Category Archives: Bento

You can tell from my lack of super decorated bentos this week what kind of week I am having.  We’ve had pediatrician visits, dentist appointments for me and kidlet, an instructional meeting on “gargoyles” for this months art literacy presentation that I am giving to kidlet’s class, a principals chat, a PTA meeting. 

Still to come is my volunteer time in the classroom as well as getting together with a couple of other moms to cut out pieces for a paper bag owl project the kids will be doing at thier “harvest party” (Not allowed to say halloween!).  I have my own project to prepare as well — I’m doing a table where the kids will make bookmarks.  I’m digging out my scrapbook supplies (most are packed up), need to cut out strips from cardstock, collect ribbons, patterned papers, stickers and other flat embellishments.  I have a little Xyron machine so I can laminate them.

I’m also watching my 18 month old nephew on Friday, along with baby L, so that my mom can go to “Grandparents Day” at Kidlet’s school, since she normally watches my nephew on Fridays.  Oh.  And I committed to baking 24 portions of something for the grandparents to have with thier coffee (we figured if enough of the people at the pta meeting could do this, we could save the money we’d spend on refreshments, and probably have better food).  I so don’t bake; so even figuring out WHAT to make is a challenge.

So yea, no complex bentos this week yet, and probably not at all 😉

Please ignore the limpness of the lettuce!  He never eats it; its just there to look pretty and to help keep things wedged in; its not as slippery as the un-lettuced sides of the box, and I bought new lettuce today, honest.

Note to self: the little cut and press thingies that are intended to shape your sandwich and then imprint the bread with a little face does NOT work very well on PB and lemon curd.  Stick to meat and cheese sandwiches that won’t squirt out the edges.

Box contains the aforementioned PB & lemon curd sandwiches, cut with the bunny head cutter, but NOT imprinted, with 3 of those tiny strawberry candies on top.  We have yellow cauliflower and carrot bunnies.  Under the carrots is a lightly dressed salad made out of peas and tiny fresh mozzarella balls.  Lemon pepper in the bunny bottle for his salad.  Peach slices and grapes.  Because he has peas, there aren’t many dipping veggies, so I am sending a mayo cup of ranch dip in there instead of a larger container of it outside the box.

This was another quickie.  Between 10-15 minutes with no advance prep.

It doesn’t seem very balanced for color.  The green of the peas isn’t really visable.  Some cherry tomato might have helped, but I didn’t have any.  Oh well, it may not have as much eye appeal as some, but it is a healthy meal that I know he will eat!

Posted by Kristen in Bento

As requested yesterday, today’s bento is just shapes.  Ovals and circles abound.

Chicken meatballs hiding under the babybel cheese and grasshopper cookies. Hard boiled egg, zucchini and carrot rounds, grape tomatoes, kiwi and grapes.

10 minute toss together this morning.  I made the chicken and apple meatballs last night.

Posted by Kristen in Bento

This morning was hectic.  I had a PTA meeting right after dropping of the kidlet, and I have to take Baby L for her 4 month pediatrician appointment today (eek to shots!).  Kidlet had asked me to do a “shapes” bento, but I really didn’t have time for anything really special.  I told him I’d figure something out for tomorrow. 

Roast Beef and cheese sandwich, cut into triangles with little cheddar bears sticking out between them. Babybel cheese with bear cutout. Grapes, yellow cauliflower, cherry tomatoes, carrots and snow peas. 2 little Meiji vanilla panda cracker things.

Time taken:  super fast.  15 minutes, tops, all done this morning.

Posted by Kristen in Bento

I was >< close to skipping bento today and having the kidlet get a hot lunch.  My mom is coming to town to watch Baby L and I’m going to be volunteering at his school right before lunch and I thought I might stay through lunch and help him figure out how to use the card system they have in place for paying for the meals.  We put a chunk of money on his card for “just in case”, but of course haven’t used any of that yet.  If “just in case” happened, he would be clueless on the process of getting a school lunch and paying for it. I was all resolved to suffer through a “turkey hot dog and mini cheese pizza with fruit and veggie bar”.  (yuck!)

Then he woke up before five (egads) and I ended up with plenty of time to make lunch.

Turkey and colby-jack window pane sandwich shaped like an acorn, baby bell cheese, cold polenta cut into leaf shapes and then fried to give them a nice crisp outside (wonder how this will fare, sitting until lunch), raspberries and checkered apple.  In addition to the leaf cheese and polenta there are carrots, parsnip and sweet potatos cut into leaf shapes as well. 

The sweet potato and parsnip are cooked just until soft enough to eat, but still firm enough to pick up and manipulate.  I find its easier to cut my shapes from the raw root and then cook it.  It’s a lot tougher to get a crisp edge from a cutter on the cooked veggie.

It took an hour from start to finish.  That includes cutting all the shapes, cooking the vegetables and polenta and time for them to cool down completely before packing as well as making the apple.  Had I planned on a bento today I would have done all the veggies and apple last night.  In that hour I was also cooking breakfast and took a quick shower.  Hands on time was probably about 25 minutes.

Posted by Kristen in Bento

Simple bento today.  Kidlet actually requested most of its contents (usually he just doesn’t really care, and is content to let me pack whatever I will).  He wanted “devilled eggs” (all hard cooked eggs are deviled, whether they actually are or not ;)), muffins, pepperoni and corn.  I used our Shinzi Katoh box again.  I love that zakka / decole style that he has in his work, but I sure wish he had a single tier option.  I don’t know why, but I really struggle to make 2 tier boxes look nice.

