Tagged: food

January 15, 2015

Amazing Women Series: Sacagawea Bento

For our second week of the Amazing Women series, I chose one of the most interesting of native women: Sacagawea (with a hard “g,” apparently). A girl, really, because she was only sixteen when she joined the Lewis and Clark AND a pretty kick-butt girl because she had a baby in the midst of the journey. In most lore, she is said to have lead the party but through a little research, I found that while she did lead them at times, she was mostly a skilled negotiator with tribes they encountered along their exploration, a good communicator having spoken several different languages, and a knowledgeable naturalist that could provide the party with wild plants that were edible or medicinal. She had a short life (25 when she died) but she had a great influence on American history.

This week’s book? Who Was Sacagawea?

In this lunch:

Main A cream cheese sandwich topped with a piece of mozzarella painted with her portrait (loosely based on her $1 coin) painted with food dye
Sides Goldfish (representing the fish-heavy culture of the Shoshone people, to which Sacagawea belonged) and an orange with wing food picks (as her name translates into “bird woman”)
Also included but not pictured Yogurt

Today, I used:

Share on Tumblr

January 7, 2015

Amazing Women Series: Marie Curie Bento

Kickin’ off the new year with a girl empowering bento! My kiddo has gone into full-on science mode lately. We are in the middle of science fair and its her favorite subject. So to kick off my Amazing Women series with a Marie Curie bento!

Admittedly, thinking up stuff for this bento was a little hard. I did a little research on Marie Curie and she’s a hard person to do in a bread portrait! But then I figured out the wonders of painting her on the bread (with food dye and a brush!). It took a little time (about 15 minutes for the portrait), but it was a fun little project after the kiddos have gone to bed. Also, how do you explain the discovery of periodic elements to a second grader? I decided a quick post-it note would do the explaining:

Marie Curie was a great scientist who discovered two chemicals, called Radium (RA) and Polonium (PO). She also invented a portable x-ray machine that could be taken out to where it was needed. Marie Curie won two very important prizes in science. Her help and work helped future scientists with their work for a better world.

For fun, I bought her an age-appropriate book on Marie Curie, called Who Was Marie Curie? Hopefully, we can learn more about this fascinating woman.

In today’s bento:

Main A Marie Curie PB&J! 🙂 As mentioned before, I painted her portrait with food dye and a (food safe) brush.
Sides Black and green grapes (hinting at individual molecules) and the PO and RA are made out of cheddar. A half apple with a beaker carved into it.
Also included but not pictured Yogurt

Today, I used:

Share on Tumblr

December 17, 2014

Cindy Lou Who and the Grinch Bento

I’ve been thinking about this bento for a while… I love How the Grinch Stole Christmas! It’s such a fun movie. My kiddos, however, are not so crazy about it. They watched the freaky live version (allowed by their dad NOT their mom) and now my middle kiddo calls it the “scary Christmas movie.” I can’t allow that! So today, to promote my love and convince the middley kiddo to watch the animated (TRUE!) version, I made her this bento yesterday for lunch.

Today we are also part of the Bento Bloggers and Friends’ Eat, Drink & Be Merry Holiday Hop! See the link below to check out the next lunch in the hop!

In this lunch:

Main PB sandwich of Cindy Lou Who with edible dough antennae 😉 You can’t really see it, but I supported them with some toothpicks for presentation. The kiddo was eating at home, not at school, otherwise, I would’ve supported them some other (less fragile) way. Little bow food picks.
Sides A little Grinch made out of a green grape, a slice of banana and a strawberry (with a little bread ball pom pom on top), all skewered with a toothpick. Also, a carved apple of Max, the Grinch’s dog. The dog was a pretty intricate carve and I wish I had had a knife that made more slender cuts, but oh well. One thing that I advise when making a more intricate design on an apple is to draw it out with edible marker and then cut along those lines. MUCH easier than eyeing it.
Also included but not pictured Graham cracker bunnies, peanuts

Hop on over to the next blog on our Holiday Hop!

Share on Tumblr

December 8, 2014

Advent Bento: 17 Days until Christmas!

