Family bentos (#16, 17, 18)

This morning was a bit of a rush, so I'm glad that I had just done some food shopping for our upcoming Spring Break trip to the beach house -- it meant I had easy stuff to grab for my "assembly line" bentos.

My husband's bento is in the blue containers (upper left), mine is the yellow containers (lower left) and my son's was the white container with the soda.

We all had ham and cheese (hubster and I had some salami and "grown up" cheese), cashews/peanuts, and some mini candies. I didn't have much in the way of veggies, but I think we'll survive.

Diabetes: this is a 75 carb meal
GF: gluten in the crackers and Kit Kats

Dad's bento (#15)

We had leftover cheesy chicken noodles after dinner last night, so I packed these up right away in a divided Tupperware container. This morning, I added slices of pepperoni (and one cut into a heart and placed on the noodles!), crackers, green peppers, cheese wedges, and a sliced strawberry.

For good measure, I added a Reese's Cup pack to his lunch bag.

Mom's bento (#14)

We had a rotisserie chicken this weekend, so I made chicken salad with the leftovers and added a cup of sliced almonds and craisins to mix in right before I ate. (If you add them earlier, the almonds get mushy and the craisins leave "interesting" blobs of pink on the chicken.)

I included a strawberry, but realized that I needed to slice it to get it to fit into the bento -- so I took care of that after I'd already posted the picture to the blog.

The Smartie was supposed to be my treat, but.... the moment I smelled that Reese's Cup, I had to slip that into my bag as well.

Boy's bento (#13)

We only had one piece of bread this morning (eeep!), so I made a half PB&J and happily discovered that it fit be-yew-ti-fully into the bento. I used a piece of silicon baran to separate it from some sliced green peppers. I filled the lower tier with Cheetos, but my son has asked that I only include a small amount of Cheetos -- apparently, it's just too much to try and finish in the short amount of time they have to eat.

I added a yogurt and a pack of Starbursts to finish out the meal.

Diabetes: this is a 75 carb meal
GF: the bread contains glutens

Dad's Bento (#12)

I was dying to use my new "bone" food picks and meatballs seemed like the perfect choice! I tucked baby carrots and sliced green pepper around them and filled the bottom tier with Cheetos.

I tucked some chocolate squares in the bag for a treat.

Boy's bento (#11)

More meatballs -- which my son loved, even though they were still cold. He ended up not touching the celery or peanut butter, but loved having a small soda (one of those 6 oz cans) in his lunch. (It's such a treat for a diabetic to have real soda.)

I included an "Oatmeal to Go" because I came across a couple in our rescue kit (the lunchbag we take everywhere with us, filled with 15-carb, quick-acting sugar treats to reverse a low blood sugar.) I'm trying to make sure that we use up all the gluten-containing foods before our appointment with the GI doctors... just in case.

While I'm still secretly hoping that The Boy does not have Celiac Disease, I feel rather ready to take the plunge and go fully gluten free. A good friend sent me her unused bread machine -- so I've got that going for me, which is nice. ;) I've also been reading tons and tons of library books on GF cooking, finally finding a few that I wanted to actually buy. Plus, I realized that we actually eat a lot of meals where it's easy to remove/replace the non-GF ingredients.

Diabetes: This is a 75 carb meal.
GF: There is gluten (or contamination of glutens) in the oats. The meatballs also contain breading.

Dad's bento (#10)

This was the first day using the new bento boxes from Ichiban Kan. And... yes... I've already placed another order. :o)

I was a little concerned that they were too small for our appetites, so I used a 2-tier box plus a snack box for my husband's bento.

It includes a turkey and cheese roll-up (mayo and mustard), Cheetos (which, after packing up and sending off, I was suddenly unsure whether the hubs liked Cheetos!), peanut butter celery, sliced strawberries and 2 cookies.

Um... he texted me after lunch and, apparently, it was a lot of food. Oh well. The hubs has been working such late hours the past two months that it's never a problem if I overpack -- it gives him something to eat later in his day.

Mom's bento (#9)

Even though this is one of the days I'm home and didn't need a "packed" lunch, per se, I went ahead and packed it up. (Mainly because I'd made a mistake making my husband's turkey and cheese roll-up -- I forgot to add mustard and mayo!)

Plus, this is my "post shot" day and the MS meds tend to make me feel like I have a mild case of the flu. I like to return to bed after sending the boys off for their busy days, so having a lunch to wake up to is wooooooonderful. :o)

Almost identical to my husband's bento -- minus the Cheetos. Turkey and cheese roll up (w/o mustard and mayo, but only because I forgot), sliced strawberries, PB celery sticks and two cookies.

This is all a little monochromatic, but I didn't have much in the way of decorative foods to add today, plus I was feeling flu-ish and not all that inspired, even with the adorable boxes to work with.

Boy's lunch (#8)

Turkey and cheese roll-up, carrots and PB celery stalks, Cheetos and two cookies.

This time, the omission of mustard and mayo was intentional - boy doesn't like 'em.

