Cute cute teddy bears

Here is another bento from the deep dark backlog files from the end of the school year. A-chan has been going to summer camp (Star Wars gymnastic camp - how awesome is that?) this week so now I'm starting to get a backlog of summer bentos as well! I need more hours in a day, lol. To explain my continued turtle pace of posting and not tweeting (how I miss twitter!) - in addition to my normal work load I'm transitioning to teaching dance class in a new studio where all the details are handled by me instead of the front office. I've also added a third class per week which is great! And my students are preparing for their student recital which is happening next week. We're in the midst of sewing like crazy, rehearsing like crazy and just being crazy in general. It's all good stuff but it's taking up a lot more of my time and I can't obsess over bentos as much. *cry* But soon I'll figure out how to balance all this new stuff and the recital will be over and I'll have a little bit more 'free' time, yay!

Anyway, back to bento stuff :) In the bento: Two peanut butter and sugar sprinkle sandwiches with teddy bear faces on top and a corn croquette between, a babybel cheese round, a small bunch of purple grapes and a Tuscany Italian flavored 'rice meatball' and lots of tiny carrot stars.

The teddy bear faces are made with soy turkey, provolone and nori with sriracha cheeks. I used the Thomas part of my Hello Kitty onigiri kit to cut the soy turkey slice and the provolone slice for the heads and then used the nori punch from the kit for the facial features.

To cushion the tiny corn croquette and make sure the sandwiches stayed put I rolled up a little extra piece of lettuce and stuck it in place to keep the three things secure.

A-chan didn't like the rice meatball at all. I'm not sure if that is because it was so different or because she just doesn't really like 'meatballs' in general. It was worth a try though and I was very proud of her for eating half of it to try it out!

Ravioli Girls

For this bento I used a technique inspired by The Cute Food for Kids blog. An exacto knife made it very easy to carve the cooked ravioli, leaving the cheese exposed to make the cute faces! I used black sesame seeds for the eyes and nori for the smiles. I loved the way this turned out.

In the bento: On the left was a bed of Jasmine rice sprinkled with black sesame seeds, three cheese ravioli girls and a few tiny red cabbage flowers. To the right was a container of corn with a red cabbage flower and cut lettuce leaves, two soy sausage links, steamed broccoli and 3 tomato and cheese picks.

Another thing that I liked about this bento was being able to use the cow-head shaped container. It's extremely difficult for me to find ways to use that particular container, believe it or not!

OMG kitties!

I apologize for the double post of the Turtle bento! I'm not sure exactly how it happened. The first one disappeared so I did a re-post. Today was the first day that the original post actually appeared for me, it's bizarre.

To everyone who came to the site recently, followed or commented - Thank you!! I love to get feedback and reading all of your comments brightens up my day! Some of you already know that I am doing a give-away at the end of next week in appreciation of all of you. If you are a follower or comment on any post during the last week and continuing into next, you will be entered into the hat for the give-away. It's not a very big thing, but I wanted to do something, especially since I've been so busy and not been posting recently. One person will receive a Zoony bento box from Bento & Co. and another will receive a Bento Donburi!

In the bento: Three cheese and mayo sandwiches cradled by lots of lettuce with Provolone and nori kitty faces on top. In the second tier is a strawberry pudding with a provolone kitty paw print, plum slices, a baby tomato, black olives on a pick and a container with carrot ribbons.

Now that we're done traveling for a couple of weeks (we went to San Francisco, L.A., back to SF, home to Georgia and then spent most of last week in Atlanta, whew!) I'm going to have time to start working on the bento backlog again and posting more! Thanks for hanging in there and not getting too irate with my lack of posts recently :D

Box Turtle Bento

This bento was in honor of the box turtle that we found next to our recycling bin a couple of weeks ago. We kept her for two days and learned a lot about box turtles, including the fact that they are actually very good climbers! Then we released her back into the wilderness near where we found her. It was an incredible experience.

In the bento: Turtle shaped onigiri, sauteed tofu, tiny carrot flowers, grapes, black olives and an apple piece with a carved heart.

The designs on the turtle's shell were made from nori and soy turkey.

Box Turtle

Well, this little guy doesn't really look like a box turtle but I tried! It was in honor of the box turtle that we found next to our recycling bin a couple of weeks ago. We kept her for 2 days while we learned all about box turtles and then put her back where we had found her. It was a marvelous experience! The most surprising thing to us was how good she was at climbing out of boxes.

In the bento: Turtle onigiri, tiny carrot flowers, sauteed tofu, black olives, grapes and a piece of apple with a heart.

The back of the turtle was decorated with nori and soy turkey. I used soy turkey and a black sesame seed for the eye.

Flowery Pancakes

Here is another very simple bento - I am really loving the pancake flowers! They are quick, they are easy and they are pretty. The longest part of this bento was waiting for the oven to heat up enough to cook the miniature frozen pancakes.

In the bento: A small bowl of grape halves and frozen blueberries, three soy sausage links, several miniature pancake flowers.

The flowers were cut from provolone cheese with my nifty daisy cutter. The pink centers were cut from candy drops with a tiny flower cutter.

Not shown in the picture was a container of strawberry flavored icing to eat with the pancakes. Even after a full year (maybe it's been even longer than that, I can't remember), I am still amazed at how much she likes the icing on the pancakes. The amount that fits into the teeny monkey container is very, very little - but it makes her happy!

Leafing out sandwich

Wow, I can't believe how long it's been since I posted last! Life got a bit difficult for a while there and I was having trouble keeping a balance. There was so much going on that I never had time to get online and post :( But things are slowly returning to normal and I've got a huge backlog of bentos to work through, lol.

This bento was all about the trees going all leafy for spring. I was very pleased with how the sammie turned out! A-chan has finally decided that Mac'n'cheese is actually edible (thank goodness!) so I put a huge mess of it in this bento to celebrate.

In the bento: Top - leaf sandwich with peanut butter and sugar sprinkles, blackberries, carrot flowers, and a container of pickle slices. There is another, less decorative, sammie hidden underneath the leaf. Bottom - Tons of Mac'n'cheese spirals with a lovely black olive on top.

The inside of the leaf was cut out using an exacto knife. It was easier than I was expecting and the dark green sprinkles really look nice! Notice how I cheated on red in this bento? (Hint - the only red is the baran flower...)

In the past few weeks we have survived a lot and I'm very thankful that we made it through. I've missed seeing everyone's bentos very much and am looking forward to getting back in the bento groove!