The Long Awaited Bento

Finally after months of moving, unpacking etc. etc. I made bento for my daughter! She was thrilled to say the least. It was her last full day of kindergarten today because tomorrow is early dismissal so I wanted to make sure she had one last bento for the school year. It is not spectacular by any means but with all my bento supplies being EXTREMELY unorganized I think I did ok;)

It is some leftover honey barbecue grilled chicken that I removed from the bone, fresh raw carrots, sliced fresh strawberries and bananas with a little cup of Wild Harvest organic berry granola for a little sweet treat! This granola blend is fabulous! I just love it and it has all natural organic ingredients. It is also very yummy in vanilla yogurt!

AnPan Man and Flowers

Today I made AnPan Man for my son. This is a very popular cartoon character here in Japan and my son loves him! I used my new circle rice mold and added sliced carrots and nori to make the face. Also there is turkey dog flowers and apples!

My daughter has turkey dog flowers, green beans, apples and rice with shaped carrots to resemble a flower!

It's Monday!

Today my sons class is having a pizza party so I only made bento for my daughter. It is pretty much the same that as what I made yesterday. Flower turkey dogs, green beans, steamed rice in a bear cup with a nori face and hot dog piece for the nose. Then she has apples with peanut butter in the little container!

My Daughters Vegetarian Bento #1 For The Week!

I took this pic with my cell phone so it is not all that great of a picture. My tamagoyaki did not come out very good at all this morning. That is what I get for rushing through it!!! I put steamed rice into a triangle shaped side dish cup and added a nori smiley face! Then cut out cheddar cheese hearts, sliced some Fuji apples and added some organic green beans to get some veggies in there!

My sons bento was the same except his had some rolled ham on food picks.

"In The Garden" Bentos

Today my daughter had her 2nd vegetarian bento for the week. A "garden" of flower tangerines, flower carrots, carrot crumbles, cheddar and monterrey jack cheese flower, apple flowers, edamame bushes and a rice cloud that I colored with organic all natural food coloring from Seelect.com
My son's "garden" had tulip hot dogs on edamame "grass" and chopped apples. Then he has steamed rice with a edamame and tangerine flower on top!

Smile Bento

For my son I made the same sandwiches as I did for my daughter and put some edamame in a little silicon cup under the sandwich to fill the gap there. Then I added chopped apples and tangerine with a cheese smiley face on top!

A Little Girl For My Little Girl Bento:)

I took a little extra time and made my daughter a cute "charaben" bento today. A little girl made of ham and cheese on top of a ham and cream cheese sandwich on wheat bread. Along side the sandwich is edamame, sliced persimmon and flower apples!

Today's Bento

Today the kids had turkey bacon and cheddar cheese wraps, heart apples, sliced kiwi and of course edamame:)

Yesterday's Bento

I did not get around to posting this bento yesterday. Time got away from me!

The kids had honey & butter rolled tortillas, turkey flower dogs, hard boiled quail egg, shelled edamame and half of a tangerine!

Mom, I want to be a vegetarian bento!

Well, my good camera had dead batteries this morning so I was forced to use my cell to take this pic. So it does not look very good at all. I wanted to post it anyway because this morning my 6yr old daughter informed me that she wants to be a "vegetarian"! I said to her "What exactly is a vegetarian?" She simply replied "You do not kill animals and eat them!" I thought OKKKKKKKKKK. I was thinking this must have come from school or something because we are not vegetarians in this house. I told her that a few times per week that I would make her a vegetarian bento & she was happy with that!

So her bento today was 2 hard boiled quail eggs, a cherry tomato, shelled edamame, chopped apples and some shredded mini wheats for a little sweet snack!

Tamagoyaki Bento #2

My sons is basically the same with a couple of changes. He does not like carrots or cherry tomatoes, so I had to leave those out. Instead I added mushrooms w/soy sauce which he does like and I added an extra tamagoyaki and an extra hot dog flower to his. He wanted the mochi in his snack box for snacktime so that is not in his bento either. "Hey people, I am just doing my best to please a 4yr old here...LOL! Take this out...put that in...yada yada yada! Boy, the things we moms do to make our little rugrats happy! ;P"

Tamagoyaki Bento

This my 6 yr olds bento for today. I made tamagoyaki using

Claudia's
Recipe from Cloud 9 Food (click for recipe)

Then I made the flower hot dogs, added carrots, edamame, cherry tomato, apples and some pineapple mochi there in the bear cup!

