Olympics - Snowboarding

Snowboarding became an Olympic sport at the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan. Shaun White, a leading US snowboarder, has participated in three Winter Games, earning a total of 18 Olympic medals.

My kids love watching Shaun White, performing his flips and tricks. (Sorry, I don't know much about snowboarding lingo.) I read somewhere that Shaun White loves Chinese food, so this bento lunch is in his honor.

The first layer of the bento is filled with a peppery stir fry. Strips of marinaded beef combine with matchstick carrots, broccoli florets, sliced onions and baby bok choy to create a delicious, veggie-packed meal.

Packed into the second layer is a bed of white rice, sprinkled with diagonally sliced green onions and topped with a nori snowboarder.

Olympics - Ice skating

Growing up, my fondest memories of the Winter Olympics were watching ice skating with my family. My favorites in women's figure skating were Kristi Yamaguchi and Nancy Kerrigan. In the men's competition, I favored Paul Wylie and was awed by Viktor Petrenko.

This Winter Olympics, I chose to highlight Gracie Gold as the Olympian athlete of this ice skating-themed lunch. I read an article that Gracie and her twin sister enjoy sharing ahi tuna and sushi. Therefore, I give you 'Ahi Tuna Sushi Deconstructed.'

Beginning with a bed of brown rice (it's what I had on hand),  I arranged slices of cooked ahi tuna, layered with baby spinch (for color and definition). Sliced avocado and julienned carrots line the outskirts of the bento. A few florets of broccoli add color and act as a side dish to the deconstructed sushi. Lastly, upon the rice, I laid a nori figure skater.

Olympic Games - Curling

One of my friends requested a bento featuring the Olympic sport of curling, so here it is. But first, a little background.

Curling is a sport in which 4-person teams slide granite stones across the ice, using special brooms to guide the stone towards a circular target area. Curling has been an official Winter Olympic sport since the 1998 Olympic Games in Nagano, Japan.

This bento is loosely based on the favorite lunch spot of US Curling Olympian, Jared Zezel - Erbert & Gerbert's in Hibbing, Minnesota. Taken from Erbert & Gerbert's Facebook page: "Hibbing's own Team USA Curling Member Jared Zezel's favorite Erbert & Gerberts meal: Flash on wheat no mayo and a cup of Fiery Chili. Eat like an Olympian!!!!"

On a bed of cauliflower florets lies a curling Olympian made out of nori (edible seaweed sheet). I placed a small portion of chili in one section of the lunchbox, while a sandwich of capicola, ham and salami graces the other section.

Olympic Games - Hockey

"Ice hockey originated in Canada in the early 19th century, based on several similar sports played in Europe, although the word “hockey” comes from the old French word “hocquet”, meaning “stick”. Six-a-side men’s ice hockey has been on the program of every edition of the Winter Games since 1924 in Chamonix. Women’s ice hockey was accepted as an Olympic sport in 1992, and made its official debut in 1998 in Nagano." (www.Olympic.org, regarding Ice Hockey)

 In a 2010 interview with NHL, Zach Parise, the captain of the USA hockey team, mentioned that his favorite food is chicken tacos. Well, tacos are way too messy to send as a portable lunch. So as a tribute to Zach Parise, here are "Chicken Tacos Deconstructed".

This lunch is SO easy to make, sort of. Here's the difficult part - cutting out an Olympic hockey pictogram from a sheet of nori (edible, pressed seaweed). The good news - the rest of it is easy to create.

The nori hockey player is laid on a packed bed of rice. Packed into the opposite corner is cooked, shredded chicken, topped with shredded cheese. As a barrier between the rice and the chicken, I placed three small silicone cups. Each lunch recipient chose which toppings go in the cups - sour cream, chopped tomatoes, shredded cheese or guacamole. Instead of tortillas (which are too messy for the kiddos!), I sent along some tortilla chips.

At lunchtime, the kids will be able to mix together the rice, chicken and toppings, and then scoop it up with the tortilla chips. Delicious!

Olympic Rings Reveal

On Monday, I asked you, my readers, to make your best guess regarding which foods I used to create Olympic Rings in this bento. Here are some of the guesses. The blue ring: dyed egg or dyed daikon radish. The yellow ring: bell pepper or yellow squash. The black ring: seaweed. The green ring: bell pepper, cucumber or zucchini. The red ring: bell pepper. All very good guesses.

The blue ring is a dyed, hard-boiled egg slice. After hard-boiling a few eggs, I completely cooled, peeled and sliced them. I looked through the slices to discover which egg slices looked the most like a perfect ring. Then, I removed the yolk from those chosen slices. Mixing quite a few drops of blue food coloring with a bit of water, I added each slice individually into the blue water for about 30 seconds. Carefully lifting egg rings from the water, I placed each one onto a prepared stack of paper towels to air dry. When all the egg slices had been dyed, I gently pressed another paper towel on top to finish the drying process. (I hard-boiled a few eggs at a time, just in case some of them didn't turn out right. Then once I sliced all of the eggs, I had quite a few slices from which to choose the most perfect rings.)

