8 Ingredients Bento for Bento&Co 2014 Contest

I participated in Bento&Co's 2014 Contest for fun and submitted my bento photo a few days ago, actually on the last minutes - I thought I wouldn't be able to take part in the contest as I was rather short on time, but Bento&Co extended the contest period, so I decided to participate.

This year's theme is: OUR INGREDIENTS + YOUR BENTO. We were expected to create a bento meal using only the following ingredients plus 1 ingredient of our choice:

• Potato
• Tomato
• Carrot
• Broccoli 
• Rice 
• Eggs
• Chicken (or tofu for vegetarians)
• The extra ingredient I chose: lettuce 

We also had to include a short description of the bento photo we submitted and here is mine:

Even though I love charaben, this year I decided to submit a more traditional-looking bento. I think it's something that is less intimidating to make and certainly more applicable for everyday bento. I played around with the natural vibrance of the pre-determined ingredients to create a practical, nutritious and delicious bento which can be whipped up by everyone who wants to spend just a few extra minutes in the kitchen. 

CONTENTS

Oval Bento Box:

steamed white rice, steamed purple rice (mixture of black+white rice), scrambled egg, teriyaki chicken dumplings, blanched broccoli, cherry tomatoes (red & yellow), carrot flowers (orange & purple- decorated with egg white and broccoli stems), mini carrot coins, mini broccoli stem coins and lettuce. 

Rectangular Bento Box:

chicken yakitori skewers (with carrot slices and broccoli stems), potato salad, cherry tomatoes, carrot tamagoyaki, blanched broccoli, carrot flower and lettuce.

The results were out yesterday and here are the bentos of the two grand winners, aren't they lovely :)? I love the Japan Grand Winner's bento, it's simple but it's got beautiful colour scheme, pretty arrangement and it looks yummy too. The international grand winner seemed to have spent SO MUCH time preparing the bento, and I can imagine why she won this contest. Congrats to both of them :)!

My bento managed to be in the top 10 and I am happy with the result, since I didn't partipate to win. I just wanted to motivate myself to make more bentos, since I've not been very active in bentoing lately.

The following are the bentos of the 10 finalists. I really like the first bento - another simple bento but it looks so delicious! I hope Bento&Co will also show the entries from the other contestants. I am sure there are so many good ones, especially because I read there are more than 200 participants!

Which bento do you like best? You don't have to be partial to mine because you're visiting my blog ;)! I think my one is not so bad, but I really like the two bentos I mentioned before, the one from the Japanese grand winner and the first photo of the top 10 finalist.

Anyway, hopefully I can blog a bit more in the near future. It's Friday tomorrow, so hang in there :)!

My Bento Cookbook - BENTO DELIGHTS

Yup, you've read that correctly, my very first and my very own bento cookbook :-)! After months of hard work, it's finally done! This was also one of the reasons why I had been in an on-and-off again relationship with my blog the last couple of months. So, let me introduce you to my new little baby: Bento Delights - adorable + stylish lunches on the go. You even get to know my name too :). Hello, my name is Syntia, even though so far I have only been known as CG virtually. After knowing my name, I don't appear that mysterious distant anymore right ;)??

I'd thought about writing a bento book since mid 2011. Numerous people (blog readers, Facebook followers, etc) have contacted me via e-mail or Facebook messages, and inquired if I would publish a bento book in the near future, since they'd love to have one. I told them that it was something that I would think about and would try to fit into my schedule. However, due to professional commitment, I was regularly short on time and I just never had the chance to work on this project until a few months ago. But now, I've kept my promise and I hope this book would be helpful for everyone who wants to embark on a journey of bento-making or is just curious about it :)!

If you wish to know more about this book, read on, but be warned, this will be a quite long post!

