Veggie Pizza bento

mmm..veggie pizza is so good

This is made with broccoli, cucumber, carrot, tomato, avocado and cheddar cheese on a crescent roll crust. Yummy.

Macaroni and cheese I made the day before and baked in silicone cups and froze for later use. This is made with a velveeta and cheddar roux.

Hard boiled egg cut with my handy dandy flower egg cutter/slicer.

Apple, tangerine sections and kiwi

New Toys

This is my newest bento, coveted for a couple months and then finally purchased yesterday. Here in Japan there is a store called Off House, a second hand store. I occasionally go in to see what sort of bento supplies they have, because most of the kitchenwares are brand new. (I just don't think I want a second-hand bento..) Most of the time, the boxes are maybe $3 at the most. This particular one was $6.50, it's funny because I wouldn't think twice about spending 3 times that for a nice bento at a retail store, but because this is a second hand store,I thought $6.50 was a bit much..lol . But anyway I finally broke down and bought it yesterday. It has a really cute removable divider in the upper tier. And I really love the design on the lid. And because I got a great deal on another box and bag set for just $1.50(!) it averaged to only $4 a box. Whatever it takes to justify my addiction. Wait, did I say addiction? I meant collection. I am a collector of bentos...and bento accessories..
I bought these yesterday too...I can't resist cute chopsticks!

Easter Bento

Well, this is the best I could attempt at 6:30 am Monday morning...

The rice just wasn't cooperating, it kept falling apart for some reason. We dyed the quail eggs when we colored our easter eggs, they took the dye pretty well. Everything is on a bed of lettuce, and the flowers are hot dogs(Japanese hot dogs, daughter says they "tasted funny" hmm..) She also had half a pb&j and a mikon (tangerine). I am hoping to be a little more creative and a little more pulled together in the future...

Happy Birthday Bento

Today is the daughters big 13 th birthday! Honestly, how did that happen?! So to commerate the occasion, she has received the "crown pancake" bento lunch. This is an idea I saw in one of my bento books. I made 2 pancakes, then filled them with blueberry jam and piped marshmallow fluff on the edge so the crown points would stick to it. To make the crown points, I put the pancake batter (bisquick mix) into a pastry bag with a tip and piped it into the pan, in one long piece. It is pretty pliable when warm, so just curl it around the pancakes, sticking it to the marshmallow fluff(frosting, whipped cream, whatever you have handy..) I put some little "edible bbs" on the points as decoration, and put a 13 on the top in blueberries.

Sausage links, mini hashbrowns and fruit on the side. There is maple syrup in the little container. (as if jam and marshmallow fluff isn't enough sugar)

o o

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H A P P Y B I R T H D A Y K I D !

St. Patrick's Day Bento

This one was made for my husband, since daughter wanted pb&j today. I made the shamrock out of bell pepper hearts, it's sitting on a bed of buttered egg noodles with fresh parsley. Breaded teriyaki chicken breast with carrot flowers. Upper tier contains scotch eggs, steamed broccoli, tomatoes, steamed pork dumplings, and quail eggs fried in bell pepper rings. Husband said it was delicious. :) Happy St. Paddy's Day!

New Gadgets

I just can't seem to resist anything "New!" or cute for bento-making. Here are just a few of the new things I bought yesterday. On the far left are music picks for the daughter(she plays clarinet) In the middle are plastic food dividers in cute fruit shapes, they are shown whole, but they are perforated in the middle so you use a half circle. Then on the right are some new hot dog/mini sausage cutters. I have hot dog cutters already, but these are "New!" and "Cute!" Haha. The yellow one make 2 little penguins, the middle one makes a fish. and the smallest is a crab. Hopefully soon they will make an appearance in an actual bento!

Sugarbunnies Bento

We were running a little behind this morning, so not as much detail as I'd like in this bento. The Sugarbunnies are made of wheat bread with ham and cheese, and nori details, and the other is white bread with pb & banana. The details on this one were painted on with two chocolate pens.

I will eventually redo this one with the detail I wanted :(

Daughter loved it though :)

Bear Bento

This is the first bento I've made for daughter this week, since the darling baby son has been waking up every night at 3 am, I have been too exhausted to make anything too cute in the mornings. I don't understand it, he has been sleeping all night for months, and now decides that 3 am is fussy time!

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O

I made the bears out of onigiri with nori faces, the girl has a little sakura denbu to give her rosy cheeks. The star shaped things are chicken nuggets, oddly enough one of the nuggets was heart shaped. Cheese, strawberries, and hard boiled quail eggs fill the rest of the box. Oh and the koalas are a new flavor, Pancake and Syrup! Bar b q sauce in the kiwi container.

Fox and Hen bento

This is my "fox in the henhouse" bento, made for the daughter. She just loves the little quail "hatchlings". The fox I made using a star shaped onigiri mold with 2 color rice. The orange rice is made by mixing in a packet of powdered coloring/flavoring. The flavor is very subtle, this one is miso. The hens I made using my handy dandy rice cube tool, it makes perfect little cubes, I love it! I added carrot beaks and feet and the eyes are nori. The tomatoes are halved and filled with a slice of mozzarella cheese stick(string cheese is the perfect size for this) and held together with a baby chick pick. What you can't see in this picture is the mini meatballs I added this morning. I was going to add little star shaped chicken nuggets but that just seemed wrong...

Red Bento

This includes sandwiches made of strawberry jam and peanut butter, and jam & cream cheese. Blood oranges, cheeses, and fruit snacks. Note the koalas dressed up as Hina dolls! Although they appeared a day late..

This wasn't meant to be such a monocromatic bento... This is actually the first bento made for the daughter since she criticized my bento obsession last week as being "lame"

(!gasp!)

Note the following picture of what her lunch looked like last week...

she's very sorry she criticized her bentos, I suppose she's forgiven.. ;)

Hello Kitty Bento

This bento is from a couple of weeks ago, made for my daughter. Hello Kitty is made of a molded pudding mix that I bought at the 100 Yen store. Daughter said that it is more of a "fluffy jello" than pudding. She said it was good anyway.. strawberry flavored. The bow is strawberries, and her eyes are blueberry skin. I was too pressed for time to define her whiskers that morning.. sorry kitty-chan! She is surrounded by sliced strawberry, tangerine sections, and fresh blueberries.

Sliced tonkatsu pork on a bed of steamed rice, and shredded cabbage and carrots round out the rest of her lunch.