Time for another installment of the Advent bentos! I got a tell you the truth, Mondays are hard lunch days for us. I usually buy groceries during the week, so by Monday, I’m usually at the end of the loaf of bread, or using up fruit before it goes bad, or making it a snacky lunch. Today was a day for snacky lunch! A do-it-yourself Lunchable, as it were… but still healthy and fun 🙂

And today’s advent surprise? A dulce de leche owl that we got from our Girl Scout fall nut sales 🙂

Advent Bento | OneCraftyThing.com

Main Round butter crackers, cheddar cheese cut into stars, little rounds of turkey deli meat.
Sides A Clementine orange and a surprise dulce de leche owl (from the Girl Scouts!)
Also included but not pictured green grapes and yogurt

Today I used:

Share on Tumblr

December 1, 2014

Advent Bento for the Holidays

After doing bento for a few years, it’s hard to come up with new themes every year, especially for the holidays. There are some things that MUST be done for certain holidays: Santas, trees, reindeer, etc. are a must for Christmas (since we celebrate it), turkeys are for thanksgiving, clovers are for St.Patrick’s day… And in a way, it’s instant theme, but on the other hand a bit limiting. Well, every year I try to think of a new Advent activity for the kiddos, and I thought it would be a good idea to bring it into lunch 🙂 So this year I’m doing advents bentos! I’m not going to be doing special bento every day, but I had the idea to do one every Monday, and for the lunches in between, I would give the kiddo one snack that would equal the number of days until Christmas. So for example, tomorrow she might get 23 goldfish crackers… I’ll send her a little note to count them!

But anyhow, for today, there are 24 days until Christmas and I thought it would be fun to have a little area with a surprise. So I just cut out a little piece of paper and taped it on top of the small section of our Easy Lunchbox. I had some extra Santa hat stickers from a kid craft we did, so I just stuck it on top to be festive. Can you tell what the surprise was? A little hard to tell, but I found some small coal-shaped pieces of chocolate for fun. I was going to put in a different treat, but honestly, the kiddos were acting up this morning and being difficult (it’s hard for everybody to get back into the swing of things after a week-long vacation), so I thought this was appropriate 😉

Main PB&J sandwich stamped and numbered cutouts. The holly decoration are just sprinkles.
Sides A mandarin orange and a half arranged like a wreath and coal chocolate pieces.
Also included but not pictured I thought this lunch was kind of light, so I included some bunny cheddar crackers, a mango fruit pouch and yogurt.

Today I used:

Share on Tumblr

November 18, 2014

Fetch! with Ruff Ruffman Bento

If you have elementary school kiddos and PBS on TV, you have definitely seen Ruff Ruffman’s Fetch! It’s a great show that I’m sad ended a few years back. It encourages learning and discovery and is an all around good show. My kiddo’s favorite, in fact! I’ve been asked for a Ruff Ruffman bento now for aaaages and today, I got it together! And for those of you who have no idea who Ruff is, here’s a clip on how a search engine works:

Anyhow, here are the details of today’s bento:

Main PB&J Ruff with a blueberry nose. Ruff’s fur is peanut butter on the top layer of the sandwich and the stomach part is just another piece of bread. For the eyes I used large Wilton eyes (backward, so that I could customize the pupil size and add the rim of his glasses around his eyes) and for his eyebrows and mouth, a piece of black licorice.
Sides Fresh blueberries and trail mix with a graham cracker dog house. I drew the “door” on with an orange edible marker.
Also included but not pictured Yogurt

Today I used:
 <iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=3D9299&t=onecrathi-20&o=1&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=B0000VLETA" style="width:120px;height:240px;" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0">

Share on Tumblr

November 14, 2014

Octopus, Octopus, lurking in the water bento

A friend of mine gave cookie cutters as a party favor for her son’s birthday and this awesome octopus was one of them. It’s adorable! So I had to make a lunch out of it. It’s not the first time I’ve done an under-the-sea type of lunch (and most likely not the last!) but it was simple and easy to do with a few little details to make it fun. I made a simple tutorial for the squid here, so that you too can recreate this lunch!

