Bentobsessed.

I have a problem.

I suffer from a major weakness for fun lunch containers.

On Saturday, I was at one of my favourite stores, Fenigo, "just browsing." Lately I've been looking at lots of pictures (and some youtube videos) of bento-style lunches, and when I saw some cute Japanese bento boxes at Fenigo, I just couldn't resist. I bought one for myself, and one to give my sister as a thank-you for all of the times she's taken me out to practice my driving.

On Sunday, we met for one last practice session before my road test on Thursday (yes, THURSDAY! Aaaahhhhh). I decided to pack us a fun picnic lunch in our new bento boxes. First, I set out all of my bento ingredients:

I followed this tutorial on Youtube to make hatching chicks from hardboiled eggs. Look, I know they're deformed, but it was my first attempt:

Lettuce for the eyes and carrot for the lips!

In the boxes were pinwheel sandwiches, carrot and cucumber slices, cherry tomatoes, the hardboiled eggs/hatching chicks, grapes, strawberries cut to look like hearts, and mini cinnamon buns in silicone baking cups. Oh, and cheesestrings to really bring things to the next level. (And some fun animal toothpick things that I had lying around in a cupcake-making kit.)

 Here are the boxes all closed up:

Mine is the yellow one!

 I packed the bentos (and some extra food...) in my big cooler bag, and was on my way.

I'm pleased to say the bento boxes were a hit! My sister was very impressed. We've since decided that everything we eat from now on has to be out of a bento.

In other food news, a few weeks ago I discovered a really cool meal delivery service here in Waterloo called Food Naturally. It's run by holistic nutritionist Dana Rourke. You have the option of ordering one or two portions of three different meals. The meals are vegetarian and gluten-, sugar-, and dairy-free (not to mention made from scratch with whole foods!). As you know, I often find it EXTREMELY difficult to garner the motivation to do as much cooking as I should. Sometimes, I also have trouble thinking of interesting, healthy meals to cook. So, this meal service sounded like the perfect occasional treat.

I tried it for the first time a few weeks ago and loved it. When I saw the meal plan for this coming week, I knew I had to order again. I picked up my meals for the week this evening:

I received two big, delicious salads; two servings of falafels with brown rice, millet tabbouleh, hummus, and tahini sauce; and lots of tomato soup. She also included some complimentary granola! I had the falafel meal for dinner tonight and it was FANTASTIC.

Ordering the meals is obviously more expensive than making the food myself, but it's no more expensive than buying my lunch everyday (which I was doing just a few weeks ago... as well as buying many unhealthy breakfasts and dinners). I think it's definitely worth it to give myself a break once in awhile and still enjoy lots of super-healthy food. :)

Well, it's almost my bedtime! I'm meeting my trainer at 7:00 am tomorrow - which is better than our usual time of 6:45, but not by much... Toodles!