Food swap!

There won't be any lunches here for this week and the next. We are at midterm and have exams coming up, so it's all studying at home these weeks. So instead I'll show you a lot of exotic stuff! At least it's exotic to me… :)

A few weeks ago I had a comment on my blog from The Student (now turned Doctor - congratulations!) at Food for dissertation. She had seen my lunches featuring strawberry cream and was intrigued by this.

This kind of cream has nothing to do with dairy, it's fruit or berries boiled with water and sugar and thickened with potato starch so it gets a creamy consistency, almost like yoghurt, but it's clear. We serve it in a bowl with some milk or cream on top, or just plain. We eat it for dessert or as a snack meal in the afternoon. In the summer when it's hot I like to eat it for lunch with a sandwich or some snacky food and veggies for sides.

Anyway, The Student was curious and I offered to send her some so she could try it. This offer of mine then turned into a food swap with both of us sending stuff. I sent typical Swedish stuff, as well as the strawberry cream (it comes in a powdered version!) and I received a package full of American stuff. I told her I was curious about the crispy snack peas I've seen in a lot of bentos and that some friends and I had discussed salt water taffy.

This is the box when I opened it. There was a card on top as well, but I forgot to put it back to take the picture. Opening and unpacking all this felt like christmas!

Here are all the things I got! The taffy was cleverly used as packing peanuts, so I gathered them in a bowl when I unpacked. I had to try it right away! I was surprised when I didn't taste any salt, I expected them to be a tiny bit salty, but no. Just sweet and a bit sticky. The purple ones scared me a little, it looked like polymer clay and not like something you should put in your mouth. But it tasted good.

So, I got a few kinds of tea, Fig Newtons, Candy corn, Charleston chew, Rice Krispies treat, some very pretty jellies, Minnie Mouse jelly beans, three different kinds of Almond butter and two lollipops. Candy corn and Fig Newtons are things I've seen in movies and on TV, but never tried so I'm extra excited about them!

Some more of the stuff I got: Dark chocolate peanut butter, Moon pies, the taffy, three different kinds of Cream Wheat, Ranch dressing mix, Sloppy joe mix, Chili mix and Taco seasoning mix. We do have peanut butter and other kinds of nut butters in Sweden, but they are relatively new here and are found on the health food section in the stores and they DON'T come in chocolate flavor! The Moon pies made me giggle, me and my boyfriend are big fans of The Big Bang Theory and Sheldon's grandmother calls him Moon pie, but I had no idea what it really was! But now I do, and I get to taste it too!

I'm also excited to see if there is a difference in taste in the spice mixes, if American taco mix taste like Swedish taco mix, and the same with the chili.

I also got Onion dip mix, Corn muffin mix, mini taco boats and some very, very orange pumpkin marshmallow candy (at least I think it's marshmallow, it felt soft when I poked it through the plastic cover).

Inner peas, I love the pun in the name! I'm really curious about these crispy pea snacks, they seem so good! Also a closer picture of the taffy and the moon pies (there is a vanilla one underneath the chocolate one). You can also see the pretty card I got in the package.

Thank you so much to The Student at Food for dissertation for sending me all this American food, snacks and candies!

Bentos of week 43

So, the bentos on this blog are not really coming at regular intervals. A lot of the days in school I only have one class, either in the morning or in the afternoon. On those days I eat lunch at home and don't pack any bento boxes.

But this week I have some to show you!

Monday's lunch:

I've packed my Laptop lunches box with greek yoghurt (there's some honey in there too, but it decided to hide in the bottom), carrot sticks, grapes, homemade tsatiski, a meat filled Burtek (eastern European savory pastry) and a few leftover potato wedges.

It turned out that I packed a bit too much and the yoghurt and the grapes ended up being my afternoon snack instead of lunch.


Wedensday's lunch:

So yesterday I went with a tapas style lunch: apple wedges, olives and feta cheese in olive oil and spices, tomato and olive tapenade in the yellow heart cup, half a multigrain baguette and some almond butter in the small container. There is a nakd berry bar in the side of the box, but I never ate it.

I packed this lunch the night before and the photo is taken at lunch time. I dipped the apple wedges in lemon juice and they really do not brown, even after about 16 hours!


Today's lunch:

This lunch was packed in a new bento box that I just got (ordered it online and it took almost two months to get it in the mail, Japan is far away!). It's a really cute retro Mickey Mouse box and I loved it right away! I packed it with a meat filled Burtek, yellow cherry tomatoes, tiny little meatballs and some grapes. It was really easy to pack, a perfect size for me and it's soooo cute! This box will most likely show up a lot on this blog.

Laptop lunch

This is my lunch for today. I had a similar lunch this monday, but I forgot to take a picture of it… I was too hungry. I'm a bad food blogger for that reason. I'll ohh and ahh over beautiful food when I got to restaurants, but I always forget to take a picture! And then when I'm finished, or half way through, I'd think "oh, I should have taken a photo of this!".

But today I remembered, so here is my lunch (not the sharpest picture, but I realized that too late):

It's packed in my Laptop Lunches system and starting from en top left and going clockwise I've got kiwi berries, carrot sticks with caesar dressing, frozen mango, a meat filled Burtek (eastern european savory pastry thing) and yellow cherry tomatoes.

I was really excited to find kiwi berries in my grocery store this week! I've seen them on a few blogs and I was really curious about them. I like kiwis, and anything mini is always fun. They do taste just like kiwi, maybe a little bit sweeter. I liked them! I might not buy them very much, they were expensive and I like to buy organic fruits and veggies.

No bentos for a while

There have been no packed lunches for the last two weeks. Last week i was out on my placement school, where I will practice being a teacher out in the real world. I'm placed on a cute little school with just under 100 students from kindergarten to year 3, so between 6 and 9 years old.

In Sweden all elementary schools offers free lunches to every student, and it's always a hot meal with bread and veggies at the side. And I'm lucky enough to be placed at a school that lets all the teachers eat for free too, including me!

Also, the after school program, which most of the kids attend, starts with a healthy snack meal. It's different every day and can be yoghurt with muesli, sandwiches or fruit salad and always has veggies as a side. The snack is also free for teachers and for me!

This week only had haft days in school, so I had lunch at home every day. But the coming week will bring a few packed lunches.