Just Bento

[Update:] Menu For Hope has been extended to December 31st!

You thought that the Anniversary Giveaway was exciting? Well, here are some more goodies for you, plus you get to donate to a great cause!

Menu For Hope is an annual fundraising event, now it its 5th year, contributed to by food bloggers around the world. Last year, nearly US $100,000.00 was raised for the United Nations World Food Programme, to benefit the school lunch programme in Lesotho, Africa.

Menu For Hope’s creator and head organizer is Pim of Chez Pim, and this year’s regional Europe host is Sara of Ms. Adventures In Italy.

I’m very happy to announce that Just Bento is once again offering a raffle prize for Menu For Hope V! continue reading...

The winners are announced! continue reading...

Bento-related giveaways every day this week! continue reading...

Just in case you follow Just Bento but not Just Hungry, and you’re wondering why there haven’t been any updates for a while, this is what happened. I’ll be back home in a few days though and back to regular bento making!

In the meantime, a picture from a couple of days ago. In the background is the Pacific Ocean, from Laie Point on the northeastern shore of Oahu, Hawai’i. On the dashboard of my rental car…two spam musubi! I still can’t say I am in love with them but they do sure fill a hole in the tummy very very well.

Since Just Bento is attracting a lot of new readers these days (thank you!) starting now I’m going to be highlighting some of the most popular or interesting articles from the past month every month, in case you missed something good.

• Bento teasing? Do you or your kids get teased about your (or their) bento? The comments are really thought provoking.
• Carrot rice two ways. These two very easy ways of adding carroty goodness to plain rice have gotten great reviews from readers who’ve tried them.
• Tuna tofu miso mini-burgers. Another hit recipe - cheap and easy to make.
• Bento boxes of the week: Stainless steel People seemed to really warm to the idea of a durable, non-plastic bento. This was a followup of sorts to a question posed in March, how to get rid of the plastic smell in bento boxes.

See more entries from April, not to mention March, February and more! continue reading...

Good news for bento fans in Europe and the UK in particular: as reported previously, Japan Centre’s online store has expanded their bento box and accessory lineup from Daiso. Accessories are priced at £1.45 to &1.49, and bento boxes like the popular Lube Sheep Dragonfly model are £2.50 - pretty reasonable I think. While Japan Centre, who are based in London, only ship food items within Europe, they do ship non-food items worldwide, Always figure in the shipping costs and shop around for the best deals! See Where to buy bento items. (*Disclaimer: Japan Centre is an advertiser on Just Bento, but I’m also a very happy repeat customer.)

Hi folks. I will be mostly offline for a week or so. Some new articles that are already written up will (if it works out) get posted but replying to comments and so on will have to wait a bit. Here’s why in case you don’t follow Just Hungry too. I’ll be back though! :)

(Update on my status is here.) \

I’ve been doing a lot of background organizing on Just Bento, now that it has a few months under its belt. So far, I’ve been featuring mainly bento staples or johbisai, things that you can make in advance and stock in the freezer, refrigerator or elsewhere. There are lots of things that aren’t well suited to cooking in advance (or any earlier than the night before) though. So I’ll be writing up more individual item recipes. continue reading...