Laptop Lunches

Plastic: The Ideal Bento Box Material

2012-01-27T10:09:00.000-08:00

Plastic is light-weight, non-breakable, versatile, colorful, durable, long-lasting, airtight, and fun. That’s why the yogurt, milk, bread, cheese, meat, juice, tofu, and even the veggies we buy are wrapped or bagged in plastic.

While disposable plastics are taking their toll on the environment, durable, long-lasting plastics, made of polypropylene and polyethylene, fill an important need in our lives.

It’s true that some plastics, like PVC and polystyrene, have been shown to leach toxins, but not all plastics are evil.

In choosing a material for our Laptop Lunches Bento Boxes and Bento Buddies containers, we weighed the pros and cons of all available options. We could have used stainless steel or glass, but once the pros and cons had been tallied, one thing became crystal clear: plastic was the winner. And here’s why:

Our containers last a very long time. Unlike stainless steel, they do not rust, dent, or break when dropped.
Unlike glass and stainless steel, they are light-weight and easily portable.
They hold up to the dishwasher, freezer and microwave.
Plastic forms a tight seal, preventing seepage and leaks.
Our bento containers are made in the USA, where we can closely monitor production. Manufacturing offshore in places like China and India makes it difficult to monitor factory compliance with material use, workplace safety, worker’s rights, and environmental protection laws. And our plastic doesn’t have to make the long journey across the ocean.
Our plastic resin is made in the US. It’s not mined from the earth in countries such as India and China, where environmental protection laws are generally weaker than those in the US.
Plastic is easily recycled.
And it’s completely safe.

We are committed to providing a durable, long-lasting, convenient, affordable, and safe alternative to disposable plastics. We care deeply about our health and the health of our planet, which is why we chose plastic as the ideal bento box material.

Veggie Spectacular

2012-01-19T10:41:00.000-08:00

This Week's Bento Lunch

This week we've packed our Bento Box full of goodness using a flavorful veggie tofu loaf as the main course. Whether you're a full time vegetarian or not, veggie loaves are a delicious way to incorporate great flavor and a number of vitamins and nutrients into your meal.

Click here to view this week's full menu.

Creating Balance in 2012

2012-01-13T11:51:00.000-08:00

If you're one of the many Americans that have resolved to save money, eat better or live a greener lifestyle in 2012, we hope you're putting your lunchbox to good use! Not sure how a lunchbox can really help you meet your goals? Well, it's time to:

Resolution: Save money

Take your lunch with you to work, travel, and on weekend outings. We're not the only one touting this easy money saving technique:

"Although it can be fun to go out with your co-workers for lunch, the weekly tab can be stressful on your wallet. For example, let’s say you eat a pretty modest lunch even at a chain like Chili’s. You will probably spend at least $10-$12 per meal. If you work 5 days a week, that adds up to $50-60! Instead, you could probably spend $15-$20 on a week’s supply of groceries."
Henak, B. (2011) 5 Simple Ways to Save money as a Young Professional. Retrieved from: http://newlycorporate.com/2011/06/17/5-simple-ways-to-save-money-as-a-young-professional/

Resolution: Eat better
Give your body the types of foods it needs in the correct portions. Not as easy as it sounds? Let your Bento Set help you create the balance to succeed:

Resolution: Live a Greener Lifestyle
Making easy changes like reducing your waste is a great first step. According to wastefreelunches.org:

"Much of the trash we generate comes from the packaging on the food we buy, and lunch foods are no exception. In fact, it has been estimated that on average a school-age child using a disposable lunch generates 67 pounds of waste per school year. That equates to 18,760 pounds of lunch waste for just one average-size elementary school."

Ready to re-think that lunchbox?
Visit us at, www.laptoplunches.com and we'll help you get started.

We want to hear your success stories, so please be sure to share now and throughout the year.

Everyone here at Laptop Lunches would like to wish you a happy, healthy, and successful 2012!

