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.

Easter Egg Bento

This morning I wanted to do something with Easter egg shapes, but my oval cutter is pretty small. So instead, I made mini tuna salad stuffed pitas, and decorated the tops with Easter eggs made from provolone cheese. One has cheddar polka dots (I think one dot fell off in this pic, whoops!) and the other has fruit roll up stripes. They came out really cute and I made very good use of all my fun silicone grass/leaves! If you put the tuna salad on lettuce or on the silicone grass directly, this lunch would be carb-less and gluten free. 

The rest of the box was a lesson in "speed" bento-ing - chopped up some extra celery leftovers from the tuna salad, put in a little container of peanut butter, and threw in pistachios and roasted plantain chips. Lots of protein, crunch, and healthiness today! If you have a little kid, you may want to invest in the tiny containers that have lids, for things like ranch dressing, peanut butter, etc. Luckily, I have a big kid who will transport this bento box safely to work.

As a side note, this bento took me 30 minutes this morning because I had to make the tuna salad (mayo, celery, relish, cilantro, pepper) from scratch. If I had made it last night, this bento would have taken me 10-15 minutes (the eggs took a little bit). If I had made the decorations last night, this bento would have taken 5 minutes or less! Prepping is key!

REVIEW: Not enough food! Which is weird because this is the large bento box. And, the mini pitas are not very good when cold. I've taken some myself, for lunch, and they are a little dry. Next time, we'll put the tuna separate so Mike can use the toaster at work for the pitas, or we'll just pair the tuna with crackers. 

Quick and Speedy Bento with Quail Egg Faces!

I didn't have the energy last night to prep anything for our bento lunches today, so I knew it would be a fun challenge this morning to pull something together! This is where all that prepping on Monday and Tuesday came in handy. I still had a smidgen of leftover tuna salad, peeled quail eggs, and a few pieces of fruit. All I did this morning was punch out some faces from soy paper with my handy new face punches, cut up a fruit snack (for the flowers), and cut up a kiwi and a banana (I rub whatever citrus-y fruit I have all over bananas, apples and pears to keep them from turning brown/oxidizing). It took me about 10 minutes to cut and assemble everything. You could also easily make this carb-less or gluten free by substituting vegetables for the crackers:

Plenty of protein and fruit, and a nice variety of snack-y things. I hope he likes it! 

p.s. our kiwis look a little different because they are "old vine" kiwis. They grow sort of in a fan shape and they are enormous - the size of 2-3 regular sized kiwis! Grocery stores won't sell them because they aren't "normal." So we get organic, giant sized, local grown kiwis at our farmer's market for 3/$1.00! 

REVIEW: Mike loved this bento and ate everything except one cracker and the blood oranges. They were admittedly a little tart. If you want to sweeten up tart fruit, you can use caster sugar, which can be found in most specialty baking stores or restaurant/catering supply stores. It is a super fine sugar that dissolves in seconds, even on cold things. Just a tiny pinch can give a boost to a fruit salad.

Daylight Savings Bento

Since an hour of sleep was stolen from me this weekend, I made sure to prep things on Sunday for bentos today. It's hard to get out of bed when it's still dark! Even my pictures are a little darker, unfortunately.

I cut up kiwis, green grapes and blood oranges, marinated some sugar plum tomatoes with fresh mozzarella balls, made tuna salad, and rolled up some ham/muenster cheese in a tortilla with mayo/mustard. 

Today I made two bento boxes, one for Mike and one for another coworker's birthday. I know I said I wouldn't make different things for everyone again...I did make these just slightly different:

Mike's bento has a half tuna sandwich on squaw bread (it's a delicious, slightly sweet dark bread from The Bread Man at the Hollywood Farmer's Market), rosemary ham/cheese roll ups, Trader Joe's baked cheese crunchies, and on the right, cut up string cheese, kiwis, blood oranges/green grapes, and a few Bunny Gummies and Friends (these all natural gummy candies from Trader Joe's). 

I am using lots of these new bento toys I found this weekend at Daiso Japan - the Japanese version of a dollar store. I got 6 silicon flower cups and 6 silicon square cups for $3.00! And the silicon "grass" that you normally see on sushi trays was only $1.50 and totally reusable, which I like. There's tons of paper/foil/plastic disposable things for bento boxes, but I try to minimize my trash in the world, so I really love these reusable dividers.

My coworker's bento has fruit salad on the side, tomato/mozzarella balls (under the parsley leaf) with crackers on the side, a few ham and cheese roll ups and an open faced cucumber/dill cream cheese/squaw bread heart sandwich. I also found a bunch of kumquat bushes outside a strip mall this weekend and plucked some! The kumquats add a nice color pop around the heart sandwich. Plus, it is important to try and fill gaps around the food, so there is not too much movement during transport.

The bento heart sandwich looks like it took a lot of time, but it's not that bad. I just cut up the cucumber nice and thin (you can do this quickly with a mandoline or any small, sharp knife) and laid it down overlapping each other on half a paper towel (to soak up extra moisture). Next, I cut the heart out of the bread and spread it with cream cheese. I used the exact same heart cutter to cut the cucumbers and removed all the excess cucumber around the edges. At this point you just fold the rest of the paper towel over the heart and flip it over. Open the paper towel, put your heart bread on top and flip it back, and voila!  

REVIEW: Mike loved everything in his lunch but the baked cheese crunchies were still stale, even though I put them into the box in the morning. We probably won't use them again in bentos, which is fine because they're not really that healthy anyway, and I'm pretty sure they use GMO corn, even if all the products in it are "natural." The crackers in my coworkers lunch stayed fresh and crispy, even after sitting all morning in the fridge at work. I have been making a habit of putting things that should be crunchy into the boxes in the morning, rather than prepping everything the night before.