Heart Sandwich Bento Box - Who Doesn't Love BBQ Pulled Pork?

We made BBQ pulled pork in the slow cooker this week, and before any Southerners jump all over me, we know it's not true smoked BBQ, it's just BBQ sauce that's on it. :) But it was delicious and the leftovers make a really good sandwich. Today's bento has those leftovers in between two slices of wheat-oat bread, which does not cut very easily. You'll find that those cute bento sandwich presses and cutters work best with crappy low-fiber, totally processed white bread, unfortunately. While that's ok once in a long while, Mike and I prefer healthier, heartier whole grain breads, and therefore have to settle with slightly-shoddily-cut sandwiches.

Heart Shaped Pulled Pork Sandwich Bento Box with Veggies, Ranch Dip and Fruit Salad

Here's a bird's eye view of the bento and how everything is laid out. 

Around the sandwich I placed a few potato chips for crunch. Below that, we have veggies (red bell peppers, celery and carrots) with ranch dip (hiding in the cute panda), and a mini fruit salad - watermelon stars, kiwis and pineapple, which all go really well with BBQ!

I've been using my silicone grass and leaves a lot lately because they add a nice color aesthetic, and they're reusable. Some bento-ers will tuck lettuce leaves around each section, which is gorgeous, but wasteful for our purposes, since Mike won't eat the garnish. 

In the end, I also decided to just put the potato chips back into the bag and attach it to the bento by squishing it in between the lid and the box. This effectively keeps them from getting stale or spilling out, and now Mike won't forget them!

And a final pic of our super adorable panda container. I just love this bento accessory! This product came with a little piggy and a chick as well. Haven't had a chance to use the chick because it's so small, but the piggy and panda get used very frequently.

Super Cute Panda Bento Accessory!

Garden Party Bento - Butterflies and Flowers!

Mike's a dude, but I can't help making the bentos pretty (and sometimes a little feminine). Who are we kidding? I'm sort of making these for myself. :) Today's bento is no exception. I was cutting up the pineapple and thinking, these look like butterfly wings! So it became a butterfly and the rest of the bento just built itself around that.

On the left, we have a butterfly with pineapple wings and a kiwi body. Below that we have watermelon flowers, accented with my favorite reusable silicone leaves and a little pineapple center (I used my tiniest circle cutter). On the right, we've got a turkey sandwich on wheat-oat bread, decorated with a little fruit roll up flower. There's organic hummus in the little panda and celery and carrots on the side. I just love the panda/pig/chick set I got, it's so useful and they are adorable!

Pineapple Butterfly with Kiwi body, Watermelon Flowers, Turkey Sandwich with Fruit Roll Up Flower

Close up of the watermelon flowers:

Watermelon Flowers made with Bento Flower Sandwich Cutter and Stainless Steel Vegetable Cutters

Super Fast 10-minute Bento (with fruit, nuts, and bunny gummies)

Some days it's just hell to get out of bed, and today was one of those days. So I used the old bento fall back trick - stuff it full of colorful silicone cups and animal picks. And again, I stress it every time...prep, prep, prep! And also store things in your pantry or freezer that you can just toss in, like nuts, snacks, muffins, etc. It will really save your morning. 

Today I had about 10 minutes. I made a quick ham, cheese and mustard roll up on a tortilla (side note: the cheese was used previously for decorations and had lots of holes and punch outs from cutters, but in a roll up or sandwich, no one notices!); I cut two pieces to put all pretty on the side and stuck animal picks in the other two pieces. Dumped in my pre-prepped fruit stars and flowers, some bunny gummies from Whole Foods, sunflower seeds from Trader Joe's, and cut up a kiwi. Presto! 10 minute bento.

Top/bird's eye view:

Ham & Cheese Roll Ups on a Flour Tortilla, Mango & Watermelon Flowers and Whole Foods Bunny Gummy Candies

REVIEW: This was a favorite! Mike ate everything (and I had thought there was too much food). It helps that fruit is in season and delicious right now.

Elephants Everywhere! Flatbread Elephant Bento Lunch

I used my super handy elephant cutter set to make elephants out of flatbread. You may remember my other handy bunny cutter, which I used to make SJP's salad. I made three elephants in a vegetable enclosure, with hummus on the side for dipping. Kiwis and turkey/swiss roll ups round out this meal.