Beating the Chill

2012-01-12T10:05:00.000-08:00

This Week's Bento Lunch

In an effort to keep ourselves warm from the inside out, over the weekend we made a big pot of chili, which we've been recycling for lunches. Whether it's warm or cold, chili is such a comforting food that it quickly takes the winter chill away.

Click here to view this week's full menu.

Leftovers from the Appetizer Table

2012-01-06T10:02:00.000-08:00

This Week's Bento Lunch

The holidays may be over but we're still hooked on fun (yet healthy) holiday food, so we've put some of our favorites from the appetizer table into this week's bento box. We topped off our appetizer spread with some homemade thumbprint cookies to make sure we were fully satisfied with holiday goodness as we ease back into our daily routines.

Click here to view this week's full menu.

Green Drinks

2012-01-03T12:25:00.000-08:00

By Amy Hemmert

Laptop Lunches President and Co-founder

We are so happy to hear that Green Drinks is alive and well in Santa Cruz!

Not familiar with Green Drinks International?

Every month people interested in the environment and sustainability issues meet up at informal sessions known as Green Drinks. You’ll find people from NGOs, academia, government, business, and more. Show up and you'll be made welcome. Just say, "are you green?" and we’ll introduce you to whoever’s there. It's a great way to stay in touch with people you know and to make new connections as well. Everyone invites someone else along, so there’s always a different crowd, making Green Drinks an organic, self-organizing network.

Green Drinks events are casual and unstructured, and they’re great for finding employment, making friends, sharing ideas, learning about the latest sustainability trends, and creating opportunities. For more information or to find a group near you, visit the Green Drinks Web site at www.greendrinks.org.

The Santa Cruz chapter meets the first Thursday of every month from 5:30 to 7:30 at Café Maré. If you're in the area, please join us for happy hour and engaging conversation. Here’s what we’ve got in store for the next few months:

January 5: Share your 2011 sustainability successes and challenges and weigh in on discussion topics for 2012. Let’s make 2012 a sustainability year to remember!

February 2: Amy Hemmert from Laptop Lunches will discuss the ins and outs of implementing a waste-free lunch program. She’ll provide hands-on information, resources, and some success stories as well. She’s eager to hear your successes and challenges and is excited to answer all of your waste-free questions.

March 1: Aurora Winslade from UCSC will provide an overview of sustainability projects the university is currently involved in. Listen as students share their work. Weigh in with ideas you have for additional sustainability opportunities in the Santa Cruz area.

April 5: Dave Garti from Grid Alternatives will talk about his work providing solar energy systems for low-income housing.

We'd love to hear about what other chapters of Green Drinks are doing as well, so if you're involved, please let us know.

Wonder Burgers

2011-12-28T22:00:00.000-08:00

This Week's Bento Lunch

Packed with vitamins, nutrients and antioxidants, we like to refer to black bean burgers as Wonder Burgers! They're easy to make, can be customized to please just about anyone's taste buds, and offer a wealth of health benefits. We hope you'll enjoy this week's bento lunch of Wonder Burgers and sides sure to leave you feeling great!

Click here to view this week's full menu.

Feel Great Bento Lunch

2011-12-21T16:17:00.000-08:00

This Week's Bento Lunch

This week's bento lunch is full of delicious foods that will leave your body feeling great! To cut back on the extra sugar, we chose to make our own granola, which was super easy and gave us the added control over what we put into our bodies.

Click here to view this week's full menu.

Made in America Christmas

2011-12-16T16:33:00.000-08:00

We just wanted to send a big THANK YOU out to everyone that has supported American manufacturing through the purchase of our Bento Sets and Bento Buddies this holiday season!

According to, World News with Diane Sawyer, "If each of us (Average Americans) spent just $64 on American made goods during our holiday shopping, the result would be 200,000 new jobs." Now, that's something to feel pretty good about.

