Bento Sustainability

Basically here I was mowing the lawn this morning (with my rechargable lawn mower) and putting the grass clippings around the chili plants thinking about my lunch for the week.  And I guess what I like most about bento is the reusing and thinking about what you have.

I have always liked to re-use my lawnclippings, as I hate the grass clippings laying about wastefully.  So hense the vege patch has benefited.  I love to grow my own herbs, because they taste better than dried ones, and other than the sunburn and weeding, I like gardening.  This years patch is doing reasonably well.  We had had a fair run of peas, strawberries and chilis, and the lettuce has done us proud.  Somethings have not done so well with the cold snaps, and the feijoa tree looks set to yet again be non-productive.  But if I can eat what I grow and compost the scraps, everyone wins.

With bento I have really reduced on plastic waste in the bin.  Mostly I have managed to buy in bulk, make from home and reuse the containers.  This is a seriously good thing.  Getting organised is forcing me to think longer term about what I need to have ready for the end of the week, and I tend not to be wasting as much of anything.

I would encourage anyone to get sorted with a lunchbox this year and make a stand for the planet.

Brightening my day

From bento

After a stressful week, I needed cheering up, so it was time for all things bright and cheery.

Peach and cinnamon yougurt (homemade) with homemade toasted muesli (still channelling Martha Stewart here), an orange, kiwi fruit fingers and almonds, all in cheery yellows and oranges.

I got home from work and YIPPEE!!!  New strawberry themed bento had arrived, and cutie-pie mini containers.

My show-off salad lunch

From bento

Showing off my hamburger lunch bento to those at work was this little effort.

Bottom layer is a garden salad with piggy bottle of balsamic vinegarette, fresh greens from the garden, cherry tomatoes, avocado pieces rolled in lemon juice so they still look sexy by lunch, and cucumber from Mum's garden.  In the top layer we have orange slices and watermelon stars.

As a side dish- spinach and lentil curry paranthas with cucumber raita.

However, I did feel like there was a lack of protein and carbohydrate by lunchtime, and all I wanted was bread and cheese!

Blue Thursday

From bento

So I slept in.  This was a 2-3 minute effort to rush about before heading out the door.  Mini-quiche straight from the freezer, leftover pasta, almonds, vietnamese nut cookies, vita-wheat snack crackers, Mother Earth apricot mini fruit stick, and some slices of watermelon. 

Iskender

From bento

I had to figure out how to use the staff microwave eventually...... so here was my attempt at a Turkish style iskender.  In the first square was my basmati rice (in star, heart and bear shapes) and 3 falafel patties that I could reheat.  In the second square is the tabouli, beetroot, hummus and a cucumber raita.  The only issue was that after heating, I had 2 containers to balance.  When my balancing became tedious, I tipped everything into the heated container.  Also, I did not carry my lunch very flat, and the raita spread EVERYWHERE in the container.  I have to be more careful in the future.

It was nice snaking on the carrot sticks and cookies for morning tea, and I had the nuts and raisins during our staff meeting.

Sunny Monday Morning!

From bento

Here is Monday's lunch.  Discovering the hasty nature of my life right now is meaning that I have just enough morning time to take a picture of lunch after assembling it, and then having to blog about it later.  Hopefully shortly I will be Uber-Organised and able to keep everything on track.

This was a lunch that worked for me.  In the tupperware sandwich keeper is 2 tortilla wraps with mescalin, avocado, homemade falafels, hummus and beetroot.  The bottom layer of the yellow bento has mini-quiche (made ahead and frozen on mass) and the top layer had a packet of nuts and raisins (LAZY), a mini-muffin container of almonds, and 3 star shaped ginger biscuits.