We're Back! Faces Bento and New Bento Schedule

Our vacation was rejuvenating! We had time to reflect, meditate and refresh our creative juices. These last two bento months were a blast, but as we continue, I think it's more important to present to our readers some bentos that can be easily duplicated. 

Each week we'll feature:

• one cute bento
• one adult bento
• our review on a bento product, technique, or website that we find inspiring, awesome, or helpful 

As always, please feel free to comment or provide suggestions on what you'd like to see or what you'd like to know. Thanks!

Today's bento features our fresh Southern California produce - we're hitting the beginning of stone fruit season and that means lots of peaches, plums, apricots, cherries, etc. at the farmer's market! It's difficult to cut up stone fruit, especially cherries, without totally damaging them, so I settled for making some cute faces, using my nori face punches, on the apricot and Rainier cherries (my favorite!). I also cut some "hair" out of a fruit roll up for the apricot. On the side, we have some sugar snap peas and some homemade jalapeno-spiced pickles to go with the ham, cheese and mustard sandwich. 

Close up of the apricot face:

I forgot to put lettuce in the sandwich, so to add some color I used my silicone grass. It ended up looking cute!

Under The Sea Bento Box Lunch with a Crab Sandwich and Seastars/Starfish

Mike and I are vacationing soon and are excited to see all things ocean-y. Following that theme, I decided to make him a crab sandwich today, with sea star accompaniments. Our crab sandwich is on one of Yamasaki's (local Japanese bakery) delicious butter rolls, with ham and cheese (no actual crab). His legs and claws are made of carrot, and his eyes are provolone cheese with carrot centers. 

I have to mention that we've been getting ham from the charcuterie counter at Whole Foods, and they make it in-house. It is absolutely delicious and the pigs are ethically raised on an organic diet, which is important to us. It was only a couple dollars more per pound than the local grocery store deli, and totally worth it!

As an accompaniment to the sandwich, I have Korean melon that I cubed, topped with blackberries and a piece of starfruit. Korean melon has a yellow, striped outside, is about the size of a large coffee mug, and smells delicious. Tastes sort of like a crunchy cantaloupe. I linked a good description and pics above if you'd like more information. Starfruit is something I get to eat all the time when I travel to Hawaii or Hong Kong, but not so much here in the States. I bought some at the local market, but I wasn't impressed with the flavor. Still, it looks beautiful in a bento!

Finally, a bird's eye view of the whole bento put together. The extra treats on the side are "jujubee" star candies from Whole Foods.

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.

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. 

Ham and Cheese Biscuit Bento

For today's bento, I made these little ham and cheese biscuits. I was inspired by this mom's blog; she made them out of the Trader Joe's biscuits (the ones that come in a can in the refrigerated section of your grocery store), and they looked so delicious and simple I just had to try it! I didn't follow her recipe though, I baked mine according to the directions on the can (15-18 minutes in the oven at 350 degrees). 

Basically, you just stuff the biscuit into a muffin tin, push in some fillings and cheese (or whatever you want), and bake it! Easy peesy. They were really yummy and really fast. They didn't quite fit into the bento box, so I cut off the bottom and made them into mini muffin tops! Then I spread the bottoms (which were just plain biscuit) with cream cheese and layered fresh strawberries on them. Threw in some veggies with ranch dressing (dressing is in the cute panda container), two little cheddar flowers, and this bento is set to go!

REVIEW: The strawberries on cream cheese with the biscuit bottoms were not well received, so we won't be trying that again! The ham and cheese was delicious, of course, but too filling. Only a few veggies got eaten. So next time, less carbs, more fiber.