Click here to learn more about the effects of buying American made products and how you can get involved in spreading this important message throughout the holiday season.

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/MadeInAmerica/.

Dinner Repackaged

2011-12-15T15:58:00.000-08:00

This Week's Bento Lunch

The easiest way to make lunch is to repackage dinner, so this week we decided to do just that and found ourselves in a win-win situation. Dinner clean-up was a breeze and lunch made itself. Did we mention that it tasted great? Who wouldn't want a lasagna meal for lunch?

Click here for this week's full menu.

Pleasing Portions

2011-12-08T15:38:00.001-08:00

This Week's Bento Lunch

In an effort to get a jump start on our New Year's resolutions, we've been using our Bento Sets for both balance and portion control. Lunches like this week's have made it both easy and satisfying to take this first step toward living a healthier lifestyle.

Click here to view this week's full menu.

Volunteering in Santa Cruz

2011-12-02T15:37:00.000-08:00

“With good fortune comes the responsibility to give back." - Pelstring family

Feeling fortunate enough to be able to enjoy the great community that Santa Cruz has to offer, we decided to usher in the holiday season by challenging ourselves to go out and volunteer in November. Most team members chose to use this opportunity to put a little more time into the organizations they are already involved in but we also came together as a group to donate food and warm clothes to a local shelter which showed us what a big difference a small group of people can make by coming together.

This opportunity opened up some great conversations about volunteering and reminded us all how easy and rewarding it can be to give back either as an individual or a family. The Pelstring family is a great example of a busy family that works hard throughout the year to have a positive impact on the community in various ways. "We do different things including donating warm clothing to the homeless shelter in the winter time, delivering food to itinerant farmers during the holidays, beach and school clean-up days, participating on school committees and non-profit boards, and providing transportation for the ill to doctors' appointments. We truly believe that every little bit helps to make a better society that we all benefit from."

This challenge really opened our eyes to how easy it really can be to get involved on any level and what a great impact that involvement can have. As with many challenges, we hope this will stick as it seems to have with others. It turns out that, based on information compiled by www.volunteeringinamerica.gov, in 2011 Americans volunteered for 8.1 billion hours! To learn more about volunteering in America, check out this cool Infographic - Volunteering in America.

Holiday Balance

2011-12-01T10:28:00.001-08:00

After indulging a little over the holiday weekend, it felt great to get back on track with this week's wholesome bento lunch. Here's to a happy, well-balanced holiday season!

Click here to view this week's full menu.

What's Old is New Again

2011-11-29T15:11:00.001-08:00

By Tammy Pelstring
Obentec Co-Founder

My book group just celebrated our 10 year anniversary with a trip to the City (as we Northern Californians like to call San Francisco). On our drive up the coast we stopped in the sleepy little town of Pescadero for some of their famous artichoke bread and artichoke and green chili soup. My “sisters of the page” and I spied a little thrift shop and decided to get our treasure hunting on. I love fashion but hate to shop so I was glad that my friend Stacy was along. Stacy has a successful eBay business where she sells name brand clothes that she finds at yard sales. She has a good eye and can quickly sort the wheat from the chaff. She also knows my style so she is quick to point out things for me to consider. We all found some great finds for around $6.00 per item and the proceeds all went to a wonderful children’s charity. I call this a win-win.

My friend Lori found these wonderful button front sailor pants that fit her perfectly. She paired them with stylish pointy-toe heels and was ready for a night out on the town.

My friend Bonnie rocks a hippy-chic look and found a fun flirty skirt and fitted H&M blazer for under $10.00.

I found the perfect holiday skirt, a silver metallic A-line dress from Banana Republic. This set me back a whopping $4.50. I paired this with a fun necklace made out of vintage crystal buttons from the 1940’s.

I love giving new life to things that people have tossed out. For some reason the search and the find make it more rewarding. Next time you need to spruce up your wardrobe, consider purchasing second hand or re-fashioned clothing items.

