Monster High Bento

A-chan's 9th birthday was this past weekend.  I can't believe she's 9!  How did she suddenly become so grown up?  Her birthday party theme was Monster High which she loves.  She's also dressing up as a Monster High character for Halloween.  So we went all out with Monster High everything, including a bento.  My girl even made her own birthday cake this year (with a little help from a great friend) which was, of course, a Monster High cake.  I am so proud of her.

In the bento: Rice, veggie hotdogs, steamed broccoli, baby corn, grapes and a strawberry.

The Skullette was cut from nori, provolone cheese and pink egg sheet.  The letters were cut from American cheese.  I wanted to do a more complicated birthday bento, but kept it simple so that I could also work on making her school birthday treat.

For her school party this year she decided on a healthier approach to treats instead of cupcakes.  I absolutely loved doing the rainbow fruit skewers!  Not only was it fun but man was it easier than making 32 cupcakes.

She did a great job with her cake!

Birthday Bento!

Yesterday was my birthday.  I am old.  So old.  Don't get me wrong, though.  I am happy to be the age that I am and enjoying every minute!  A-chan used my new age to help her choose things all day long.  Can't decide which kind of candy to buy?  Just count them until you get to Mommy's age.  This was a great reminder of how much energy I don't have now that I'm so old.  Grocery shopping took way longer using this method, lol.

Even though I didn't have to go anywhere I decided to make myself a bento anyway, just to enjoy it.   I used one of my favorite boxes that I haven't gotten to use much recently.

In the bento: Tier 1 held carrot ribbons, quick cucumber pickles, potato salad, a lemon wedge and strawberries.  Tier 2 had green rice with black sesame seeds.  The largest tier contained strawberries, lemon wedges, soy turkey and cream cheese rolls, more carrot ribbons and three veggie gyoza.

It was a lovely day and I wish that it had lasted a lot longer than 24 hours.

A Birthday Bento

Tomorrow is my little girl's Eighth birthday.   The first week of her life was in the hospital and the second week was in a hotel because I couldn't climb the stairs to get into our house because I had a broken ankle and a c-section!  She was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.  She still is and I am so very lucky to have her in my life.

Today was pizza day at school so I made her a fruit bento to go with it.  It needed to be simple because I had a huge job ahead of me in order to make her class cupcakes.  Apparently she'd been telling everyone at school that her cupcakes would be 'amazing', lol.  I hope that they lived up to the expectations!

In the bento: Orange slices, kiwi slices, an apple circle with a wobbly 8 cut out, pear chunks and blackberries.

Here is a shot of the school cupcakes.  They were red velvet cupcakes inside jack o'lanterns carved from oranges with almond-butter frosting and chocolate stems.  I made a huge mess of the kitchen making all 36 of them!  The extra special bonus was the 3 liters of fresh squeezed orange juice that came from making the lanterns.

The idea for these came from something I'd seen when trying to find heart healthy Halloween foods for  the Cardiac Rehab program that I'm volunteering for this semester.  The original was a jack'o'lantern fruit cup.  My decision to change it into cupcakes might have inadvertently created the messiest cupcakes known to humanity.

Birthday Treat and Review

Ahhh, the beauty of lunch is mine!  I bought myself a 'Bento Colors' box from Bento & Co. for my birthday. I might not have needed an excuse to buy a new bento box but a birthday is a good one.  For a long time I have passionately wanted one of these sleek boxes but kept putting it off because I didn't make many bento lunches for myself.  That's changing with my new schedule and going back to school!

At first I wasn't sure what to do with three entire tiers.  Filling three tiers required a new way of planning.  In actuality it wasn't difficult at all and I was amazed at how much food fit into this box even though it is relatively skinny.  The tier on the far right is deeper than the other two.  I was delighted to be able to fit the huge cherry tomato in without having to cut it and it fit absolutely perfectly into the rounded end.  The lids were a bit different from any of my other bento boxes, but I was very happy with the way that they fit and I felt that they made a good, solid seal.

In the bento:  The left tier held Fuji apple slices, steamed broccoli, steamed edamame, two cherry halves, two tiny homemade vegetarian meatballs and a lemon wedge.  The middle tier is stuffed with rice and topped with a sprinkling of homemade furikake.  The right tier had a huge cherry tomato, potato salad with edamame and mustard seeds, steamed squash and two carrot flowers on a bed of purple cabbage.

Purple is my favorite color.  You'd be surprised at how difficult it is to find purple bento boxes!  Now you know why I coveted this one...   The three boxes slide into the outer case very easily with guides on the inside to help.  It also closes completely with little effort and fit into almost all of my bento bags.  (Yes, I had to try it in all of them, just to see.)  Opening it is also pretty easy although I had to use the thumb of my left hand on one side and the right hand on the other.  My hands simply were not large enough to grasp the end and remove it in one fell swoop.

Overall I am just as delighted with the 'Bento Colors' box as I had hoped to be.  While having an extra tier was intimidating at first, I have since fallen head over heels for the extra space.  I loved carrying it and found that I didn't obsess about it falling over like I have done with other boxes.  The elegant case is just perfect and beautifully streamlined.  The only drawback was that my camera didn't want to take a good picture of the case - it was simply too reflective!  I had to put the elephant in front to give the camera something to focus on in order to get a relatively decent picture.

Butterflies and Tulips

Yesterday was my birthday.  It was a wonderful day and I enjoyed every moment!  My birthday present to myself was a new bento box from Bento & Co. which I can't wait to try out.  Expect an excited post with a review tomorrow.  This bento was quick and easy to put together except for the black sesame seeds which were not nearly as simple as I expected.

In the bento:  Rice with egg sheet butterflies and carrot tulips, a container of sauteed tofu, sesame carrots, pomegranates, blueberries, grapes, and plums.

The small flowers were cut from egg sheet and plum peel and the leaves were cut from spinach with scissors.  Since I've also been going to school I have been making bentos for myself.  Here is my first umeboshi bento!

In the bento: Rice, homemade vegetarian meatballs with carrot stars, clementine wedge, steamed green beans, Japanese sweet potato slices, grapes and a container of squash and green peas.  Instead of my usual lettuce baran I used folded over spinach leaves.

Birthday Strawberries

Strawberries & more mochi/daifuku!

This platter was to go with the Caterpillar one to have instead of cake. Not shown are little cups of cool whip for people to dip the fruit into and then into a colorful sugar mix. That was awesomely delicious. My nori decorations were...interesting...lol. All of the foreign treats were a big hit with my family who are notorious for not trying anything new. However, my aunt did keep referring to them as UFOs. A-chan ate about 6 or 7 of them all by herself and just as many strawberries. The best thing about having these instead of cake is that there were none left over! I bought according to the number of guests and they all got eaten. We weren't forced (haha) to eat leftover cake for several days.

Birthday Caterpillars

Caterpillars for A-chan's birthday!

Instead of a cake we had orange, melon & strawberry daifuku (I have no idea what the plural is for daifuku...). Strawberry mochi are my daughter's absolute favorite sweet (which inspired her blog www.strawberrymochichan.blogspot.com)

They rest upon a bed of dried coconut shreds, have nori faces, green bean legs and green bean antennae. Inside the Totoro bento box is blueberries with sugar & colored sugar crystals to dip them into after they've been dipped in cool whip, yum!!