Edible Geekery : Doctor Who Bentos Are Cool

We're all so excited about the return of Doctor Who this Saturday night! Yes, the sproutlets are fans just  like their mum & dad; they've grown up watching it as a family, so even 3 year old Birdie is a little Whovian :)  Bella's even planning to have a Doctor Who & Sarah Jane Adventures 10th birthday party - wish me luck with that theme! Better yet, give me ideas ;)

For today's Hop, I made Bella a lunch full of Doctor Who-isms:

Bella's PlanetBox bento lunch contains:

• Bacon "That's bacon! Are you trying to poison me?" skewered on a Stetson pick "I wear a Stetson now, Stetsons are cool," and on a Union Jack flag, like Rose Tyler's t-shirt.
• "Hello Sweetie" ham on a brightly coloured lips pick, like River Song's when she put on her hallucinogenic lipstick, and on a bow tie pick "Bow ties are cool." 
• "Come Along Pond" in mozzarella cheese.
• A smiley face apple, like Amelia Pond's mother made.
• A satsuma orange, which the 10th Doctor once used to save the Earth from alien invasion. I stuck a little tiny sonic screwdriver of sorts into the satsuma, for fun ;)
• A very cool handmade TARDIS print cloth napkin, from Shannon of Molly's Lunch Box
• A couple of "Jammie Dodger" sammies
• And Jelly Babies! 

 Yes, those are real Jelly Babies :) The blackcurrant ones are my favourite.

I don't actually care for Jammie Dodgers though, so I made my own Sammie Dodgers with wheat bread, cookie cutters, and lemon curd:

They were meant to be made with raspberry jam, but I discovered at the last moment that we were out! It was almost tragic until I remembered I had food colouring. Lemon curd to the rescue! Yum :)

I love this Doctor Who lunch! How can you not smile back at that apple? And I just know the Doctor would love it too... I can almost hear him... 

"I eat bento lunches now. Bentos are cool." :)

I had a Whovian lunch as well!  Not a bento though. I had a delicious ginger carrot soup, topped with Bad Wolf in mozzarella. Poor Doctor, he's always wanted to be ginger... With my soup I also had a satsuma - and a good cup of tea, just like the newly regenerated 10th Doctor :)  

I can hardly wait until Saturday night and the return of the Doctor et al in the Series 7 premiere!  I think I'll make some jammie dodger ice cream sammies for a sweet treat during the show :) Then again, who knows what fabulous food ideas I might get from my fellow bento bloggers in this hop! 

I bet Astrid of Lunches Fit For A Kid has something special to share. Click on the TARDIS button below to hop through the vortex and see...

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UPDATE: When this lunch was shared on a Doctor Who fan page on Facebook, the most common comment was "Where are the fish fingers & custard?" The answer is, here:

Click the pic to jump to this post for a Whovian lunch Linky Party!

Lunch For The Mum

Yesterday I packed myself a Laptop Lunches bento box full of random leftovers and put it in the fridge to eat today. When I opened it, I discovered a surprise! Someone had slipped a Lunchbox Love note inside!

Lunch itself was nothing special - some leftover chicken strips, rice, broccoli, a plum, and some cheese scraps from cutting shaped cheese for the the girls - but the note made it special for me ♥ 

Oh, and the note turned out to be from my sweet 9 year old Bella :)

Lunch for the Man I'm Nuts About

I'm  really missing the late summer light... It's back to indoor lighting for Sailor Boy's lunch photos, boo :( Ah well, it was very late at night when I made this one, so it would have been dark either way :)

There's a message in this lunch... I wonder if he got it... I forgot to ask!

Sailor Boy's Easy Lunchbox contains:

• a heart-shaped hard-cooked egg
• pizza tortilla roll-ups
• raw broccoli
• diced nectarine
• Sahale Southwest chili-spiced cashews
• Sahale Tuscan parmesan & herb almonds

I left it in the fridge for him with a Light My Fire spork and a Lunchbox Love note. He knows the EasyLunchboxes with the blue lids are his, so I didn't have to worry about him taking my Laptop Lunch sitting underneath it :)

Did you get the hidden message?
Nuts... sheep pick in the nectarines... nuts... ewe...

I'm nuts about you! Bahahaha! 

