A Father Making Bento Boxes for His Daughter Every Morning

Good morning.
This time, I'd like to share a slightly lighter article.

My daughter became a high school student this spring.
Up until middle school, there were school lunches (and since I worked at a school in the same town, I ate the same thing), but there are no school lunches in high school.
There seems to be a school store, but as a parent, I want to make sure she eats proper meals.
As spring approached, that's how I started to feel.

Have you all seen this movie?

I found this movie while browsing Amazon Prime Video on my day off.

In short, I was so moved that I got all excited, thinking, "This is it! I'm going to make bento!"...
The next day, I had my daughter watch the movie, and I somewhat forcefully made a promise to her: "I'll make you a bento every day for three years, so do your best in high school."

And so, the daily morning bento-making began.
This article is a record of what I've felt through making morning bento, even though it's only been about a month since I started.

1. Morning Routine

I transferred jobs in April, and my commute time has increased significantly.
I have to leave the house by 6:30 AM to make it on time.

Because of that, my wake-up time is now 4:50 AM.
Rubbing my sleepy eyes, I first pack the rice into the bento box.
I set the timer the night before, so it's already cooked when I wake up.

Since rice takes up more than half of the bento box, if I don't pack it early, it won't cool down in time.
If you close the lid while the bento is still warm, moisture will form and it will spoil faster, so it's important to let both the rice and the side dishes cool down before closing the lid.

Next, I microwave the frozen pre-made side dishes mentioned later, or the main dishes I saved from the previous night's dinner.

In the meantime, I make tamagoyaki (rolled omelet).
Sweet, salty, soy sauce-flavored... every household has their own variety of tamagoyaki, but in our house—or rather, for me—I like tamagoyaki with a good dashi flavor.

For other side dishes, I use pre-made ones or leftovers from the previous day, but I make sure to cook the tamagoyaki fresh every morning. Since I make a lot, I also serve it for breakfast.

Ideally, I'd like to make the dashi from scratch, but due to time constraints, I use store-bought. I recommend "Somi no Tsuyu." It has a great dashi flavor and can be used for everything from soba dipping sauce to simmered dishes. It's a bit pricey, but we always buy it in our house.

When the previous night's dinner isn't suitable for a bento, I have to prepare a separate main dish. Well, I suppose sausages would be fine, but as a father who wants to look cool for his daughter, I can't cut corners (^^;

While the side dishes are all out and cooling, I do the dishes and get myself ready for the day. Since every minute counts in the morning, I do various things in the spare time.

Once I judge that they've cooled down enough, I pack the side dishes into the bento box. I look at various people's bento on Instagram, and I've noticed that depending on how you pack them, even the same side dishes can look and feel completely different in terms of deliciousness.

I've gradually started paying attention to more things, like making it as three-dimensional as possible, ensuring there are no gaps, and incorporating a variety of colors...
Once I'm mostly satisfied, I take a photo for the record.

https://www.instagram.com/eyoredog1008_bento/

I've only made about 20 so far (I dare call them works of art), but I wonder how many there will be by the time my daughter graduates from high school? I have a feeling it will exceed 461 works.

Well, the bento cools down during this time, so I use that interval for my newspaper and coffee time, and my note writing time.

When the alarm goes off at 6:23, I close the bento lid, wrap it up, and it's done!
I leave the house at 6:27.

This kind of morning routine continues every day.

2. Sunday is Shopping Day

Well, since I started using my car for commuting, my wife can no longer go shopping on weekdays.
It became necessary to buy all the ingredients at once on the weekend.

If I shop haphazardly, I end up with too much or too little of certain ingredients, so I plan the menu for the week and buy all the necessary items at once.

Because of this, menu planning has been added to my Sunday morning routine.

I ask my family, 'What do you want to eat this week?' and sprinkle those requests into the menu plan. That's how I first decide on the rice dishes and main courses. I also incorporate items that could serve as side dishes for the next day's bento into the bento menu.

Next, I think about side dishes that can be prepared in advance. In addition to refrigerated menu items, I also think about freezer-friendly items that can be used for bentos.

At this time, I refer to cooking magazines.
I flip through several magazines like 'Kyo no Ryori,' 'Orange Page,' '3-pun Cooking,' and 'Croissant' to choose what I want to eat.
I subscribe to d Magazine, so I have unlimited access to magazines.

Once all the menus are decided, I write down the ingredients, make a shopping list, and then head to the local supermarket!

For a family of four, a week's worth of ingredients is quite a lot. I return home carrying a shopping basket packed with over 10,000 yen worth of groceries. The refrigerator also becomes so full that there's no space left (^^;

3. Better safe than sorry

The task of packing a single meal into the limited space of a bento box.
Whenever I try to make one, I always think that bento boxes are small. I want to make them bigger, but neither my daughter nor my wife can eat that much.
In this cramped space, I have to put in rice, a main dish, side dishes, and think about nutritional balance and color...
It really makes me rack my brain.

I've thought about being bold and just filling it with rice and one pickled plum, like the old-fashioned 'Hinomaru' bento... But if I did that, they wouldn't let me make their bento anymore starting tomorrow (^^;

One day, while browsing a cooking magazine, I noticed feature articles like 'Easy and Delicious! Meal Prep Recipes,' 'Praise-Worthy Bento with Pre-Portioned Frozen Side Dishes,' and 'Easy Morning Bento.'

I realized, 'Oh, I should just pack side dishes I've already made!' So, when preparing dinner on Sunday, I decided to make various things, portion them out to freeze, or put them in Tupperware to keep in the fridge.

The main dish is often something left over from the previous night's dinner or something I can whip up quickly in the morning, but by using pre-made side dishes for everything else, I've been able to make bento boxes that are very easy to prepare and rich in color.

The trick is to have side dishes of various colors prepared in advance, such as red, green, yellow, white, brown, and black. Then, you just match the color of the main dish, microwave the balanced, pre-made side dishes, and pack them in.

Better safe than sorry.

4. Summary: 'Making Bento is Creative'

In this article, I wrote about the daily morning bento-making routine I started in April.

Mornings are busy. But I don't want to cut corners on my daughter's bento. If possible, I want to feed her something good, filled with love.

As points for realizing that wish, I explained three things:
1. Incorporating bento making into your morning routine effectively
2. Creating a menu for the whole week, including bento, on Sunday and buying the ingredients
3. Preparing side dishes in advance to cut corners where you can

That said, making bento is quite tough. I feel relieved on Saturday and Sunday mornings when there are no bento to make.
Even so, what keeps me going and makes me want to continue is the fact that making bento is fun!

If I dig a little deeper into why it's fun, it might be because making bento is a creative task.

In the movie '461 Days of Bento,' the protagonist, musician Kazuki Suzumoto, also says, 'Making bento from the morning is creative, you know.'

That's exactly it. What should I make? How should I make it? What about the colors? Will it spoil? Is the nutritional balance okay? Will they say it's delicious? My head is full of these thoughts during the quiet morning bento-making time.

When the bento is finished and I'm taking a photo for Instagram, I get the feeling that everything in my head has been poured out and brought to life.

Come to think of it, at the elementary school where I used to work, we practiced 'Bento Day,' where the children made their own lunches.
The children had such wonderful expressions on their faces back then, too.

Why don't you try making creative bento boxes in the morning, too?

Done