Bento Lunch for Preschool #3

Whoooo has a cute lunch? Evie does! Celery with cream cheese, and a jelly owl sandwich. Goldfish and a cute gummy I found on sale at WalMart. And of course, the ever present grapes. Oh yeah, I made the eyes and nose out of dried mango strips! I hadn't even considered the use of dried fruit but now I have visions of Dried Blueberry eyes and Dried Cranberry mouths dancing in my head......

On a side note, Evie and Ethan's school is a peanut free school this year so I'm going to start naming the things that I use that are "Peanut and tree nut Free".

Nature's Own Whole Grain White Bread
Pepperidge Farm Goldfish

Bento Lunch Box #13

Lucky number 13! I made the best homemade mac and cheese tonight, so although Melanie says she's "on a diet" this bento lunch is filled with mac and cheese and a brownie for dessert. Yum! I soaked the apples in lemon juice and water so we'll see if that holds their color. I decorated the mac and cheese with ham cut into flowers with lettuce centers. I just use a hole punch to make the lettuce circles. I bought letter bento cutters from TJ Maxx today. Only $4.99!!! Thanks Nana for my gift card. xxoo

Bento Lunch Box #12

Ah, leftovers. The bottom of this bento lunch features a bed of brown rice with chicken and garden vegetables on top. Decorated with sesame seeds.

The top of the bento box is the best part! Shortbread cookies with a little box of Nutella, Hello Kitty marshmallow, and blueberries with sugar. I'm not sure why this picture seems grainy to me (no pun intended!). I just can't seem to get the camera focused....

Bento Snack Idea

I am doomed! It is 8:00 am and I am soooo tired! How the hell am I going to drag myself out of bed at 6:00 am in two weeks when school starts?! I need to formulate a bento plan for the night before. This bento snack box is seriously lacking in cuteness!

Whole wheat pretzel sticks, grapes, and little apple trapezoids. Also a fantastic Mango juice box. Healthy bento!

Bento #11

This is a pretty healthy bento box for Melanie! Ham and cheese sandwich on 12 grain bread. Blueberries (we have about 1000 of them in the freezer from blueberry picking last month!) with sprinkles. Naturlich. Pastel colored Onigiri. Cherry tomatoes from the garden and a cauliflower tree.

Now I am off to a PTO meeting I completely forgot about! How many new Moms will I meet tonight wearing jeans (forgot to shave my legs. For a month.) no makeup and ponytail. Yeesh.

Bento #9

Charge up those defibrillators! This yummy Bento for Melanie's Monday Lunch contains my favorite biscuit recipe: Sour Cream and Butter Biscuits! Also stashed in there is a Reuben Sandwich made with leftover corned beef and cabbage. Some baby carrots that were cooked with the corned beef. Grapes. And a salad with Sesame Ginger dressing. Tad got the same exact Bento.

Also I have been practicing my camera work! Let me know how I'm doing!

Bento #7

This one was a challenge. I had to come up with something quick because I was tired. So no cute animals today! After I fixed the meatballs with pizza sauce (in the box), I remembered one of the biggest "rules" of Bento boxes is keeping them colorful, therefore healthier. So I whipped up some rolls with flour tortillas, broccoli, red peppers, and medium cheddar. Perfecta! Boiled egg which I colored in with food coloring, carrot sticks and medallions (you can't see the sticks), and a Hello Kitty marshmallow treat.

Bento #6

Healthy and scrumptious Dumplings!! Pork and cabbage dumplings with spicy sauce in the Panda. (It's just chili oil mixed with soy sauce!) Brown rice with ham teddy bears. Broccoli and heart shaped sharp cheddar. Melanie will squeal with delight when she's sees the new Bento box it's in! I bought it from icecreamdrops.highwire.com. Killer prices!!

Bento #5

Melanie and Tad got the same Bento today so I'm just showing one. I made California rolls and sushi rolls with smoked salmon and cream cheese. In pastel colors of course! Kawaii!! Cucumber, cherry tomato, and carrot salad. Edamame on picks. For dessert strawberries with powdered sugar, mini chocolate chips, and sprinkles. The little box has Wasabi horseradish sauce (blech!) and of course mini animal filled with soy sauce.

Bento Box Lunch Idea #4

I may as well practice my Bento lunch box skills on Tad. Once the kids go back to school it'll be cans of Lima beans for him again! ;)
Squirrel shaped pimento sandwich (yak!), and no squirrel is complete without some nuts (cashews)! Blueberries with froggie gummies, boiled egg, Greek olives, and secret Indian curry chocolate bar! Delicioso! The squirrel was cut using a regular cookie cutter.

Bento Box Lunch Idea #3

Yummy! Octopus hot dog surrounded by hot dog flowers in a sea of mac & cheese. And they were SO easy to make! Sugared blueberries, cherry tomatoes, fish shaped with a bento egg mold, and some string cheese. Melanie will be so surprised when she finds this in her fridge! Who's the best sister ever?......ME!

Octopus Bento Recipe

* Cut about 2" off each hot dog end (I cut them at a diagonal so they would sit nicely). Then slice 4 to 5 legs. Boil them for 30 seconds and the legs will flare out! I added eyes to the bento hot dogs with nori and cheese. You can use the end of a straw to get little circles.

My First Bento

So I decided about a month ago that I was going to send my children to school with a Bento lunch box. Cute, edible representations of my love for them. The Bento box fever usually hits me about two weeks before school is in and inevitably I run out of time/energy/money and so I have never gotten around to making Bento boxes for the kids' lunches. This year (hooray!) the urge swept over me the first week of summer vacation. After multiple trips to eBay and some great links I found on Google, my Bento accessories, bento boxes, bento egg molds, and bento recipe books started pouring in from Japan and Hong Kong!
Although the kids aren't in school yet, my sister Melanie goes to work as a nurse everyday so she will be my guinea pig for the next two months! Lucky girl......

Bento Box Lunch Idea #1
Purple sushi rolls, mini panda of soy sauce, grape tomatoes from my garden, slices of Roast Beast, boiled egg (shaped like a fish!), cucumber (from my garden!), blueberries with star sprinkles for extra cuteness.