OK who else thinks he will not have gotten that? I'll ask him and let you know :)

LunchBots Trio Sampler

This school year my Beanstalk starts Middle School! These may be my last few days to get creative with his bentos. But maybe not... we'll see what level of cuteness he approves once school is actually in. Apparently this is too cute because of the little fish picks - but sharks would be okay. Noted :)

Beanstalk's LunchBots Trio is kind of a sampler today. He asked for Goldfish crackers and an apple, so he got those, but I also added some yogurt for dipping them (in the LunchBots Dips container), some  applewood smoked ham, a string cheese cut in thirds, yogurt Craisins, Sahale Snacks parmesan & herb almonds, & 5 gummy fruits. 

I did add some cute fish shaped sprinkles to the yogurt - but he said they were OK. Of course - they're made of sugar! Candy is always allowed :)

Some stuff used for this lunch:

 

Happy Strawberries in Laptop Lunches

Today's lunch reminded me why I rarely try my hand at kyaraben (also charaben - short for character bento). It takes skill & patience to make those itty bitty faces! I'm always amazed by the creations of bento artists like Ming of Bento, Monsters, Jee Jee of BentoUSA, & Bobo of Making Bento Is A Blessing, they are truly edible art!

I did plan to make a family of smiling strawberries. I have a whole set of accessory food picks given to me by Tiny Wiggles (I'll soon be doing a review & giveaway of those) but I quit at two berry people! Birdie got them, and her sisters got plain strawberries. I braced for the "no fairs" but they never came! The older girls admired their little sister's cute lunch then dug into their own, hooray! Really, the only difference was their berries didn't have bows and faces, theirs were still colourful and yummy :)

     In Birdie's Laptop Lunches bento box:

• graham crackers
• strawberries - with smiling mozzarella faces
• carrot sticks
• grapes - and one tomato
• yogurt - with a smattering of coloured sugar sprinkles

Birdie: "Oooh, happy strawberries! And baby strawberries! I love dem! Dis one's de Mummy and dis is de Daddy and dose are de babies!" 

I love how even though both strawberries are sporting bows, one is a Daddy :) Way to look past gender stereotypes Birdie ♥

Some of the stuff I used:

 

The Cat in the Hat's SLOW Sandwich

Pickle loves the Cat in the Hat,

If you're a longtime reader you already know that!

It's Fancy Sandwich Friday
And he needs a lunch to go,
So with my handy dandy Lunch Punch
I made him a peanut butter SLOW!

For those of you not in the Cat in the Hat know
The SLOW is the car from the big picture show
Mine doesn't look anything like the real one
But Pickle didn't care, he still thought it was fun :)

I also packed yogurt (decorated with stickers)
A spork and a lunchbox note.
Pickle doesn't mind if I show off his lunches
But shh! Don't tell him you saw what I wrote! 



The lunch notes and stickers came in this cute little pack
From Hungry Girl & the folks at Fiber One
Saying thank you for sharing my healthy snack
Thanks right back,  Chewy Snack Champs, for the lunchbox fun!

To make the Cat's Super Luxurious Omnidirectional Whatchamajigger
I used a Lunch Punch sandwich cutter from the Vrrrrmmm!! vehicle set
Then I stamped the word SLOW with mini letter cutters
(and 2 circles since I lost the O from my alphabet)

It is fun to have fun but you have to know how...
For fun sandwich ideas Fancy Sandwich Friday is happening now!

Stuff I used for this lunch:

  

Tooth Fairy Lunches

Yesterday was National Tooth Fairy Day! Maybe. There seems to be some confusion over whether it's August 22nd or February 28th. Both dates are fine by me, otherwise these tooth picks would be sitting gathering dust for the rest of the year - unless someone lost a tooth - or had a dental appointment - okay I guess they'll get used pretty regularly after all :)

Tooth Fairy is a peanut butter sandwich on wheat & white wheat - I made her of both so that I could pop the star out and flip it over for contrast. The Lunch Punch imprints the fairy image, but cuts the star right through. The girls also got celery & cheese toothbrushes, grapes and tomatoes on tooth picks (haha), and a Chobani Champions greek yogurt.

