Discover the magic of the Japanese lunch box with over 50 easy and seasonal recipes for delicious bentos your little ones will love From the depths of winter to the height of summer, a beautiful lunch can brighten any day. Japanese bento boxes are portable and pretty meals packed with healthy portions and plenty of cheer. And they’re outrageously cute! With Yum-Yum Bento All Year Round, you’ll fall in love with 52 tasty, in-season lunches. Spring into make-ahead action with packing tips, tutorials, side dish recipes, and more. From summer Sunshine Smiles to Christmas Gingerbread Friends, there’s a bento just perfect for your lunchbox today, including: Springtime Fun: Easter Chicks Dainty Daffodils Green Pea Brothers Summertime Splash: Rainbow Sushi Cheerful Crab Seashell Fun Fall Frenzy: A Pear Anywhere Fried Rice Jack-o-Lantern Pumpkin Twins Winter Wonderland: Tomato Santas Rudolph the Red-Nosed Bagel Penguin Elves
**2020 Gourmand Food Culture Award Winner** With these fun, easy and delicious recipes, anyone can venture into the world of bento boxes--no special tools or containers necessary! Hosts of popular NHK World cooking show Bento Expo, Marc Matsumoto and Maki Ogawa share their bento-making expertise on the pages of this stunningly photographed cookbook. As a Japanese-American, Marc is ideally placed to help Western readers add Japanese touches to their lunches with easy-to-find ingredients. As a Japanese mom of teenage boys, Maki is an expert at creating simple yet delicious bento box combinations that can be put together easily every morning. Together they have created an accessible, authentic bento cookbook that everyone will enjoy. Ultimate Bento is packed with practical techniques, step-by-step instructions, and useful tips for 85 recipes that can be mixed-and-matched for 25 nutritionally balanced bento box lunches. Each bento in this book costs under $3 per serving, so you and your family can save money while also eating healthier. Recipes include: Summer Rolls Japanese-style Coleslaw Wasabi Chicken Snap Pea Stir-Fry Yakitori Chicken Skewers Mini Stuffed Peppers Ginger Pork
A bento box meal (single portions of different foods packed in one reusable container) is a Japanese tradition that lends itself well to today's busy lifestyle. Although bento boxes are available to take out from restaurants and food stands, they are most frequently prepared at home, very often by parents wishing to provide their children with delicious, healthy, fun--and environmentally-responsible--lunch and snack-time alternatives. Kawaii Bento Boxes offers dozens of recipes and menus. For each box, the authors include detailed instructions for cooking, seasoning, decorating and assembling the components as well as an icon indicating how long it will take to prepare. The meals are not just easy to make, they are tasty, nutritious and economical, with each portion carefully calculated so that there are no leftovers. There are also suggestions for the right container for each meal. Most of the ingredients used are familiar and available to American cooks. Here are whimsical creations like soccer balls and animal faces made from shaped rice, tulips cut from dyed hardboiled eggs, hearts and stars carved out of vegetables, and much more. Perfect for parents looking to liven up their children's school lunches or park snacks, or for busy people who want to fix a quick and cheerful meal to take to work, Kawaii Bento Boxes highlights the Japanese passion for making food a treat for the eyes as well as for the mouth. CONTENTS: ONIGIRI BENTO (16 variations including faces, soccer ball, animals, triangles, spheres) RICE BENTO (11 variations including bear, rabbit, ship, seasoned rice, teriyaki chicken over rice, etc.) SUSHI BENTO (12 variations) BREAD BENTO (12 variations including mini-sandwiches, rolls, etc.) NOODLE BENTO (9 variations including spaghetti, yakisoba noodles, udon) SUMMER AND WINTER BENTO (12 variations including summer dishes that won't spoil in the heat and winter dishes that are better when eaten warm) TRADITIONAL/POPULAR/FAVORITE BENTO (11 variations including favorite dishes like hamburgers, fried shrimp, fried chicken) TIPS ON HOW TO STUFF THE BENTO BOX WHAT TO STUFF IN THE BENTO BOX (including calories, carbohydrates, protein, etc.) CUTTING AND DECORATING MENUS BASED ON COLOR EASY DESSERT RECIPES
Creating colorful, cute, and tasty Japanese-style bento box lunches has never been this easy and fun! Learn how to craft your favorite foods into a variety of shapes—from caterpillars, cars, and puppy dogs to pretty flowers, princesses, and kitty cats to make the yummy, healthy lunches that are all the rage in Japan. Featuring chapters on Cuties & Critters, Fairy-Tale Friends, and Special Day Treats, plus a handy shopping guide, easy recipes for mini snacks, general tips and tricks, and so much more, Yum-Yum Bento Box is the perfect guide for beginner bento makers and expert chefs alike. Stop wasting money on pre-packaged lunches—and start making beautiful, healthy bentos! Includes: • An introduction to Japanese Lunches • Packing a Bento Box • Bento Boxes, Tools, And Accessories • Ingredients • Cuties & Critters • Fairy-Tale Friends • Special-Day Treats