Bento Delights is a 118 pages full-colour paperback (8.5 x 11 inches). It contains 31 bento menus and 100 recipes. The book is divided into 2 main sections: Character Bento (Charaben) and Traditional Bento. But, you will also find other information related to bento, such as Bento Basics, Tools & Accessories, Bento Helpers, etc. Please find below the complete list of Contents.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Bento Basics

Bento Boxes + Tools + Accessories

Character Bento

Traditional Bento

Additional Recipes

rice

pickles + salads

stir-fries + other favourites

tamagoyaki

Further Tips + Tricks

onigiri

colouring rice

bento helpers

idea list for a colourful bento box

pretty bento accents

Resource Guide

Glossary

Afterword

Keep scrolling to get a sneak peek of my book.

WHAT YOU WILL FIND IN THIS BOOK

• 16 Charaben menus including step-by-step photographs
• 15 Traditional Bento menus and each features a full-colour photo of the final bento
• 100 recipes (Focus: Modern Asian - especially Japanese, Chinese & Korean)
• Other bento related information.

PLEASE NOTE

• Even though half of the book features cute bento ideas, this book was not written with the aim to give parents fun lunch ideas for kids who are picky eaters. A lot of the recipes are more geared towards older audience who are into bento, Japanese cusine or modern Asian foods in general.
• Out of the 31 bento menus, 5 have been previously featured in this blog (even though I just briefly talked about them and didn't really include any recipes). The other 26 bento menus were exclusively made for this cookbook.
• Before you buy the book, check out the CHARABEN and TRADITIONAL BENTO sections in my blog - if you like my bento style, chance is you might like this book too.

WHERE TO BUY

• Australia - Fishpond.com.au
• France - Amazon.fr
• Germany - Amazon.de
• India - Amazon.in
• Italy - Amazon.it
• Spain - Amazon.es
• UK - Amazon.co.uk
• USA - Amazon.com
• USA - Barnes & Noble 

Note: Amazon has a "Look Inside" function, which is great, since you will be able to see more sample pages of my book. Unfortunately, I don't have any control on which pages to display, and since Amazon doesn't really show the pages in order, the design might look rather inconsistent.

BUY DIRECTLY FROM ME
If your country is not listed above or if you would like to buy my book outside the mentioned online retailers, you can directly purchase the book from me. My printer is based in the US, but I can arrange the shipping/handling for you - and yes, my printer ships worldwide! Contact me for a quote!

DISCLAIMER

• Even though I now have one bento book published, I by no means would like to claim that I am a bento expert. Bentoing (and cooking) is just a hobby of mine and an outlet to express my creative urges - my educational/professional background actually has absolutely nothing to do with the culinary arts, but I've always been rather artsy since I was younger. I also love to cook, I love to eat and I love to create pretty things. So, the result is this bento book :).

FURTHER INFORMATION

• If you have any questions regarding  this book, leave me a comment below, or simply shoot me an e-mail to: cookinggallery@yahoo.de
• If you would like to have a hardcover edition, you can contact me and I can arrange to order it for you, but the price for hardcover is of course higher than paperback. E-mail and ask me for a quote, and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible.

Shrimp Fried Rice Bento

 

A very simple but delicious bento today: spicy shrimp fried rice  served with slices of hard-boiled egg, cherry tomatoes and pickled carrot salad.

Spicy Shrimp Fried Rice

• 1 cup cooked rice
• 10 - 20 pieces of shrimps
• 1 tablespoon cooking oil
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 tablespoon chopped and seeded bird's eye chili
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce
• 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
• Sugar and pepper to taste
• 1 tablespoon chopped green onions

Instructions

• Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a non-stick pan.
• Add minced garlic and stir-fry for 1 minute.
• Toss in the chopped chili and  stir-fry for another minute.
• Add shrimps and fish sauce and keep stirring until the shrimps turn pink.
• Quickly toss in the rice, oyster sauce and sugar. Mix well.
• Add chopped green onions and pepper to taste. Keep stirring for another minute.
• Serve with a few slices of hard boiled egg, cherry tomatoes, pickled carrot salad, lettuce and a  slice of tangerine.

