Frozen T-day Leftovers Bento

Getting into the swing of Christmas with Thanksgiving leftovers.  Cinnamoroll is made from a veggie sausage roll that was leftover on T-day and frozen for use in bentos.  There is also sweet potato casserole and corn on the cob that were frozen.  I love using pomegranate for holly berries.  It's one of my favorite things about Pomegranate besides the yum factor.

In the bento: Veggie sausage roll, carrot slices, cucumber slices and holly leaves, pomegranate seeds, sweet potato casserole, a checkered apple, carrot flowers and corn on the cob.

Cinnamoroll's ears were cut from Provolone cheese.  Her eyes and mouth were nori and her checks were cut from pieces of gari.

Underneath the bento is one of the cloth napkins that we tie dyed for Thanksgiving dinner.  (It's a tradition to make cloth napkins for T-day every year!)  There are also some chestnuts on the side.  I haven't been brave enough to try and cook them yet, so for now they are just being decorative.  The lady at the grocery store was scandalized that I only bought 3 of them.  She gave me a good ten minute lecture on how to cook them and made me promise to buy more next time.  (Apparently they take a loooong time to cook and it's a waste of effort to only cook 3.  Now I know!)

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.

Caterpillar

Have you ever typed or written a word and had it look completely wrong even though you're sure you know how to spell it?  That happened with 'Caterpillar' today.  This cute guy was inspired by a caterpillar in the Yum-Yum Bento Box book.  It was just so cute!  Plus, A-chan is obsessed with caterpillars right now.  She has to stop and pet them and save them if they are in danger of being trod upon.

In the bento: Four plain rice balls, fried tofu, grapes, a cherry tomato, checkerboard cucumber slices, a tiny lemon wedge, an orange slice, and baby corn flowers.

For the caterpillar's face I used nori for the eyes and mouth, lemon peel for the nose and gari (pickled ginger) for the cheeks.  White sesame seeds help decorate the eyes and black sesame seeds decorate the body.  The baby corn flowers have cucumber peel leaves and orange peel centers.

I should have remembered to cut the cherry tomato in two in order to avoid potential eye injuries, but I totally forgot!  I'll just have to keep my fingers crossed.

Nice and Simple

One of my bentos, woohoo!  It's not nearly as cute as the ones that I make for A-chan, but it's still delicious.  I love that I look forward to eating lunch.  This one is very simple with only 5 ingredients and took about 7 minutes to make.

In the bento: Rice with pickled ginger shreds and radish sprouts on top, a huge cherry tomato, sugar snap peas, orange slices and Morningstar Farms Chik'n Strips.

The rice was already cooked and in the fridge, it just needed a minute in the microwave to warm it up.  The Chik'n strips were lightly sauteed in a little olive oil and garlic.