#5 Tuna patties, sweet pickles

Originally Made: Tuesday July 12th, 2011
The Box: Lock & Lock 550mL w/divider cups

LEFT: Rice, bread and butter pickles
RIGHT: Mini tuna patties, bok choy

I didn't have time to take a picture of this bento before leaving the house, so I only have a crappy cellphone pic taken right before eating :P

My first stab at making tuna patties, loosely following Hapa Bento's tuna squares recipe.  I say "loosely" because I made a bunch of substitutions lol.  No celery at home so I put in shredded carrot.  Ditto for onion so I used green onion.  And we don't typically have mayo in my house so I experimented with cream cheese.  For the bread crumbs, I used panko.

I thought they came out out pretty well but needed a bit more flavour.  That's likely due to my use of cream cheese (which isn't as flavourful as mayo) and using less salt than specified.  Next time I'll add more salt and try try other flavourings.  I'm thinking tomato sauce or soy sauce.  I also have half a container of gochujang at home that I should use.  Anyway, three mini patties are pictured here, each cut in half.

Also, the pickles.  Up to this point I've been having dill, which I don't mind but what I really like are sweet pickles.  My family recently finished the dill jar and we had one jar of bread and butter pickles sitting around so it's all good.  But man, it took me like five minutes to open the jar x_X  The seals on those things are tight.

#3 Pretty carrot, chicken nuggets

Originally Made: Thursday June 23rd, 2011
The Box: Lock & Lock 550mL w/divider cups

I decided to be a little creative with the carrot and use some cutters that I had (which I originally bought to use as cookie cutters).  Of course, I didn't think of it until after I had sliced the carrot so the thickness of the slices weren't exactly even -_-"  But lol it's not that obvious from the photo, right? ^^;;  More greens and chicken nuggets.  Truthfully, I probably could've done with just three nuggets but *shrugs* I like meat lol. That stuff in the bottom right corner is a bit of almond-peanut nut cluster snack thing.

#2 More carrot, pickle, pork...now with chicken

Originally Made: Tuesday June 21st, 2011
The Box: Lock & Lock 550mL w/divider cups

Like with my first bento, more blanched carrot and dill pickle.  There's a certain sweetness that comes out in carrot when blanched that I like.  The meat and the greens were leftovers.  The darker meat is marinated pork cooked with garlic, while the white meat is chicken, also cooked with garlic.

The greens...sorry, I'm not actually sure of what they're called >_>  I have a hard time remembering the names of all those different leafy green vegetables...gotta make an effort to learn the names ^^;;  But they're from my family's garden, I know that lol.  My mom always grows vegetables in the summer months.  I mixed a bit of vegetable furikake (store bought) in the rice for some variety.

I experimented with cupcake liners by putting everything on the right side in their own liner to see if it made packing easier or look nicer...not really lol. I mean, clean up was easy but that's about it. It was a bit fiddly trying to work with more than one paper liner.

#1 My first (photographed) bento

Originally Made: Thursday June 16th, 2011
The Box: Lock & Lock 550mL w/divider cups

So this is my first bento that I've photographed. The carrots are blanched and the pickle in the very top right corner is sliced dill. I actually prefer sweet pickles but dill was all there was at home so I just went with that. Beside the pickle is a bit of leftover ground pork with chives, which I think was leftover from when my mom last made dumplings. The meat in the bottom right is pork that I sliced off baby back ribs leftover from dinner the day before.