Bento fever has recently swept across the West, fuelled not just by an interest in cute, decorative food, but by the desire for an economical, healthy approach to eating in these times of recession. A leading light in the popularization of bento has been Makiko Itoh, whose blog, Just Bento, boasts hundreds of thousands of subscribers, all of whom love her delicious recipes and practical bento-making tips. Now, for the first time, Itoh's expertise has been packaged in book form. The Just Bento Cookbook contains twenty-five attractive bento menus and more than 150 recipes, all of which have been specially created for this book and are divided into two main sections, Japanese and Not-so-Japanese. The Japanese section includes classic bento menus such as Salted Salmon Bento and Chicken Karaage Bento, while the Not-so-Japanese section shows how Western food can be adapted to the bento concept, with delicious menus such as Summer Vegetable Gratin Bento and Everyone Loves a Pie Bento. In addition to the recipes, Itoh includes sections on bento-making equipment, bento staples to make and stock, basic cooking techniques, and a glossary. A planning-chart section is included, showing readers how they might organize their weekly bento making. In a market full of bento books that emphasize the cute and the decorative, this book stands out for its emphasis on the health and economic benefits of the bento, and for the very practical guidelines on how to ensure that a daily bento lunch is something that can easily be incorporated into anyone's lifestyle. This is the perfect book for the bento beginner, but will also provide a wealth of new bento recipe ideas and tips for Just Bento aficionados.
Fifty recipes for delicious bento boxes featuring your favorite Disney characters! Create masterpieces for any meal, including snack time, with Mickey, Minnie, Elsa, Anna, Winnie the Pooh, and more! Transform your lunch box with Disney Bento and enjoy the magic wherever you go! -- VIZ Media
Discover how easy it is to make bento box lunches at home with these 60 simple recipes Bento for Beginners is the perfect introduction to bento box lunches featuring creative recipes and helpful tips for getting started. This bento box cookbook is filled with easy-to-follow recipes and everything you need to create a bento-ready kitchen, including the best type of bento box to purchase, ingredients to keep on hand, and how to plan for the week ahead. From Japanese classics to simple fusion and Western-inspired bento boxes, you’ll be eating variety-filled, home-cooked lunches in no time, with: All the tips, tools, and ingredients you’ll needto get into a regular bento routine. Step-by-step instructions for each recipe in a box,including a Timing and Prep guide that helps you plan ahead. Delicious recipes and bento menu suggestions,including crispy Japanese-Style Fried Chicken and sweet-and-savory Pan-Fried Potato and Carrot, and Rice Croquettes with juicy Oven-Roasted Chicken Thighs with a crunchy Celery and Apple Salad. Make bento part of your lunch routine with Bento for Beginners!
Longing for more than yet another limp salad? Tired of tussling with the kids over junk food lunch kits? Sounds like you’ve got the lunch box blues. J. M. Hirsch has the fix. But it isn’t a cookbook. Because when it comes to lunch, nobody has time to break out a recipe to bang out a brown bag special. Busy people need lunch ideas. Lots of them. And those ideas need to be healthy, fast, easy, affordable, and delicious. That’s what Beating the Lunch Box Blues is—an idea book to inspire anyone daunted by the daily ordeal of packing lunch. Jammed with nearly 200 photos and more than 500 tips and meals, this book is designed to save families time, money, and their sanity. Whether you want to jazz up a grilled cheese, turn leftover steak into a DIY taco kit, or make pizza “sushi,” Hirsch has it covered. And because the best lunches often are built from the leftovers of great suppers, he has also included 30 fast and flavorful dinner recipes designed to make enough for tomorrow, too. Crazy good stuff like short ribs braised in a Rosemary-Port Sauce, Hoisin-Glazed Meatloaf, and kid-friendly classics such as Turkey Sloppy Joes and American Chop Suey. With ideas this easy and this delicious, there’s no reason to let the lunch box blues get you down.
Bento books have been some of the more accessible and popular genres coming out of Japan over the last few years, and Effortless Bento is essentially the bento encyclopedia. Filled with hundreds of full-color photos and numerous recipes this is the essential box lunch book.
