Monday Morning and afternoon "Bento"

Good morning everyone, here I am just about two hours out from packing these lovely Bento and I am here to share them with you.  I noticed after snapping the photos that I missed one critical item of the children's lunch - their yogurt. I did not forget to pack it, I simply forgot to photograph it! Whoops!

Since the children have a hot lunch, I have wrapped it up in a warm towel, and it will stay hot until right at lunch time. I've been pleasantly surprised how hot it will stay in a lunch box when covered this way. I'm hoping that we can afford a couple LunchBots Thermals Isolierbehälter or Zojirushi Classic Bento Vacuum Lunch Jars, as that would help us out a bit more packing these and not making as much of a mess with our laundry. I've not seen the Zojirushi containers here in Germany, but I have seen them on Ebay with the same prices as Amazon.com - though shipping straight out of Japan. Ahhh Bento Containers, how I love you.


Today's breakfast Bento are packed in plastic containers I purchased that originally held sprouted vegetable seeds for salad. They're such lovely food-grade containers, that I couldn't see recycling them right away.  I've packed some gherkins, apple-banana sauce, Babybel and a peanut butter sandwich for each child. The nice thing about these packages is that they are not only study and see-through; but that they snap shut and will not leak.

Re-purposed Salad container Bento Breakfast:
Gherkins, Babybel,
Peanut Butter sandwich and Applesauce

Today's lunch is noodles with a brown ground meat sauce, salad and yogurt. I figured that the kids might do with a change, and since I make everything from scratch, it was easier to simply make them meatballs today. I did cheat a little on the sauce by using GEFRO's Dunklesoße with about half a liter of water. If I were more awake and not distracted, I would have used the bone broth I have in the fridge.  The noodles are from Schär, and are corn based.  I've made this before with rice noodles from our local Asian store and with buckwheat noodles from our local health food store. Really, when you're limited to a Kindergarten menu, you just do what you can to get by, especially when limited by your diet and finances.

Salad with sprouts, Yogurt Dressing,
Noodles with Meatballs and Brown Sauce.

Obviously, the children's meal isn't Paleo or GAPS, but it is all gluten free and rather packed with vitamins and minerals.  Usually I like to hide things in their meatballs or sauces, but I was rushed for time today and when the kids started running around in and out of my kitchen, I was too distracted to think about that.

Both of these packed nicely into two thermal bags.  A lot of people think you need to spend a lot of money on these, but truth be told, I purchased two really cheap thermal lunch bags at our local KIK Textilien Markt for about 50c each two summers ago. I did however spend a little bit more on my thermal lunch "purse" that I got at our local TK Maxx. I haven't seen anything else like it and I've been trying to find another so I will have my own bag once I start back to German Class.

I'm in the middle of birthday party and going away party planning, so this week should be post-packed if I can stay on top of things.  I look forward to bringing new items each week so that everyone can see that Bento doesn't always have to be beautiful or decorative. Even people who "ain't got time for that" actually do. To be perfectly honest, I overslept and got this all together + the children dressed in 40 minutes. It can be done, even with the crazy making, voice-raising and clapping everyone step by step out the door. So, don't panic!  As Richard Dreyfuss said in "What about Bob?" - Baby steps. And you, like Bill Murray's character "Bob", can cheer yourself along - "I'm Baby stepping!" (I've done this more times than I can count!)

If you've never seen "What about Bob?" - here's a clip from it:

I hope you have a Happy Monday!

Jennifer