Category Archives: Bento

With Halloween just around the corner, kidlet’s class is doing a monster-themed unit this week, so I thought I would try and make monster lunches the rest of the week.  Of course I used up two monster ideas last week, doh!  Today’s lunch was inspired by a piece of art on flickr.

Peanut butter and honey on whole grain bread, strawberries, golden raspberries, kiwi, celery, carrot jack and purple bell pepper bat.  Cheese and pepperoni monster, with a little food coloring to define the gaping maw, and a tiny bit of nori to make the people in the spoon a little easier to see.  He won’t eat the people with the nori on it, but oh wel, its an itty bitty scrap of cheese 😉

Time spent: 40 minutes on the monster yesterday.  I had to re-do it because the first cheese base was a yellow/white mix and was cut so thinly, it just kept breaking apart and crumbling.  So I had to put that in the cheese scrap baggie and start again. 10 minute assembly this morning.

Posted by Kristen in Bento

Friday night was fall fun night at Kidlet’s school, and he is really getting pumped for Halloween now! 

They had two haunted “houses” – one for the little kids and then the other for 3rd grade +.  After he went through the young one, he said “That wasn’t scary at all!” and made me wait in a 30 minute line to go through the “big kids huanted house”.  The whole time the volunteers are roaming the line, telling everyone how super scary it is, and directing people with small children to the other one.   We  saw multiple (older) kids come right back out the front door within a minute of going in.  I was really worried.

We finally made it in.  They give you a flash light and a glow stick to break if you get too scared or lost and need someone to take you out.  Kidlet barrelled in, led the way.  We had to crawl at times, through darkness, in creepy fake cobwebs, strobe lit areas with hanging body parts, foam rubber walls with hands reaching through them to get to you, costumed volunteers dripping blood, minching brains, you name it.  He was fine!  Then we get to the end.  Five feet from the exit and its pitch black except our little pencil flashlight, and that is when he said “mommy, you go first!”  LOL

Ham and pineapple on ghost skewers, raspberries, pretzel chips (hiding under the skewers), cheese ghosts, broccoli, purple bell pepper bat, carrot jack o’lantern, a couple mango filled cookies (they have fruit roll up cut into features to make them look like jacks too, but that got covered up by the ghosts).

Time taken: 25 minutes.  Nothing was done ahead this morning.  Plus I discovered at the last minute that despite all my cutters, I don’t have a decent ghost shape.  So I made templates and “cut” them out by hand with a quilling tool.

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Oh wait, there are six little pumpkins.  Drat, I should have used the witch chocolate instead! 😉

A crazy morning again.  I need to either get more sleep so I wake up ready to go and stop dragging the first 30 minutes, or find some way to streamline the morning routine.  Since sleeping isn’t always a personal choice with my insomnia, I guess I need to brainstorm.  I probably could have made this lunch last night since there is no bread to get soggy, but originally I was going to put in some witches hats that I made from the leftover crescent rolls from the mummies the other day.  They just came out too big.  I guess I needed to cut each triangle into 2 before rolling up the brim.  Next time.

Sausage and mozzarella skewers, red and yellow raspberries, red and green grapes, broccoli (it’s under the skewers and chocolate, cucumber and the last of the jicama bones.  The aforementioned chocoate, a couple of crescent moon cheese shapes and pasta pumpkins. Low sugar yogurt with halloween sprinkles in the side car.

Time Taken: 15 minutes

Posted by Kristen in Bento

Another Halloween bento today.  Yesterdays was a big hit, although he only nibbled a little of the cucumber.

PB & J Monster with cheese and grape eyes, crunching jicama skulls and bones, with a little jelly “blood”.  Black and green grapes, pepperoni and pasta bats flitting around.

Time taken: 20 minutes all this morning (jicama bits were done the other day).  I boiled pasta, tossed with a tiny amount of evoo so it wouldn’t stick and let it cool down while I assembled the rest.  I was putting his breakfast together in that same 20 minutes as well.

Posted by Kristen in Bento

Today is a late start day.  You’d think since we didn’t have to show up until 10 instead of 8am that I would be less rushed.  No such luck!  Baby L was up really really early and I ended up lightly dozing (that’s not the best word for it, I’m fully aware of whats going on around me, not actually sleeping, just resting) while Kidlet played his new game (He is on a reward system for behavior at school and yesterday picked out a five day reward – Bakugan game for the xbox, which I had pre-ordered) and baby L took a short nap.  I suddenly realized it was 9:30 and it was rush rush rush to get out the door!  Thankfully almost everything for today’s lunch was already finished.

