Teddy Bear Bento!

I am so in love with making Bento's for my little girl. In case I haven't mentioned it before Bella just turned 6. At the school she goes to she has a half an hour "lunch bunch". So this is my first year of making lunches for my normally picky eater. I have found ways around it though. She gets so excited to see what is in her lunch that she forgets to be picky, I swear it's a conscious effort for her to be picky as she really does like most foods.

Bento Boxes come from the Japanese culture, and they are not just for kids. They can be very ornate or just stick to the basics. They usually have a good square meal of food groups. They are not at all difficult to make, even thought they may look like it. They do take some extra time depending on how crafty you get with them, but it's fun.

For today's bento I tried to go with a Teddy Bear theme. It wasn't a very good theme but I tried. First Bella had asked for a fluffer nutter sandwich. Well my fluff had gone bad so I headed out to Kroger to pick some up. While there I checked out the clearance items, deal seeker that I am, I hit bento jack pot!!! A great lunch box made by Fit & Fresh called the "lunch pod". It's a deep square box with a removable ice pack in the lid. I always line her box with a napkin and I try to find cute or decorative ones. I can often get these on clearance too!

So back to the sandwich, on the "top" piece I used a teddy bear cookie cutter to cut out a window in the bread. I added the peanut butter and fluff and put it together, you could see a white fluffy bear in the window. For a little fun I sprinkled in some Christmas colored sprinkles, not a lot, just a bit. The bear that was cut out was covered with peanut butter and I affixed a chocolate graham bear to it. I use one of those cutters to remove the crusts and smush the edges together as well. This fit nicely in the corner.

I then got out about a tsp of chocolate whipped frosting and dabbed it into a silicone mini muffin form, added some more sprinkles then placed 5 more graham bears into it. You're probably thinking, "wow that's a lot of sugar." trust me it's not I rarely give her sugary items and when I do it is very little bits.

So then the healthy stuff, a cheddar mozzarella swirled cheese stick, 2 slices of granny smith apple, and a orange creamsicle jello/yogurt snack I make. It's probably about 2 oz of that. (Recipe below) Then I fit in her apple juice and a spoon, and there you have it!!! So much fun for me to make, so much fun for her to open and eat. I just wish I could affix a camera that would take a picture of her face each time she opens a new box!

Happy Lunch making!!!

Orange Creamsicle Snack

1 package sugar free Orange Jello dissolved in 1 cup boiling water. Add 1 cup cold water to this. Then add in 2 containers of yogurt. I use fat free Vanilla for creamsicle. Put into containers and chill 2 hours (less depending on size)

Another Variation of this that I like is to set the jello first, then mix just the jello up till is sorta liquid but with clumps, then add in the yogurt and re-mix. You can also substitute 1 contained or yogurt for 1 c cool whip. Some other great combos are :
Strawberry Banana jello + Pina colada yogurt
Raspberry jello + Cheesecake yogurt (I think this was weight watchers)
Lemon jello + Key Lime yogurt

Bella's Bento for Wednesday

I LOVE making lunch for Bella. I know she may not remember them when she gets older but it really is a lot of fun and hopefully she enjoys them now. Today's bento I have dubbed the Orange Bento, it includes;
Ham and cheese with honey mustard on a pretzel roll
Mandarin Orange slices
Cheddar & Mozzarella cheese stick
Annie's Organic Bunny gummies
Cheetos & Cheese fishies

It's all very orange, lol. And for good measure she will have orange juice to go with it. Do you ever make specialized or theme lunches? I'd love to hear about them!

Bento Boxes

This would fall under the "crafty" category I think. My daughter is 6 and in kindergarten. It's a half day class but she goes to "Lunch bunch" and then fabulous fives. Lunch bunch is just a 30 minute lunch time, but it is her favorite part of the day, typical kid right?! This year I decided to make lunch even more fun for her. I've ventured into making bento boxes for her. Creative little ways to put together healthy foods in a way that is more fun than a plain square sandwich.





Some of my favorite things to do so far are:
*Use cookie cutters with thick sliced ham or turkey and cheeses
*Cut up the sandwich into little bits and add them to a skewer 
*Cut up apples and string cheese and alternate on a fancy toothpick
*Use mini muffin papers/silcone shapes for frosting or peanut butter
*Write little notes with dot games, tic tac toe and stickers

Have fun with it, make lunch time and healthy foods creative and exciting!

There are a lot of great examples on the web, below are some links!
bento-logy
how-to-make-a-kids-bento-box
lunchbox lunches
Yum Yum Bento
Laptop lunches