After big stomach aches, I had an appendectomy on Monday. The blog’s planning have been a bit affected.

Appendicitis on Sunday night, then doctor appointment on Monday afternoon, and surgery on the same day! This was quite fast and unexpected!

On the following day, my Valentine’s Day dinner was also quite unexpected: green soup, green beens, with no added salt rusks*, a yoghurt (+salt), and a baked apple. So glamourous!

*No added salt rusks? Just like no added sugar fruit compote? It contains the natural fruits sugar.There’s only the natural salt of the rusk? Weird!

In front of such a dinner I was missing the pasta with butter from lunch!

I’m trying to justify myself for making such a simple bento : truffle white pudding, pasta, parmesan cheese, green beans and a slice of rye-bread. I didn’t put the lovely raspberry yoghurt I had for desert on the picture!

Have a nice safe and warmer week-end! 

We all experienced hunger during and endless meeting… or when we are taking public transportations early in the morning… or even when we cannot eat anything before 10 :00 AM.

Why not having a breakfast or eating break bento?

Against hunger : yoghut, home-made muesli and banana.

Home-made muesli is good to put what you want in it and not put what we don’t want!

The following is the recipe of a oatmeal, spelt wheat, cinamon, hazelnuts and almonds.

Ingredients :

-       250g / 0,55 lb of a mix of oatmeal and spelt wheat

-       1 big handful almonds

-       1 big handful hazelnuts

-       1 tablespoon honey

-       1 teaspoon cinnamon

-       1 tablespoon sugar

-       2 or 3 tablespoons water

Preheat your oven 330°F/170°C.

Chop hazelnuts and almonds up with knife.

Put oatmeal and spelt wheat in a bowl, had nuts and cinnamon.

Melt sugar, honey and water in a double-boiler.

Had this liquid mix to the flakes and nuts. Mix to spread the liquid mix.

Put it on baking pape rand cook it for 20 minutes. Mix during the baking. Muesli should be chunky.

Shop separator films and disposable food boxes. 

Photo : Foodporn Daily

A few days ago, on february 3rd, Japanese people were celebrating Setsubun. This celebration signals the beginning of Spring. That may be quite hard to believe while we are living the cold wave in all Europe.

In Japan Setsubun marks the changing from one season to another. But now only the first day of Spring is still celebrated.

The best know tradition for Setsubun is « mame-maki » : Japanese people throw soya seeds out of their house while saying « Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi! » literally« Demons out! Luck in! ». The purpose is to throw demons and ghosts out of the house and let the hapiness and lucky get in.

Another funny tradition is to eat an entire maki roll in once without cutting it. This maki has to contain 7 different ingredients (lucky number in Japan). It is called ehomaki and has to be eaten in the direction of eho : the direction of luck! This brings luck all year long.

We don’t start february with a pleasant climate. Why not starting with an appetizing bento ?

Let’s have a tasty meal: shrimp marinade, rice, rocket with lemon and olive oil dressing and a little swedish carrot cake.

Marinade ingredients:

-       garlic

-       shallots

-       onions

-       coriander

-       grated ginger

-       parsley

-       olive oil

-       pinch of caraway

Press garlic. Slice shallots and onions. Peel shrimps.

Mix all marinade ingredients. Afterwards add shrimps to marinade.

Place it in the frigde for an hour. Cook it 5 minutes.

Carrot cake doesn’t sound that attractive. But it is delicious! It tastes more like cinnamon than carrot.

For 6 muffins:

-       1 ½ dL grated carrots

-       1 dL cassonade, vanilla sugar or both

-       1 egg

-       ½ oil or butter

-       1 tsp cinnamon powder

-       1 ½ dL flour

-       ½ tsp baking powder

Preheat your oven to 350°F (180°C).

Mix the carotts, the sugar, the egg and the butter.

In another bowl mix the flour, the baking powder and the cinnamon. Blend it with the other mix.

Put the mix in muffin tins.

You can also add a creamcheese and sugar icing. 

The new monbento website is online ! en.monbento.com is now entirely dedicated to their products.

That is not all! This new website is much more intuitive so that you can easily find what you’re looking for.

Collections presents you all monbento products. About us anwers any questions you may have about the team or things that have to do with monbento. Shop enables you to purchase easily and quickly the item you need. Blog is still the same.

Behind this new website, we are still the same team. Finding answers to your questions, expectations and request remains our top priorities.

Nothing disapeared, everything evolve!

The sun didn’t showed up for a quite long time… Let’s put some « veggies of the sun » in our bentos to compensate for it.

During winter we love having caloric meals with a looot of cheese and meat. Those meals are very friendly except for our stomacs… But it tastes soo good!

This Saturday is not a paradoxical bento… there were nothing left from those meals… Let’s have something lighter. A pasta salad, as delicious as a fat and cheesy meal!

In my bento box there’s : fresh pasta, tomato, cucumber, feta cheese and grilled sweet pepper. One advice? No salt, feta is enough! Yum! 

This video is a commercial made by a sushi chain in Japan. They sent a tray of sushi in the espace. The name of this chain is Sticky rice… funny name !

As you can imagine those sushis needed some preparation. They planed this journey during 6 months.

Publicists are never out of crazy ideas!

In Japan, Kawaii means something in between adorable and cute. Japanese people prononce each syllable separate and insist on the letter i.

This word is very popular, it is used to qualify people (even adults), manga characters and even clothes.

This trend comes from the 1970’s with Hello Kitty. Now kawaii is everywhere in Japan : on billboards, shops and restaurants signs, packagings and even institutions.

 About fashion, most of kawaii people are girls. Kawaii looks childish with many accessories. Pink color, different fabrics, puff sleeves, gadgets and accessories are characterize this look.

Kawaii is also about bento!

Have a look to our kawaii bento accessories! 

And to monbento™ Original Octopus, Sakura and Sun!

Lack of vitamines ? This couscous is with crunchy carotts and zucchini. Vegetables tend to loose their vitamines when they are cooked in water or during a long time. Grating them is a good alternative!

Today’s menu: bulgur with crunchy veggies and meat.

Ingredients:

-1 carrot

-1/2 zucchini

-2 handful bulgur

-100g of beefburger

-2 pinches of caraway

-salt,pepper,oil

Start by rinsing the bulgur, cook it in the same volume of water, medium heat. It’s ready when there’s no more water.

Grate the carott and zucchini.

Crumble the beefburger and cook it in a pan with a bit of oil. When it starts getting brown add the caraway powder. Then add the veggies. Let it cook of 1 or 2 minutes and add the bulgur.

To finish with a sweet taste, stewed apple with a bit of muesli is quite nice!

Just peel an apple and wrap it with cellophane. Put it in the microwave for 1 or 2 minutes. And this is it!

We wish you a a nice week-end!

We made once onigiri from the same movie. Sooshi and Anna the Red (again!) reproduced the films’food. They also reproduced the set ups. The result is apetizing and surprising.

Want to see more ?

Sooshi’s post. (in French)

Anna the Red’s Flickr.