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people never look as lovely as they *really* are with flash. well, at least not MY flash.
at ignite portland 4
Full description with sandwich freezing tutorial and a list of freezer-friendly/unfriendly fillings in my blog entry. It took about 5 minutes to pack up this toddler lunch this morning.
This is my obsessive way of keeping my son's bento lunch accessories organized and within reach when I'm packing lunch in the kitchen. It's a US$0.99 metal strip from Ikea, and oversized magnetic spice canisters from Ikea (3 for US$4.99). Full blog entry here, speed tip info on the pre-filled sauce containers here.
(EDIT: I'm running a lunch gear organization event and contest; submit your ingenious organization methods by March 14, 2008 to win a copy of the upcoming bento book Face Food. Full details are here.)
Full tutorial on how to make "octodogs" (octopus-shaped hot dogs) is here at Lunch in a Box.
1. Making an octodog #2, 2. Octodog comparison: Fried vs. boiled
This lunch took about 5 minutes to put together, with a mini shepherd's pie I made at the same time I made a big shepherd's pie for dinner the other night. The little skewered tomato and cheese "sandwiches" were very simple -- just a slice of cheese and halved cherry tomatoes. Full post with mini-tutorial here on my blog. Extra-thick aluminum foil cups for unsupported cooking here and in my blog.
Taking a page from Japanese bento cookbooks, I froze leftover spaghetti in foil liners set in mini muffin tins. Once they're frozen through, I put them in shallow tupperware for longer-term storage like this. Then I have a cache of homemade pasta ready to drop into my son's lunches when I'm looking for a red-colored dish. They thaw by the time he's ready to eat.
Full details on freezing spaghetti cups here.
Speed tip: Use a long chopstick or a ruler to make individual portions of ground foods right in freezer bags, so you can break off just as much as you need when cooking small amounts. Full details and variations here.
This is my obsessive way of keeping my son's bento lunch accessories organized and within reach when I'm packing lunch in the morning. The plastic boxes on the microwave (from a Japanese dollar store) hold less-used things, while the wooden under-cabinet shelf with drawers holds the most frequently used accessories. The wall shelf with drawers is from Ikea's FÖRHÖJA line -- the wood drawers hold more than the glass drawer option (which were pointed in the back and didn't fully utilize available space). Big shout out to Flikr user yurippe_masuda for the shelf idea. Blog entry here.
(EDIT: I'm running a lunch gear organization event and contest; submit your ingenious organization methods by March 14, 2008 to win a copy of the upcoming bento book Face Food. Full details are here.)
To keep track of what's in my freezer, I took a tip from a book on freezing and made magnets out of the weekly supermarket advertising pages and a magnet sheet (or old cheap refrigerator magnets). This also helps me track what I've pre-made and frozen in individual portions for speedy lunch prep. Magnet assembly view here, full blog entry here.
Photo for my post "Avoid airplane food, pack a bento lunch"
This packs up very small; the packed version is here. Detailed photos and information on the individual items is in my Lunch Tools set .
Have a stash of fruit jello cups in the refrigerator to grab and throw into packed lunches. Add fruit to the juice jigglers (thicker than regular jello), and pack in common condiment containers with little lids. No need to buy special food cups: see my full entry here for common alternatives and gelatin cautions.
Another speed bento that took five minutes to put together. Recipe and tutorial for the faux latke made from leftover potato salad here. The faux latkes can be frozen after they're fried to have on hand for maximum speed when packing lunch -- just drop one frozen into your lunch and let it defrost naturally.
Homemade jello jigglers made with straight blueberry juice and unflavored Knox gelatine (no sugar), poured into reusable plastic food cups for packing in lunches. They're thicker than regular Jello, so they hold up all day at room temperature (recipe is on the Knox packets). Just drop one into my son's lunch in the morning like this and go! Big time saver.
Speed bento technique of cooking multiple items in a frying pan at the same time (and cooking eggs in the little foil bento cups). Details and recipes here.
Surprisingly, you can actually prepare onigiri (rice balls) in advance and stash them in the freezer. The trick is to use very fresh rice (that's moist and hasn't been sitting in the rice cooker for hours), wrap each onigiri individually before freezing, and when you take them out of the freezer -- heat them in the microwave until they're warm and soft again. If you thaw them on the counter or in the refrigerator the texture will be hard and nasty, so the microwave step is very important.
In this photo I put all of the freshly wrapped, warm onigiri (shaped in molds) on a metal pie plate to speed freezing. Next, I put them in a labelled freezer bag and sucked all of the air out of the bag with a straw before sealing (think do-it-yourself FoodSaver vacuum packing). This helps ward off freezer burn.
Full details and yaki onigiri tutorial here.
Detailed guide to packing a bento lunch (with tips from Japanese bento cookbooks) and list of "gap fillers" to stabilize lunches for transport is here at Lunch in a Box.
