More Bento

Last week, I posted about bento. Bento is a Japanese style lunch packed in boxes. I often bring a bento style lunch with me to work (above is a picture of my lunch wrapped in a Japanese furoshiki - you can use a scarf or handkerchief).

I recently discovered the site I Love Obento (here) which has tons of cute bento boxes you can look at or buy (I haven't bought anything there, though).

Despite how much I love bento, I don't use a bento box. First of all, Japanese bento boxes tend to be small, leaving you hungry after lunch. Also, bento boxes can be hard to clean every day, especially if you don't have or dishwasher, or you do but do not run it every night. I have found a much better alternative - GladWare containers.

GladWare containers are reusable/disposable tupperware-like containers with lids. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes and can be mixed and matched easily. I like to use the small round containers with the screw-on lids and the small square containers, mostly.

Yesterday I brought some leftovers for my lunch. I had salad, pasta (it was gnocchi) and garlic bread for dinner - saving some of the pasta and half of the salad for my lunch. I put the salad (with a little container for the dressing) in the square container, and some of the pasta into the small round container. I stacked the round container on top of the square one, put a plastic fork with them, and wrapped it all in my furoshiki. Then I put it all in the fridge.

At lunch, I put the container of pasta (with the lid half-off/half-on) in the microwave at work for a few minutes, put the dressing on the salad, and my lunch was ready! I even used the furoshiki as a cloth to put on my desk so I wouldn't make am mess.

The best part is, after lunch I cleaned out the containers, wrapped them up again, and took them home to use for my next lunch. If I were to accidentally forget to wash them out, though, for say, a few weeks - I could always dispose of the containers instead of having to face what has been growing inside - you can't do that with your expensive Hello Kitty imported bento.

I may not be using an authentic bento box, but my furoshiki is cute and everyone admires my Japanese style lunches. It also makes lunch fun and cute! The best part is, I can almost always use leftovers, so I don't have to cook or buy special food just for my lunch - or eat the food from the cafeteria!