Cheesy Beef Enchilada Rice

I had some leftovers from dinner and used it for bento today. Cheesy beef enchilada rice, banana bread and fresh mikon oranges!

Cheesy Beef Enchilada Rice Recipe:

1 Cup of Rice (uncooked)

1lb of Ground Beef

1 Can of Enchilada Sauce

1/2 Cup of Hot water

1 Cup Shredded Cheddar Cheese

Sour Cream for topping

Brown beef and drain.

Add sauce and water.

Add rice and bring to a steady boil until rice softens.

Let sit for about 5-10 minutes to thicken.

Top with shredded cheese!

When plated add a dollop of sour cream to the top!

YUMMY STUFF

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!

Today's Bento

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

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

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!

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!

Contest Entry #4 From Megan

I call this my "Beautiful Morning Breakfast Bento".

Right side: White rice mixed with blue food dye to represent the sky. Nori/edemame is used for the grass. Edemame pods are used for the flower stems and there are carrots used for flowers. I used a miniature breakfast sausage for the tree trunk and broccoli florets for the tree top. The sun is a slice of hardboiled egg yolk, and part of the remaining egg white was mashed up and used for clouds. I cut some nori to look like faraway flying birds...and there's a little bunny poking his head out from behind a flower!

Left side: Four Hello Kitty character chocolate chip waffles, red grapes, apple slices, more miniature breakfast sausages and a few cheese cubes. There is a little sauce inside the bunny bottle for the rice.

Contest Entry #3 From Katrina

Top tier, from left: mini waffles from Van’s (The inspiration for this bento. I had just read about this contest a day earlier and then saw these on sale at my local megamart.), apple rabbits with clove eyes, homemade pineapple-OJ jello cup.
Bottom tiers, from left: chunky peanut butter and maple syrup spread for waffles (also good as apple dip according to my little guy), another apple rabbit and potato-egg-zucchini pancake with a small dollop of sour cream.

ONIGIRI is the theme of todays Bentos!

My sons bento has a musubi inspired onigiri, a green tinted molded car egg, sliced carrots with ranch dressing in the cute bear sauce bottle and in the cat container there are a few M&M's!
For my daughter I put in a salmon onigiri, sliced carrots with ranch dressing there in the cute sauce bottle and a yellow tinted Cinnamoroll molded egg! For dessert I put in a tiny box of Meiji chocolates;)

Contest Entry #1 From Susan

My bento is an "english breakfast" it has a "fried egg" cheese sandwich, bacon, made from salami, beans, toast, cherry tomatoes and sausages. On the bottom tier we have fruit and fibre with banana and a cup of milk for the cereal on the side. I have been making bento since September this year for my daughter and myself.

Bentos Made The Night Before...

The kids bento had to be made the night before because I have a VERY hectic schedule in the morning!

For Reyna we have a flower shaped PB&J with a nori smiley face sectioned off with a pink baran divider. Next is a row of fresh cucumbers along with sliced apples and rolled ham on a teddy bear skewer! Then we have the EVER so CUTE Candy Sushi Roll! (See recipe below)

For Nico we have turkey & cheese sammies, diced apples and smiley face cucumbers! Nico got the candy sushi in his snack box to be eaten at snacktime after naptime. Naptime for him is directly after lunch so I try to limit his sugar intake at lunch!

Candy Sushi Rolls

Items Needed:

Fruit Roll Ups

Large Marshmellow

Twizzlers

Take one large marshmellow and poke a hole all the way through the center. Next cut a small piece of the Twizzler and insert it into the center of the marshmellow. Wrap the marshmellow with the Fruit Roll Up!!! THAT'S IT! Not much to it! EASY and CUTE!

Monday's Bento

My daughter's bento for today is breaded chicken, carrots, cherry tomato and heart shaped apples in the bottom tier. In the top tier she has shells & cheese! All of this in her favorite bento box!
In my sons bento today he has breaded chicken with cute animal picks, shells & cheese and heart shaped apples!

Field Trip Picnic Bento

This is my sons bento for today. A monster PB&J with cheese eyes and apple eyebrows. The bottom section of his sandwich box has apples, string cheese and edamame!

Today was Reynas field trip to the Benimo Field and I was one of the volunteer chaperones. So I packed us a picnic bento for the trip. In the first tier there are pearapples in the shape of hearts and kyoho grapes. Surrounding that is edamame and flower shaped carrots!

This tier has turkey sandwiches and yummy garlic gyoza!

Ham & Cheese Roll Bentos

The kids bentos today were again packed full of fruits & veges! Nicos bento pictured above had ham and cheese rolls, edamame,spongebob crackers and apples! Reynas bento pictured below has ham and cheese rolls,carrots,edamame,broccolli alfredo fettuccini noodles topped off with broccolli and a heart carrot!