CRAZY Morning Bento!

Well this morning was CRAZY! We woke up late and I had to scramble to get everyone ready and out the door for school! So today's bento for the kids was ALL about speed.

PB&J sandwiches, tangerine, edamame and a little jello. Tomorrow's bento will be better. No more oversleeping:p

Just A Little Snack!

The kids are out of school until Wednesday this week so I will not be making bentos today or tomorrow:( So I decided to make the kids CUTE snacks today to scratch my bento itch:) LOL!

This was very simple and the kids said it was very yummy!

Snack Bento Contents:

Sliced Persimmon

Shaped Apples

Edamame

Crackers

Peanut Butter & Caramel Dips

Turkey, Turkey, Turkey

Here we have my sons bento for Thursday this week. He has rolled turkey bacon on cute little animal picks surrounded by sliced turkey franks, cup of shelled edamame and steamed rice. Also he had a side car of chopped apples (not pictured).

As you can see, my son is our meat eater. He is not big on veges at all. THANKFULLY he does like edamame and mushrooms:) I can also get him to eat green beans from time to time:p

Star Fruit Bento

This was my daughters bento on Thursday. I love this one! It was SUPER easy and took all of 10 minutes to put together. I already had the rice pre-made, so all I really had to do was shell some of the edamame and cut the star fruit then assemble! My daughter would much rather eat fruits and veges any day rather than meat of any kind so this bento was right up her alley!

Fruit Salad...Yummy Yummy

I made a fruit salad with a little colorful twist. There are fresh mandarin oranges to the side and then I tinted some crushed pineapples green, cut apples into flower shapes and a heart shape. Then I took a little water added some lemon and food coloring. (the lemon helps the apple from browning) I used a small paint brush and loaded it with the colored lemon water and painted the tops of the apples!

Contest Entry #6 From Shani

HI, My Name is Shani,I'm a mother of 2 boys in California.I just discovered Bentos at the beginning of the school year when my 8 year old son decided he didn't like sandwiches in his lunches anymore.I have been making him bento lunches for a few months now and I finally posted my first bento on Bento Challenge yesterday. We have both had so much fun with bentos and now my husband says I'm addicted. Well he's my next victim, I just ordered a bento box for him yesterday. Here is my entry for the Newbie contest "breakfast for lunch". It is my son's 9th birthday today so this was a good incentive to make him a really pretty lunch. Below is the contents description. "Birthday Bento"My son turns 9 today, this is his Birthday Bento. He loves sausage so I made omelet sushi rolls with mini chicken apple sausages and cheese, there are some spinach triangles (my first attempt at spanakopita, I added pesto and sun-dried tomatoes and they were really yummy). My son says they are his new favorite food. There are a few bites of steak tucked in behind the star onigiri. Carrot slivers, apple hearts, a strawberry, grape kabob and green beans for the fruit and veggies. Happy Birthday!!

Contest Entry #5 From Kayleigh

Im not a big breakfast person and almost never have breakfast except on the weekend where I have it for my lunch :D. For this bento I have taken all my fave bits and put little bits together...Top Tier: Rice Pudding with nutmeg (and after i took the nice pic I put choc buttons on top for added naughtyness lol) with some shreddies (I hate cerial with milk so like to have it as a little snack)Bottom Tier: Veggie sausage ontop of a crumpet (kinda hidden) and an omlette with wholegrain mustard and a bit of soy sauce topped with a veggie bacon checker board.

Fast, Easy, Cute!

The kids lunches today were SUPER SIMPLE and FAST which was really important this morning. It was a busy morning and I needed to put together their bentos as fast as possible without the CUTENESS factor suffering too much! So behold the star shaped chicken nuggets and An Pan Man potato faces from my local CO-OP supermarket! I just popped them in the oven this morning for about 10 minutes and they were ready to go. I already had the rice made so it was just heat and go! Of course the edamame is easy, no preparation there, straight from the bag to the bento box!