Two recipes using frozen shrimp that can be made in a few minutes.

This vegetable gratin in a cup is a great way to use up leftover vegetables in a tasty way. It only takes a few minutes to assemble too. The only thing you should have are the cherry tomatoes, which make their own sauce in a way. Otherwise you can use any cooked or frozen vegetables you have on hand. Here I've used some leftover zucchini and frozen carrot and peas. You could use the ever popular sweet pepper and onion confit too.

The 'sauce' used is mayonnaise. Cooking with mayonnaise may seem a bit odd, but it works very well. It's a very popular all-around sauce in Japanese home cooking. Cooked mayonnaise sauce tastes very nice when cold, making it very suited to bento dishes. I have used a 'light' mayonnaise here to halve the calories (50 calories per tablespoon, instead of about 100 for regular mayo), and added a little pesto from a jar to make it even tastier. I seem to always have jars of sauces spreads and pestos and so on around in the fridge - if you do too, try experimenting with them!

You do need a toaster oven to cook them up fast, but for serious bento makers this is a really handy piece of kitchen equipment to have (see essential bento making supplies).

This is a lacto-ovo-vegetarian recipe. To turn this into a vegan one use a non-egg mayonnaise substitute and omit the cheese. You can up the nutrients by adding chopped up leftover meat, more cheese, and so on.

This is such a simple thing to do, and there's no better time to do it than in the summer when so many fruits are in season. Cut up any soft ripe fruit, and put them into silicon cupcake liners or wrap in plastic film. Then stash each cup or bundle in a freezer safe plastic container. You can then take out a cup or two and tuck them into your bento box. They act as an edible cooler for your bento. The container here has a cut up nectarine (divided into two silicon liners) and 2 small bananas (divided into 4).

Bento contents, 2-tier bento (580ml capacity):

• 1 cup (1 cup=220ml) white rice, 240 cal
• 1 small piece salted salmon, 50 cal
• 1-egg tamagoyaki, 100 cal
• Approx. 1/2 cup sweet pepper and onion confit, 40 calories
• Blanched broccoli flowerets, 10 cal
• Blanched snow peas (mangetout) 5 cal
• Yukari (furikake made from umeboshi and red shiso leaves)

Total calories (approx): 445 (how calories are calculated)

Bento contents, 1-tier bento (670ml capacity):

• 1 cup (1 cup=220ml) white rice, 240 cal
• 2 small pieces salted salmon, 100 cal
• 1-egg tamagoyaki, 100 cal
• Approx. 3/4 cup sweet pepper and onion confit, 60 calories
• Blanched broccoli flowerets, 10 cal
• Blanched snow peas (mangetout) 5 cal
• Yukari (furikake made from umeboshi and red shiso leaves)

Total calories (approx): 515 (how calories are calculated)

Time needed for both: 10-20 minutes in the morning (depending on your assembly speed and neatness factor)

Type: Japanese, omnivore (salmon, egg)

This is a fairly standard, classic Japanese style bento. I make this type of bento far more than any other. I've already given instructions on how to make the individual pieces, but I thought it might be useful to see step-by-step how to pack a bento box properly, with an eye to the following:

• Presentation and attractiveness
• Calorie content
• Speed and ease

I've used two standard type bento boxes; a 2-tier model, and a 1-tier model with a divider.

Tamagoyaki, the slightly sweet rolled Japanese omelette, is a standby protein item for bentos. It tastes great at room temperature, is fairly easy to make (once you've done it a few times), and is cheap too. Plus the cheery yellow color brightens up any bento box.

There is one drawback with tamagoyaki: unless you have a tiny tamagoyaki pan (which is a single-purpose piece of kitchen equipment, something I try to avoid stocking in my not-so-large kitchen), you need to make it with a least 2, preferably 3 or more, eggs, to produce the distinctive multilayers of egg. This is fine if you're making bentos for two or more people, but when you're making bento for one you may not necessarily want to eat 2 eggs at a time. And tamagoyaki held in the fridge for more than a day never tastes as nice.

This method of making a 1-egg tamagoyaki in a normal small frying pan was in a recent issue of Kyou no ryouri (Today's Cooking), my favorite Japanese food magazine. I've tried it out a few times now, and I'm totally sold on it. It does make a slightly flatter tamagoyaki than a multi-egg one, but it still has those nice layers.

Here's how to make it step by step.

Few things are as easy to make or as tasty for lunch than a simple tuna salad sandwich. It's one of my favorite things to make when I'm too busy or occupied for more involved cooking. But porting around tuna salad when the weather is warm can be a bit of a problem.

I've been experimenting with freezing tuna salad in different ways, or rather stages of development as it were, as well as different tuna salad mixes.