Hard cooked eggs with cheese flowers, pepperoni and cheese skewers, little bear pasta for gap fillers (I cooked those right in the same water that I was boiling eggs in and then gave them a light toss in evoo so they won’t dry out and shrivel before lunch).  Chocolate chip mini muffins (yes store bought, my last homemade mini muffins were a disaster!), Corn, broccoli, purple and yellow cauliflower, carrot flowers, mini banana (those things are so cute!) which I tossed with some lemon juice, strawberries and blackberry fruit salad. Lemon pepper in the bunny soy sauce container for his corn and eggs.

Kidlet gave me the lunch requests while I was prepping his breakfast.  I’d offered eggs and toast since he didn’t want cereal, and he wanted them “devilled” and I explained I didn’t have any ready, but could make them for lunch, and how about scrambled and he said that was good, AND add the pepperoni, etc.  So I had to boil the eggs this morning and get them cooled down enough to be safe to pack.  Thankfully we didn’t wake up late this morning (we have the last 2 days!) and I had time for that.  That took probably 30 minutes total, and I gathered ingredients while I was waiting.  Actual assembly was fast, 10 minutes tops.

Posted by Kristen in Bento

Today the Kidlet’s school is having thier annual “Run for the Arts” event.  Students collect pledges, then run laps for 30 minutes and collect the funds.  This money pays for additional art education / productions; this year each class is getting a visit with a local artist with hands-on fun.  It’s a worthy thing.  I know this.  PPS funding for music and arts and even physical education is essentially non-existant.  We are fortunate that our neighborhood has a lot of parent volunteers and enough wealthier families that the school raises enough money to provide these things.  Still.  I hate pledge drives.  Even in a less shaky economy, its no fun asking people for money, even your family and friends.  Perhaps especially your family and friends since they have a harder time saying no!  We ended up deciding how much total we could donate, and then split it up and pledged a little for each person we’d normally have gone to.

The kindergarteners were so cute this morning when I dropped off my kidlet.  They are so excited about this run!  Running laps for 30 minutes in the cold doesn’t sound like MY idea of fun, but hey, whatever floats thier boats.  Half of them had on special running outfits, and all were bragging and one-upping on how many laps they would run.  Anywhoo, since today is Run for the Arts, I focused on that for the kidlet’s lunch. 

PB and J circle sandwich, cheese running shoe with spaghetti laces, strawberries and blackberries, carrot “Run!”, cauliflower and broccoli.

Time spent: 20 minutes.  Around 10 to make the shoe and carrot letters, and 10 for assembly this morning.  The shoe was really easy.  I used a paper template to cut the same shape out of 3 slices of cheese (using the quilling tool, which I just drag through the cheese; it takes seconds.  MUCH faster than trying to do it with an exacto, knife or scissors.  It only works on soft things like cheese and bologna though, since its not a sharp edged tool), then cut 2 of the slices into smaller pieces –  laying them on top of each other so they would match and would fit together like a puzzle.  Then I mixed and matched the pieces and layered those on the third (whole) cheese shoe which I used as the base.  I used a small round pastry tip to make the lace holes and threaded the spaghetti through.

I think the shoe was actually easier than the letters, even though I have alphabet cutters for those!  It’s tough to get those tiny little letters out of the cutter without ripping/breaking them.

Posted by Kristen in Bento

I bought the nail picks a long time ago with the intention of doing a construction / Bob the Builder bento.  At the time, he was really into using his little work bench, and we were watching Bob regularly.  Then I saw this bento by JBDoodles, and had a hard time coming up with something that didn’t look like I was stealing her idea!  In the end I decided just to make what I had originally envisioned.  I like my Bob better, but I think her overall bento might be a bit easier on the eye.  None-the-less, Kidlet will love it, I’m sure!

Roast beef and cheddar on whole grain white bread (I love this stuff.  It’s got fiber but is soft and tastes like white bread.  We don’t mind a good multi-grain bread, but I think the white bread makes a better canvas for cheese art ;)). Bob is bologna, cheese with pepperoni hair.  Tools were made from tortillas, crisped in the oven a few minutes, topped with the cheese and returned for another couple minutes to melt.  The saw blade has luster dust on it to give it a metallic sheen, but that didn’t photograph well.  Carrots cut into nut shapes, purple and yellow cauliflower, mixed color pear tomatoes (green and yellow).  Cherry tomatoes and raspberries skewered on nail shaped picks.  The picks were REALLY sharp on the end, so I clipped them with scissors (they are just hard plastic) and then filed them a little.

Time Spent:  it took about 45 minutes last night, but thats because besides bob, I actually made 16 tool crackers (wrenches and drills plus the hammers and saw).  I also I dulled the nail picks. Assembly this morning (including cutting the carrots by hand beacuse I realized at the last minute that I didn’t have a hexagon or octagon shaped cutter.  Boggle) took about 15 minutes.

Posted by Kristen in Bento

It was over a year ago that I first decided that I wanted to pack bento style lunches for my kidlet.  I started looking at bento sites, and sought out gear.  I only made 3 bentos in all of 2008 through july 2009.  I found out that my son wouldn’t be needing a meal packed for preschool, as they served food there and strongly discouraged outside food.  So aside from a packed snack here or there, I had no need for it. 

I never posted my very first bento.  It makes me laugh to see it now!

Hopefully, I have come a long way since then.

Posted by Kristen in Bento