Just Bento

I should plan them but more often I don't. I tend to just look in the fridge for any leftovers and use that. But one of my resolutions is to plan more.
I have a great rice maker with a timer and I finally used that feature yesterday. It was nice to come into the kitchen in the morning with fresh rice all ready! Made my teenage daughter two onigiri with dried salmon filling for her bento lunch. My husband and I were home all day, so lunch was leftovers and rice and it got finished in the afternoon as more onigiri for snacks. I used just a bit too much water and the rice was pretty moist in the AM but that worked out since I left it on 'warm' all day, it didn't get too dried out and the last servings were fine.
Wow, sorry about rambling on like that. ^_^

I do a weekly meal plan for lunches and dinners, leaving off weekends (something always seems to come up or we have leftovers) and that's just part of my process. I use a legal pad so that I have enough space, but otherwise, it's pretty boring stuff.

I'm really looking forward to checking out your form, however! I used to use your bento planner religiously when I was making separate bento for my partner and myself.

I wish i planned out my stuff, unfortunatly i don't! The last bentos I made were American bentos... I have two bento boxes which are both 2-tier boxes. I used one tier to put a salad of just simply lettuce, grape tomatoes, match stick carrots, and cucumbers if they are in season. I usually try to use a Balsalmic vinagrette or low-fat italian, but sometimes Thousand Island is good.

I've either done a turkey and chesse sandwhich which i cut into small pieces or sometimes it's been left overs. Once I used fried rice and chicken teriyaki that I made.

and that's about it. XD

Hello,

The problem is that I make bento just for myself.
So if I buy a cauly-flower or whatever, I'm going to eat almost the same meals everyday of the week.
So I plan my bento lunches on saturday, do the shopping and cook on sunday.

Plus, it's not possible for me to re-heat my food at lunch time.
So I have to think a lot to prepare meals that will be eaten cold, as various as possible with a few ingredients... :S

I really need ideas! I can't stand salads anymore !!!

Until now I have not planed my Bentos. But there have not been many so far. This week I tried your weekly-bento-planner and I realised that I'm not so got in sticking to the plan. The things I made have been more than I expected so I had to use the leftovers.
I hope to get better in planning during the challange

Hmm. So far I haven't really planned my bentos [when I manage to make one] so they usually consist of leftovers. Boy, that rice cooker with a timer sure sounds great. I have a huge rice cooker so I tend to make a big batch and freeze 1 cup portions. I only cook for myself so, like Ryukei, I tend to eat the same thing for the week. Which can sometimes lead to my lunch staying in the office fridge while I go out to a restaurant.

I want to have more variety in my diet so I am going to try and use the bento planner. I love that the spaces are pretty equivalent to the recommended portions. I also want to start using make-ahead items that can be frozen then quickly assembled into a bento in the morning. I'm also hoping that in the course of preparing a bento in the morning, I make breakfast too! Right now that almost always consists of a fiber bar and green tea at my desk.

Harper
Denver, Colorado USA

I usually plan because I make them when I get up and I don't have more than 30 minutes to spend on the task. So I write out menus and make what I can the night before. I have a folder of recipes to try that seem bento friendly and use those while planning my menus. I keep the successful ones and toss those that aren't enjoyed. I also keep my weekly menus so I can use them for ideas. But the menu planning also helps me make sure daughter is getting fruits and veggies, etc. And she's asked for more protein on her workout days 2 x weekly so I've incorporated that into the bentos too. More protein/food on Mondays and Wednesdays!

Having said all of that, I didn't do a menu this week so had to punt this morning! I made a chicken parmesan sandwich (heated chicken patty in olive oil, micro'd to melt the provolone cheese, warmed pizza sauce to put on top, and placed all on english muffin). I boiled an egg in my hotpot and molded it into a heart, cut up a spear of fresh pineapple and prepared a cucumber salad (rice vinegar, splenda, salt, onion, cucumbers). So that was my ad-lib bento for today!

I'm doing menus for next week tonight as I only have to make one more this week. So I'll do menus and some food prep this weekend and hopefully be able to make quick bentos next week.

It used to be pack whatever leftovers I had in my box until I realized what the volume of my box was (bigger than I thought althoug it looks relatively small) - which made my calorie count much higher than I expected so now I have adapted a bit. I plan day to day not by the week - with 2 teenagers and a husband in the house, I can't count on the food, that I planned on using, being there at the end of the week.

