Measure Your Feet Day Bento

What the...?! Why yes, January 23rd is Measure Your Feet Day! A strange 'holiday' indeed. But a properly measured foot hopefully leads to comfortable footwear, so I guess I can understand why it is important. Did you know that your feet can grow after you turn 40? It's true! A combination of weight, loss of elasticity, and weakening tissues can result in up to a half-size growth every ten years after the age of 40. Bizarre! So go get your feet properly measured with one of those foot measuring contraptions, you know, this thing here.

To celebrate Measure Your Feet Day, and to keep the people at the Brannock Device company in business, I made this footsie bento! It contains a cheddar and German bologna sandwich with a cheese foot (not anatomically correct), a few blackberries, yellow pepper slices, carrots, and broccoli from Triple T Ranch. I finally made it to the farmers market this past weekend, so I will have some local produce in my next bentos, yay!

This is the one time I DO suggest putting your foot in your mouth.

This bento is also the 180th post on Sonoma Bento, which means I am making another donation to Redwood Empire Food Bank. Every 20th post I make a $20 donation to my local food bank. Not everyone has access to healthy food, or to the abundance that many of us enjoy. I encourage you to find a way to help feed your community as well!

Gender Bento

I am finally using up the last of the bread, bologna, and cheese from our camping trip last weekend. These two happy sandwiches are hanging out with red pepper slices, cherry tomatoes from the Sebastopol Farmers Market, steamed romano beans from The Patch in Sonoma, two cherries, and a few blueberries, also from the Sebastopol Farmers Market.

I had a great Fourth of July celebration with friends, complete with BBQ and pool time. I brought along these steamed green beans topped with a lime infused olive oil and basil dressing. They turned out great!

Recipe for Green Beans with Basil-Lime Olive Oil Dressing

3 pounds of green beans, rinsed and trimmed

1 cup lightly packed fresh basil leaves

2 garlic cloves, grated

1/3 cup lime infused olive oil (I used Stonehouse Olive Oil, based in Berkeley)

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

Steam green beans for 7 to 10 minutes. Run beans under cold water to stop them from over cooking. In a food processor, combine basil, grated garlic cloves, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Blend dressing. Spoon dressing over beans. Serves 10 as a side dish. *If you don't have lime infused olive oil, use regular oil and add a bit of grated lime zest and a tablespoon of lime juice.

Patriotic Bento

Today I worked on a live broadcast from a demo kitchen and they made yummy burgers to celebrate the Fourth of July holiday. It certainly does not suck to work with professional chefs! But because I was working, I didn't have time to do a really elaborate bento for the holiday. I made half of a bento box lunch for my step daughter, but I did manage to put some patriotic touches on it.

In this lunch: vanilla yogurt with blueberries and a raspberry, red pepper "fireworks," carrot "flames," mini star bologna sandwiches, a bit of broccoli, and some enoki mushrooms for "sparkle." I didn't have time to fill a second compartment for her. But I did stay up late last night to do these patriotic fingernails:

Have a Safe and Happy Fourth of July weekend!!

An Apple A Day

No apples were harmed in the making of this bento box lunch. In fact, no apples were used to make this lunch, just an apple shaped cookie cutter. :-)

A quick bento made with leftover camping goodies. I made an apple shaped sandwich (with bologna and cheese), cucumber slices, carrots, and chive blossoms. In the lower compartment: watermelon slices (cut with my new bento food cutters! I super love these, and just got them from Amazon), slices of lime to squirt on the watermelon, and a few walnut halves.

The larger set of food cutters can be found here: Stainless Vegetable Cutter, Large, 6 Assorted Shapes, and the smaller set of food cutters can be found here: Stainless Steel Vegetable Cutters #K8444 "100% Made in Japan!!"
My coworker Danielle brought in some watermelon slices yesterday, and I also ended up seeing a gorgeous photo of watermelon chunks online with an amazing recipe for tequila soaked watermelon wedges. The watermelon slices in this bento are booze free! All of the watermelon stuff seeped into my brain and I couldn't get away from it. But do I recommend checking out this recipe. I tried it out on myself and my hubby last night and it turned out great! With the 90+ degree weather we've been having recently, this stuff is amazing. Oh, and the recipe on this page recommends boiling the alcohol in the simple syrup, but you should make the syrup first, then add the alcohol when it cools.

Don't Feed The Bears

I am recovering today from a whirlwind camping trip (one day, it was too short!) to Richardson's Grove in Humboldt County. Because of work commitments, I was only able to enjoy one day of camping, but I had been dreaming about playing in the Eel River for months, so I had to take what I could get.

After washing the campfire smell out of my hair when we got home, I thought about making a camping themed bento. S'mores really would have been fun, but alas, no marshmallows! So, since we were camping in bear country, here is a bear sandwich (filled with bologna and cheese - no bear meat!), with blanched green beans, kalamata olives, and tomato-mozzarella salad. In the lower compartment: cherries, cucumbers, and a few cherry tomatoes.

Oh how I miss the river! I'm looking forward to many more fun camping trips this summer with friends. :-)

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Bentos Gone Wild!

This Boobie Bento Box Lunch is for my mom, who is going in for breast cancer surgery on Monday. She caught it early and that is great news. I have always felt that laughter is good for the body and soul, so here is my medicine for Mom: Jug-a-licious Bento Box! Scroll down for the uncensored version...

In this bodacious boobie bento box are two baloney sandwiches with hot dog nipples (secured with a tiny bit of cream cheese). The baloney boobie sandwiches include cheese, tomatoes, mustard, and sandwich rounds. Also a couple of grapes, baby carrots, and a few slices of radish. For dessert, a couple of tiny mandarin oranges. And a custom made "Save The TaTas" sign! I should have included melons, right?!

This will be a very exciting lunch to eat. (tee hee) Here's to advances in breast cancer treatment and to early detection! I think this is the breast bento box lunch I have ever made... ;-)