Sunflower butter and jelly sandwich, nori, cheese “web”, plums, red pepper, and carrots.
Apple coated with sunflower butter and crushed yogurt pretzels, cheese “candy corns”, tofu and red pepper swirls, cheese twists, and pastrami roll.
I was intrigued to discover cucumber lemon at the Farmer’s Market over the weekend. Cucumbers are a lunch staple and lemon juice has magical powers that make almost any food delicious. (Seriously, my boys even eat kale if they can squeeze lemon on it.)
Unfortunately, my son did not follow my logic. So, when I included cucumber lemon in a simple lunch, it came home uneaten.
Rice, egg, cucumber, applesauce, and cheese.
Believe it or not, this bento was the pre-cursor to my Goldilocks bento. I got excited and made the rice and hard-boiled egg without realizing I didn’t have the right ingredients to finish the rest. This turned out to be a plainer, but still tasty and healthy lunch for my guy.
Later in the the week I sent a simpler snack-for-lunch bento for both boys. I used tea cups from their play set for the hummus.
Bentos for Two: pastrami, cheese, crackers, carrots, hummus, apple (for the little one only), dried mango, raspberries, and pretzel nuggets
I’ve been whipping up several Halloween-themed bentos, which I’m saving for a separate post. Stay-tuned!
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Goldilocks and the Three Bears Bento: rice and egg shaped with bear molds; Goldilocks made from orange pepper, cheese face, and shredded cheese curls. The faces are decorate with nori.
This lunch has been in the works for a while. Over the summer a friend emailed and mentioned she was shredding cheese and thought it would work well as hair in some way.
It took me quite a while to work out that I could use the rice and egg molds. (I used one egg and cut it in half.) I had a bear cookie cutter that was huge and I just couldn’t get past how that wasn’t going to work.
Once I figured out the bears and Goldilocks, the rest flowed easily from there. If only I had room to put some porridge in there…
I rounded out the bento with greens, a ham flower, carrots, radish and apple flowers, and pepper and radish hair bows.
Bento Tools
Here are some of the tools I used to make this bento:
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Fall is one of my favorite time of year. First comes Halloween, then Thanksgiving, then Christmas. It just keeps getting better. I’d been feeling like I was in a bit of rut with lunches lately, and this change of season has been just the thing to kick me into high gear again.
I have a leaf cookie cutter that I break out this time every year. (Well, this is only the second year, but that’s as long as I’ve been doing this.)
Tofu leaves, carrots, green pepper, cheese cubes, and rice
Tofu leaves, carrots, red pepper, cheese cubes, strawberries, and banana bread balls
I’m also starting to work on some Halloween-themed lunches.
Monday’s lunch was a breeze. Our good friends and neighbors hosted a birthday party for their toddler over the weekend, and of course there were leftovers. This lunch was super-yummy, super colorful, and super-healthy– times two!
Salami, cheese, edamame, carrot sticks, celery, grapes, and crackers.
I’ll lead this week with my favorite lunch that I made. Inspired by Eric Carle, I made an A Very Hungry (Watermelon) Caterpillar bento.
Watermelon caterpillar with candy eyes, plus strawberries, cucumber, ham, cheese, and pita with hummus.
There are many versions of this online. It’s a really easy, playful idea that kids enjoy. My son recommended that next time I stick to foods that were in the book. Oddly, I don’t think he was angling for lollipops and cupcakes. I think he really just wanted it to be proper. Continue reading
Last week I put a lot of effort into the various garden bento lunches I tried out. Here’s what rounded out the week.
I customized cheese, crackers, ham, and cucumbers for my two boys with different tastes.
Preschool bento lunch: Ham and cream cheese green onion wrap, crackers, cheese stars, watermelon, cucumbers, and sunflower butter celery sticks.
Cheese, crackers, cucumbers, peanut butter celery sticks, ham stars, and corn.
After going on a garden bento-making spree, I wanted to share a few tricks that I had used. I love all of the cute lunchbox items that are available, but you don’t necessarily need fancy gadgets to get your bento on. To recap, here are the lunches I made this week:
1. “Original” Garden
Bee and Bunny
Butterfly Quiche
Aside from my liberal use of flower cutters on every sort of food (carrot, potato, cucumber, pork buns), I used five tricks I’d like to share.
1) Ham, Turkey, or Cheese Flowers
In the Bee and Bunny bento I made a ham flower. I saw this great idea on the Parenting Magazine website. Unfortunately, the tutorials are maddeningly slow to load. If you look closely, you’ll see cheese strips in the “Original” Garden bento from my first attempt. I had better success with the ham.
After seeing a super cute cinnamon roll snail on Pinterest, I’ve been wanting to make a garden-themed bento for a while. Recently I saw another adorable idea for apples on Oh! Bento and that gave me the push I needed. Keith was super helpful and gave me directions on how to do it. Yeah for friendly bloggers!
The original garden bento: apple bunnies, cinnamon snail roll, carrot and pepper butterfly, and a pork bun flower, garnished with lettuce, cheese strips, carrots, and a carved radish.
My favorite lunch this week was from Tuesday. I thought the cut-outs in the SBJ sandwiches were really pretty. I was a little worried with how messy it might be for Pepper (2.5), but he did great. He’s finally getting to the age where he doesn’t like to have sticky food on his fingers.
Sunflower butter and jelly, melon, grapes and strawberries, carrots and celery (bottom only)
I tossed the cut-outs back into the bread bag and pulled them out later in the week to make egg salad sandwiches. I used the shapes only on the top slice. They were such a hit with the boys that I had to make a few more. Continue reading
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