Friday, January 30, 2015

Hello Kitty Soup & Sides

Warm soup makes a super lunch on a foggy & chilly winter day.


Fresh fruit, crackers, & cheese nestled in colourful cups & embellished with Hello Kitty details make cheerful sides. Packed in a LunchBots Quad.


The blossom in the Babybel cheese was made using a flower cutter to cut a piece of wax out and a circle cutter to cut a piece from it to put back on.

Happy Friday!

Thursday, January 22, 2015

A PlanetBox Launch, With Love


Sailor Boy has another trip & will be away for Valentine's Day, so I made sure the last lunch I made him before he left was full of love  

I packed his PlanetBox Launch with:
  • fresh strawberries, some notched & sliced to look like hearts
  • grape tomatoes on a skewer
  • turkey & cheddar wraps secured with forked heart picks
  • a bunch of green grapes
  • a Babybel cheese with little linked hearts cut out of the wax wrapper with a tiny bento decoration cutter

He had a lunch meeting too,  I hope his lovely lunch made everyone smile :)


All the heart accessories & tools I used came from BentoUSA.

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Cutie Monkey Bean Yumbox


Sprout's nickname is only one of an assortment of nicknames, all stemming from her very first, given to her in utero, by Sailor Boy :) Not long after suggesting Sydney for her first name, he commented that in her ultrasound photo she looked like a little kidney bean... then suggested we use bean for her middle name - he thought Sydney Bean would be adorable! I agreed it would be adorable to us, but perhaps not so much to her, one day. We did settle on a lovely middle name, but she also became Daddy's Little Sydney Bean. And as she grew, so did his list of nicknames for her: Sydney Bean Sprout, Bean Sprout, Sprout, Monkey Bean, & Cutie Monkey Bean.

So I always think of her when I see cute monkey things. Like the funny little monkey face forked bento pick I put in her Yumbox today:


Sprout aka Cutie Monkey Bean's Purple Yumbox contains:
  • Strawberries - finally, the grocery store had some nice-looking ripe ones - it must be Spring somewhere!
  • Green grapes, also nicer than any I've found in weeks :)
  • Annie's Homegrown Bernie's Farm cheddar crackers
  • Mozzarella string cheese with heart fork picks
  • Grape gelatin made with real juice
  • & a Hi-Chew candy treat, with the monkey pick stuck in it 
I also included a Light My Fire spork, but it doesn't fit in her Yumbox. Her Yumbox fits in her Thirty-One Chillicious lunch box though, with room for the spork, an ice pack, & her drink :)

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Lunch for the Man: Wrap Up Some Leftovers

Sailor Boy's working extra long days this week so he's getting supper much later than the rest of the family. Yesterday I made spaghetti for the sproutlets' supper, then later used the leftover spaghetti sauce to make Sailor Boy a smallish lasagna in a loaf pan. Since I didn't make a full size pan, I ended up with some chopped spinach & ricotta cheese leftovers, but not enough to make another lasagna, so today I wrapped them up for his lunch:

Leftovers wrapped up for lunch in a PlanetBox by BentOnBetterLunches

The wraps are tortillas spread with the leftover ricotta & layered with the spinach, some smoked turkey & sharp cheddar, rolled up. I put a Mackintosh's toffee in the centre section of the PlanetBox Rover & it's red & green wrapper seems to have influenced what I chose to pack for his fruit & veggie sides - he has kiwi chunks & raspberries with a red heart fork pick, & cucumber chunks & grape tomatoes with a red pick that says "bite me" :)

Leftovers wrapped up for lunch in a PlanetBox by BentOnBetterLunches

Even the Lunchbox Love note I chose is red on one side & green on the other, heheh. When I noticed how festive his lunch was looking I wrapped his fork in a Star Wars print cloth napkin to make it a little less Christmassy :)

Sailor Boy has never beaten me at Scrabble so I had a giggle over the fun fact on the Lunchbox Love note - maybe it will come in handy some day :

Leftovers wrapped up for lunch in a PlanetBox by BentOnBetterLunches

Thursday, January 8, 2015

Pizza Burrito Hero Lunch

If you've followed my blog for some time, you may remember that most of my posts used to include fun peanut butter sandwiches for Pickle, who ate them every day. If you're wondering why you haven't been seeing them this school year,  it's because there is a peanut allergy in his class. 

Peanut lunches aren't banned - the 5th graders have been educated about their classmate's allergy & know not to share food - but I'd personally feel terrible if Pickle had some peanut butter on his hands & touched something that student might later touch & have an allergic reaction to, so I've been making his lunches peanut-free this year.

