We visited a historic farm yesterday and took a picnic with us. I made bentos for all of us for the first time. It’s been a really long time since I made a bento box for an adult which is weird to me since I started out making bentos for myself.

Here is Wyatt’s bento. He had grapes, mini blueberry muffins, a chicken gruyere sausage and some apple chunks dipped in pineapple juice to prevent browning.

This was my bento. I’ve just re-started Weight Watchers post-baby, so mine was packed with 0 point veggies. The sausage was 5 points and the apples were another point for a total of 6 points.

Zach’s bento had two of the same sausages, some cubes of Monterey Jack cheese, veggies and apples.

We all agreed that this was a great way to do a picnic lunch. They were easier to eat than a big box of stuff dumped together, we didn’t over eat and we didn’t throw anything away.

Several people have noticed the baked tofu that I put in Wyatt’s lunches and have asked me for the recipe. Well, the sad truth is that I’m a very lazy person and I don’t make all that baked tofu — I buy it. It never crossed my mind that I could make it myself until people started asking my how I did it. I usually get it at Trader Joe’s but I also pick it up at the regular grocery stores like Safeway and Lucky (I usually find Wildwood brand there, but I think there are others too). We aren’t too picky about what flavors we buy, but Wyatt tends to like the sweeter flavors like the teriyaki and the honey sesame so those are the kinds I usually get.

The other day Creative Claudia sent me this comment:

I wanted to let you know that I have now successfully baked my own tofu and it is quite delish!
I googled “how to bake tofu” and came up with the simple answer of marinating it in soy sauce for 10 minutes and then baking it in the oven at about 350 degrees F–turning over halfway through. I marinated my hard tofu (after slicing it into 4 or 5 slices) in soy sauce and sesame oil for 10+ minutes. I then baked it in my toaster oven (400 degrees F) watching for it to “brown” so that I could turn it over. That took about 8-12 minutes. I turned it over and baked it for about 10 minutes more. This was probably more time than it needed but I was busy cooking the rest of our meal while it baked. SOOOOOOOO very simple!!!

Claudia’s cooking adventure inspired me and I decided that I had to try baking my own tofu. Here’s what I did:

I started with extra-firm silken tofu. I had used half a package for an Asian Noodle Salad from Martha’s site (fantastically delicious, by the way). So I decided to experiment with the other half of the package. I wanted to get out as much moisture as I could in order to duplicate the firm, dense texture of the baked tofu that I buy so the first step was to put the tofu on a paper towel to drain off as much water as possible. After I’d let it sit a few minutes I remembered a technique I’d used in the past where I pressed the tofu with a can. This helps to drain more water out and I thought it might make it denser as well. I put another plate on top of the tofu and then put a heavy can on top of that, like so:

Once the tofu had drained for a while (maybe 20 minutes?) I sliced it into eight pieces and put them in a marinade. The marinade I made was pretty simple: 3 T of lime juice, 2 T soy sauce and 2 teaspoons of sesame oil.

When it went into the marinade it wassnowy white, but after I’d turned it over a few times, it looked like this:

I marinated it for quite a while (most of the afternoon) and then I baked it for about 10 minutes per side in the toaster oven at 350.

This is how it looked when it came out. Pretty delicious looking, huh?

I refridgerated it for the rest of the afternoon and then tried it out on Wyatt at dinner time. I was pretty low key about it when I presented it because I wasn’t sure how it would go over. While not identical in appearance, it looked enough like the usual tofu I give him that I thought he might try it. While he did try it, the verdict was not good. Wyatt took one bite, chewed it for a second, and then ran to the trash can and spit it out. He then went and got a dish towel off the handle of the stove and wiped his tongue with it. I think there might have been retching involved as well. When he was finished removing every trace of the tofu from his tongue he told me, “Mama, that was the worst tofu in the whole entire WORLD!”

All righty then! Not a big success.

I tried it though and I thought it was quite tasty. It also was significantly cheaper to make this myself — about a quarter or third of the price — than to buy the baked tofu at the store. I will definitely make it again for myself.

I’m wondering if the marinade was the part that he really objected to. In retrospect, I realize that the flavors I chose were geared more to my palate than to his. I think I might try making it again with a teriyaki sauce and see if that goes over any better.

Here are the lunches I sent to preschool this week:

Tuesday, I sent strawberries, a hot dog, catsup, bizarrely large and elongated grapes and cannellini beans. Wyatt used to eat beans all the time, but we just sort of got out of the habit of giving them to him and now it’s iffy on whether or not he’ll eat them. I’m trying to reintroduce them as a regular food though and you’ll be happy to know he ate about half of the beans I put in this lunch.

Wednesday’s lunch was one I wanted to eat myself. Mini blueberry muffin, grape tomatoes, fresh pineapple chunks, rolled up slices of deli turkey and chunk of harvarti cheese cut into a bear shape.

Thursday’s lunch was a little lighter than usual because it was cooking day at preschool. (It’s “B” week so they made biscuits with blackberry jam.) I sent salami, pineapple chunks and a hand full of Cheerios.

Friday Wyatt really wanted salami in his lunch, so I sent it again. I also sent strawberries, peas and grapes. Hopefully they’ll dillute some of the salt and fat in the spicy meat.

