Quick as a Bunny! Bento Lunch

Today's bento is full of bunnies and bunny burrows. I had to make something fast, so I just cut half a green apple for a shrub/bush, piled in some Annie's Honey Graham Bunnies, cut out two colby jack cheese bunnies, and made a peanut butter and jelly "rabbit hole" using my circle fondant cutter. I squeezed some orange juice on the cut side of the apple to keep it from getting brown. Add some silicone grass and leaves and we're done!

Tropic and Arctic (Bipolar) Bento Box Lunch

I had all the supplies to make penguins today, but I also had strawberries that I wanted to turn into alligators, so I just went with it and made them both! Alligators are tropical and penguins are from the frigid climes of Antarctica, but hey, in a bento they can peacefully coexist. 

My alligators are simple - I just cut strawberries on their sides with little teeth, used pieces of chocolate for their eyes, and put them into a "pool" of greek yogurt.

Close up:

My penguins are made from black olives and mini mozzarella balls, with carrot beaks and feet. I used a piece of pasta to spear them together. Very simple, took me only a few minutes! They are chilling next to a peanut butter and apple jam "iceberg." These would be so cute for a party appetizer. I got the idea from our Pinterest page.

Camping Bento Box...Campfires, Tents and Bears, oh my!

One of our favorite activities in camping, and so when I saw a camping bento online (click here to see it our Pinterest page), it totally inspired me to make my own! 

I used red, orange, and yellow bell peppers to make the flames, celery for the logs, and black olives for the fire circle. Carrot shreds are the heat and embers coming off the fire. Sorry about the crappy picture today, it's gloomy and raining in Southern California, so I had no natural light.

On the right we have "Berry Mountain," complete with little bear friend! 

And a peanut butter and apple jam tent. I used fruit roll ups for the tent outline and opening. 

The full camping bento!

Owl Sandwich Bento Box Snackwith a Stars and Flowers Fruit Salad

Mike only needed a snack today, so I made him a peanut butter and jelly owl friend to take to work. I cut two large eyes out of wheat/oat bread, using a circle cutter, and from the scraps, cut a triangle using a knife. Then I placed them on a piece of bread and used them to determine how to cut the owl face; I just sliced a little off the sides and made little pointy ears. 

Then I slapped on peanut butter, used jelly to affix the eyes and beak, and grabbed two of my fruit roll up circles for his eye balls (I have tons of circles and ovals pre-cut and ready to go). Presto! PB&J owl.

Owl Bento Sandwich made with Peanut Butter and Jelly and Fruit Roll Up Eyes on Wheat Bread

Watermelon Star with Pear and Mango Flower Fruit Salad

I had cut up all the fruit this weekend so it just a matter of arranging it all pretty in the box. A giant watermelon star, with mango and Bartlett pear flowers. Here in Southern California we are on our way into summer already, so there will be lots more fruit available for the bentos! 

Tip: I cut the pears last night and kept them this nice, bright white by tossing them into pineapple juice (pure juice, no added sugar!). I let them soak for a few minutes, then took them out and put them into a glass tupperware. You can use any acidic juice such as lemon or lime, but I like pineapple best. I keep a couple cans of it in the pantry for this purpose. It works great on apples and bananas, too!

REVIEW: Everything got eaten, but the pears were difficult to pick up with animal picks (not pictured). They were a little too ripe. I might try making flowers with apples in the future, since those are much firmer.

Frushi! Otherwise known as Fruit Sushi, with a Bunny Sandwich

We were out of town this past weekend so I apologize for the haphazard postings and missing Friday Review. I will post a review soon on another awesome (or un-awesome) bento product! In the meantime, I have figured out how to get posts to self-publish, so in the future we will have full bento coverage when we're on vacations. Yay!

On Sunday I played around with fru-shi, which is sushi composed entirely of fruit! It is super cute and fun. I made the rice with coconut milk (just substitute the exact same amount of light coconut milk for water in the recipe) and a little bit of sugar (about 2 tablespoons per cup of dry rice). Be sure to use light coconut milk, otherwise your rice will come out way too creamy and it won't stick together properly. You need to make it sticky Asian rice style, not Latin rice style (use a pot, not a pan, and don't use oil).