Main PB&J Octopus. His tentacle-suckers were little pieces of cereal that I stuck in between the sandwich. It was tasty and it gave a plain cookie-cutter sandwich some nice detail, along with the candy eyes. I just broke the little cereals in two to get such even suckers.
Sides Goldfish crackers (naturally) and strawberry squid (tute here) on black grapes. The eye on the squid was just a little piece of bread on which I colored an eye with an edible marker.
Also included but not pictured Yogurt

For this lunch, I used:

Share on Tumblr

September 24, 2014

Does a bear poop in the woods? A Charmin(g) Bento

Yesterday, I was getting the kiddos ready for school and scrolling through my usual websites when a friend showed me a blog post by Baby Sideburns, which was about the pressure she felt from all those Pinterest lunches that she sees. She pointed out my Elsa lunch (in a rather funny matter) as an example of doing too much for lunch time. I totally get that– I know it’s not for everyone and I’ve had people tell me that I’m nuts for doing this at all. I must have too much time on my hands (nope, 3 small children, household, and a job) or I must be trying to make other kids jealous of mine (nope, I know my kid’s whole class — I used to teach them drawing — and every kid who mentioned it to me seems pretty cool about it) or whatnot.

I know I’m rambling a bit. Stay with me here.

I know some people see the Pinterest stuff as one mom one-upping the next. But call me an idealist when I say that I hope that more than making people feel bad, I (and all my Pinterest-posting crafty friends) am really looking to put out inspiration into the world. Not only inspiration to make lunches fun, ( because, I know just as well as anyone that lunch is just lunch), but really, to make some mundane tasks (packing kid lunches!) more fun for me and once in a while, make a kid smile. That ain’t so bad, is it?

So to make myself smile, my kiddo smile (potty humor is big around here), and hopefully some of my followers smile, today I made a bear pooping in the woods bento. And I want to tell everyone, I was inspired by Baby Sideburns’ bento! Thanks Baby Sideburns!

In today’s lunch:

Main A PB & strawberry jam bear sandwich; the toilet roll is a piece of a Pirouette wafer wrapped in a little bit of white fondant. The bear poop is mini chocolate chips 😉
Sides Trail mix and galia melon trees
Also included but not pictured A fuji apple for snack time

Today I used:

Share on Tumblr

September 17, 2014

A Farm Day Inspiration: A Peacock Bento

Every week I take my middle and youngest kiddos to the farm while my eldest is at school. It’s a fun and safe place to play and explore and they have story time and a session of cracking corn as well as feeding the animal of the week. It’s a good time to be had while waiting for the eldest kiddo to get out of school. Every week my eldest asks when she gets to go to the farm. So this week, I tried to give her a little farm in her lunch! It may not seem like peacocks are very farm-like animals, but our farm has a nice-sized flock (or an ostentation, as they are collectively called) of peafowl (cocks, hens, and chicks included).

In today’s lunch:

Main PB&J pocket sandwich with Nutella and sprinkles details. To pipe the bird, I put it in a sandwich bag and snipped the corner, for a makeshift icing bag.
Sides Tail feather made with galia melon, watermelon, and a grape: I used some nesting oval cutters to nest the watermelon in the galia and then the small one to cut a notch out of the grape. Around it, cantaloupe, galia melon, and watermelon balls (finally found a use for my tiny melon baller!). Also more grapes in the other compartment. The grapes were called peony grapes on the package and they’re very fleshy and sweet, perfect for hot end-of-summer days.
Also included but not pictured Even more melon (my leftover scraps). I have a ton of melon here, and it needs to be eaten!

Today, I used:

Share on Tumblr

June 11, 2014

A Frozen Bento: In Summer!!!

It’s the last week of school and the fervor for Frozen has only *minimally* died down here. We’re almost in summer and the kiddos can’t get out of winter 😉 So today, I made my last Frozen lunch of the (school) year, inspired by “In Summer,” the song by Olaf the snowman. If you’ve never seen it, DO SO. It’s hilarious.

If you still want to see more bentos, come back during summer! I’ll still be doing some for my kiddos who hang out at home for the summer — some really fun ones!

In today’s lunch:

Main Chicken salad sandwich in a whole grain white bread pocket. I used this awesome tutorial to improvise my pocket sandwich. All the outlines are made from nori, while the whites of the eyes and the tooth are made from some flattened pieces of bread I had left over from cutting off the crusts. Nose is a real carrot!

Sides Strawberry flower on blackberries with cheddar bee. I used nori for the black stripes on the bee and almond slivers for the wings. Also, green grapes.

Today I used:

Share on Tumblr