All righty then! Nothing too special about this week’s preschool lunches. I did try something new with the burrito in the thermos, but otherwise I don’t think there’s anything here that we haven’t seen before.

Tuesday I made Wyatt a little burrito out of refried beans and cheddar cheese. I heated it up because cold refried beans — yuck!  I then stuffed it in his thermos. It wasn’t exactly photogenic though so that’s why you can only see into the thermos a little way. I also sent grapes and an iced oatmeal cookie for a treat.

Wednesday I sent turkey pepperoni, a half a banana, grapes and a mini blueberry muffin.

Thursday I sent grapes again, along with leftover kielbasa from dinner the night before and some garlic toast cut into strips. I wasn’t sure if the garlic toast would be any good cold, but it was the hit of the lunch.

Friday’s lunch had a mini blueberry muffin, strawberries, turkey meatballs with catsup for dipping, and peas. I must say, I think I did a really good job picking the background paper for this photo. Doesn’t it coordinate perfectly? I like pretty paper….

This week I have a super bento post with two extra bento boxes for your viewing pleasure. That’s right — TWO extra! You get what you pay for here on my blog, that’s for sure.

Bonus Bento #1! Wyatt’s grandparents came to visit last week, so he only went to preschool two days. His schedule was a little wonky and I missed taking a photo of one of his bentos but I did get a picture of the other one, so this week we have an extra photo of the box I sent last week.

So last Tuesday I sent him off with a lunch I thought was great, but that I didn’t know if he would eat: fresh peach chunks, salami, a cup of frozen corn (thawed, of course) and a mini corn muffin. I was thrilled to see that he ate all of this lunch.

Yikes! Over-exposed much? Tuesday of this week, Wyatt got chunks of home made banana bread decorated with a giraffe cut from fruit leather, baked tofu, grapes and more corn.

Wednesday I sent: apple slices dipped in lemonade to prevent browning, a small slice of banana bread (hidden under the apples and covered with a food divider to keep it from getting soggy), a hotdog, catsup and carrot sticks.

Thursday I sent baked tofu again, along with strawberries, a full-sized blueberry muffin decorated with a fruit leather star and goldfish crackers. The goldfish were a gap-filler and I put them in to fill up the last bit of space after I’d packed the rest of the lunch. They’re in a silicon baking cup that I wedged in the box. The nice thing about those cups is that they conform to the space they’re given so even when I have an odd shaped space to fill like this one was, you can make them work.

Bonus Bento #2! Zach took Wyatt to child watch at the gym on Thursday night, and I decided to send dinner along with him as a treat at the last second. I grabbed a few things at hand that I knew Wyatt would eat: hot dog bun, grapes and some rolled up deli ham.

I slept a little late Friday morning, so Zach made Wyatt’s bento box.  I coached him a bit on the packing when I got up (mostly just telling him to stack the strawberries and meatballs all the way to the top of the box) but otherwise he did it all himself. He didn’t want me to take a picture, but I ignored him and did it anyway. He sent strawberries, pieces of sourdough bread and chopped up turkey meatballs from a bag in the freezer along with some catsup for dipping. I thought the meatballs were a good idea and I wonder why I’ve never thought to put those in before because Wyatt loves them. Maybe I should have Daddy pack the lunch more often!

We’re still doing a lot of berries in the preschool bentos this week. I think I’m going to have to start branching out into different fruits and veggies though because the berries seem to be finishing up at the farmer’s market.

Tuesday: strawberries and blueberries, an apple cereal bar (cut in half), some tomatoes are hidden below the apple bar to lift it up, and we finish with the ever present salami.

Wednesday we were flush with fruit, but low on almost everything else. I was tempted to just send fruit in Wyatt’s lunch because I knew he would probably eat it all, but I didn’t think it would fill him up enough for all that hard playing he needed to do at preschool, so I improvised a bit. I toasted a tortilla and then spread it with cream cheese and jam, rolled it up and sliced it into little rolls. If you try this yourself, be sure to cut the tortilla with a serrated knife or the goop in the middle will all squish out. Trust me — I found out the hard way. I also sent a Laughing Cow cheese wedge. Wyatt can’t open these by himself, so I open them for him and then fold the foil back around the cheese before I put it in his lunch box. Like so:

Thursday: Wyatt specifically asked for some stuff in his lunch today, which he never does. He has no problem telling me not to pack things, of course. He asked for the turkey roll-ups and baked tofu. Kind of a protein heavy luncheon, but I think that’s OK. I also sent amazingly sweet grapes from the farmer’s market and some saltines which Wyatt refers to as “Those crackers I like.” Augie slept in this morning, so I had time to cute this up with some tofu stars too.

I made a couple of loaves of banana bread on Thursday so of course some went into Wyatt’s lunch on Friday. I took a few extra seconds to cut the slice into cat and star shapes. The slices were too thin to come up to the top of the box on their own, so to keep things stable, I put a layer of grapes under the cat and I doubled up the stars. So even though it looks like there are two stars in the box, there are actually four. I also added a garlic chicken sausage cut into chunks and a hand full of strawberries.