Balloons Bento

This is the first time that I had an excuse to use my new picnic bento - a humongous 3-tier box that I bought to make a full family picnic easier to pack and to carry. I wasn't expecting it to be quite so big and I had some trouble finding enough food to fill it up! But I absolutely love the huge expanse of rice for making pictures on, and the ease of carrying just one bento instead of three while we hike out to a good picnic spot.

Summer Soba noodles with cucumber, carrot and onion cubes, black sesame seeds & a cherry tomato flower, sauce on the side in little bottles. (Recipe here )

Steamed baby corn, bunches of grapes, carrot flowers, steamed broccoli, mangosteen in the blue cup (canned but yummy), bamboo skewers of baby corn flowers and black olives, more steamed broccoli, Parmesan not-chicken strips, lemon slices, cherry tomato.

Jasmine rice canvas with cheese bunny (she kind of melted a bit cause I put her in before the rice was fully cooled - I'll know better next time!) with origami face and sugar star hairbow, soba noodle balloon strings, lemon peel balloon, tomato peel balloon, cucumber balloon.

Here is the box all wrapped up and ready to go. It did not come with anything to close it so I used an old Kumihimo cord that I had made a while back. It's only a cotton one and not a proper silk cord, but it worked very well to hold the box closed and made it easy to carry.