For both the yellow and the red rings, I used a mandoline to cut even slices from mini bell peppers.

The green ring came from a cucumber. Using my mandoline (such an awesome Christmas present from my husband!), I sliced several rounds of cucumber. With a sharp knife, I carved out the inside of the cucumber, making it look like a ring.

The black ring - well, let me tell you! That one gave me some trouble at first. I mean, what food is naturally black AND round? An olive! But no olive was big enough to coordinate well with the other rings. Enter onto the lunch scene - nori! It is edible seaweed, pressed into sheets. Usually, it is used for wrapping sushi or creating cute faces on rice balls. Instead, I used a 1" circle punch (found in the scrapbooking aisle of a craft store) to punch a hole in a square piece of nori. Then with scissors, I oh-so-carefully rounded the edges to complete the ring. 

Meanwhile, I had rice cooking in my wonderful rice cooker. When it was finished, I packed the rice into one layer of the bento box. Once it had cooled a bit, I placed the blue, black and red rings onto the rice as the background; in the foreground, yellow and green rings overlapped the existing rings, seemingly connecting them.

To round out the lunch, I repeated the colors of the Olympic Rings in the second layer of the bento. Blueberries proceed yellow, mini pepper strips. The middle section showcases black olives. Quartered cucumber slices constitute the green section, followed by red, mini pepper strips.

Olympic Rings Bento - Take a Guess!

Right now, the entire world is celebrating the Olympics. If you didn't catch my Olympic Torch Bento to kick off the Opening Ceremonies, take a peek now.

Today, I made the Olympic Rings in lunch form. However, I am not showing you ALL of the lunch today. Why? Because ... I want you to guess what foods I used to make the Rings.

Leave your best guess in the comments. I will post the entire lunch and HOW I made it on Wednesday.

Olympic Torch Lunch

It's time for the Olympics! Can't wait to watch the Opening Ceremonies with my husband and kiddos tonight. It'll kinda be a "first" for us; four years ago, LoveBug and SuperBoy were WAY too young to remember the Winter Games.
Here is my kick-off tribute to the Olympic Games!

The most time-consuming project was constructing the torch base, made out of whole-wheat tortillas transformed into quesadillas.

Using a pizza cutter, I cut a torch-shaped triangle out of a whole-wheat tortilla. After cutting one triangle, I placed it into the bento box to make sure that it fit. Guess what? It didn't! Good thing I tried it first, before cutting ALL of the triangles. Once I figured out the correct size, I then used the first triangle to as a pattern to cut the rest of them.

On a griddle, I lined up a few tortilla triangles, sprinkled them with cheese and then topped them with the other triangles. Once the cheese had melted, I flipped them, cooking them on the other side.

Once they were pleasantly toasted, I took them off the griddle, let them cool for a tiny bit, and then cut them apart.

I stacked the quesadilla torches in the middle of a lunch container. (Please note how THIS particular container is NOT an actual bento box, but rather a Sterilite Ultra Seal container. You can use almost any container to create a bento lunch.)

Above the quesadilla torches, I placed a small bed of rice, molding it into the corner of the container. This is the hidden base for the torch's flame.

After cutting mini peppers into strips to resemble flames, I carefully arranged them over the rice, thereby creating the symbolic flame.

Broccoli florets fill in one side of the container, while a cup full of clementine segments & cheese sticks halves complete the other side. I added a small container of soy sauce (the yellow star) as a condiment for the rice.

I hope you will be watching the Olympic Games. In the next few weeks, look for some more Olympics-themed bentos to be popping up on my blog. Can't wait to show you what I have in store!

Coming soon .. the Olympics games!

Can I tell you .... I am SO excited for the upcoming Winter Olympics! Growing up, I have fond memories of watching ice skating with my family. Scott Hamilton, Kristi Yamaguchi, Nancy Kerrigan. (Yup, I'm dating myself here, but I don't care.)

One of the things that I like best about the Olympic games is that the sportsmanship is almost always excellent. Such a stark contrast against our country's overall poor sportsmanship. Major league ball players thinking WAY too much of themselves. To "everyone-deserves-a-trophy" sports. To the yelling, over-the-top parents on the sidelines of their kids' games. Personally, I have had enough of that.

However, with the Olympics games, a higher standard is expected, even demanded. Contrasted against our normal society, the Olympic standard is even more remarkable. I appreciate how Olympians give their best, while competing well against others, even against their own teammates. And yet, they are still a team, representing their own country.

When I see how much national pride our team has, it makes my heart swell with pride to be an American. I am looking forward to showing my kiddos what good sportsmanship and teamwork look like. I am super excited to be able to pass on my love for the Olympic games to my children, LoveBug and SuperBoy.

Since we just canceled cable, I guess I should buy some bunny ears so that we can actually WATCH the Olympic games, ya know? 21 days! Check out the website for a countdown clock and for updated news: Sochi 2014 Olympic Games.

Anywho, about lunches: I've got some ideas in the works. Olympic-themed bentos, anyone?!!! 21 days!!