Pickle got a Tooth Fairy sandwich but I'd need a magic wand to get him to eat celery, tomatoes and grapes! He wanted his in an EasyLunchboxes like the others though, so I obliged - and added alphabet biscuits. Here's his:

These lunches were being eaten at home so the tooth picks (hahaha), yogurt cups, and juice box sticking out of the EasyLunchboxes weren't a problem, but for a school lunch, I'd have to arrange things differently. And since we are practicing for back to school lunches, that's what I did:

Though the Chobani Champions cups fit in the medium section, the lids wouldn't close with them in there, so I took them out. I usually buy the larger tub of Chobani to scoop my own portion from (and cover with press-n-seal, since the ELB is not spill-proof) anyways, but we had these left over from camping. They could also just be packed separately since they ARE self-contained. This freed up a space to move the grape skewers into, and the tomato tooth picks, with only 2 per pick, fit in the smallest section. Success! The lids went on :) We also had juice pouches left from camping so the sproutlets got those too. Pickle's lunch I left as is, since he normally takes his sandwich in sandwich-sized boxes, not EasyLunchboxes.

Edible Toothbrushes!

The celery & mozzarella toothbrushes were so easy.  The pieces of string cheese fit perfectly in the curve of the celery, I didn't need to attach them with anything! I used a mini cutter from a bento cutter set to make bristles but I think they'd be cute even without that detail.

The girls loved the celery toothbrushes - Bella even hammed it up pretending to brush her teeth with hers, and insisted I get a pic for her Facebook Wall  :)

Want some tooth picks?

I have heaps of these tooth picks, so I've decided to share them.  Like I said, they'll be fun to make special lunches for kidlets who've lost teeth, are visiting the dentist, getting braces off, or to add a smile to lunch :)

I've made 3 packets of 8 teeth, and will send 1 packet each to 3 readers :) Enter via the Rafflecopter widget below: Giveaway Closed
a Rafflecopter giveaway
You can leave a comment even if you don't want to enter, but you must enter via the widget as well as comment to be included in the prize draw. Good luck! but the Giveaway is Closed.

One Lovely Blog & Very Inspiring Blogger Award

My blog was awarded the One Lovely Blog and Very Inspiring Blogger Award!

#1 I'm so honoured and pleased! Thank you, Domestic Randomness!

Being a curious person, I googled the origin of the award, and it seems like the One Lovely Blog and Very Inspiring Blogger award is actually 2 different awards that are sometimes awarded together - but I couldn't find an origin for either of them. Here are the badges I received for the Very Inspiring Blogger Award and the One Lovely Blog Award:

 

I found a couple of variations of the One Lovely Blog Award badge though.

I like this heart one best: 

I decided that since the One Lovely Blog & Very Inspiring Blogger Awards are given together, and the criteria for accepting either or both are the same, they might as well just have one badge! So I combined them both into a new version based on my favorite one - hey, nobody said I couldn't!  I'll post it again further down, so you don't have to scroll back up :)

I suppose the origins will remain a mystery... but that's all right, I think the award title(s) speak for themselves ♥

The Rules for accepting the Award(s):

1. Thank and link back to the awesome person who nominated you.
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Nominate 15 other bloggers and comment on their blogs to let them know. 

#1 is done, here's #2 ... 7 Things About Me:

1. I adore puzzles. Word puzzles, logic problems, and especially jigsaw puzzles. The kind you leave out for days and work on here and there. But no posterizing the finished puzzles for me - as soon as they they are done, they go right back in the box until next time - the fun is all in putting them together!  I also love board games, especially word games like Scrabble, Boggle, and Scattergories. I'm terrible about forgetting to take my turn when I play the app versions though - out of sight out of mind... 
2. I love colourful striped & patterned socks. Rarely do I wear plain socks. They have to be cotton or wool though - my skin doesn't like synthetics - which makes them harder to find, so I get as excited as a kid with candy when I find fun patterned pure cotton or wool socks. Giddy, even, and likely to break into dance... or song...
3. I like to sing karaoke. On our first date, I took my husband to a pub that had karaoke, and if he hadn't been willing to get up and sing with me, it might have been our only date. But he did - lucky me  :)  Bonus fact:
   It was Elvis Presley's "Can't Help Falling In Love" and I walked down the aisle to it 6 months later!
4. I'm very messy by nature, but, I don't like things messy - I'm easily overstimulated and too much stuff and clutter makes me feel distracted. So I'm in a constant battle with myself to keep my mess to a minimum, and I still have all my stuff where I can see it - otherwise I forget what I want to do or need to get done. Again, that out of sight out of mind thing.
5. I'm a sci fi fantasy geek. A proud Whovian. I would totally put a TARDIS shed in my yard. I still miss Firefly and watch marathons on TV even though I own the DVDs. I mourned the end of Battlestar Galactica. And I prefer Star Trek to Star Wars. There, I said it. *ducks* I did like the films (well, most of them) but I don't geek out over all things Star Wars. I would totally wear Vulcan ears out & about though. Here's me wearing one of my Doctor Who tees:
   