 

Plum Onigiri Bento

Today's bento: 2 rice balls seasoned with Nori Fumi furikake (seaweed/ sesame seeds sprinkles) and topped with umeboshi (pickled plum), a halved soy-sauce marinated egg, a small portion of garlic/soy sauce chicken, blanched broccolini, half of a cherry tomato, a pickled lotus root slice and two carrot flowers.

I also had a few pieces of seedless grapes and another piece of cherry tomato which I cut into halves.

 

Mushroom Spaghetti Bento

 

This is the first bento I made after I returned to Australia a few months ago. Very simple, nothing cutesy except the two pretty carrot butterflies. In fact I also sent this picture to Bento&Co Competition, with the hope that I would get a few bento materials, since I didn't really have any over here. I managed to be in the top 20 and got a few things from Bento&Co.

Anyway, this bento contains mushroom spaghetti cooked a la Aglio Olio, four pieces of pan-fried chicken nuggets, four pieces of cherry tomatoes, braised asparagus, boiled egg, two carrot butterflies and parsley to add some greens to the bento.

Fried Noodles Bento

I wanted to make charaben today, but in the end I was too lazy and just made a portion of good ol' traditional bento box ;).

The box contains plain fried noodles, pan-fried gyoza, baby carrots, pan-fried garlic chicken, soy sauce egg, a piece of radish and cherry tomato.

 

Fried Rice-Noodles Bento

 

This is another simple bento which you can whip up within minutes, provided that you have all of the ingredients ready. And please do use fresh rice-noodles if you could, it'd make such a huge difference...!

Ingredients:

• 250 g fresh rice-noodles
• 100 ground pork (or chicken)
• 100 bean sprouts
• 1/4 cup chopped green onions
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbs fish sauce
• 2 tbs oyster sauce
• 1 tbs sambal oelek
• 1 Tbsp sweet soy sauce
• white pepper to taste

Instructions

• Heat oil in a wok.
• Add the ground pork. Stir fry for 2 minutes.
• Add fish sauce, sambal oelek and oyster sauce. Simmer for 1 minute.
• Quickly add the noodles and stir until well combined.
• Toss in the bean sprouts, green onions and sprinkle a dash of pepper. Stir fry for another 1 minute. Serve.
• Top with slices of boiled egg, carved radish and a dollop of chili sambal :).

Chicken Katsu Bento

I made this bento last week. It contains rice topped with umeboshi (pickled plum) and cucumber, chicken katsu (Japanese style chicken schnitzel), yakisoba (fried noodles), korokke (potato croquette), tamagoyaki (rolled omelet), shibazuke (pickled cucumber), cherry tomatoes, mayonnaise and tonkatsu sauce (they're inside the blue and pink mini containers).

Chicken Katsu - serves 2 

2 chicken breast/thigh fillets

1 egg

1 tbs oyster sauce

salt and pepper to taste

3 tbs all purpose flour 

Panko bread crumbs

Oil for frying

1. Mix egg, salt, pepper and oyster sauce together.
2. Coat the chicken breasts with flour.
3. Dip the coated chicken breasts in the egg mixture.
4. Coat the chicken breasts with panko bread crumbs.
5. Repeat steps 3 - 4.
6. Fry the chicken breasts until golden brown.
7. Drizzle with tonkatsu sauce and mayonnaise. Serve with rice.

Power Lunch Bento

My husband had this bento a few days ago. If you still remember, I told you that I made him a bento box with the same menu as mine. But he also had a piece of Korokke (Japanese croquette) and stir-fried bean sprouts which were missing in my bento.

I have to postpone my report about the things I got from Bento&Co for now as I am really short on time :(. Hopefully I'd be able to do so in the next few weeks.

