ShareThisWho hates an uninspired lunch more, the kid who turns up her nose at it or the parent who begrudgingly throws it together every morning? It's hard to say -- making school lunches is seldom the highlight of anyone's day.
And it's that time again. Five lunches a week. For a whole school year. No wonder it's too easy to fall into the clutches of Lunchables from time to time.
But not this year. This is the year when lunches will be fun both to make and to eat, and you get to be the cool mom, too.
Bento box. If you don't know about it, or think it's just something you order at lunch in a Japanese restaurant, don't feel bad. The bento craze is maybe the hottest thing to come from Japan since Hello Kitty.
In cities across the country, stores devoted to boxes and accessories abound.
Deen Boles of Lakeland, Tenn., came across the bento box on Facebook.
"There's a high-school friend of mine who lives in New York and she was posting about making bento for lunches, so I Googled it and got all kinds of ideas," she said.
So what is bento?
Well, it's pretty much a box lunch, albeit a pretty and fairly stylized one as food is compartmentalized. Bento boxes date back about 500 years and have a history that is interesting enough, but bento really has nothing to do with school lunches, except this: When the popular aluminum bento box came into fashion in the 1920s or thereabouts, parents of Japanese school children were discouraged from sending bento for lunch because it called attention to class disparities both by the quality of the box and the food inside.
Today, though, bento boxes are available in most any price range but they're not even necessary.
Julianne McDaniel of Collierville, Tenn., adopted a bento style for her children's lunches last year.
"We decided to go the extra mile at our house because my son actually asked me, 'Can you stop using Ziploc bags? You're ruining the environment,' " she said.
She started using Tupperware for packing the lunches, but she arranged them bento style by using silicone muffin tin liners to separate foods.
"My kids fight over edamame, so I put them in their lunches frozen. It helps keep things cool."
Her son, Kenny, is going into eighth grade, and her daughter, Melissa, is entering sixth grade . Kenny wants a sandwich every day, so that's what he gets, along with fruit and his edamame. Melissa doesn't want to eat bread.
"I'll take salami or ham, spread it with cream cheese, roll it up and send that for her, along with whole-wheat crackers," McDaniel said.
Numerous websites for bento lunches have plenty of ideas. Though the traditional bento was four parts rice, three parts meat or fish, two parts vegetable and one part of something different, such as pickle or a dessert, you can put anything in a bento.
At lunchinabox.net, blogger "Biggie" gives tips for using leftovers, store-bought convenience items (such as meatballs) and fresh fruits and vegetables to create nutritious lunches that are suitable for kids or adults. A recent lunch for her kindergarten-age child: "Pan-fried zucchini risotto cakes, teriyaki and pineapple chicken meatballs (my favorite, Aidells brand), red grapes and steamed broccoli with onion-based salad dressing."
According to her, it took 22 minutes to cook and cool the risotto cakes (from leftover risotto) and pack the bento boxes for two lunches.
Susie Tilton, who works at Williams-Sonoma, likes bentolunch.blogspot.com. Even though her youngest child will be a senior this year, she's going to carry a bento.
"When you get to be 17, it's OK to carry whatever you want," she said.
"If I had younger kids, I'd be all over this," Tilton said. "I can really see how it would make kids want to eat their lunch."
She's talking about some of the especially decorative foods that bentolunch blogger "Shannon" prepares and photographs for her blog. While Biggie doesn't go in for too much decoration, maybe using a few colorful bento picks in place of toothpicks, Shannon goes full out. She makes sandwiches shaped like daisies, and decorates sandwiches with a ballerina made with white and yellow cheddar, with a skirt made of a pink lunchmeat.
Boles plans to use the bento picks in her daughter's lunch and also to take advantage of the numerous bento supplies to make preparation easier (again, it's all online, and you can find numerous links at Biggie's blog). While she can roll her own sushi, she can also buy molds so she can make star-shaped sushi.
ITALIAN BENTO
4 slices hard salami, rolled into flute shapes
4 grape tomatoes
1/4 cup marinated artichoke hearts (about half a 4-ounce jar)
1/4 cup roasted red peppers (about half a 4-ounce jar)
1/4 cup black olives
6 sticks of mozzarella cheese
6 small sesame breadsticks
Arrange items in a bento box, using silicone cups or other small plastic cups for olives and artichokes. Serves 1.
-- family.go.com
HAM AND CHEESE BITES
1 ounce thinly sliced cooked ham
2 slices white or wheat bread
2 sticks (1 ounce each) string cheese
1/4 cup honey mustard salad dressing
Divide ham in two stacks. Cut crusts off bread. Roll each slice of bread until about 1/4-inch thick. Put one stack of ham on bread, then the stick of cheese on top of ham.
Roll up, then stick a toothpick or bento pick about an inch apart in the roll. Cut in four pieces between the picks.
Repeat with remaining ingredients. Makes 8 bites.
-- Adapted from "Pillsbury Kids Cookbook"
CALIFORNIA ROLL-UP
1 whole-wheat flour tortilla
4 slices deli shaved turkey breast
1 slice mozzarella cheese
4 thin slices cucumber
4 slices avocado
Alfalfa sprouts
Layer tortilla with turkey breast, cheese, cucumber and avocado slices, and a handful of sprouts. Roll it up and slice in half. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap. Serves 1.
-- easy-kids-recipes.com
TACO SCOOPERS
1/4 cup bean dip (store-bought)
2 tablespoons chive and onion sour cream
2 tablespoons chopped ripe olives
2 tablespoons shredded Mexican cheese
Chopped tomato
1 cup large corn chips
Spoon dip in a plastic or silicone cup and cover with a layer of sour cream. Top with olives, cheese and tomato. Put chips in a separate container. Serves 1.
-- Adapted from "Pillsbury Kids Cookbook"
(Contact Jennifer Biggs of The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, Tenn., at biggs(at)commercialappeal.com.)
