Lunch & A Snack for Monday

I didn't have any leftovers yet this week, so I made some Crab-Stuffed Tomatoes (WW recipe) and some of Hungry Girl's Artichoke Hummus (which you will be seeing throughout the week). Today's lunch bento comes to a whopping 7.5 points:

This bento contains:
2 Crab-Stuffed Tomatoes (4.5 points...I used smaller tomatoes, so these don't come to the full 6 points of the original recipe)
1/4 cup Hungry Girl's Artichoke Hummus (1 point)
Cucumbers (0 points)
Celery (0 points)
Red Bell Pepper (0 points)
1 Tbsp. Smucker's Sugar-Free Strawberry Preserves

My snack for today comes to 4.5 points. I know, this is all a lot of points! I am breastfeeding, so I have a huge daily allowance, but honestly, I find myself unable to eat all of the points some days.

This bento contains:
15 baby carrots (.5 points)
1 hard-boiled egg (2 points)
1 cup edamame (1 point)
1 Babybel cheese (1 point)
1 small Apricot (0 points)

My first multiple bento packing!

So my husband followed up on his previous wish to have a bento lunch, and asked if I could make him one for today. Since we had a decent amount of leftovers, I thought it would be pretty easy to do. And happily, it was! :) I have no idea if this will be enough or too much food for him. I'm sure he'll let me know. I guess it isn't truly a wwBento because he isn't doing Weight Watchers and I didn't take any points values into account when making it. But, I can still add them all up for you!

So here's my bento for the day, which comes to 4.5 points.

This bento contains:
1/2 serving of Soba Noodles with garlic tofu (2 points)
1 small sweet peppers (0 points)
1/4 cup edamame hummus (2 points)
1/2 serving of Grilled Japanese Eggplant (.5 points)

My husbands bento comes to 7.5 points:

This bento contains:
1/2 serving of Soba Noodles with garlic tofu (2 points)
1 serving of Grilled Japanese Eggplant (2 points)
2 small fish cakes (2 points)
1/8 cup edamame hummus (1 point)
10 baby carrots (.5 points)

Stuffed Peppers Galore!

I tried another new Weight Watchers recipe last night: Edamame Hummus, and it turned out deliciously! I feel bad constantly raving about these recipes and then being unable to post them due to copyright concerns, so here is a comparable recipe of this hummus that I found on RecipeZaar. The recipe I used had mirin and toasted sesame seed oil in it, though, and I highly recommend using the sesame oil. I've decided that toasted sesame seed oil makes everything taste better!

Anyway, I decided to be fancy and stuff the hummus into little sweet peppers. I thought that this would give me 2 stuffed peppers...but I was wrong. Apparently 1/4 cup is a lot and the peppers really are small! Today's stuffed pepper-heavy bento comes to 4.5 Weight Watchers points.

This bento contains:
4 small sweet peppers (0 points)
1/4 cup Edamame hummus (2 points)
1 small Fish Cake (2 points)
1/2 cup veggies mixed with, yes, toasted sesame seed oil and ginger (.5 points)

Wednesday's Bento

Today's bento looks suspiciously similar to yesterday's. Except today there are shrimp instead of falafel. :) My husband watched me put my bento together last night and asked "When are you going to make on of those for me? Everything looks so nice and pretty." I told him I'd be happy to, but he'd need a bigger bento. He thought the size of the bento shown below was fine as long as he brought something extra to eat. I told him he was welcome to use it as long as he didn't mind the Chococat on the lid. :) We'll see what happens.

This bento comes to 4.5 Weight Watchers points.

This bento contains:
1/2 serving Spicy Shrimp (2 points)
1/8 cup Red Pepper Hummus (1 point)
cherry tomato (0 points)
1/2 serving Curry Couscous (1.5 points)
1 cup zucchini (o points)
1/2 cup spinach (0 points)
1 baby bella mushroom (0 points)

The Spicy Shrimp is actually extra shrimp from a non-fried version of Shrimp Po'Boys.

Spicy Shrimp

Serves 4

1 cup chopped onions
1 1/4 lb shrimp
1 tsp. Creole seasoning (we use Emril's seasoning which you can buy, or make yourself)

Sprinkle the seasoning over the shrimp and set aside (if you're using frozen shrimp, just add the seasoning when you add the shrimp to the pan).

Heat oil over medium-high heat and add the onions. Saute about 4 minutes. Add the shrimp (and seasoning if you didn't before) and saute another 4 minutes or until shrimp are done.

4 WW points per serving

Another Pasta Bento

This is an extremely common bento in my repertoire. Amazingly, I haven't featured it much on my blog (probably to prevent anyone else from experiencing my bento boredom). We usually make pasta once a week for dinner and there are always leftovers, and a salad is quick and easy to throw together. But I am getting sick of the salad. I tend to keep putting salads in my bento because they are easy fillers and I don't have to spend too much time on them. However, I have decided to start finding more quick and easy recipes to make for my bento and concentrate on changing things up a bit. I have found a lot of possible winners on the Weight Watchers site, just looking up Japanese and Chinese cuisine. And there are a lot of good fillers mentioned on various bento sites. So hopefully I will have more variety in my bentos in the coming weeks. In the meantime, this bento comes in at 4.5 Weight Watchers points.

Contents of this bento:
1/2 a serving of Pasta with Olives (2.5 points)
1/8 cup part-skim mozzarella (1 point)
1/2 cup of spinach leaves (0 points)
1/4 cup broccoli (0 points)
1/4 cup bean sprouts (0 points)
1/4 cup red peppers (0 points)

Not pictured:
2 tablespoons Newman's Own Low Fat Ginger Dressing (1 point)