Fish Sandwich Bento

This bento sandwich started out with me staring at the two butter rolls I had left from last week, thinking, what do these look like? Ice cream cones and snails went through my head before I thought, "goldfish!" And that's what we ended up with today. The pic isn't as wonderful as I hoped it would be, since it is super gloomy outside today.

I chopped up leftover turkey from dinner last night and mixed it with a little mayo, then hollowed out the inside of the bun and stuffed that in. Ripped up some lettuce leaves and laid them inside the bun, poking out as "fins," and made a little eyeball from a slice of string cheese and the smile from a nori (dried seaweed) face punch. I think it came out cute! What do you think?

This Sunday I also prepped a lot of fruit (prepping is key to making bentos quick and easy in the morning!), including organic strawberries, Galia melon stars, and caracara oranges. It's citrus season in California right now, hence all the varieties of oranges I've been using lately. Caracaras are pink inside, sweet, mellow, juicy, and totally delicious. If you have them in your neighborhood market, try them out! We actually bought ours at Trader Joe's; didn't make it to the farmer's market this weekend, thanks to the LA Marathon street closures.

Mike also has roasted plantain chips above the sandwich and cheddar rockets (Trader Joe's version of goldfish crackers) below the sandwich, for crunch. I think he'll love this bento, it's got all his favorites!

REVIEW: Mike liked the sandwich but wasn't able to finish all the fruit. The melon got rave reviews. It's hard to know what's too much food and what's too little. This is the big bento box, and it frequently comes back with something leftover. When I'm packing it, though, it looks too small. Go figure.