Next, you just cut up any type of fruit you want, into sticks (to put inside rolls) or into "sashimi" to lay on top of rice, like nigiri. Fruit roll ups make the perfect "nori!" Other helpful tips: use the sharpest knife possible, and wipe it with a damp towel after every cut. Dampen your hands before handling the rice, so that it won't stick (but don't dampen too much because you'll get your fruit roll ups all soggy). Also refrigerate your rice; it's easier to mold when it's cool (opposite of regular rice), due to the creamy texture of the coconut milk.

Frushi would be adorable for an afternoon tea, or as appetizers/desserts. It is also gluten free! My Sunday efforts included pineapple "rolls" and Caracara orange "nigiri":

For this morning's bento I didn't make nigiri, I just did pineapple and orange "sashimi" and mango-coconut rice "rolls." I love that I have silicone grass dividers for the frushi! I'm also trying to do an Easter theme for this week, hence the PB&J cut-out bunny sandwich. 

REVIEW: Everything got eaten, which is always a good thing. I've noticed the times that things don't get eaten is when it's a repeat, or there's not enough variety. So no fruit for tomorrow since there was an overload of fruit today!

Stars and Flowers Bento

I didn't have the energy to prep last night, so this morning I relied on good old peanut butter and jelly. It's Mike's favorite and happens to be the easiest thing to make! Luckily, I still had fruit left over from Sunday's prep, so all I had to throw together was the sandwich and some cheese and crackers. As you can tell, I made great use of the silicon cups today:

For fun, I made three separate PB&J sandwiches on multi-grain bread - two star "stackers," and one cut-out sandwich. These are just two examples of things you can do with bread! Think outside the box and remember you can make them open-faced, shaped (with cookie cutters or even just squares, rectangles, triangles, etc), cut-out, or just plain and decorated or stamped on top. They can be stacked straight up or sideways, too. I love the sideways look. 

On the right, we have Galia melon stars again, a few strawberries, and cheddar flowers with crackers. My vegetable cutters are amazing, I use them for everything! I am a huge fan of the stainless steel cutters over the plastic cookie cutters. You can see how sharp and clear the star is in the sandwich - that's from a stainless steel cutter. 

I packed everything into the small bento box to see if this will be enough food. Usually the big bento box has leftovers.

REVIEW: Mike ate everything and loved this bento, because PB&J plus fruit = favorite! He requested PB&J for every day, but really, that's not very healthy and I would imagine that at some point, you'd get sick of it, and then what would I fall back on when I'm rushed? ;) 

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.

Bento Snack

Mike is coming home from work early today, so I just made him a bento snack. PB&J flower stackers on whole wheat - they're two pieces of bread with PB or J in the middle and the other on the top, pretzels, and a fruit salad with kiwis, pineapple, and strawberry hearts! Obviously this fruit lends itself easily to the heart shape (I swiped these strawberries from my fruit tray at work and brought them home to use in the bento). 

REVIEW: Mike loves PB&J and fruit. Put those two together and we have a winner. Plus this snack had sweet and salty - which is lots of people's favorite taste combo! 

Bento Bear

Last night we had dinner with our neighbor, and managed to get home by 9:30pm. We go to bed at 10pm, and our nighttime routine includes taking care of our fish, frog, 4 cats, and rabbit. So you can imagine I was pressed for time and needed to create a bento that was quick and easy! Here's what I came up with: peanut butter/jelly bear (there's extra jelly under the nose), bear shaped muenster cheese with crackers, a pretzel "nest" with smoked gouda birds, and a salad with ranch (I got these nifty little bottles at the Marukai Market). I put a clementine on top of the box for him to take along, too. I'm not sure if it'll be filling enough for Mike, but it'll tide him over until he gets home. Oh yeah, there's a package of gummy bears hiding under the peanut butter bear, for dessert. 

The bento bear is easy, I used a water glass for the face, then a circle cutter for the rest - the ears were pressed into the remaining bread I had left after making the face, I went right off the face circle, which is why they fit so nicely. The entire bear is about 5 inches across.

REVIEW: This was Mike's favorite meal so far, and he ate all of it. Which is amusing, because it took the least amount of effort. Let that be a lesson to me! To improve the healthy quotient of this lunch in the future, I might try to add a protein/fruit like yogurt with strawberries, or some quail eggs and a fruit salad, and take out one of the carbs (the crackers or the pretzels).