Little Witch

Happy Halloween!  Are you ready?  There is one last piece of A-chan's costume to be sewn before I can declare it finished and ready for the evening. Her school costume is that of a Medieval child around 800 AD.  It looked extremely cute!  I adore the fact that her school requested that no one wear scary or grotesque costumes to class. One warning for anyone contemplating a medieval costume - the circular cloak is more than a match for a 5 point car seat.  It took 10 minutes to get her buckled in safely this morning.

For the bento today I wanted to make something that was Halloween themed but also cute.  My mind whirled with images until I finally decided upon this one.  I added some of A-chan's most favorite fruits and had to make her promise to wait until lunch to eat the pomegranate seeds!

In the bento:  Rice, blueberries, pomegranate seeds, carrots stars and jackolantern, steamed broccoli, steamed squash, sauteed tofu with black sesame seeds.

The little witch is primarily made from cheese but her cute green hair is zucchini.  The hat, eyes and nose are nori.  The mouth, red star and collar are all tomato peel.  The results of my morning experiment with tomato peel made me very excited!  I peeled a strip from a cut tomato with a paring knife before scraping the flesh away.  It left a very thin but workable piece that cut easily with scissors.

Twins

A-chan had a wonderful birthday yesterday!  I was amazed and a tad aghast at the amounts of sugar she managed to consume in one 24 hour period.  And it's not even Halloween yet.  This week has been a candy corn extravaganza and to finish it up we have candycorn onigiri twins!  Luckily these candycorn contain no trace of sugar and have some very healthy stuff to go along with them.

In the bento: Candycorn onigiri, raspberries, steamed broccoli, potato ghosts, apple slices and orange slices.

The potato ghosties were pan fried in a little olive oil.  They have black sesame seeds for eyes.  The onigiri have nori faces.  I'm sure that everyone who has tried using punches with nori occasionally runs into the frustration of getting bits and parts that aren't whole.  I've saved up some of my punch 'rejects' and used them for onigiri hair today.

Cupcake Cat

I don't think we've ever been so late to school!  That's okay though, today is A-chan's birthday.  I went a little crazy in saying yes to everything this morning, including blueberry muffins for breakfast and letting her open her present before school.  It is so hard to believe that she is seven years old.  I'll probably be saying that same phrase every year on her birthday, hehe :)

Her bento today is a representation of something that she loves to draw all the time - cupcake cat!  I absolutely adore the things she draws and wanted to do a special birthday bento for her.  My version isn't quite right since I had to miss out on some details due to time constraints.

In the bento:  Confetti rice, cupcake cat, raspberries, carrot heart, edamame on a pick, fried tofu, orange wedges and steamed broccoli.

When we made the candy corn onigiri we had bits of all three colors leftover.  So I combined them all together to make confetti rice!  Cupcake cat is made from provolone cheese, egg sheets, nori and sugar dots with a carrot flower and edamame leaves.

A-chan was very specific regarding cupcakes for her class today.  She wanted orange flavor cupcakes!  I have never before owned a zester and had never used one before last night, but I have quickly fallen in love with my brand new one.  With different colored cake layers and then white icing on top they became candy corn cupcakes!  Each cupcake got a candy corn  with cute faces done with chocolate icing.  Here's hoping that she likes them when I take them to school this afternoon.

Chili for all

It's time for a change of menus!  I'm craving things that are hearty and made for the lovely fall weather.  Chilly weather is perfect for chili.  Warm and thick, a bit spicy and very filling.  My recipe for vegetarian chili makes a huge batch, leaving tons for leftovers and bentos.  Today's bento is very simple which left me enough time this morning to get ready to make cupcakes for A-chan's birthday tomorrow.  As soon as I dropped her at school it was time for shopping.  I needed a zester and a way to carry 36 cupcakes all by myself and luckily found both! Now I just have to make them all, plus ice them and oh gosh, the 500 other things that have to be done by tomorrow.  Can you say Eeek!

In the bento:  Vegetarian chili with shredded cheese sprinkled on top, raspberries, sugar snap peas, apple bunny, carrot Jack'o'lantern and sauteed zucchini slices.

Hidden underneath the apple bunny are more apple pieces and another carrot pumpkin.  For just a bit of quick cuteness I added a chocolate sweet divider sheet.

One Sided Love

Isn't autumn wonderful?  There is a nice chill in the air this morning, just enough to make us shiver at the first step outdoors.  We haven't quite managed the wardrobe change for the new temperatures yet.  A-chan has grown so much that every morning there is a new discovery of cold-weather clothing that no longer fits!

Today's bento was inspired by the beautiful zucchini that I found at the store last night.  They were a perfect green for froggies!

In the bento: Lots of four cheese ravioli, zucchini froggy faces, carrot flowers, steamed broccoli, a lemon wedge, raspberries, tofu hearts.

The strange shapes left over from cutting heart shapes out of tofu were cooked as well and are hidden underneath the hearts.  The froggy faces were cut out of zucchini with facial features made from provolone cheese, carrot and sesame seeds.  A container with grated parmesan is in the background, ready to be sprinkled over the ravioli.

Jack'o'Lantern Pancakes

Coming in on the heels of a fantastic weekend of taekwondo sparring camp and the first of three birthday parties, this week's forecast includes chaos, panic and incredible amounts of sugar.  Amid the scramble of Birthday preparations, bento lunches are turning out to be a haven of calm and relaxation.  Today's bento contained more sugar than I normally like to put in (With abject apologies to A-chan's teachers today) but I needed something that wouldn't take much brain power to put together.

In the bento: Jack'o'lantern pancake sandwiches with yellow tinted icing, soy sausage links, raspberries, tiny carrot flowers, sugar snap peas and two pan fried potato kitties.

Not only was this bento a snap to put together, it only needed one pan for cooking the veg. sausage, snap peas and potatoes.  I boiled the snap peas in the pan for 3 minutes and removed them with chopsticks.  Into the hot water went the sausage links straight from the freezer.  They got cooked for 5 minutes.  When they came out the pan was dried and then used to lightly fry the potatoes with a tiny bit of olive oil.

The Jack'o'Lantern faces were cut with a fillet knife very, very carefully!  I put a generous dollop of the icing in between so that it would squish through the faces a bit.

A Sweet Surprise

Today is Pizza Friday at school so A-chan took a fruit bento to have alongside it.  The strawberries are completely luscious.  I had a hard time not snacking on all of them while I was packing her bento this morning.  There isn't much color variation in this one - I hadn't realized all the fruits were red/yellow until I got them all out this morning.  However, there are a ton of differing flavors in this box which makes up for the homogeneity of color!

In the bento: Apple bunnies, a lemon slice, strawberries, black plum slices, nectarine chunks, provolone cheese flowers and a surprise in the chick container.

A-chan didn't get to see what's inside the chick, but I'll go ahead and tell - it's candycorn!  Only a few would fit into this tiny and very cute container.  A few is all that she needs, though.  It's rare that we have sugary things in the house, though October is an exception.  Not only is it the month of candycorn (I've mentioned my candycorn obsession before, right?) but it's also A-chan's birthday month and she is having three different birthday parties.  Oh yeah, there's that little Halloween thing too, lol.  Let the sugar festivities begin!

On a side note today's post is my 375th!  Wow!  Luckily Blogger keeps the count or I'd have no idea.  Surely I need to do something when I hit 400.  What kind of thing should I do to celebrate?