Three Little Flatbread Elephants with Turkey and Cheese Roll Ups, Hummus, Broccoli, Carrots, Cucumbers and Kiwi.

the elephant is four pieces put together to make a 3D animal

Here's a couple more close-up pics of the elephants. They came out so cute! Mike pointed out that the texture and appearance of the flat bread would be so perfect for a cow. If only they made a cow cutter set!

Close Up of Flatbread Elephant

You could also make these elephants out of vegetables; I had made the bunny out of carrots. But sometimes it's hard to find a veggie that's big enough for the body of the animal. I think I might try watermelon this summer, that would be pretty cute!

REVIEW: Everything got eaten except the cucumbers and the broccoli. Mike hates both so I wasn't surprised, but I am going to find a way to make broccoli so cute, he eats it! I did discover, through this bento, that he will eat cucumbers in sandwich form. So if your kid or favorite someone is a picky eater, keep trying it in different forms - you'll eventually find a way (and if all else fails, bake it into bread)!

Kiwi and Strawberry Peacock Bento

Some people make their bentos around a character or idea that they have, and they build it. I do the opposite. I look at a piece of food and think, "what does this look like?" or, "what can it be?" Today, the kiwis (especially since our "old vine" kiwis grow weird) and strawberries looked like a peacock to me, so that's what we went with. Do you see it? 

On the bottom we have an onion bagel with Cuban style fillings - ham, pickles, mayo, mustard, and lettuce, flanked by potato chips. I cut the middle of the bagel out to lessen the carb load. This way the top and bottom are a little thinner and the whole sandwich fits into the bento box. 

REVIEW: Mike ate the whole sandwich and chips, and the strawberries. He left ALL the kiwi. Partly this was because there was a lot of food, but also because I made the kiwi peacock the night before. If your kiwi is already ripe, prepping it the night before will just make it juicier (not a good thing). It sort of stuck to the bottom of the container. Kiwis are like avocados - there's a very small window where they are still firm, but perfectly ripe, and you've got to eat them right at that moment. 

Little Piggy Bento - Pig Flatbread Sandwich!

As I keep bento-ing, I learn new ways to keep offering variety with the lunches. One easy way is to change up the bread. This week we didn't buy any sliced bread and instead, we got bagels, flatbread, and butter rolls. It's like getting a new canvas! 

Today's lunch is a piggy flatbread sandwich with turkey, mayo, mustard, lettuce, provolone cheese, and avocado. YUM. I made the nose with ham and two sizes of my oval shaped fondant cutters. The ears I just cut with a knife, and the eyes were made from my tiniest round fondant cutter and the nori punch (I just put together a mouth and an eye together, overlapping, to make a round shape with a tiny hole in the middle). 

We have three kinds of fruit on the side - kiwi stars, two strawberry hearts, and honeydew flowers, with our ever-so-useful animal picks. Close up of the kiwi stars:

Mike also has celery sticks and peanut butter in the tiny piggy container. I love this container because it has a lid (no spilling, no mess) and it's SO CUTE! I also got a panda and chick with this set. 

REVIEW: This lunch got a "delicious!" rating and almost everything got eaten, although most of the peanut butter was leftover in the little piggy. Guess it holds a lot more than I thought.

Cucumber Sandwich Bento

No Easter bento today! Guess I got all Eastered out. Instead, I made a cucumber cream cheese sandwich and some Nutella style sandwiches (but with Trader Joe's cocoa almond spread), and fruit. I think we are getting tired of the PB&J and tuna already, so I've been trying to switch it up a little (yesterday I did hummus/avocado, which was well received). There's tortilla chips under the sandwich (for a little crunch), and our usual variety of fruit. It wasn't super cute after I'd put everything in, so I dressed it up with a fruit roll up heart, and I used my silicone leaf dividers in between the chocolate sandwiches for a little color. I also tried to arrange the pineapple/oranges in a cute way...

Then I decided to put in the fruit picks, and you can see how easy it is to just make the lunch a little more special!

If you're intimidated by bento, don't be! It's so easy. Today's sandwiches are just cut into rectangles. It's the arrangement and the added decorations (silicone dividers/animal picks) that make it cute. It's fun, and everyone deserves a lunch that makes you smile.

REVIEW: the chocolate sandwiches only got an "ok." Mike really hates almonds, so I guess that must be it. Fruit got all eaten, as well as the cucumber sandwich, but the tortilla chips got stale really quick. It's hard to keep crispy things crispy in a bento! 

Easter Duck and Bunny Sandwich Bento!