Laptop Lunches on Martha Stewart!

2011-11-29T08:56:00.001-08:00

Cool lunch packing ideas in the Laptop Lunches Bento Sets will be featured on today's Martha Stewart Show!

Be sure to check it out at 10am on the Hallmark Channel!

Thanksgiving Leftovers

2011-11-21T15:35:00.001-08:00

By: Marcus Boardman, Shipping Manager

In my opinion there is no better packed lunch then the ones that are packed in the week following Thanksgiving. Not only do we get to indulge in our favorite comfort foods for a night, but typically there are also PLENTY of leftovers. Normally in my family we would cover leftover dishes in foil at the end of the night and refrigerate. This works fine with turkey and potatoes, but gravy gets weird, fruit salad goes soggy, and stuffing can dry up. For these foods, I recommend lidded salad bowls, or our extra large containers (it doesn’t add much time to fruit salad, but you get a day extra, at least). Freezing gravy keeps it perfect for re-use. Just heat in a sauce pan, or hot water. If you are having fruit salad (that is just fresh fruit, no marshmallows!) freeze the left overs as well to make awesome ready-to- go smoothies. Just add water, milk or yogurt and pop it all in the blender.

My favorite thanksgiving lunches to pack are "Thanksgiving sandwiches" which consist of everything you've got left over piled on biscuits or your favorite bread, and "Thanksgiving sundaes" which consist of all your leftovers layered in a big bowl.

While some of us get to indulge in this holiday, many people out there don’t (especially with times as tough as they are). Take time to think about people you may know that may need a little something extra this season, and see what you can do. A packed meal, or invitation to join your family for a meal can be a huge step in making someone’s holiday season a little brighter. Happy Holidays!

Dessert for Breakfast? Yes, Please!

2011-11-08T13:34:00.000-08:00

Figuring out what to make for breakfast is always a challenge for me. I can always think of so many lunch and dinner ideas but when it comes to breakfast.....my mind goes blank. I was excited to see this breakfast recipe from the people at Meatout Mondays (meatoutmondays.org). Meatout Mondays sends out a colorful weekly e-mail newsletter that delivers a delicious vegetarian recipe every....you guessed it, Mondays. It was an easy to make twist on something familiar and my boys loved that they were getting to eat "cake" for breakfast!

Carrot Cake Oatmeal

(Meatout Mondays archive recipes)

If you love the idea of cake for breakfast and working some veggies in too, this recipe is a must. It's really easy to make, and gives you the indulgence of carrot cake (complete with icing!) without the hassle or heavy feeling. It's the perfect start to your day.

Ingredients:

1 cup almond milk (or any other non-dairy milk)

1/2 tsp. fresh lemon juice

2 Tbs. coconut milk cream* (optional) I didn't have any coconut cream on hand but it tasted fine without

1/2-1 tsp. ground cinnamon (to taste)

1/4 tsp. ground ginger

1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg

pinch of salt

1 large carrot, finely grated (1 heaping cup)

1/2 cup regular oats

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

2 Tbs. pure maple syrup

1 Tbs. crushed walnuts

Topping (optional): 1 Tbs. crushed walnuts, 1 Tbs. coconut milk cream* + 1/2 tsp. maple syrup (to drizzle on top), shredded coconut, cinnamon, and raisins

*Use just the cream off the top of a can of coconut milk or mix coconut butter with a bit of almond milk.

Directions:

In a small pot, heat the almond milk, lemon juice, and coconut cream on medium heat.

Stir in spices and salt until they're dissolved into the liquid.

Stir in grated carrot and oats; cook for about 8 minutes or until oats are soft.

Remove pot from heat, and stir in vanilla, maple syrup, and walnuts.

Serve with the topping ingredients and/or whatever else you want to make your carrot cake oatmeal amazing.

