Polar Bear

What does a Polar Bear do on Summer vacation?  I think he would go to Antarctica for vacation.  Until we got our air conditioner repaired yesterday I was starting to day dream about traveling there myself!  This is another tightly packed summer camp bento, but I wanted it to be a little cuter since it was for the last day of camp.

In the bento: Rice, sesame carrots, grapes, cherry tomato halves, steamed broccoli, soy sauce tofu and peach slices.

The Happy Bear's features were punched from nori.  His snout (or should that be muzzle) is an oval of provolone cheese with nori on top.  He also has tiny circles of gari for cheeks.

Fried Rice for Camp

Have you ever looked at a word, one that is very familiar, and been totally convinced that you'd spelled it incorrectly?  The word 'summer' went all wonky on me this morning.  It just looked wrong!  Ah, well.  I would attribute it to heat stroke except that it hasn't been very hot at all.

In the bento: Veggie fried rice, a huge cherry tomato, peach slices, grapes, pickled cucumber slices and black olives.

This bento is another one from last week's summer camp which A-chan absolutely adored.  Again, I kept it very simple.  The fried rice has green peas, roughly cut carrots, onions and scrambled tofu mixed into it. I put a little too much soy sauce in the rice as I fried it, so it ended up more brown than normal.  It seemed overkill to put in a soy sauce bottle with her bento, lol.

First Day of Summer Camp

Happy Summer!  We had a great time being lazy and catching up with friends for our first week of summer break.  This week is A-chan's first summer camp of the year at a nearby Nature Center.  Since I was pretty sure that lunches would be jumbled around at camp, I packed her bento very tightly with extra lettuce and kept the cuteness to a minimum.

In the bento: Two miniature homemade vegetarian hamburgers, lemon slices, carrot flowers, two onigiri, steamed broccoli, a cherry tomato and two picks of cheddar cheese.  On the side is a container of ketchup for the hamburgers.

This was an extremely quick bento to put together.  I already had rice made and waiting in the fridge to be microwaved and made into onigiri.  The triangular mold made it easy and speedy.  The mix for the hamburgers was also waiting in the fridge - I formed them into patties and cooked them in a small pan with a tiny bit of sesame oil.

Flatpie is Awesome

It's been a while since I've had a chance to post due to sickness, traveling and homework.  The school year is over and it's finally summer.  We're savoring the weather which is cooler than normal.  Now is a good time to rhapsodize over the glory that is flatpie.  A crisp biscuit crust wrapped around garlic and tarragon seasoned potatoes and onion, topped with melted cheese is one of the best foods on the planet.  I often make them the size of a medium pizza and we eat them in slices with cheese dripping off the sides.  The miniature version is perfect to freeze and keep ready for bentos!

In the bento: Miniature flatpie, blueberries, checkered apple, vegetarian hot dog flowers with green peas, steamed broccoli.  On the side is a container of ketchup for the hot dogs.