Happy Bento! Lunches On the Go Book Giveaway

Today I'm happy to be sharing a bento from a new cookbook, Happy Bento! Lunches On The Go, by Anna Adden - and giving a copy away too!

There are a lot of bento ideas packed into this little book! And when I say little, I'm only referring to it's bento box sized dimensions of 15cm square... it's filled with 50 fun bento recipes covering themes for every season, holiday, special school days, & more.

Happy Bento! : Lunches On The Go is more of a how-to book than a traditional cookbook. It also features a guide to bento supplies, packing tips, & lists places to shop for bento gear. The author has spent several years building her own bento gear stash and shows how she organizes it all. The bento recipes are sorted into chapters according to theme. Each recipe lists the supplies needed, ingredients, & directions, however food amounts are not specified, so nutritional content is not given.

Bento makers who wish to replicate the bentos within will benefit from having a fairly extensive collection of bento tools and accessories, as most of them call for specific cutters and/or decorations to complete the theme... but those just looking for ideas and who don't mind deviating from the author's designs will find plenty to inspire them!  Anna demonstrates a variety of different techniques accompanied by detailed directions:

My girls & I chose to make the Spring bento.  The specialty tools needed for it were flower egg molds & a flower stem bento pick, which we have - and we even have a bento box the same size & shape as the one in the book!

I had never made carrot curls! Anna's step by step instructions were clear though & it was easy! I love how they look as flowers.

We made a few changes to the bento ingredients - no beans because my picky sproutlets said no way, grapes instead of blueberries, and watermelon instead of cantaloupe, because that's what we had in the fridge.  It's all good. Here's my Spring bento next to the Happy Bento one :)

I learned something while colouring the tulip egg - always mix the food dye before placing the egg in the water! I started out all right, mixing a drop of red & yellow to make an orange tulip, then adding the egg to the dye water - but then I decided to add another drop of red to make it a darker orange, and you can see streaks where the dye swirled in the water :)

Ah well, if you've ever been to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival (near where I live) you know that there actually are variegated tulips in just those colours :) Oh, and at my sproutlet's request, I coloured the center of my flower with food markers rather than exposing the yolk as in the example in the book. My girls were very happy with the Spring bento they got to share :

♥  ♥  ♥  ♥

Enter my Happy Bento! Giveaway:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The winner will be drawn & announced August 22nd. Check back here, follow me on Facebook, or check your email to see if you've won - the winner will have 48 hours to respond & claim their prize before I draw again!

Don't want to wait or take your chances? Happy Bento! : Lunches on the Go is available at Amazon.com & book sellers everywhere.

Disclosure: Other than a complimentary copy of the book to review, I received no compensation for this post. This post does contain affiliate links to products I used.  

Rainy Day Monday Rainbow Bento

It's a rainy Monday, but the sun is trying to shine! I packed a little rainbow in Bella's EasyLunchbox. A grey day needs a colorful lunch :)

That rainbow condiment cup is one of my favourites :) I filled it with Chef Kidd's Honey Berry Funagrette. Her colourful lunch also contains:

• baby carrots, one skewered in a heart shape (here's how)
• Girl Scout cookies! Do-si-dos,  the peanut butter sandwich ones
• celery sticks to dip in the rainbow cup
• English cucumber slices planted with flower picks
• Babybel cheese with a flower cut out of the wax
• & turkey & cheddar on wheat, cut in hearts with Sweet Bytes

I also packed a sunny yellow cloth napkin from Beneficial Bento.

Some of the tools & accessories I used:

McHappy Spring!

Last night was McTeacher's Night, where the sproutlets' school teachers worked at the local McDonald's to raise funds for their school. Sprout was having so much fun seeing her classmates and teachers and just being at McDonald's, that she hardly ate or drank anything! So she has her Happy Meal apple juice box in her lunch today :)

Spring is here, and things are beginning to bloom!  I filled Sprout's yubo lunchbox with blossoms: a blossom-shaped peanut butter sandwich, yogurt with flower sugar sprinkles, and grapes & carrots arranged like flowers.

Cutting sandwiches with a cookie cutter and arranging fruit creatively is an easy way to make a lunch cute without using pointy little bento picks - perfect for a preschooler, or any kid who might not bring home accessories :)

Featured in today's lunch:

Blossoms for Bella

It's really Friday today! If you read yesterday's post, you know what I'm talking about :) Today is pizza day at school, so I don't need to pack for the sproutlets. But here's a lovely lunch that somehow got left out last month:

I remember packing this PlanetBox lunch for Bella - it wasn't that long ago - just can't remember why I never posted it... Anyways, she had a turkey & cheddar blossom sandwich, sunburst & grape tomatoes,  cantaloupe, puffed rice cakes, fig newtons, & butterfly fruit gummies, embellished with blossom & heart bento picks. A very pretty lunch!

Linked to Fancy Sandwich Friday at Beneficial Bento ♥

Stuff used for this lunch:

Blossom Bento Twins

Yesterday Sprout asked me to make her a lunch just like her big sister Bella's. Sure, that makes things easier for me!

They had grapes, carrots, Fig Newtons, Craisins, & peanut butter sandwiches packed in EasyLunchboxes and several blossom shaped silicone cups.

Don't miss my Lunchbox Love Giveaway!

Click the Pic to Enter!

