A Jolly Bento & more

I've hardly made any lunches for my sproutlets lately! I've been busy shopping, decorating, painting (our kitchen/family room) and shopping some more - leaving Sailor Boy, who's on leave, to prepare lunch in my absence :)

But today I decided to stay home and make lunch for my family. Beginning with this light bento lunch for my sweetie :

He laughed at his jolly bento. It contains a cucumber cup wreath, carrots (stacked like logs) with red and orange pepper slices arranged like flames above them, raspberries topped with sharp white cheddar snowflakes, and cauliflower "snow" with more cheese snowflakes. 

Isn't the wreath adorable? It's a wide slice of cucumber, with a bowl hollowed out then filled with ricotta cheese, and topped with bits of chopped green and red peppers. I copied these Cucumber Cups from Super Healthy Kids, subbing ricotta for the ranch dressing because that's all we had :)

I forgot to snap a photo of Bella's, Sprout's or Beanstalk's, but they were just slightly different versions of Birdie's (below),  in different containers. Birdie got a toddler-friendly nibble tray in a Happy Holidays Jell-O Jigglers tray mold :)

She has cauliflower (in the Santa mold, it was almost the right shape!), a cucumber tree, cheddar gingerbread men & stars, a banana snowman & stars, carrots, raspberries, & a sugar cookie. The cheddar cheese scraps are tucked under the gingerbread men.

Pickle requested a gingerbread man sandwich. I have 4 sizes of gingerbread man cookie cutters, but go figure, none were the size of the bread! So I used one that was just over half the bread's size and made candy canes with the excess sandwich. 

I made them with white bread bottoms and wheat tops so I could make the candy cane stripes without wasting any bread. For the first man's face I used bread crust cut out with a straw and a tiny food cutter, but I didn't like the way he turned out, so for the second man, I just poked his features out with the same tools, and I like him better.

Pickle also reminded me not to forget the yogurt! We've been out for a couple of days so he hasn't had any - and yogurt is like a major food group to him! I bought some yesterday though, and made it more festive with a little strawberry syrup swirled in.

Pickle was pleased :)

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