I now tend to look for smaller boxes (and using bulkier foods to fill up the boxes that I already have without adding an undo amuont of calories). I am also using a 1200 calorie/day daily servings check off sheet (somewhat like WW check off list before they switched over to points) 1/3 of the total goes towards each bento box, leaving 1/3 for dinner (approximately). This way I am assured I am eating well balanced meals - not avoiding certain food groups (consciously or unconsciously)

It really depends on how busy I am and if I remember to use a bento planner or not. I started making bentos last year and my planning fell apart as the fall semester wore on (I work full-time as a staff member at a university, go to grad school and TA part-time). But, I've resolved to make my bentos more nutritious and attractive, which requires more planning.

So, this weekend, I'll sit down and plan my lunches, go to the store if needed, and cook food for the week. Of course, I always use leftovers as appropriate, so I'm sure that will change up a few lunches since my husband and I don't really do meal planning for dinners.

tried to post this under Ryukei post (by clicking on reply) since it was a response to her, but it didn't quite work out that way...anywho,

Ryukei
I used to waste a lot of veggies due to not using them up quickly enough - now, if I can buy it frozen, that is what I do that way I can eat it in my own time rather than feel like I have to eat the same veggie every day till it is gone. If you eat your cauliflower cooked, this would work.

I don't like to prepare salad so I have been eating easy to make raw veggies - I use sliced (or large chunks - that way they take up more space in the larger bentos) cucumbers, jicama & red, green or yellow peppers a lot. I can prep them and they last a few days without going bad. Celery, I haven't figured out yet, it immediately turns brown/grey on me (good thing I don't like celery all that much)

The only week I wanted to try the "maki bento planner", many food was spoiled, because
1° I have been invited twice to the restaurant and
2° I didn't think about the remaining ingredients of a bento lunch (living alone, it's harder to cook all)

I think I need to be more experienced in bento-lunch cooking. Then, I will be able to anticipate the food and its remains and to organize them in a whole week.

But it's alreday good to talk about it in this forum. Now, I have a better idea on bento-planning.

I don't usually plan mine at all, just if i want something i'll go to the shop and buy the ingredients and the way home from work and then make it up the next day. i'm trying to get into the habit of planning and keeping stuff frozen too.

I only loosely plan my bento.

My husband shops at our local market on Saturdays, and buys whatever is cheap and voluminous - usually seasonal vegetables. They determine the sorts of dishes I'll be preparing during the week. On Sunday, I go to the supermarket for meat and staples to match the vegetables. I usually plan a couple of dinners that will leave leftovers, and at least one soup to be frozen for lunch later in the week, when I'm stressed out and don't have a lot of time to prep. I always make a point of buying one or two "bento back-ups" in the meat department - for example, some chicken filets, pre-made tsukune, or some ground chicken for soboro. Then I make the soup and freeze it, and sit down and write the plan for the week.

I tried doing it the other way 'round - planning, and then shopping - but it didn't work, since I found myself running around, trying to find this and that ingredient, wasting money and time. Now I work with what I have at hand, which means I don't have to spend a lot of time thinking up what to put into my lunch. Now I look at a pile of vegetables and think, "Okay, I have carrots, daikon, potato, and renkon. What can I make?"

My fridge is too small for me to fit a week's worth of groceries, so I plan a "staples" day midway through the week, and have a shopping reload trip as well. I freeze a lot of vegetables, and make some into pickles which will keep all week. This means I get some variety.

I also have my cookbooks tabbed seasonally, so I can find recipes for ingredients easier.

I'm fairly new to the bento world, but have been planning meals for a while.
What I did, was fiddle around with a template on Word for weekly meals, printed out and laminated it using self laminating sheets.

I keep it on the fridge door, with magnets and since it's laminated, it acts as a whiteboard.
On Saturday or Sunday, I sit down and plan the menu and then wipe out the previous menu on Sunday and write the new one on.

The cool part about doing it this way, is that my husband and anyone who comes to the house adds their own comments on the menu.

Every morning I make a bento for my 6 year old daughter and myself. It's become our routine to start Sunday morning with a bit of mise en place...

*rice - steamed, portioned, frozen.
*Mini-burgers cooked and frozen (Over rice for me, sliders for her!)
*chicken breasts marinated, grilled, frozen
*whatever else sounds good.......or was on sale!.....that can be frozen
*hard-boiled eggs, as my child could live on these alone.
*a few days of veggie prep (I do this every three days or so)........carrots sliced.....blanched broccolli, asparagus, whatever....anything to make our mornings more "grab and go"

Every morning, my goal is to make our lunches in 15 minutes or less. If I'm running behind, I worry more about the kiddo. I work in a hotel restaurant, and can score all my veggie goodness from the boys in the pantry. These days I just pack my rice and protein.