Stuff I used in these lunches:

Blossoms & Bears

I made Sprout & Birdie blossom lunches the other day. I think these are my favourite plate lunches I've made so far! I had the idea to make apple blossoms when I accidentally sliced the apple the wrong way :)

I cut the apple rings with a flower shaped cookie cutter, added grapes to the centres, celery slices for leaves, and used a small vegetable cutter to make carrot flowers. The blossom egg was made with a smallish egg in a star egg mold (they are meant for jumbo eggs). The grilled cheese flower was made by grilling the bottom piece with cheese on it open-faced,  the top piece with the centre cut-out on it's own,  then putting the sandwich together after grilling.

 I love how they turned out, and the little girls loved eating them ✿

They look great on the Healthy Habit plates, and fit the food groups perfectly!

Don't miss my Super Healthy Kids Healthy Habits plate giveaway for a chance to win your own Healthy Habits kids plate!

This Nibble Tray snack should have been part of my Teddy Bear Picnic post, but I forgot to include it. It's so cute I had to share it anyways:

Bumblebee food picks hover over the broccoli woods, while teddy bears made of cheddar cheese, carrot, apple, and chocolate graham cracker wait to be dunked in a blue-coloured plain yogurt pond. Well, maybe not the cheese bears... no, the cheese bears don't want to be dunked in the yogurt...
I'm pretty sure they weren't ;)

Some stuff I used for this lunch & snack:


Links to more stuff I use In My Cupboards

Leap Into Spring

Happy Leap Day! My sproutlets didn't care much that today is leap day, it didn't mean much to them - but they did find it amusing when I told them that if Pickle had been born on this date instead 5 days earlier, this year it would only be his 2nd birthday :) "Whoa, close one!" said Beanstalk.

Bella wanted "a bunch of little things" in her lunch, so I made her a Spring-y assortment of fruit, veggies, cheese, and rice cakes ✿

Birdie & Sprout shared a Nibble Tray. They had Annie's Homegrown Fruity Bunnies cereal and some alphabet cookies I found in the Safeway bakery, honey oat bran muffin, grapes, carrots, and cheddar-mozzarella flowers.

The mini muffin was Birdie's; Sprout got a bigger one, just like Pickle's, pictured below. Muffins fit perfectly in the little Tupperware snack cups. Pickle also got a Frog Prince peanut butter sandwich made with a Lunch Punch.
A Leap frog :)

Beanstalk has a new lunch box, a PlanetBox! He is so thrilled with it :)
The stainless steel is very cool...

His PlanetBox contains a honey oat bran mini muffin, raisins, grapes, Cheez-its, carrots, an orange, and a gummy fish treat. The many separated sections are perfect for my picky boy who doesn't like his foods to touch.

Stuff I used to make these lunches:

Cute picks All Things For Sale

Spring is NOT in the air today...

... but it IS in Bella's bento... a little bit :)

Bella has cheddar flowers, Spring print Ritz crackers, grapes (there's a 2nd layer under the flower cup), tomatoes topped with ham tulips, carrot tulips, & celery. The carrot had a split in it so just had to make a 2nd split for the tulips. I attached the ham tulips to the tomatoes with cute little tulip picks from AllThingsForSale, and secured the cheese stack with a bunny pick from Daiso. A pretty Spring-y lunch to brighten this gloomy rainy day - I hope :)

Nothing cutesy for Beanstalk - he was less than thrilled about his Valentine's Day hearts bento. I did still sneak a little sunshine in - Sun-Maid raisins (made from grapes & sunshine, right?) and Spring print Ritz - but only the ones with the sunshine, not the flowers or butterflies :) 

To answer Jenn of Bento for Kidlet's question from the other day, "where do you take your lunch pictures?", I take mine on our front porch too! The light is best there in the mornings, although on gloomy days like today, the "best" light still isn't very good! :)

Pickle wanted pancakes. Fortunately for him (because I am not good at making them), when Sailor Boy makes pancakes, he makes lots so we have extra to freeze - so I only had to reach into the bag in the freezer :) He has separate spoons for the yogurt and the peanut butter cup - he likes a fresh spoon - and a dipping cup of maple syrup, covered in Glad Press'n Seal.

Stuff I used today:

Spring is in the air... I think :)

Birdie actually chirped when she saw her muffin tin meal today. Then cooed "Oooh, beautiful lunch!" ♥ She had cheddar butterflies, pasta butterflies, and a hard-cooked egg cloud, in sky blue cups,  and a little nutella flower sandwich with celery leaves, a grape & carrot flower, and strawberry flowers, in flower cups. Sprout had the same in an orange muffin tin.

Today was just gorgeous (after the morning frost melted); sunshine, blue skies, birds chirping - maybe the groundhog was wrong... it felt very spring-like, and inspired me to make a colourful spring-like lunch for the little girls. I knew we had some leftover farfalline pasta - butterflies! - and the rest of the garden grew up around them. I remembered the strawberry flowers from a Muffin Tin Mom post last Spring.

The egg clouds were made using large eggs in the star mold instead of extra-large. I cut them in half, added little carrot blossoms and stuck them back together. Birdie gasped and squeaked with delight when she discovered the flower surprise in her "eggie" cloud :)

Beanstalk (when he saw this photo after school) said "Sorry, not to hurt your feelings but that (pointing to the sandwich flower) didn't turn out so well, it's kind of block-y" then quickly added "but it probly [sic] still tasted good!"

Heheh, he's right, it is kind of blockish - but I didn't have a medium sized flower cutter, so I cut a circle then cut notches out of it with the point of the butterfly cutter's wing. I was behind schedule, and not about to waste bread on a 2nd try, so, c'est la vie! Birdie & Sprout didn't mind a bit :)

The sproutlets are playing in the yard as I am composing this post on our back porch picnic table - it's that nice out. Welcome Spring?