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
As I mentioned in the wrap up for last week’s meals and snacks, I realized I needed to give my baby a little blog-love too. This is perfect as we’ve been trying out solid foods with him. I was super-excited to give him avocado.
Baby’s introduction to avocado.
He did not share my enthusiasm. His sour faces were priceless. Maybe four years from now he’ll come around on it, like is brother. Continue reading
Wednesday’s Child
School was closed for a teacher in-service so I had the three boys for the week. I had originally scheduled Pumpkin to go to Jr. Y camp at the YMCA but they cancelled due to low enrollment. Wednesday we went to Habitot Children’s museum, so I packed a snack for us all to share.
Plum, pretzel, and star cookies for the boys to share.
I seek inspiration for my bento lunches in the things my children love. Corduroy by Don Freeman has been a favorite of my oldest since he got it for Christmas the year he was one. His Aunt Mary, who gave it to him, seemed a little puzzled that he was most drawn to the escalator part. We would start the story and he would want to skip ahead, or I would try to finish and he’d grab the pages to flip back to it.
Now that he’s older, he appreciates the full story and (I hope) the message. Better still, it’s something he now shares with his younger brothers.
1st week of August – 8/5 – 8/11
Lunches for #1 and #2 are becoming much more similar as the age gap closes (relative to their ages, that is). For these lunches, I started with avacado, fruit, and sandwich as the base. I shaped an elephant and heart for the 2.5 year old because he’s very into animals. My 4.5 year old chose the guitar, so I put the star with it and called it his “rockstar lunch.” I added pretzels and red pepper. The younger guy got green pepper, which I recently realized he likes, plus a snack mix they both love but contains peanuts.
Some nights I just can’t pull it together to make lunch. I was probably up too late catching up on True Blood once the Olympics were over. In the morning, I hate myself…
In the last week of July going into August, we eased back into our daily routine at home after several weeks traveling to visit family. School was still out for my preschooler, so I’ll just highlight a few snacks I packed.
We wrapped up the week with a fun visit to the California Academy of Science (with free passes from our local library, no less!). The Aquarium there is world-class, not to mention the indoor rain forest and other attractions we didn’t even get to. Three weeks later my two year old is still talking about the upside-down jelly fish and the flashlight fish with green eyes. I packed a “group snack” of items that would appeal to all of us.
A hearty snack for mom, dad, and two boys: pretzels (plain, peanut butter, and yogurt dipped), peaches, salami, corn, and cherries.
School vacation meant no bento lunches for July. I manged to find other outlets for my creative energies.
At the beginning of the month we made a new and tasty appetizer for a Fourth of July picnic. The spreads are from an Afghan food company that sells at our local farmer’s market. My husband pointed out the significance of celebrating American Independence with cuisine inspired from Afghanistan. We’re so lucky to be exposed to different cultures here in the US and I hope that I can teach my children to enjoy and respect them.
crackers, garlic mint cheese, pesto, jalapeno jelly, and diced strawberries.
Back in May a friend made a watermelon shark for a barbecue, and my four-year-old had been begging to make our own.
Foodler 