We hope to raise lots of money for the people of Japan who are working to put their lives back together.

Char Sui Bao Bento

This is my 120th bento post, and that means it is time to donate to my favorite local charity: Redwood Empire Food Bank! For every 20 posts, I donate 20 bucks to the Redwood Empire Food Bank. That's a dollar per post. I like to think that my lunches are helping other people in my community enjoy a healthy meal as well. I was inspired to donate a dollar per post after seeing the wonderful example set by Susan Yuen of Hawai'i's Bento Box. She donates to her local food bank. Debra of Hapa Bento also makes donations for each bento post. We are a supportive community of bloggers, and it is great to see us making an effort to help others. I encourage you to find a charity you like and make a donation per post, or you can make a donation to the Redwood Empire Food Bank. For every dollar Redwood Empire Food Bank gets, they distribute $4 worth of food! They are very efficient.

Today's bento includes a char sui bao from Trader Joes topped with three nori hearts, a few baby carrots, steamed edamame, and fried rice with onion and carrots. I can't wait to go to the farmers market this weekend. I totally need to get more bento ingredients.

This morning I ran into dragonmamma at the grocery store! It was so fun to meet someone from the bento world in person. I know dragonmamma doesn't do bento so much, but she does have a fun blog and is in the midst of a fun 365 challenge: breaking a routine everyday. She's breaking habits left and right, and building new synapses along the way. It's really fun and inspiring, be sure to check it out.

Have a great day, bento pals!

Moving Is Hell Bento

So I am days away from the first official day of my move. Me and Mr. Sonoma Bento are moving to a larger apartment in our complex, so I am really looking forward to more space, but NOT really looking forward to all of the boxes and cleaning that await me in the next week. Yuck. Yesterday I spent two hours scrubbing the oven. :-( So this will be the last bento for a little while, until I get everything unpacked and am not worried about cleaning an appliance again so my landlord can inspect it.

In this bento: Yakionigiri from Trader Joes (love these!), baby carrots, a mandarin orange, a few cherry tomatoes from Trader Joes (not very flavorful this time of year), leftover salmon from Sam's For Play Cafe (dinner last night), and steamed broccoli shoots from Triple T tossed with a mustard and chili flakes vinaigrette.

This is a brand new bento box (well, kind of brand new) that I picked up at Border's bookstore. They carry products from Paperchase, and this is one of a set of four bento boxes. I really love these boxes because they are so cute, and with four different sizes for one low price, they are really versatile. Plus the lids seem to fit really well.

Wish me luck with the move! See you around mid March. :-)