Wrap and Run

2011-11-04T09:39:00.000-07:00

This week's bento lunch

This week's lunch is great for those busy mornings when you're on the run but don't want to skimp on a nutritious lunch. Just grab your favorite ingredients, wrap them up, drop in some fruit, and you're on your way!

Click here to view this week's full menu.

Kiko and His Bento Buddy

2011-10-28T11:23:00.000-07:00

Here's a photo of our office mascot, Kiko eating out of his very own Bento Buddy:

We've heard from customers over the years who have bought our bento boxes for their four- legged friends. The lidded container is perfect for water and the other containers hold a variety of canine pleasing kibble.

As soon as Kiko sees his Laptop Lunch bento box, he knows it means "bye-bye" time and suddenly I become dog's best friend!

An Apple A Day

2011-10-27T13:20:00.000-07:00

This Week's Bento Lunch

Crisp, tart apples abound this time of year and can be prepared in a variety of ways. For many lunchpackers, fresh apples are a weekly lunch staple but, as the days cool, consider steaming your apples and seasoning with cinnamon. Add a side salad of arugula with Italian dressing, cherry tomatos, spanakopita, and cheddar soy crisps and you've got lunch!

Click here to view this week's full menu.

Don't be Scared... It's Just a Monday Morning at Obentec

2011-10-21T15:48:00.000-07:00

Can't wait to see what next Monday brings... Trick or Treat!

Thinking Outside The Box

2011-10-21T14:44:00.000-07:00

Tammy and her creative lunch packing skills:

I was packing a lunch of salad fixings from the final harvest of a friend's garden and needed my XL and two large containers to bring my movable feast with me to work. I was excited to see how nicely the XL container and two large containers fit into the bottom compartment of my Plum Blossom Dual Compartment tote. How's that for "thinking outside the box"?

Food Day Celebration Lunch

2011-10-20T10:06:00.001-07:00

This Week's Lunch Photo

Monday's Food Day was on our minds when we put together this week's bento lunch. We're looking forward to celebrating real food and supporting this important movement with local, healthy and delicious lunches such as this!

Click here to view this week's full menu.

Last Bites of Summer

2011-10-13T14:19:00.000-07:00

This Week's Bento Lunch

It's clear that fall is upon us, but here in California we can still find a few of our summertime favorites at the farmers' market. This weekend, market shoppers were sure to get their fill of summer's remaining bounty. We were happy to get our hands on some delicious blueberries and green beans for this week's bento lunch.

Click here to view this week's full menu.

Photo Contest - Enter to win a $50 Laptop Lunches Gift Certificate!

2011-10-07T08:33:00.000-07:00

Where in the world is your Laptop Lunches® bento?

Relaxing on a California beach?
Sitting on your desk in the UK?
Putting a smile on your child’s face in Kalamazoo?

Wherever it is, send us your photo and we’ll add it to our worldwide bento map AND put you in the running to receive a $50 gift certificate!

Get crazy, be creative, and have some fun! Help us fill in our map with bento photos from around the world, creating a picture of what it means to Re-think your lunchbox.

Entry Deadline: 10/17
Vote for your favorite photo before: 10/19
Winners will be announced: 10/20

Here's how to enter:

Take a photo of your Laptop Lunches® bento box and email it to us at info@obentec.com. Be sure to enter “photo contest” in the subject line and specify where the photo was taken (city, state/province, country).
We’ll post your photo on the Laptop Lunches® Facebook page, in one of two categories:

In the Box – Creative Bento Lunches

Out of the Box – Fun, Interesting, and Unique Locations

Send your friends, family members, and co-workers to our Facebook page to “like” your photo when it's posted.
The entrant with the most “liked” photo in each category will receive a $50 LaptopLunches.com gift certificate!
All entrants will receive a 10% discount coupon for participating, so be sure to keep an eye out for a return email from us.

By submitting your photo, you are agreeing to the Terms and Conditions of the Laptop Lunches® Photo Contest.