Wednesday, June 20, 2012

First Day of Summer Blog Hop!

Yesterday was the first official day of Summer Vacation for my school age sproutlets! Special summery lunches were in order. Especially since my bento blogger friends & I planned a blog hop for today - the First Day of Summer :)


There's always a lot of chatter when planning a blog hop, and with this hop's theme being Summer, the topic of summer movies came up - so you may see one or two summer movie references among today's lunches. Well, two for sure! One from me, and another from Karen of What's In Mom's Lunch Bag (the next stop on the hop) ... you'll see!

Can you guess what summer blockbuster inspired Bella's lunch?  
I thought it might be a little subtle, so I added some quotes from the movie:


My Mia Bella, age 9, has never seen the summer 1987 hit Dirty Dancing - 
to her, this is just a yummy watermelon-y bento :)  She doesn't know that "Hey Baby" is the title of the song Baby learns to dance with Johnny to*, or that there is any significance to her baby in a blanket (wienie swaddled in a biscuit) being in the corner* of her EasyLunchbox ;)

In the other corner she has celery sticks & cherries, and in the main compartment, watermelon & blueberry kebabs, topped with a slice of watermelon. The watermelon was seedless so I added some NatureBox dried currant "seeds" for fun :) In the little cup she has a SunButter ball (recipe below) and in the pink cup, watermelon salt water taffy. Yum!

 This lunch did not need any more cheese so I did not put any more in it!

That's it for movie references for me. I entertained the idea of doing a Ponyo lunch for Birdie & Sprout, but I didn't have any ham - and you can't do a Ponyo lunch without ham! They did get summery bentos though...

I used some of the dough from the SunButter balls and a little cookie cutter to make beaches with sandcastles! They also got some blueberries, cantaloupe starfish and watermelon. Here's Birdie's -  don't you want to eat that sand!?


Those pebbles are actually candy coated chocolates! Don't they look real? They taste like M&M's. The little girls also got a piece of watermelon taffy each, I just didn't put it in their Easylunchboxes.  I learned from last week's Old MacDonald muffin tin meals that they will still eat the candy first (unlike big sister Bella who saves hers for last) so I gave it to them after lunch.

Sand you CAN eat!

Our loaf of bread was on the small side, too small for any of our sandwich cutters, so Pickle got a peanut butter sandwich shell, embellished with a sandcastle, and a starfish mama & babies. The smaller shapes are one layer of bread stuck on with more peanut butter. And blue yogurt.


Beanstalk didn't want a proper lunch. He slept late and had a big breakfast.

Don't forget about the Summer Blog Hop! You don't want to miss What's In Mom's Lunch Bag and all the others! Click the pic to hop along now if you don't want the recipe for the SunButter balls, or read on if you do :)


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SunButter Balls
 
1/2 cup SunButter (or nut butter of choice)
1/4 cup honey
1/8 cup flax
3/4 cup graham crumbs 
Pour honey or syrup in bowl. Add SunButter and 1/2 cup of graham crumbs,  quickly mixing into dough. Knead dough with hands to combine ingredients well. Shape into balls of desired size. Roll in remaining graham crumbs. Chill in freezer for 10 minutes, then store in refrigerator until ready to serve.  You could add raisins, coconut, chocolate chips, oatmeal... all sorts of things to these.  My picky sproutlets prefer things plain though :)
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25 comments:

  1. Love love LOVE!!! And now I really want some watermelon! :)

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  2. I love the sandcastle and the beach. Looks real :)

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  3. Ooo I thought you said your kiddos didn't like SunButter, just you? Did they finally come to their senses and cross over into the light!?! LOL ;) (I kid... maybe... lol)

    Great job, adorable as always :) All so colorful and delicious to look at even!!

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    1. You're right, they don't like it on sandwiches - because they expect it to taste like peanut butter and it doesn't. But I can use it for cookies and stuff where there is a sweetener added :)

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  4. Love the sand castle!! I want to do it for my son!!! You are so creative!! :D Happy summer!

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  5. So creative, love all the watermelons. :)

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  6. Love the sand castle and the entire Dirty Dancing lunch. So creative!!!

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  7. Clever sand castle, and I love all the fresh watermelon! Will definitely put the sunbutter balls on my list of things to make. Yum!

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  8. This is super cute!!!! I love the Dirty Dancing theme!!!!!!

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  9. LOve love love love that sandcastle! you are so inventive! I can't let Eliana see it or she'll want me to do it.. and I'm pretty sure I can't pull that off hahaha

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  10. Sand you can eat!!! I LOVE THAT! And now, I must watch Dirty Dancing today. hehehe

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  11. I can totally see Baby smacking herself in the forehead! Great lunches!

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  12. Ooooo I've gotta steal this sandcastle idea!

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  13. Of course, I totally love them all, but Dirty Dancing? Hell yeah! Is there a subtle reference to popping a cherry in there too? :)

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  14. We love Ponyo too! and your Sunbutter Bites looks absolutely delicious. Now I'm craving for one. Btw, great lunch details. Love it!

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  15. OBSESSED with that movie!!! You are amazing Cristi!! :)

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  16. I wanted to pin your SunButter ball recipe, but it won't let me! Can you email it to me? I don't want to lose the post and never be able to find the recipe again, and I think that my Bee would LOVE these. :) Thanks!

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  17. Amazing! Of course I LOVE the Dirt Dancing Lunch since it is my favorite movie and my favorite quote is : " I carried a watermelon!" Wonderful job! I am blown away by your sandcastle idea and even Pickle's lunch is phenomenal. I would say the start of an awesome summer!

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  18. So cute! I especially love the sandcastles! :)

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  19. Amazeballs. I want to make SUnButter blass just to mold the "clay" into awesome. Mine would probably look like some kind of melted swamp monster though, no matter what I was trying to make...

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  20. They are all AMAZING and I especially love the sandcastle :)

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  21. This is so cute! I would love to try bento for my daughter too cos she just started preschool!

    New follower here. Let's follow each other? :)

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  22. My apologies if I offended anyone using your photos without properly referencing them.I love your website and aspire my bento photos to be like yours as well as my blog. We are a new company and always learning, we appreciate your kindness. I will share your link! if that's ok

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  23. Love the *sand*castle! So creative! (And all the Dirty Dancing references too)

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