The kiddo is cranky upon wake-up. Every morning it's a battle to get her to school without being smelly, tangled, and hungry. This includes pickiness about her lunch. If I have plenty of quick options, then I can successfully make her lunches with not too much effort. Usually some kind of peanut butter sandwich or rice-ball, a soy-sauce egg, some carrots and some rice or potatoes or soybeans or any other random thing she has decided is her new most favoritest thing in the whole big wide world.

I don't go into my week with any real idea what I'm making for us, it's more a matter of making sure I have the bits and pieces to make good spur of the moment decisions. I treat my home kitchen like my work kitchen - gotta have good mise en place. I am a confirmed scatterbrain, and I love to plan not to plan.

I sometimes plan mine and also mostly dont lol. I think about it during spare time at work and sometimes plan character designs but mostly it revolves around what I end up with for dinner or what leftovers I have. Planning is deffinately a good thing tho as they always end up realy super nice!

The crazy rat lady @
http://foxxy-leigh.livejournal.com/

I have several days a week when I will have to make 2 Bentos a day to take to school so Planning will be important...I will be doing my cooking on Sundays so I can just throw everything in my box every morning

I try to plan. But you know what they say about plans...

I used to cook and freeze a lot of little things. Lately I've been just putting whatever I can find in my box (or going out to lunch...mmmm cheeseburgers...).

But I intend to plan a lot more! And hopefully my bentos will be better for it!

My planning goes like this:
What will the creature eat? OK, do we have the ingredients? No. What do we have? Will he eat that?
Then I usually run through a list of stuff I could make off the top of my head and he finds one vaugly acceptable. Then I make both lunches the same. Eccept obviously mine is usually smaller, the vegetables vary a little, his is less decorative touches on his.

This is the only planning method I find practical, as no one in my family will tell me when they are shopping for food and what their buying, so getting stuff specially is currently not an option. Also, my dad throws out anything me or mum put in the freezer to make space for his stuff, so I can't make things and freze them.

I never really plan, since a lot of what goes into my bento depends on what my mother has cooked the previous night. My bentos are usually leftovers from dinner the previous night and anything else I can think of in the morning to add to it, after some brief rummaging in the fridge. I'm still in high school, and not particularly experienced in cooking and don't tend to try fixing that (I should ^^'). Besides, there are only two people in our household and it doesn't make a lot of sense for my mother and me to cook separately. She's used to cooking for three, so now the third person's portion I take with myself to school.

Even if I DID try to plan... well I second what arglebargle said about plans ;)

I tend to plan in several stages. First, I plan my meat options for several weeks - things like meatballs, mini-burgers, steak, etc. - but not exactly when I'll eat it. Second, I make a general plan once I get my produce box for the week. I always know what's going to be in it, but never exactly how much. Then, once I know what dishes I'm going to have for sure, I start planning the meals, usually no more than a day in advance, and sometimes not until I start packing the lunch. However, I do make sure to pick up extra items that complement the things I know I will have in my lunches. I do try to have a sort of joubisai, but it's mostly the meat.

Planning is one of my goals for the challenge as I have different needs (due to health issues) than my husband and son and yet want to NOT turn into a short order cook!

I also am home full time and will be looking at using bento for 2 out of 5/6 meals a day so planning would be helpful there (I hope) and I would be looking at full 7 day week rather than 5 "work" days.

As it is now I am not doing as well as I would like re eating (not as regular, not as much variety, not always enjoyable, etc).

Eilish

I am bleary eyed when I make a bento for my hubby at 4:45am. I have a bit less than half an hour to get it made and packed. He eats it in 15 minutes without leaving his desk.
I use Maki's planner, but with modified labels to show the 3 cups of the Classic Bento thermal container I use, plus dinner. I try to list the things we have on hand that need to be used up, including leftovers. Sometimes I end up writing in what I made after I made it, but I try to plan ahead a few days.
I use a rice cooker with a timer to make sure the rice is ready at 4:30am, and put the kettle on right away for hot water for soup (usually instant miso) for the bottom cup. The top cup alternates between salad, vege side dish or fruit (sometimes canned). I aim to include 5 colors of food. The protein and the vege is the main thing I have to think about in advance. I try to pre-cut meat before I freeze it, and sometimes I pre-cut veges to save time and fingers :)
If I'm having a bad day he gets canned fruit salad, canned mystery meat (spam or corned beef hash, both of which he likes!), rice and canned soup. Better than the same-every-day lunchmeat and cheese sandwich he used to make himself.
If I haven't made a plan the night before I usually end up dreaming about what I will make.

