A Mermaid and her Pearl

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Today’s mermaid bento gave me a chance to do a couple of things: first, it was a chance for me to use two different cutters to bring them together to form something else. I’m always looking to see how I can get more mileage out of my cutters, so here I used a Lunch Punch fish cutter (cut out only one fish) and then a gingerbread man cookie cutter of the same size for the top. The second thing was to use the almond scales again! Last time when I did the fish bento, I didn’t completely cover the tail with the almonds. This time, though, I really wanted a full-scale effect. My favorite part of this bento? The fennel greens as hair — I think it makes her look more like a sea witch, which is more my thing, anyhow.


Sandwich PB& Blackberry Jam; fennel greens for the hair, heart and round sprinkles for the eyes and mouth and bra, almond slivers for the scales.
Sides Goldfish crackers, of course! The “pearl” is actually a fruit called longan that my kiddo adores — not very common but similar to lychee.


Today I used:

Mickey Bento

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We went to Disneyland last weekend and to remind her of some fun memories, I made the kiddo’s lunch into an old-fashioned Mickey Mouse. There are big fans of Mickey and Minnie here and I’ve done a Minnie bento before as well as some Minnie cupcakes for the Little Kiddo’s birthday.



Sandwich PB& Blackberry Jam with craisin eyes and nose; I also used the jam for his ears.
Sides (Body) Dried blueberries with a fruit roll up pair of pants with marshmallow buttons; (Shoes) Carrots


Valentine’s Day Feast

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A Valentine’s Day Bento! I had a whole other bento design sketched out and planned but my plans were derailed when I saw heart-shaped ravioli at Costco. My kiddo’s favorite food is ravioli with pesto. She adores eggs too, so I got to try an egg technique that I’ve been meaning to play around with.


Main Dish Heart-shaped cheese ravioli with pesto and heart-shaped eggs
Sides Blueberries and heart-shaped strawberries


Gung Hay Fat Choy!

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A Chinese New Year’s bento! This coming Sunday is the Chinese New Year, so I wanted something that was both a little treat and a little healthy.


Sandwich (Head) PB& blackberry jam; all white parts are marshmallows cut with a cloud shapped cutter; eyes are green jelly Lifesavers with green M&Ms inside, topped with fruit leather eyes (also with black circle sprinkle and non-pareil eye highlight); nose is a Now & Later fruit chew, the nostrils are (American) Smarties with red fruit leather; whiskers are part of a blue sour belt; red tongue/lips/etc. are fruit leather.
Sides (Body) Mandarin oranges with grapes.
Extras (not pictured) a banana and yogurt


An Early Valentine’s Bento

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If there is a major holiday in a certain month, I usually try to go thematic with my bentos and see if I can vary the theme a few different ways; my kiddo loves hearts so this was an easy one to do!

New blog, so I’m going to try a new format for people who are just interested in the ingredients:


Sandwich Peanut Butter and blackberry jam on wheat. Heart shaped with heart shaped cut out.
Sides Grapes on heart food picks; Conversation Heart candy


Merida

Merida from Disney’s Brave 🙂 Sandwich face, with white chocolate whites of the eyes, blue M&M irises (with food marker pupils). Mouth was fondant and hair is made of carrots. Arrow is just white chocolate and a pretzel. Greenery is fennel greens. 

And yay! It was Bento of The Week over at Bento Blog Network!


Bento of the Week Winner