Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Make packing lunch more fun




The one money-saving habit I've been able to consistently stick to since I started working a full time job after college three years ago was packing my lunch. I fall off the wagon occasionally when I have my spurts where I don't feel like cooking, but most days, unless I'm meeting someone for lunch, I pack my own. In an effort to make my lunches more interesting, I've decided to try packing bento-style lunches. A bento is a single-portion takeout or home-packed meal common in Japanese cuisine. But many Americans make bento-style meals and from the abundance of bento cookbooks for children I've found online, parents make bentos for their children to take for school lunch. I recently bought this bento container from Amazon and will start planning my meals before shopping (which I almost never do). Perhaps even creating a nicer presentation of my homecooked food will make it taste better? Well, I don't know about that, but the money savings makes up for the effort.

Images from here and here

2 comments:

Eve said...

i might try one of these, which cookbook do you have?

Shen Dove said...

I forget the name, but it's a Japanese children's Bento cook book similar to this one: http://www.amazon.com/Top-100-Recipes-Healthy-Lunchbox/dp/1844835073/ref=pd_sim_b_72. But the meals are substantial enough for an adult.