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!

Keeping it Super Simple

It seems like this week has gone on for a month. Whew! We've spent a whole lot of time with doctors this week. A-chan's asthma has gone haywire so we're tackling that day by day. But the pediatric cardiologist that we spent the day with yesterday assured us that A-chan's heart is okay :) Yay!!!!! My little girl didn't bat an eye at the EKG or the ultrasound, in fact she was fascinated and kept asking questions. She was thrilled to get to see her heart on the ultrasound monitor and said the whole experience was very cool.

Today's bento is super simple simply because I haven't had time to get to the grocery store this week and am just using up whatever we had leftover from last week. The terrible truth is that I have no provolone. How did I let my bento supply run out?! I don't think that I had realized how much I rely upon cheese slices as a staple in our bentos until yesterday when I had none :)

In the bento: Garlic basil couscous with diagonal lines of green peas, baby tomatoes with cheese blocks on Pokemon picks, a huge pickle that is mostly covered up by other things, an apple bunny, two carrot stars and two spears of baby corn.

Three Little Pigs

Rice is such a wonderful food. We love rice so much that we typically buy it in 20 lb bags. You can do so much with it, including color it pink and shape it into piggie heads! These aren't the 3 little pigs of the famous story however, they are a mama and papa and baby.

In the bento: pink rice onigiri, lemon slices, a veggie stirfry on a bread bowl, raspberries, and a pick of cheese cubes.

The piggy faces noses and ears are made from soy turkey, eyes are made from provolone and nori. I used the bread as a bowl under the stir fry veggies to catch all the sauce underneath and prevent the sauce from getting onto the fruit and cheese. That seemed to work pretty well but I think it confused A-chan :)

Horribly busy day ahead and I'm already running about an hour behind - I must run and try to catch up!

Wisteria and Butterflies

A-chan does not often specifically ask for a theme or a character in her bentos, but for this one she requested butterflies. With the arrival of spring she has been waiting with as much patience as a six year old can muster for the beautiful array of butterflies that normally swarm our yard. My favorite spring flower is Wisteria (technically a flowering vine, I guess). I love the graceful drapes of purple that remind me of Fairy bowers. I tried to combine both of these things in a bento, but I'm not pleased with the Wisteria at all. That just means I get to try it again, right?

This past Saturday was summer camp registration. What I thought would be a 30 minute trip to sign A-chan up for camps turned into an ordeal of many hours. It wasn't all bad, though - while we waited in the never ending line I got to meet several very nice ladies. I enjoyed chatting with them a lot! Even though the sign up process is extremely tedious, it's worth it because our county has some great camp themes. We managed to get A-chan signed up for the Star Wars gymnastics camp (she is so excited about it!). The Fairies, Elves and Dragons Art camp that she wanted was all full up so we're on a waiting list.

In the bento: Spaghetti noodles that have been cut into small sections for ease of eating, purple potato wisteria, butterflies cut from bread slices, a large piece of broccoli on a pick (inspired by Happy Little Bento), baby corn, baby carrots, raspberries, another butterfly cut from soy turkey and some tiny purple potato flowers.

The wisteria was cut out of thin slices of purple potato using a petal shaped cutter. A different cutter style might have gotten the look that I want, but it was already done so I just went with it :) The bread butterflies were cut using a tiny butterfly cutter after I rolled the bread slice flat. The broccoli 'tree' is something that I have seen several times over at Sherimiya's blog, Happy Little Bento. Every time I see it in one of her bentos I want to use it in mine, it's such a nifty and creative use for this pick!