I used the Natural Lunch 2-tier box plus another Natural Lunch box -- again, I was worried that it wasn't enough food and I'm not a "tight" bento packer yet.

Nutritial info:
This lunch was roughly 80 carbs
The tortilla wrapper and cookies contain wheat flour, but the Cheetos do not.

My Ichiban Kan order arrived!

Yippy skippy! It finally got here after a week of stalking the UPS site to see where it was in transit -- why, oh why didn't I pay the extra money to have it flown here?!

I waited to open it until my son got home from school (which wasn't a hardship really, as I was napping on the couch -- feeling a little sick and under the weather today!) But, once he was home, we cracked that baby and started pulling out all sorts of bento boxes, sauce bottles, rice molds, slicers, baran, cups, and great food picks.

Here's the haul in all of its glory!

Molds, punch and travel bento containers

packing items

prep tools

More bento boxes

The ones at the top are for my son at school. The Putifresh (which I keep slipping and calling Putri-fresh... ewwww!) is for me.

Another "girlie" set that is for me.

Natural lunch set

Boy's bento (#7)

My son had the state's standardized testing today and was let out early, so no need for a packed bento this morning.

Since he's always bemoaning the fact that the school cafeteria is problematic for the timing of insulin shots and he can't get a hot meal, he requested a freshly made lunch he can only get at home.

Hmmmm.... sounds like it's time to try my hand at octo-dogs!

These were amazingly easy and fun to make. Just zip, zip, zip and dunk dunk dunk... and TA DAAAAH!

I tossed in some cherry tomatoes (even though my son hates tomatoes) and sliced some green peppers up to be seaweed. I had to move fast as CJ was practically eating out of the bowl before I had given him his insulin.

Alas, the tomatoes were not eaten, but everything else was. And he LOVED the octo-dogs -- he said he doesn't want them in a school lunch, but he'd love them any other time.

With the noodles in cream sauce and a bowl of ice cream, the meal was 80 carbs.
The noodles have gluten in them, but the brand of hot dogs my family prefers do not! Yay!

Mom's bento (#6)

Mom's bento had not-so-good crab-dogs in it.

Dad's bento (#5)

Completely ignoring the fact that today is St. Patrick's Day, I wanted to use up leftovers from last night's chicken parmesan dinner. I made a frittata from the leftover spaghetti (added beaten eggs to the spaghetti and sauce, fried it in a cast iron pan until the bottom was crust-like, then popped it in the toaster oven for 20 minutes at 350 until the top was cooked. I finished it with some grated parmesan and let it cool.) The chicken parm was cut up into nuggets and I added a separate cup of spaghetti sauce for dipping. I cubed some cheese and popped in a couple of cherry tomatoes.

It's terribly monochromatic, but I didn't have the energy to be creative.

On the good news front: my Ichiban Kan order has shipped and should be here by the weekend!

Boy's bento (#4)

I had little time this morning, so this is simply a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a Go-gurt, some pretzel sticks, a jello cup, cheese and green pepper skewers and some chocolate.

It's a 100 carb meal (he has all day placement tests and I wanted him with slightly elevated blood sugars.)

There's gluten in the bread and pretzels (obviously.)

Mom and Dad's bentos (#2 and #3)

I have yet to receive my order from Ichiban Kan, but I used a divided Rubbermaid container I found at Walmart for these bentos I made for my husband and myself. It's mainly finger food of rolled turkey, salami, mushrooms, olives, cherry tomatoes, and carrots. I added a childhood favorite of cream cheese on lebanon balogna (a sweet lunchmeat popular in PA's Amish country .) I had some mini pitas in my lunchbag, but I wish I'd thought about something crunchy, like crackers. I tossed in a mini cocktail fork in bright red.

All day at work, I kept thinking about my lunch -- just sitting there in my drawer, calling to me. I finally gave in to the temptation at 11:30. (But, hey, I'd been awake since 6AM and that coffee was only gonna hold me so long!) I cracked the lid and sighed... it was pretty, it smelled good, and it was all foods I really like.

Yum dilly-icious!

It didn't hurt that my dear hubby sent me a text saying how much he was enjoying his too. :D

Boy's bento (#1)

My son isn't particularly picky, but he doesn't like mayonnaise. (Oy!) So, it was no wonder they he felt his mini pita sandwiches with turkey and cheese were a little dry. I fell in love with the Cheeto's curls the moment I saw them in the store, but they got soggy in the open Lock & Lock box I used for my son's bento. (Next time, I'll make sure they are in their own container.)

Since I didn't want his meal to "stand out" in the middle school lunchroom, I went rather subtle for the first bento. There were blueberries in the cup in the upper left, a jello cup in the upper right, some edamame in the lower right and a lovely Dove chocolate on top. (I added a second chocolate to increase the carb count to reach our goal.)

In terms of diabetes, the carb count for this lunch was 100 grams of carbs.
The pitas weren't gluten free, but... since we don't have an official Celiac diagnosis yet (coming soon), he's supposed to eat a little gluten every day until all testing is completed.