I put a little more effort into today's bento to make up for yesterday's quickie bento. Today we have a duck/chick tuna salad sandwich, and a bunny hummus and avocado sandwich. I used egg whites and nori for the eyes, fruit roll ups for the bunny nose/mouth, and carrot for the beak and feet. I also used the same cutters for the sandwich bread on the avocado, so that it would fit perfectly onto the bunny shaped bread. In retrospect, the bunny body looks a lot like a turtle, so I might have to try that sometime in the future! How fun would it be to decorate a turtle shell?

Since Mike's had two days of veggies, we went back to fruit for today. I had cut some Caracara oranges yesterday, and peeled a kiwi, so we have oranges, kiwi and pineapple, dressed up with a bunny pick. 

Here's what it looks like all together:

I hope he likes it!

REVIEW: Hummus and avocado was a hit, probably because it's something new! And it was plenty of food. Yay.

Slightly Squashed Bear Bento

Bears are a popular theme in bentos, probably because they are easy to recognize and easy to make - just eyes, nose, and ears, and they can be done any number of ways. For today's bento I had bought some butter rolls at the local Japanese bakery, Yamasaki, and decided to make a bear face from it. 

You could make any type of sandwich and apply the same decorations. Mike's is a ham and cheese with lettuce/mayo/mustard sandwich. I used a mini circle sandwich cutter to make the two ears out of cheese, and then I used the flower cutter to make the nose, but just sliced off two of the "petals." I don't have a lot of cookie cutters in my repertoire so I have to get creative. I cut a triangle piece of nori for the nose. For the eyes, I used two slices of string cheese and punched some eyes from nori using one of my face punches. Originally I had just laid the cheese face on top of the bun, but then I ended up cutting into the top layer of the bun and really sticking the cheese into it, to make it more secure. You could do it either way. The ears are actually laid inside the sandwich.

This morning when I pulled out the sandwich, he was a little squashed from being in the bento overnight, but still pretty cute:

I had also prepped the fruit last night, so this morning all I did was throw in pistachios, then mix sunflower seeds with chocolate covered sunflower seeds, and put a little chocolate on top for dessert. Lots of protein, lots of fiber. Yummy lunch!

Tip: If you prepped eyes/noses/ears for a few sandwiches and put them in a baggie in the fridge, you could make sandwiches for a week in a few minutes a day. I also had the lettuce cut, washed and stored in a tupperware. It lasts for a week if there's a sprinkle of water in there for humidity. Food for thought! 

REVIEW: Mike ate everything except the pistachios and some of the sunflower seeds. Pistachios two days this week was boring, apparently. :) Also, sometimes there can be too much food in these larger bento boxes, but then the smaller one looks too small! Tough to gauge, but I think I'll figure it out as we go along. Fruit fills you up, but then digests quickly, so it's a little bit of a balancing act.

Another Quick Bear Sandwich Bento

I'm almost two weeks into making bentos, and learning a lot! I think one of the main tricks to being able to do it every day is to have something prepped or have things that can just be thrown in without any prep (i.e. snacks, crackers, nuts, etc). Fruit is relatively easy to cut up quickly, as well. That being said, today I didn't have anything prepped and I had to throw together something on the fly. Mike also left the big bento box at work so I had to use the little one. 

We're already running low on bread and I barely got two slices out of the squaw loaf. When I do my grocery shopping this weekend, I'll plan better. Slapped on some peanut butter and jelly and made some cute bear faces for the top as decoration. The bears are made from muenster cheese with a bear shaped cutter, with string cheese slices as the muzzle and little ham circles for their noses (I used a plastic straw to make those). I used some nori for the eyes and made one look sleepy just for variety. 

The rest of the string cheese got cut up in pieces and pierced with cute animal pics. I did take the time to cut the kiwis into flowers with my handy veggie cutter, and cut the blood oranges into slices for effect. These pictures do not do blood oranges justice; if you have a chance to get some from your local market, do so - the color is just intense and so dramatic! They make the greatest garnish for fruit salads or tarts or any dessert, really.

Dumped in some chocolate covered sunflower seeds and this bento's ready to go!

I will say that being creative takes some pre-thought, I couldn't come up with these ideas in just 5-10 minutes. I sort of sleepily think about it while I'm brushing my teeth and doing my morning routine, or I browse the web for ideas. If you have an idea of how you're going to make things cute, that helps make the process much faster. Otherwise I'd just be staring into the fridge like any other morning.