Pizza Burrito Goodbyn Hero Lunch by BentOnBetterLunches - Peanut-Free

So, what have I been sending? Well, most days, cereal & milk! We've just swapped his breakfast & lunch :) He has his beloved peanut butter sandwich in the morning,  at home where I can supervise his hand washing, & takes nut-free Cheerios or Life cereal & milk to school for lunch :) He's a creature of habit, so he hasn't been bored with this, but every now & then I like him to try something new - like this pizza burrito (I drew on it with food markers):

Pizza Burrito School Lunch by BentOnBetterLunches

The only vegetable Pickle eats willingly is tomato, in the form of ketchup, marinara dip, or pizza sauce.  I'm trying to introduce more variety into his diet though. He likes pizza Hot Pockets, so I suggested we try making something like a hot pocket by wrapping pizza toppings in a tortilla, & happily, he was willing! He even helped make it :) We spread marinara sauce on a burrito size flour tortilla, sprinkled it with turkey pepperoni, mozzarella & cheddar, folded it into a burrito, & heated it in the microwave. 


He liked it! And it's something he can make himself, which I like :)

This is the first time I've packed a pizza burrito in his lunch. He likes it heated until the cheese is melted, & students don't have access to a microwave, so I heated it to hotter than he would be able to eat it & wrapped it in foil,  hoping it would still be warm enough to be appetizing to him at lunch 3 hours later. I also stuck some funny face & "Eat me first" stickers on it for good measure :)

Pizza Burrito Goodbyn Hero School Lunch by BentOnBetterLunches

I stuck stickers on everything else just for fun :) His lunch is packed in a Goodbyn Hero, the newest addition to the Goodbyn lunchbox line.  The Hero is divided into 3 sections with space between them (see below). I hoped that gap would keep the hot burrito section from warming his Trix yogurt, which fit perfectly packed upside-down in one of the smaller sections. In the other, in the lidded Dipper container, he has his favourite cookie, Oreo. The spoon for his yogurt is wrapped in a cloth napkin from Beneficial-Bento.

 

Before putting the Hero's transparent lid on, I added a Riddle card from one of the newest Lunchbox Love for Kids volumes. Between the riddle, the silly stickers, & his newest favourite food with a friendly face drawn on it, this lunch is sure to bring a big smile to his face :)

Pizza Burrito Goodbyn Hero School Lunch by BentOnBetterLunches

I do still make fun peanut butter sandwiches for my Pickle, he just enjoys them at home. And he makes them for himself too! Nothing I've made recently hasn't been blogged before, but when I do make him something new I'll share it :)  I do have some fun new cutters to try... stay tuned!

       

Click to buy some of the stuff shown in this lunch:
  

Thursday, January 1, 2015

Bent On Better Lunches' Top 14 of 2014


Wow, another year is behind us, already! It feels like 2014 went by very fast. I sure didn't get very far down my To-Do List, in life or on the blog! Ah well, there's always next year... or rather, this year :) And while I didn't make as many creative lunches this past year as I have in previous years, I did make enough fun ones for a Top 14 of 2014 post. So, according to blog statistics, these were the year's favourites. Is your favourite among them? 



This Talk Like A Pirate Day bento was one of my own favourites,  so I'm glad to see it made the Top 14 :)  I did another version of it for a friend's daughter, by request, see it here: Special Delivery Lunches.



I had a feeling Shark Week would make the cut ;)



These sweet little "bookwiches" went into Bella's Roald Dahl Day bento. Her literary lunch even caught her principal's eye in the lunchroom. If these were real books, they'd have been bestsellers! 



This Back-To-School post couldn't help but make the hit parade; it was part of the Bento Bloggers & Friends Bento Basics Blog Hop, & it's full of tips for building your bento toolbox from what's already in your kitchen :)



11 Lunch Note Ideas shares fun ways to leave a message in their lunchbox, including right in the lunch! One of the bentos in this post was featured in the November Laptop Lunches Newsletter :)



This summertime post still makes me smile :) Love that pool monster! 



A "Daddy loves you" themed bento in celebration of passing the deployment halfway mark, featuring a cucumber chain inspired by homecoming countdown chains & the book When Dad's At Sea.



A homemade pizzable lunch is way better than a pizza lunchable!



My girls and I had a pinkerrific good time making their Pinkalicious Story Book Lunches for National Book Month. We even made pinktastic cupcakes decorated like the ones in the book :)



This winter post featuring a CuteZcute kitty cat sandwich for Birdie & Lunch Punch dog for Pickle also has cold weather tips for pets.



This Autism Awareness Month post contains awesome puzzle piece themed lunches & a tip for packing easy to open Go-Gurt tubes. 



These lunches were made cuter by colouring hearts and smiley faces on the pistachio nut shells and cheese wrapper with food-safe markers :)



I was surprised to find Pickle's super simple Cat in the Hat peanut butter sandwich bento in the number 2 spot! It is pretty cute... It just goes to show, it doesn't have to take a lot of work or time to make lunch fun :)

And finally,  the top post of 2014 is...



Who else is not at all surprised? :) Anything Frozen for the win!

       

Thank you for following Bent On Better Lunches! I've loved reading your comments & answering your questions. Here's to more fun lunches in 2015!

Happy New Year!

Disclosure: My posts contain affiliate links to products & services I've used & approve of  :)  If you make a purchase after clicking one of those links, I earn a small commission. Thank you!

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