Snowman

I finally managed to make snowman bento this week, after dealing with this and that plus my laziness :D
Let’s see what happened this week : I have kept the boys at home for 2 days due to the snow and icy weather condition. And for the next couple of days I just wasn’t into that bento making mood. I honestly didn’t even plan to make any bento until next year :D
But I am so glad I did it because this is gonna be my last bento for this year, since the boys will be on winter break up till January 3rd. So here they are my simple snowman bentos :

For D I made a snowman from rice, I used black sesame seeds for the mouth, as for the hat, buttons, and face I used fresh cucumber and carrots. The rest are chicken curry with carrots and eggs, and some fresh lettuce.

And for B, since he doesn't really like curry I packed him peanut butter and honey sandwich, I used whole grain white bread but on the picture the snowman did not come out as white as I thought would be. I dressed the snowman with only carrots and cucumber. The rest are some fresh flowered carrots and cucumber and hardboiled egg. I also packed them in a separated container some fresh fruits and pretzel for a snack time (not pictured).

I would have a long break from making bento till next year, so seasons greetings everyone and have a very happy holidays ^.^

Eggs sandwich

I know I know .... The healthiest part of the bread is the crust, and I never cut the crust when the boys have sandwiches at home, But for the love of bento :D I really couldn’t help myself when I saw this bread pocket sandwich maker, I have to get it. And so I got it couple weeks ago together with some other bento gadgets. But I only had a chance to use it last night.

I made some simple egg salads for the sandwich filling and the rest are steamed broccoli, all beef salami and flowered carrots.
Have a good Wednesday everyone ^.^

Crab cake

Too busy to post yesterday's bento, baby still fussy and I have to do some serious cleaning because my in laws will be in town this Friday.

Okay, yesterday bento is very simple like always : crab cake, steamed broccoli, grape tomatoes, cucumber, flowered carrots and fresh kiwis.

Potato and onion pierogies

This is one of the “me being lazy” bento, especially after the weekend I never really wants to cook :P

It takes no time at all to prepare, but being me I still prepared it at night :D and I was right, this morning the temperature was like 19F outside and the boys have left the mittens and jackets in the car overnight, so I have to throw them in the dryer for at least 15 minutes.

Back to the bento, I just boiled the potato and onion pierogies in the microwave then sauted them with EVOO for about 1 minute on each sides. As for the meatballs I just microwaved it until tender. There are also some leftover sauted crimini mushroom packed in a seperated container. The rest are sliced cucumber, fresh strawberries, grape tomatoes and crispy bake Mediterranean herbs snacks. In the morning I decided to pack them some dry roasted edamame for extra snacks (not pictured).

Chicken nuggets

I like to prepare bento at night, that way I have all the time I need to think and decided what’s to pack for the boys lunches. Even so, there are so many nights where I just decided to throw whatever I have in the fridge and not even bother to decorate it :D. Another reason is I do not like doing things in such a hurry, I like to be well prepared and have the bento ready than dealing with the morning chaos. Since not only that I have to get the 2 boys ready but I also still nursing 6 months old baby at the same time. So no matter how early I get up there’ll always something I have to deal with in the morning.

And last night bebe won’t let me be in the kitchen at all, he just kept crying and crying and it starts to bugs me, I don’t like the idea of letting the baby crying until he/she’s falling asleep. So I rushed to finish up the bento and am not quite happy with the result. I think he’s teething that’s why, and that poor bebe will have to get poked this afternoon. OUCH! I know! I don’t like to see his face getting so red crying and screaming. But I have to do this is for his benefit.

Okay I packed the boys some American onigiri and chicken nuggets, I call it American onigiri because I cooked the rice with chicken stock instead of seasoning it with salt, sugar and vinegar. And I filled it with some homemade roasted chicken that we have for dinner the other night. Originally I was gonna make some rice balls, but the size is a little too big because I want to pack them more than one piece. So I used these square onigiri maker that I just got from eBay. Speaking of which I have to mention this ebay store  JstuffSale_dotcom, this is one of my favorite ebay stores, the service is great and many times she give me little extra bento stuff, so I’d recommend any bento-er to visit her store.

Alright back to the bento shall we, there is a star and a heart stamped on top of the rice, I filled the heart one with capelin roe and I meant to fill the star one with a star cucumber to add some color, but as I stated earlier bebe just kept on crying so I decided to cover the empty stamp with flowered carrot. Bad choice! knowing the capelin roe is orange so it's double orange :P Oh well, there are always next time when it comes to bento, right? ^.^

Next to the rice are some omelet, fresh celery stalks and flowered carrots and radish, and some parsley for garnish. On the next tier I had some fresh apples, strawberries and cucumber.

Have a great weekend ^.^

Burgers bento

Coming up with a title is probably more difficult than arranging the bento itself, especially the simple one like todays. Knowing the menu is been already posted several times in the past and I do not want to make the same title. I really have to come up with numbers next time, that would make me easier for sure.
Anyway, the boys were requesting some burgers for dinner last night, too bad I already made them ravioli, so I decided to pack them burger for their lunches today.

I topped the burger with some american cheese, shaped it with regular elephant cookie cutter that I got from michaels. The rest are some fresh cucumber, carrots, grape tomatoes, strawberries, sweet corn and ketchup packed in a little monkey container. Oops! almost forgot to mention I used whole wheat hotdog bun, and as always I only use 1/3 of it.

Wednesday's bento

Guess what? turned out I am not the only one who came on Monday morning :D there at least 2 other moms came too. And when we found out we just could not help to laugh at our absent minds LOL.

Anyway, this morning I packed the boys some simple sandwiches *again* ^o^, ..... I know after a while it always returning back to the same O same O menu. In fact I am having a hard time giving the title for this post. I guess in the future I’ll start to use numbers instead.

It’s been a while I am not packing D his favorite tuna sandwich, to tell the truth I am a little scared about the mercury thingy issues even though most of the time I choose to pick some wild canned tuna at the organic section. But I guess being a mother you just could not help to worry about anything when it comes to your children.

Alright, as you can see from the pictures I used whole wheat bread for the sandwiches, so the raffle is not really shown as if I use white bread. I also tried to make some flower bowls from hardboiled eggs, but my fruit baller is no where to be found, so I ended up using a measurement spoon that has a round shaped closed enough to the baller. I know the result is not as perfect as the one that Lia Chen’s made. But I’ll keep on practicing ^.~

I put tuna filling on the egg bowl for D, there are also some smocked roasted chicken breast that I meant to make it looks like a flower like but the slices were too thin so it didn't came out as I thougt it would. The rests are some fresh celery stalks, carrot sticks, baby Roma tomato and some light ranch packed in the separate mini sauce containers.

As for B, since he's not as crazy as D on tuna so I prepared aome peanut butter sandwich instead. I also put some sweet corns in the egg bowl, and teriyaki meatball. The rests are just the same with the one I made for D.

Back to schooll

Yesterday morning I got up early and for some reasons my mind kept telling me that the school is started on Monday December 1st. So I had the boys ready and drove them to school but when we arrived at school there’s nobody there! So I went back home then checked the calendar and realized that yesterday was November 30 (Thanksgiving break is November 25-30). I felt like a dummy and had a “wanna get away” moment for a while and just laugh at myself  :D The boys were dissapointed though because monday is the library day, meaning they will miss going to the library this week.

Anyway, for today’s bento I packed the boys some Indonesian beef croquettes that I made with them
yesterday (to cheer them up). The rests are fresh cucumber, sweet baby Roma tomato, flowered carrots, half of star shaped hardboiled egg with some carrots face. I also included some fresh Fuji apples, pineapples and pretzel.