   
   
   Sailor Boy pointed out that this pic is even nerdier if you recognize the book on top of the cabinet behind me. (click the pic for a closer look) And if you do, you're a nerd too, so there!
6. I'm an insomniac, and it's a good thing, too, otherwise I'd never get everything done! It's 4 am now in fact :) I should get a couple of hours sleep before the sproutlets wake. I'm not done yet though...
   Note: I did not finish that night - I did go to sleep. And then it took me another week to resume this list. Maybe one of the 7 things should have been about what a great procrastinator I am...
7. I'm  been wearing the same shoes since the early 1990's. Brown Doc Marten's Mary Janes & pink Converse sneakers. Well, the pink are my main pair, I also do wear green & turquoise. And okay, they are not exactly the same shoes - eventually they do wear out - but then I just buy another pair as exactly like them as possible  :)
   
   
   
   These are my feets! They are happy in pink sneakers :)

And now, #3 ... 15 Blogs & Bloggers I Admire:
I'm sticking to food blogs. And I am not going to say why I picked them, because this post is long enough, and you should go see for yourself! And they are in alphabetical order, not preference :)

1. Beneficial Bento
2. Bento for Kidlet
3. Bentoriffic
4. Biting The Hand That Feeds You
5. In The Kitchen With Audrey
6. Keeley McGuire Blog
7. Keitha's Chaos (Keitha's Storybook Lunches)
8. Lunches Fit For A Kid
9. Lunches With Love 
10. Molly's Lunch Box 
11. Sugary Flower
12. Veggie-Bento 
13. We Aren't Scared of Sugar
14. What's in Mom's Lunchbag? & What's in John's Lunchbag? (same bloggess)
15. Zoe's Lunchbox

If you accept the award(s) you're welcome to use either my combo award badge (below) or the 2 separate ones (back up above). Up to you :)

And I realize not all of you bloggers will want to add the award(s) to your blogs. That's okay. I'm nominating you anyways because I think the purpose of these awards is not only to recognize the bloggers we admire, but to share their awesomeness with others.  So accept it or not, there are no obligations, and no hard feelings either way :)

There are so many more fabulous blogs I could have given this to - I need more awards! Maybe I will come up with my own... !

A Herd of Elephant Goodbyn Lunches

The girls got Goodbyns full of elephants today! Byntos for the 3 & 5 year olds Birdie & Sprout, and an original Goodbyn for 9 year old Bella. The Byntos hold just the right amount for the little girls and the lids are easy for them to put back on. The larger Goodbyn is a bit trickier with all it's compartments, it needs to be snapped down in multiple places - Bella can do it though.

   

Birdie is our little pachyderm lover and the reason we have so many elephant food picks :) She asked for a baby elephant peanut butter and Nutella sandwich with candy eyes. Yes, candy eyes.  Many thanks to Ludicrous Mama of Biting the Hand That Feeds You for giving us all her artificially coloured edible decos when her family went dye-free :P And thank you Shannon of Molly's Lunchbox for the baby elephant cookie cutter ♥

Birdie also has cheese bites, red grapes, and a blueberry Minigo yogurt that came home with us from our camping trip in Canada - my cousin must have stowed some in our cooler, for her 1 year old - thanks Steph :) It's a perfect fit in the Bynto! I put a couple of reusable ice shapes next to it to keep it cool.

Sprout also has elephant sandwiches & cheese, but she wanted apples instead of a Minigo, and green grapes too. Both girls have cranberry juice to drink. Sprout's bottle has stickers on it too, on the other side :)

Bella has an elephant Queen peanut butter sandwich - I added a crown cut from the scraps of her little sisters' baby ones. She also has cheese & grapes, plus tomatoes, granola bar, and half a pluot.

Pickle's Lunch Punch Critter Cutter elephant mama has a sleeping baby :)

The new Goodbyn Mix & Match sets are out now, soon Pickle will have one of those, yay!  I do love that colourful little sandwich box we got from Sarah of Zoe's Lunchbox though - she sent Pickle several in different colours ♥ 

Find some of the stuff I used at BentoUSA by AllThingsForSale: