A Seussalicious After School Snack

She would probably say "Someone has too much time on their hands!"

Heheh ... I don't often make things like this... when trying to get 5 littles out the door there's no time for tiny fiddly bits - & something like this could never survive in a lunchbox anyway - but when I got the idea in my head I just had to try it - so I made it for after school snack :)

"I am the Lorax, I'm made out of cheese!"

My idea worked - my mini penguin and and gull shaped bento cutters did make a fine cheese Lorax! I trimmed the wings off and used them for arms, used a tiny oval cutter for his feet, and added sugar eyes. The truffula trees are watermelon and cantaloupe on drink swizzle sticks :)

Some cutters I used for this snack:

 

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

For more Seussalicious lunch & snack ideas, come see the

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss Linky Party at Bento Bloggers & Friends! 

You're invited to add your own too :)

Edible Geekery : Skydiving Judi Dench!

I'm so psyched! Tonight is the season premiere of Psych! My bestest buddy and I just had to make Psych-themed bentos for ourselves - here's mine:

Did you know that Saturday was Twin Peaks Day? (And my Pickle's birthday - but he didn't want a Twin Peaks lunch.) And did you know that Psych did a Twin Peaks parody/tribute episode? Dual Spires :) Damn fine episode! My lunch pays humble homage to that awesomeness.

My LunchBots Duo contains:

• Pineapple (of course)
• A cinnamon roll in a pie cup, with a Suck It pick
• Twin cheddar Douglas Firs atop a salad
• Cinnamon spiced nuts in a cherry cup...
  because isn't cherry the best?

The epicness of the Dual Spires episode simply cannot be reduced to a clip ♥

If you're a Twin Peaks fan not familiar with Psych, you have just got to see it - and if you're a Psych-o, you already have :)

And while you're waiting for tonight's episode to air, check out my bestie Karen's post at What's In Our Lunch Bags! I believe you'll love it :)

Psych-os might also like:

This lunch features:

   

ETA: By popular demand, the "Suck It" pick
came from this novelty set:

Berry-licious Bentos

Today is National Strawberry Day!

Birdie has a berry-licious garden bento in her Yumbox - so cute! The hard-cooked egg with a butterfly pick on top looks a little like a berry, doesn't it?

She also has blossom-shaped carrots, cheddar cheese, oatmeal bar, and strawberries,  blossom-sprinkled yogurt, and 2 gummy butterfly treats ♥

Pickle has strawberry-shaped mini PB sandwiches & a wee strawberry marshmallow :) He also got yogurt & an oatmeal bar, not shown.

Cookie stamp used to make this lunch:

Thank You Giveaway!

Bent On Better Lunches recently rolled over 5,555 Facebook Likes!
All those 5's in a row was something to see :) I'm giving away 5 of my fun lunch favourites to say thanks to at least one of you for Liking my blog ♥

Here's what's included:

1. Lock & Lock 4 Square Bento Box. I love this box. It keeps everything fresh & separated, it's super sturdy, leak-proof, & the squares are just the right size for a muffin cup if a touch of colour is needed.
2. Bento Food Picks. I chose a fun variety pack, with hands & feet, rings, flower stems, balloon strings, & umbrella handles.
3. 2 Egg Molds. I use the star & heart hard-cooked egg molds a lot. The star can also make a blossom shape if you use a smaller egg, and you can also use them to make shaped rice and bread onigiri!
4. FunBites Cube it! This makes nice uniform bite-size squares for cheese & cracker stackers, fruit skewers, sandwich bites, you can even use FunBites on dough to make your own crackers.
5. 10 Silicone Muffin Cups. These are probably my favourite bento accessory. They can divide a larger space to keep foods separate, and just make lunch look more fun & colourful. I've included  2 red, 2 pink, & 2 green round, 1 green & 1 blue square, and 1 yellow & 1 pink flower. They also make handy snack cups.  And, you can bake in them!

Here's how to get your chance to win:

1. Like Bent On Better Lunches on Facebook if you don't already
2. Enter via the Rafflecopter widget below!

Easy peasy :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

and Thank You!

Pokémon Bentos - Gotta eat 'em All!

Today I packed Pokémon lunches for my school-bound sproutlets!

Pickle got a Pokéball peanut butter sandwich:

Pickle also had yogurt, juice, and a cookie, not pictured.

Beanstalk & Bella got LunchBots bento boxes.

Beanstalk's Trio contains:

• a Pokéball apple
• honey ham rolled & skewered with Pokémon picks
• Veggie Stix
• almonds in a LunchBots Dips cup

Bella's Quad contains:

• grape tomatoes with a Pikachu cupcake pick
• turkey, cheddar & white cheddar tortilla roll-ups with a Skitty cupcake pick
• carrots & califlower
• almonds in a LunchBots Dip cup

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Beanstalk & Bella love Pokémon. They even dressed as Pokémon trainers Ash & Dawn last Hallowe'en:

I dedicate today's lunches to my friend Nina of Mamabelly's Lunches with Love, who I know has also waffled over whether or not to post unsatisfactory photos of otherwise cute lunches ♥ I can't wait for my "real" camera to be repaired, the iPhone just isn't cutting it! Not in my hands anyways :)

I bet Bella loved her lunch, but I'm glad I had those cupcake picks to add an instant Pokémon theme so easily! Saved me from having to attempt something more skill-testing like the bentos my friend Keith of Oh!Bento makes ;) Click the pics below to visit his blog - Gotta catch 'em all!

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Today's lunches featured:

Taking It Easy

I've had flu this week, so the sproutlets have either packed their own lunches - and not bothered with photos - or had school lunch. I'm a bit better today, and back to making lunch - but I'm still taking it easy :)

Beanstalk's Lock & Lock bento box contains exactly what he asked for - ham, space goldfish crackers, half an apple, & two Oreos (in an EasyLunchboxes Mini Dipper). I chose the sword and Eat Me picks for fun. He can't call those too cute can he? I don't think so...

Bella asked for a "plain" turkey & cheddar croissant sandwich. The cheese inside is actually cut in a big heart shape - I know she'll look too, to make sure it's "plain" :)  On the side she has canteloupe and a sliced roma tomato. In the heart mini muffin cups she has a marshmallow and some dried strawberries.

I know, Valentine's Day is over... but I like hearts, and so does my Bella ♥

Some stuff used for these lunches:

Happy Valentine's Day Birthday Clifford!

Wow, what a sweet Valentine's Day! My sproutlets came home from school yesterday with almost as much candy as they got trick-or-treating! They'll have pink, red & heart-shaped treats to nibble for weeks :)

I was tired yesterday, so tired that I forgot to take a picture of Sprout's Valentine's Day lunch! You'll have to take my word for it that it was cute and full of hearts ♥ Ah well, the important thing is she loved it - and at least in my sleepiness I still remembered to pack it :) I stayed tired all day too, even fell asleep while writing my post of Birdie's Valentine's Day lunch and never finished it. But I got lots of sleep last night - so here it is today:

Did you know that Clifford the Big Red Dog turned 50 yesterday? Fifty! My girls love Clifford - he's even the mascot for Sprout's kindergarten class :)

Birdie's Clifford Love Yumbox bento lunch contains: 

• heart-sprinkled cherry Trix yogurt (coloured with natural food dye!)
• grapes, Galia melon & strawberry hearts
• a heart-shaped hard-cooked egg with a Clifford cupcake pick
• a heart-shaped frosting drizzled oatmeal bar
• organic baby carrots, one through a Clifford cupcake ring
• a red foil-wrapped Hershey's Kiss in the treat well ♥

There's lots of birthday fun to be had on Scholastic's website.

Lunch is linked to:

Edible Geekery : My Geeky Valentine

Bella & Pickle's Valentine's Day lunches are part of a geeky blog hop!

My Doctor Who fangirl Bella gets a Valentimey-Wimey lunch, inspired by dimension-crossed would-be lovers, the Tenth Doctor & Rose. Packed in a pink yubo lunchbox with a Valentine holiday faceplate ♥

The Doctor's two hearts are represented by the two pizza biscuits, and Rose Tyler, obviously, by the ham rose :) On the side are tomatoes & Galia melon. And I couldn't resist adding a little heart-shaped marshmallow baby Adipose ♥

 I made the pull apart heart biscuits with Pillsbury Grands cut with my FunBites Luv it! Thanks for this fantastic idea to Jenn of Bento for Kidlet - and she made her biscuit dough from scratch! After cutting them out I brushed on a little sauce & sprinkled them with mozzarella - and I love how they turned out :)

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Pickle loves science and is all excited about his new science experiment kit, and hoping to take part in his school's science fair this Spring, so that's the theme for his yubo unch:

Pickle's has a heart and a beaker sandwich,  peanut butter of course. The beaker has a heart cut out of the top bread, and the space filled with a layer of sugar sprinkles, a technique called "fairy bread"- isn't that cute? On the side he has a frosting-drizzled heart-shaped oatmeal bar, that he calls "mookie",  because it's texture is in between a muffin & a cookie :)

He also has yogurt with a frozen yogurt heart in the centre. It might melt by lunch but I'm hoping it will keep it's shape. And a Smarties Love Hearts candy treat. Pickle lo-o-oves Smarties, or as we call them in Canada, Rockets ♥

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That's it! Birdie & Sprout's cute & non-geeky Valentine's Day lunches will get their own post, later :) But there are more geeky Valentine lunches for you to admire... starting with the awesomeness Eileen's put together at Robot Squirrel an the Monkeys Click the button below to go see!

Happy Mardi Gras!

I had no plans to make Fat Tuesday lunches this year. It's breakfast for lunch day at school - pancakes, which they often want, perfect for Shrove Tuesday / Pancake Day anyways. I figured if they didn't want the school lunch I'd just throw together something purple, green & gold :) 

Pickle did want the school pancake lunch, but Beanstalk & Sprout wanted me to make them something. So here's what I threw together quite last-minute:

Beanstalk has a LunchBots Quad packed with apples, grapes, Angry Birds Cheese Nips, & a Clif Bar, made Mardi Gras-ish with purple, green & gold muffin cups & fleur-de-lis cupcake picks :)

Sprout has a purple, green & gold themed Goodbyn Bynto packed with grapes, apples, carrot sticks, string cheese, garlic Triscuit Thins, and a foil-wrapped chocolate doubloon treat. Poor Beanstalk didn't get one of those, I didn't remember I had them until after he'd left for school. Lucky Sprout though!

When they get home from school they'll have a snack of warm, gooey, sugary cinnamon roll "Fake King Cake" like I made last year:

And this year I have plastic King Cake babies to hide in one of the pieces! Beanstalk will get a kick out of that - he's my New Orleans baby :)

Heart-y Valentines Day Breakfast Mini Omelets

One of my favourite easy breakfasts can be made especially Valentine-y by using a heart-shaped baking pan. Or just top them with a cheese heart ♥

I love that they use all the little cheese scraps left over from making lunch!

Voilà! A heart-y omelet bagelwich breakfast!

I make these all the time :) See my original recipe post on MOMables
for more detailed directions, photos, and oven method.

I also sometimes make a single serving bento scrap omelet with silicone baking cups, see my guest post on my LEGO lunch box  :)