I only make one bento a week for my boyfriend (since we don't live together) and plan what I want to make 2-3 days in advance. I usually browse some bentosites and cookbooks to find something I didn't do before. Sometimes I look for recipes with certain ingredients my boyfriend asked for, or which I happen to have lying around.
Then I do the full bento in the evening before, so I won't have any stress in the morning and can eat any leftovers (and there are always enough) for diner. ;)

I wish I could get my husband to plan more. I think that I will have to insist starting this weekend, because I will be starting night classes again next week [packing 2 bentos for myself on some days].

I really will not have time to time to go back and forth with him about what he wants, to have him give me no input. He eats meat and I do not, so I really have no vested interest in what meat he is going to be eating that week or how it is cooked. So lately, unless he gives me specifics of what he wants, I do not cook anything for him. Plus he is not a fan of the bentos, so he is on his own, unless he gives me specific of what exactly he wants.

But I do a lot of lose planning for myself, I have a lot of staples in the freezer [instant soup balls, mini burgers, frozen veggies, frozen rice, etc.] I try to make at least one thing every weekend to add to my stash, so I have a bit more variety.

I also do not really plan out the ingredients I use. I usually go with whatever fresh vegetables are on sale and stock up on staples that are on sale. I also try to cook the vegetables in different ways, making smaller portions of them so I do not get tired of having everything cooked exactly the same way every day that week.

I don't really plan my meals out. I try to decide what I'm going to have the evening before, but sometimes I just wing it. I'm trying to plan a little more now that I've started this challenge, but I think learning to plan will be harder for me than other aspects of the challenge.

I wasn't going to plan my meals out, until I found that when I was prepping late at night my mind was just as blank as it used to be in the mornings. Then I caved yesterday in and made this (very much inspired by Maki's form):

It helped my mornings a lot more than just staring at lists of foods, but I find that usually pencilling in a list of things I've got on hand the day before on my lecture notes is enough to get me by. (Unless it's the same list as the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that as well...)

I actually use Maki's Meal Planner forms.The only change is that instead of the bottom one being snacks, it's notes. My mom and I sit down and plan them out two weeks in advance (just before payday). Since I do the cooking, but she's more used to it, it takes both of us. Some things change, inevitably, especially on the weekend, but it's nice to not have to panic about what to make, which is what we're used to doing.

I usually plan it the night before, but do consider it when shopping as well. I make two, three or four lunches in one go. I only make lunch for my husband if he has done the dishes and left me space to do it! Sometimes I am lazy and eat out, but I have to make lunch for my kids regardless.

We do half and half Japanese or western style. My kids prefer Japanese. Their favourite lunch is rice with furikake, egg rolls and hiyayakko tofu with katusobushi and soy sauce. I keep the tofu in tupperware covered with water, and it goes straight into the fridge at creche, so it's fine. They also bring fruit to share, so I figure it's pretty balanced.

Today's lunch is ham, cheese and marmite sandwiches, leftover penne with tomato and home grown zucchini, and custard over tinned pears. Not in a bento box today!

I also try to plan my meals ahead. During the 5 weeks challenge, there has been a week I didn't plan, and it was an poor bento week. I live alone, so it's quite important for me to plan if I don't wand to throw away to much food. My freezer is just a small compartment in the fridge, which is not very large itself. And I'm not so much used to freeze food, my freezer is mostly used for things I buy already frozen. I generally go shopping once a week on Saturdays, as I don't really have time during the week. So I shop first and then plan ahead with what I bought, as it depends on what was on sale and what looked good in the shop. I try to stick to season vegetables and local products, and organic products as much as I can. Beside this I always have canned or pickled products. I have enough food at home for some time to be honnest, but I prefer fresh food as much as I can. I don't like empty cupboards I suppose ;-)

So I plan a week ahead, lunch and supper, but I often eat the same thing in various recipes... one cabbage lasts a week in four meals, when I cook rice it's also used in three or four meals. I just use a small cardboard white board and it's OK. I don't always stick to the plan as I may be invited or come home to late for cooking, so I have to adjust the planning according to the most perishable goods. But I like not to have to think to much in the moring and just read the plan.

I find myself planning bentos around what I have in the fridge and what my activity would be for that day. Some days, I play tennis or go to the gym after work, so I have to pack heavier lunch and a banana. Lately, I've been preparing 2 days worth of bento at a time, and it's always rice w/ side dish(es). Except for Friday, when I don't do anything strenuous after work, I'd bring simple onigiri or sandwich, or eat out.

i don't plan them because, due to my job, i don't know if I'll be able to actually eat it or not. I mean, sudden meetings and such things. There have been lots of times that i plan a cool meal that stays in its box until night :(
That's the reason that I also buy my food daily (or try to do so) because most of the times it spoils sitting in my fridge.

So when i can make a bento i cook it with the food i have. Mostly pasta and some veggies.

I hate my job, lol xD