My Boys' Lunch

My both sons' take their lunch to the schools most of the time. I make them the "Bento" or I usually bake breads at home so whenever it's available, I make sandwiches for them with the homemade breads.

When the school first started, I barely let them buy school lunches at the cafeteria, so they had asked me a few times that they'd like to try out some of the cafeteria lunch. The cafeteria offered all the parents to come and try their school lunches sometime in last October and it lasted entire week or so. We have visited and tried what children at the school typically eat. The experience went pretty well. The lunch itself was better than I expected, but I figure if I make both of our boys lunch everyday, it's cheaper and healther. Plus I can actually see how much they have eaten. This picture below, is the one we have tried. it was Oriental Chicken and rice.

They bought cafeteria lunch few times each month so far. Only time I don't have anything to pack in the morning. My 1st son had experienced the cafeteria lunch wasn't so good...

These are typical bento, I make.

I do use some frozen item for bento if I don't have anything else available. My boys favorites are Trader Joe's Mandarin Chicken and Pork Shumai, they both are taste pretty good even when it's not hot anymore. Yes, it is pretty important to think about how the food will taste like, at the time to eat. Usually for me, it is about 3-4hours after I pack them, so it's better to be cooked, but chilled when you packing them into the bento boxes.

I get questions often from boys teachers or moms sometimes, about what was in their lunch. It must be very strange for others....

Other than bento, usually like this... sometimes, I add a little bag of chips or a stick of yogurt with an ice pack.

So tonight, I was a bit tired to start baking own breads, and I haven't really see anything particularly boys will like to have on their bento...I asked my 1st son, "What do you like for your lunch? Cafeteria lunch or sandwich?" If he answered and said sandwich, I would have start baking a bread for tomorrow by now, but he said "I wanna mommy's food." so I asked him back, "What do you mean, mommy's food?" then he said, "obento" (with "o" in the beginning of the word, it's a polite form in Japanese, most of the time. Not all the time...) Wow! It made my day!! I was very happy to hear him saying that. :)

I searched my pantry, and I found a little package of tuna. The ones we normally use for sandwich or salad. And then, I looked up a recipe using tuna for bento and I found one, and I'm pretty sure that boys will love it. It's rolled sushi and cooked tuna in it. It must be hard to imagine, so I link this recipe with picture on it, here... Wish me luck! Because I am not a sushi professional. I am Japanese but I don't eat sushi everyday or I don't make them at home so often...