Crescent roll and lil smokie mummies, yellow and red raspberries, carrot disks, jicama cut into skull shapes, chocolate vampire, PB&J sandwich with a cucumber monster.

I stole the cucumber monster from Lunchbox Limbo.  I made my monster on a tortilla (as you can see I did an imperfect job of trimming the edges!) so that if the kidlet decides to reject the cucumber, he can lift it away and it wouldn’t get cucumber juice all over the pb & j.  Also, as I talked about the other day, his lunch gets tossed around so much, the monster would never last unless it was stuck down.  I used whipped cream cheese flavored with a little bit of hidden valley ranch dry mix as my glue, and adhered everything together so it will hopefully survive until lunch.

I made everything except the sandwich yesterday evening, so assembly this morning took only a few minutes.  Cutting the crescent rolls and winding them up proably took about 10 minutes, but I made 6 of them; saved the rest for his afternoon snack.  While they were baking (18 minutes in my oven) I finished all the skulls (there are more of those too 😉 and also made some bones from jicama.  I didn’t have a cutter for those, so I kinda carved them freehand — they will probably show up tomorrow.  I constructed the monster while the mummies were cooling down (didn’t want to put them in the fridge hot, or they’d steam up the container and get soggy), probably another 15 – 20 minutes.  I did this while watching TV with the baby sleeping next to me – multi-tasking mama! 😉

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The shot on this one isn’t great.  I took a couple others, but I’ve been having problems with my camera for a while.  Either it ends up off center (even though it looked centered when I took it, even in the preview window thingy after it was taken), or else half the photo ends up looking like it was dipped in dye.

I’ve had my old trusty hp photosmart camera a long time.  Several years at least. It’s 5 or 6 megapixels and aren’t they up to 8 or something?  I really need a new camera.   One of these days!

Mini blueberry waffles, sausages, hard boiled egg, kiwi, and yogurt in a side car.  Bunny bottle has lemon pepper for the egg and there is some blueberry syrup packed for dipping the waffles.

Aside from waiting for the egg to cool down (I forgot to do them last night!), this only took about 10 minutes.

Posted by Kristen in Bento

I think (hope) that this week will be a little bit calmer.  It would almost have to be, wouldn’t it? ;)  I’ve got a dentist appointment this morning (grr, I need a filling replaced), and Friday night is “Fall Fun Night”, but I haven’t committed to doing anything for that.  the middle of the week looks clear, so hopefully I can spend some time on cute bento!

Cream cheese and cheddar rolls on a sun-dried tomatotTortilla (they were supposed to look like pumpkins, but don’t really), ham flower, grape tomato, broccoli, asparagus, strawberries with papaya flowers and grapes.

Time taken: about 15 minutes.  I microsteamed the asparagus and broccoli and then made the rolls, ham flower and strawberry stacks while it cooled down, and then assembled everything.

Posted by Kristen in Bento

I had 45 minutes to get the kidlet dressed, fed and ready to go.  I also had to make his snack, his lunch, and prepare the baked goods tray for Grandparents Day in that same time frame.  It was a rushed morning.  Bento turned out fairly one note in color.

Pepperoni and mozzarella puff pastry bites, meatball, checkered apple, strawberry, carrots and a little apple tartlet (from the baking for Grandparents Day).

I’m sure I spent less than 5 minutes throwing this together.

Posted by Kristen in Bento

I’m really tired and dragging, with another 2 hours of classroom volunteering and the baking left to do. I know I’m complaining, but honestly, I feel very fortunate that I AM able to take the time to do this.  A full time working mom wouldn’t have the chance to exhause herself this way; and it’s worth it for the kidlet.

Another fairly simple lunch.  I suspect that the rice crackers *might* come back.  He’s had them before, but didn’t love them, and this is the big box (650ml), and usually is too much food for him.  It will be interesting to see if the crackers or the veggies are the things that get left by the wayside when he gets too full to finish.  Fortunately, the teacher instills a “no waste” kind of policy and has the kids put everything back into thier boxes, so I always get to see what’s left over.  His leftovers aren’t usually edible like a disposable lunch with baggies of crackers or such all separate, but I still like to see how the lunches are faring with him. 

Edit: and the winner of the “what came home today” contest – a tie!  half the crackers and half the veggies!

Fruit salad (pineapple, papaya, golden rasperberries, raisins, blackberries, strawberry stars) with little fork picks for eating the mushier pieces.  Carrots, purple cauliflower, grape tomato.  Turkey and cheese on whole grain white, cheese stars.  Babybel cheese with star cutout and some rice crackers.

Time taken: 15 minutes, no prep last night.

Posted by Kristen in Bento