My First Bento

For someone who likes a variety of foods at one meal, sushi and tapas are always winners. At-home cooking can be a chore because along with my meat/starch/veggie I could easily want some carrots&hummus or chips&salsa or olives or a cheese stick. You get the idea. I like a lot of variety. Well, Bentos allow for quite a variety of foods in one meal. I think that's why the meals always look so appealing to me. They can be quite beautiful and labor intensive or they can be made with some leftovers while you are cleaning up dinner. Already, packing a lunch for daycare has become the bane of my existence. I hate putting thought into it. But then I found these cute Bento-like containers. I went to a local Asian food mart in search of Bentos and they had only one Bento for sale but it was still too expensive so instead I bought two cheaper containers (one for each of us) with three compartments and now packing lunches is much more fun. I can't wait til she's a little older and I can get more creative with them!

garbanzo beans, chicken/apple sausage, sliced banana

I realized after I posted this picture that it wasn't the container that I bought for her. Here is a picture of the container I actually bought.

I love the three partitions.

The little containers above are from some Gerber baby meals. I hated the thought of just throwing them away and I'm glad I didn't. They are perfect for lunches or little snacks on the go.