Chicken Sukiyaki Bento

 

I participated in a bento contest last July organised by Bento&Co. Due to your kind support, I won the second prize :). I got a 10,000 Yen voucher plus some bento boxes and accessories from Bento&Co. I received so many extra goodies apart from the items I chose using the 10,000 Yen from Bento&Co that I was totally flabbergasted (positively...;)) when I opened the parcels I got from them. I will report more about the wonderful goodies in my next post as I am quite short on time at the time being.

This gorgeous wooden bento box is one of the things I chose from their online store.

If you're interested to buy this, click the link over here. It costs 7,500 Yen (around €75). Indeed expensive, but worth the money as it's really flawless!! I am very happy with the box and now it belongs to one of my most favourite bento boxes :).

I filled the bento box with steamed rice topped with purple potato butterflies, chicken sukiyaki, soy-sauce egg, pan-fried mini wieners, tamagoyaki, ebi fry, pan-fried dumplings, carrot salad and cherry tomatoes.

I made my husband a bento meal with the same menu as well, but I will show the picture(s) of his bento box another time :). Well, that's it for now. Have a nice weekend, everyone!

Summer Picnic Bento

This Summer Picnic Bento is my newest bento lunch which I devoured at home just now - you can have a picnic at home too, can't you :)?

My lunch contains maki-zushi filled with ebi fry and mayo, a few slices of tamagoyaki, two pieces of Babybel cheese, a small portion of grapes,  cherry tomatoes, baby carrots, takuwan rose and some purple potato flowers.

 

Spaghetti Aglio Olio Bento

Spaghetti Aglio Olio with Shrimps - serves 2

• 200 grams spaghetti, cooked to al dente
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1- 2 seeded bird's eye chilies, sliced thinly
• 3 - 4 cloves garlic, sliced thinly
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 2 tablespoons chopped green onions
• 1 tablespoon chopped parsley
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 150 g shrimps
• Salt and black pepper to taste

Instructions

• Combine olive oil, garlic, onion, chili and red pepper flakes in a skillet and cook under low heat for 8 - 10 minutes. The garlic should be golden brown and not burned.
• Add salt, pepper, shrimps, chopped green onions and parsley and cook for another 1 minute.
• Toss in the cooked spaghetti and mix thoroughly that the pasta is well coated with the oil.

Braised Duck Bento

I ordered a new vegetable cutter last week. I own several butterfly cutters already but this one now belongs to one of my most favourite cutters ever because it's so pretty...!! It's also quite small, perfect for bento making!

This simple bento contains delicious braised duck breast which I cooked in soy sauce/oyster sauce/cinnamon mixture for an hour before I cut it into thick slices. I also included half a scotch egg - my scotch egg is made differently to the usual scotch eggs which are covered in bread crumbs and deep fried. My version is healthier and much simpler to make as I only used soft boiled egg which I wrapped with seasoned ground meat and then pan-fried without oil in a non-stick pan.

I finished up the look by adding some carrot butterflies, cucumber leaves, tomberries (miniature tomatoes), lettuce border, parsley, a piece of radish and a piece of blackberry.

Vegetarian Bento: Sesame Noodles

 

Today I made sesame noodles for lunch. If I remember it correctly, this must be my first ever vegetarian bento...! I am not vegetarian and I am not thinking to be one either, but I have to say having meatless meals from time to time can be very tasty...! 

Sesame Noodles

Serves 2

• 200 grams spaghetti, cooked until al dente
• 1 Tbsp sesame oil
• 1 Tbsp chili oil
• 2 Tbsp sesame paste (or peanut butter, if you don't have sesame paste)
• 2 Tbsp soy sauce
• 2 Tbsp chopped scallion
• sugar, to taste
• chili flakes, to taste
• toasted sesame seeds for garnish
• Toppings: cucumber slices, radish, cherry tomatoes

Mix cooked noodles with the rest of the ingredients and topped with refreshing cucumber, radish and cherry tomatoes.