This was given to me and other SFO->SYD passengers near a couple and their young child; it contained cookies and earplugs, and is probably the most thoughtful thing I've seen a stranger do in quite some time. Maybe there is hope for us after all...
If you pack onigiri (rice balls) or decorated rice for lunch, speed up your morning prep time by pre-cutting nori into shapes you use often, and store them at room temperature in a sealed freezer bag with a dessicant pack to keep moisture away from the nori. Full post and storage instructions for the freezer here.
When our son was born, I went from spending my days taking photos of food for my blog to taking photos of my baby for...well, that was the question! We don't have much free wall space to hang framed photos, and you can only make so many photo books. After ordering a couple custom photo ornaments for gifts last Christmas, I decided I wanted to free ourselves from all the Christmas decorations we'd accumulated just to have something to decorate with and start creating my own ornaments from our photos.
The custom ornaments aren't cheap, so to fill out the tree I ordered a pack of Moo.com's half-size business cards, which let you put a different photo on the back of each one. I picked out 100 of my favorite pictures, or roughly two photos for every week the year. For the fronts of the cards (which became the backs for my purposes), I choose a red background and had a verse from a Christmas carol and the year printed in a suitably Christmasy font. We made a trip to the craft store and brought back two spools of 1/8 inch satin ribbon and a 1/8 inch hole punch. To make the garland, I simply punched a hole in each of the top corners of each photo and threaded the ribbon through. It took a lot less time than I was expecting, and with just a few hours of work I had decorations for our tree that truly reflect all we have to celebrate in our life now.
I'm planning to continue making these every year. Once our son is old enough to help, I want to turn it into a family tradition, sharing memories as we make the new garland and hang the ones from previous years. I like the one I made so well, though, that I may restring it on less holiday-colored ribbon and leave it up all year long.
(Check out my original review of Moo Cards in the second half of this post on my food blog, Pie of the Tiger.)
Pretty much my favorite picture of Jasper ever. Perfect timing. He LOVES spoons. He'll be good at a restaurant as long as he has spoons to hold (idea courtesy of Parent Hacks, we always ask for extra spoons first thing when we get there). We may have to start bringing our own, though, as he cries when we take them away.
Flexible ice blanket is essentially a quilt of tiny ice packs that can be cut apart to produce tiny reusable ice packs for packed lunches (or leave whole to wrap food in a cooler or wrap arm/leg after injury). Especially convenient for throwing into tight insulated lunch bags or small spaces. Full post here.
Travel soap holder and toothbrush travel case hold baby washcloths. Wet the washcloth, put it in the case, and tuck it inside a lunchbox or diaper bag for an environmentally friendly alternative to wet wipes. Full entry on oshibori and how to make your own out of commonly available items is here at Lunch in a Box.
The Boy is off at a chess tournament, giddy at the novelty of hotel-staying and event-swag accumulation. Us girls, left behind, have to make our own excitement, today, in the form of microwave potato chips dusted with paprika and kosher salt. Not bad at all.
Another speed bento technique: freezing sandwiches, which can then be packed frozen in the morning, and left to defrost in the lunch. The trick is in choosing your fillings and freezing them properly.
We ended up with several of the hard plastic wipe dispensers. I discovered a while back that her diapers fit nicely into the bottom of the dispenser, so I snapped the lid off one. Here it is tucked into a canvas basket with wipes.
The diapers are size 4 Pampers.
Surprisingly, you can actually prepare onigiri (rice balls) in advance and stash them in the freezer. The trick is to use very fresh rice (that's moist and hasn't been sitting in the rice cooker for hours), wrap each onigiri individually before freezing, and when you take them out of the freezer -- heat them in the microwave until they're warm and soft again. If you thaw them on the counter or in the refrigerator the texture will be hard and nasty, so the microwave step is very important.
In this photo I put all of the freshly frozen onigiri (shaped in molds) in a labelled freezer bag and then sucked all of the air out of the bag with a straw before sealing (think do-it-yourself FoodSaver vacuum packing). This helps ward off freezer burn.
Make edible ice packs by freezing prepackaged puddings, jellies, canned fruit in small containers, etc., or make your own in lidded condiment cups. Full details are here.
Serving the theme of our 15-month-old son's new bedroom.
Sincere thanks from the talented artists who took these photos, from left to right: Untitled by shadowplay, On the 1st of November by xylonet, and My next car ... (used by permission)* by slight clutter
* Update: I have received retroactive permission from slight clutter (who was kind, reasonable, and understanding in her response, while still making her reasons for protecting her copyright clear) to use her image and am still awaiting a response from the photographers of the other two images. If you're thinking of doing something like this with copyrighted images on Flickr, I do recommend asking for such permission *first*.