American Bento

02 October 2009 @ 10:27 am

Week 4
Putting out a little love:

Top tier: broccoli, tamagoyaki with carrot centers, corn with carrot hearts, grape tomato, fruit salad.
Bottom tier: mac n' cheese with mixed vegetables, wheat bread hearts, and l-o-v-e carrots.

My kids love when I use letters. Doesn't matter too much what it says.

What's mine is mine:

Top tier: Tofu and cheese melt sandwich molded with a Thomas the Tank engine mold. Romaine lettuce salad, star cucumbers, bread sticks, strawberry, and grapes.
Bottom tier. Strawberry rice, carrot letters, and a couple of nori stars.

I prefer not to display my son's name on the internet, so I blacked it out. He and his sister were quite thrilled with this simplistic bento. The bad quality of the picture unfortantly makes the rice look a bit unappetizing, but it's actually a very beautiful pink/red color, and tastes really good. My kids absolutely love strawberry rice. Makes a good onigiri as well. I use romaine lettuce or spinach leaves as opposed to iceburg lettuce because they hold up to warm temperatures better.

Week 5
Goofing Off:

Top tier: Romaine lettuce, curry-flavored onigiri with nori hair and face, tofu and cheese sandwich, monteryjack cheese stripes, red pepper bowtie, carrot stick legs, grape tomato feet, cucumber arms
Bottom tier: vegetable and rice spinach tortilla rolls, black beans, strawberry, and green grapes

I had this idea for a while, but thought it out a few weeks before getting up the gumption to try it. Only thing I regretted was the cucumber arms, which look kind of odd, but I didn't have time to change it. Ah well, I like how it turned out.

For the Love of Fishing:

Wheat spagetti noodles, cheese bunny with nori mouth and eyes and carrot shirt, red pepper heart (hard to see) broccoli stem fishing pole with a noodle line. Broccoli, car egg shaped with a mold, edamame, cucumber stars, grape tomato, and a carrot stick

I was feeling creative this week I guess.^^ Another best one. Single tiers are so much easier to decorate in my opinion, but my son's is now too small for him, so I don't use it much anymore. I have to pack a lot of extras when using this box.

Retro: In Fours

Cheese sandwiches, greenbeans, cucumbers, pizza rolls, strawberry, blueberries, 2 orange slices, and animal crackers.

I don't really have a comment for this one. lol. A little bit different for sure.

Tags: bento

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24 September 2009 @ 02:24 pm

Weeks 1-3

After starting this blog and posting in it only once :/ , I'm finally restarting with a whole new school year. I'll be posting the week's highlights (or lack thereof). I do highly regret that my good camera broke, so I'm very sorry as to the quality of these pictures. I actually had to take them into photoshop and brighten them up so you could see them at all. New camera for christmas? *hint* *hint*

I'll also be posting retro pics, as in past bentos, that I had intended to post but never did.

My kids tend to prefer things very plain, so a lot of these bentos will reflect that. But that doesn't mean you can't take some ideas from here and make them your own. Particularly the vegetarians out there. Fyi, my kids do eat eggs and milk, so they are not true vegetarians. You will also see a lack of nuts and peanut butter in these recent bentos. Thats because one of my children's classmates is highly alergic. Not happy, but what can you do? I don't want to put the child in danger.

Week 1 & 2
Unfortunately my poor camera wasn't even working at all these weeks, much to my dismay. I made a couple of really cute ones coming out of the gate. The highlight would be the tugboat scene. It had a background of rice colored dark purple with blueberries, nori water, the tugboat made from monteryjack and cheddar cheeses, monteryjack smoke, rocky shore made from kidney beans, and a light house made from monteryjack cheese, nori windows, and egg light beams. One of the coolest ones I ever made.

Retro pic: Hello World

For my daughter's first day at kindergarten. Well, the bottom tier. One of my early ones for sure. You can tell by the lack of packing. lol. I squished the rice around so much it started to turn pasty!

Week 3
Flower? or Bird claw?

Intended to be a flower, and looked more like one in person. The date is inaccurate. :/ Top tier: Cheese sandwich, broccoli, grape tomato, raisins, tamagoyaki, carrots, and lima beans on flag picks. Bottom tier: 2 more cheese sandwiches. Yamaimo soba noodles with soy sauce, carrots, lentils, and nori. Flower made from red pepper and broccoli stems.

Mac n' Mary Music

Top tier: eggs with yolk shaped like a heart and a flower. broccoli, peas, carrots, cheese hearts, fruit salad. Bottom tier: cheese sandwiches, mac n' cheese, monteryjack cheese girl with cheddar cheese bow, broccoli flute, and nori music notes (My son's was minus the bow). The eggs were made with a mold I imported from Japan.

Tags: bento