Guest post funtime?

Hey everyone,

With summer coming up in about a month and a half (not that I’m counting down to the end of the school year or anything!), I won’t be making bentos regularly, and so I won’t really be posting them.  However, I want to keep the bento fun coming!  Consequently, I wonder if there are any readers or bloggers out there who would like to do a guest post.  I can reciprocate and whip something hopefully pretty and tasty up for your blog too. I wouldn’t necessarily have to do a bento for you – I have cooking and baking skills in addition to bentoing.

Are you a veg*n blogger?  Post a recipe that could work in a bento, or just a recipe that you really love and want to share.

Are you a cupcake or other baked good aficionado?  Cupcake Friday! could easily be taken over.  It wouldn’t have to be one that you’ve made.  Have a relative that loves to bake?  Snap a pic of what they created.  Got a bakery near you that you want to show off?  Photos are a great way to do that!

Do you like bento, but don’t have a blog?  Take a photo of what you made, and a quick write up of the ingredients, or the recipe, or the process of putting together the bento.  It would be the fun of blogging without the commitment!  Readers are very supportive, and we all love feedback

Email me at veggiebentolove@gmail.com to set some guest post blogging up!

Cupcake Friday: Canada Post edition!

Tasty vegan vanilla cupcakes with green vanilla buttercream icing. Yes, they’re from the same batch featured two weeks ago. Multitasking, dontyaknow?

A few years ago, I joked with some of my gaming friends about how I had too much leftover Halloween candy, and one of them suggested I send him some. So I did. And I included some home-made cookies – biscotti and chocolate chip. Cookies (and Halloween candy) travel really well from BC to North Dakota. Fun story.

Another of my gaming friends was brave enough to help me find out what would happen if I tried to mail cupcakes, and I agreed with the condition he send me a picture of the cupcakes when they arrived and allowed me to tell the story on a Cupcake Friday! To set this up, I decided to freeze freshly iced cupcakes in these freezer jam jars so they were fresh, fresh, fresh before sending. Cute, hey? Totes adorbs! What could go wrong? The rest of the plan involved popping them in an Xpresspost envelope (cheap, fast, should only be 48 hours between sending and receiving) right before the mail would be picked up for the day, and giving them enough time to get to Ontario by Friday, so they weren’t sitting over the weekend in addition to their perilous journey.

All went as planned: I got them in the mail on Tuesday, they were accepted (oh the joys of tracking numbers!), and Matt got them on Friday afternoon. And here they are:

Not so cute, hey? They look like a Biology experiment. But it makes for a great story. And no, I won’t be mailing any more cupcakes – not that I will be asked to based on what happened here. Cupcake On!

Very messy goat brie sandwich, veggies, giant mutant strawberry

I have a goat brie and fig spread sandwich on sprouted grain bread. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look very tidy, but it will be tasty. The bread isn’t as soft as regular bread, so it doesn’t conform to the bento as easily! Sides are some raw broccoli and orange pepper, cucumber, and a giant strawberry! It’s huge. Snacks will be a home-made coconut-chocolate-cashew Larabar in the morning, and a dark chocolate almond milk for the afternoon.

Bento all the things!

Reblogged from Procrasturbation: To waste time pleasuring oneself:

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So at some point I will take the time to actually explain what is in each of these lunches, but needless to say I am a master of minimal effort:

Many, many bentos all in one post! And they're beautiful! Enjoy :)

May Stridebox reveal (spoiler alert?)

Being a snackaholic (thanks hypoglycemia!), I have fallen in love with Stridebox, who provides snacks and other products for runners and those living healthy lifestyles. I’m not a hard-core runner, but I do love a good snack! I purchased this product with my own money. I’m just sharing here because I want to, and will likely use these delicious treats in my bento planning to eat! Here are the goodies all out of the box:

Happy day! I’m really excited to try the peach workout gel, as I had great success before when I tried that. With the jelly snacks, I am very happy to see that they’re vegetarian, so looks like I have a couple of tasty afternoon snacks in my future! I love the idea of bottle cleaner, and can’t wait to see what it can do for the inside of my beloved Sbucks metal go cup. I’ve had it for two years; it’s leak-proof, I haven’t lost it yet, and would rather not replace it, so I’d love to see what happens. I see a couple of bars, and how could you go wrong with those for a healthy snack? Awesome! I’m quite excited about the blister protectors – into the purse with those, for the next time I’m rocking some new heels (yes, I know they’re supposed to be for running!). There’s also a single serving of protein powder. I’m not really a fan of Tone It Up! who make the product, but I’m sure the powder will be good.

Last but not least, the package came with a shoe clip. Not only does it match my new runners (!), it’s incredibly functional… I decided to hang this off a kitchen cabinet to snap a photo but of course, attaching to a backpack or gym bag would work better – no more squished shoes! I don’t normally hang shoes in my kitchen, but what a way to combine two loves?

How totally awesome?

http://www.stridebox.com – the shipping to Canada is very reasonable!

Quinoa and black bean salad, goat cheese, pickles

Before I begin, WordPress let me know that today is my 1st blogiversary! How totally fun I knew I started blogging my lunches in May last year, but that’s pretty cool that it’s been a year. Wow.

Cooked quinoa, a can of black beans, some diced bell pepper, some grape tomatoes, a spring onion, pecan pieces, dried cranberries, and a basic vinaigrette with apple cider vinegar, maple syrup, lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil, and salt and pepper is in the main tier. I didn’t really measure anything – except for the quinoa and water. That part’s important!

In the divided tier, I have some goat cheddar pieces, tiny pickles, and a herbal teabag. Under the teabag is a rhubarb and custard English candy that a fellow foodie friend bought for me a while back. Finding them hidden from my men in the back of my baking cupboard was a really nice surprise! I don’t like leaving space in the bento, but the quinoa salad will be very filling, so I don’t want to overdo lunch.

And here’s a quick shot of how bento-making goes for a family of three. Hubs has the same salad I have, but with ham instead of cheese, and a slice of home-made banana bread. Offspring has a pbj (quelle surprise, oui?), a fruit leather, yogurt, pear, and red pepper. I could put banana bread in there, but he comes home at lunch to eat what I’ve made him and I know he’ll help himself to a big slice of nana bread before he goes back to school for the afternoon! Here we go:

Tofu, mushrooms, kale, brown rice

There are a number of tasty treats in here, and I’m excited to eat them tomorrow. I ate them for dinner, and they tasted good then, too! Yay leftovers.

Brown rice, seasoned with a low-salt vegetable stock cube, tofu tossed in cornstarch, stir-fried, then flavoured with tamari and nutritional yeast flakes, crimini mushrooms stir-fried then given a little hoisin sauce love, and kale and cranberry salad with a miso-tofu dressing. Finally, a tomato fills in a gap, and I have some fruit in a cup. It’s kiwi slicing fail. Get a cutter that’s bigger than the seedy section, going into the green, for pretties, otherwise it just falls apart.