Bats Amore!

Eeek! Today is a special day for my blog, it's the day one of my bentos is part of Wendolonia's series,  3 Tools, 4 Lunches, in which 4 different bloggers are challenged to make a lunch using the same 3 tools :) This week's tools are the CuteZcute Animal Palz Mini Sandwich & Egg Press,  alphabet bento picks,  & the PlanetBox Rover lunch box to pack them in. This is what I came up with:

Of the 4 Animal Palz that can be created with the sandwich & egg press, I love the bat the most, so I went with that for a theme. "Bats Amore!"  But Bella didn't get my pun. Oh well, I chuckled at it :) And I even found a bat fact Lunchbox Love note.  For lunch details and to see what the other 3 bloggers did with the same stuff, visit the post at Wendolonia!

It's not just being part of this bento challenge that makes this a special day for my blog, it's having one of my lunches on Wendolonia, period! Wendy's blog was one of the ones that inspired me to try my hand at both bento & blogging almost 3 years ago! So it's pretty thrilling to be featured on there :)

Some of the stuff I used to make this bento:

Pack Lunches, Not Punches!

Today the Bento Bloggers & Friends are having an anti-bullying blog hop, and I have the honour of hosting a guest post by my friend Lauri of Welcome to the Bensanity.

"This lunch was inspired by two brave young elementary school aged boys who were bullied because they like My Little Pony. One boy was prohibited from bringing his MLP backpack to school by the administration, the other was bullied to the point of attempting suicide.

My own son, at that age, was tormented because of his love of ballet, and more specifically, because of his Rainbow shoelaces. When asked what his favorite color was he would reply "All Colors!"

I would love to see the day when children aren't corralled or taught that they are supposed to like certain colors or activities. People are people and we all have our own individual tastes and we should be honored for our spirit and our kindness. Not the color of our shoelaces or the cartoon on our backpacks."

Directions: 

• Prepare pasta to package specifications. 
• While cooking, prepare 5 Ziploc bags with 20 drops of food coloring and 2 TB of water each. 
• Separate pasta into 5 equal portions and seal in individual bags. Let soak for 1 minute each. 
• Rinse each portion of colored pasta in colander & mix. 

Include a thermos of your favorite topping or sauce to add to your lunch! This lunch has a nice Alfredo Sauce waiting to be added (& a little EasyLunchboxes mini dipper of shredded parmesan cheese)!"

Thank you Lauri, that looks amazing! For more of Lauri's lunches, follow her on Facebook: Welcome to the Bensanity. And follow our blog hop to see more anti-bullying bentos , starting with Licious Lunches :) 

 

Lunch Guest: Becoming A Bentoholic!

Hi everyone!  My name is Anna and I am a mom of two little ones ages 2 & 4.  My four year old daughter is in preschool and is primarily the one I pack lunches for.  Don't worry the 2 year old gets his fair share of fun snacks and muffin tin meals.  He also helps gobble up those bento scraps!  I would love for you all to stop on by my blog (Becoming A Bentoholic) or Facebook page and say hello some time.

Today I have prepared a quick, simple, and fun lunch.

In this lunch:  Carrot curls (I just used my peeler on the carrot, then curled them up in the lunchbox for prettiness), cucumber slices, peanut butter in the small pink Lego box, crackers, a few Lego block candies, clementine wedges, and red grapes.

Used as the photo background is one of my multipurpose Funkins!

This lunch is packed in our Lego lunchbox, the blue inner container is also a Lego box.

A special thanks to Cristi for letting me try my hand at guest blogging!  I hope you are enjoying some well deserved time with your family :)

Lunch Guest: Creative Food!

Hi everyone! I am Michelle from Creative Food.  My blog is all about presenting food in a fun and creative way for my daughter, Eliana. I'm so excited to be guest posting here on for Cristi while she is relaxing and enjoying well deserved time with her family!  I have always been such a huge fan of what Cristi does-- she packs the most gorgeous lunches and honestly sometimes I wish she could pack my lunches! :)

So without futher ado.. since we are in still in Fall season (although it is hard to tell because Christmas music is popping up everywhere!) I decided to make a Scarecrow lunch to share with you all today!

To make this Simple Scarecrow all I used my circle cookie cutter and some kitchen scissors.  His head I cut out with the circle cookie cutter and made a sandwich.  The hat and body I used my kitchen scissors to cut the bread crust.  His face is made of mini chocolate chip eyes, a carrot nose, confetti cheeks and a mouth drawn with edible food markers.  His straw hair is made of potato sticks that I stuck under his hat.

So when making him I had thought his hat was too plain so I decided to add some cheese and carrot decorations.. but now looking at him again he looks more like a pilgrim... So he is a Pilgrim Scarecrow! Perfect for Fall/Thanksgiving time  He was really so simple to make and Eliana loved him! She enjoyed her Scarecrow Lunch with some fruit on the side (not pictured).

Thanks again to Cristi for letting me guest post!  I hope you had a wonderful stay-cation!!

For more Creative Fun Food you can find me here:

Facebook :: Pinterest :: Instagram :: Twitter :: Google +

Lunch Guest: Food, Family, Fun!

Hello to all of the Bent on Better Lunches followers! I am Amanda from Food, Family, Fun and am thrilled to be guest posting today for Cristi. I hope that she is having a super stay-cation with her family.

Today I have made a fun panda themed lunch to share with you. 

This lunch is for my 4 year old daughter and is packed in her Planetbox Shuttle. Heidi has 2 strawberry jam sealed panda shaped sandwiches, babybel cheese with a baby panda cutout, a few grapes & blueberries, carrots and ranch dip in the mini panda cup, a single tucked away strawberry and a panda bear shaped boiled egg. These are pretty much all of her favourite things! 

I have 4 daughters ranging in age from 2 years old to 7 years old. I often pack similar lunches for them and I have also packed my 5 year old a panda themed lunch today. Hers is packed slightly differently and in a Planetbox Rover lunch container. If you'd like to see her fun lunch please click on my button below. I'll give you a hint about one difference- I've used the same CuteZCute sandwich sealer but in another way!

Thanks for having me Cristi. Enjoy your stay-cation.

Amanda

Lunch Guest: Loving Lunches!

G'Day, I'm Jackie from Loving Lunches (yes, I'm Australian). I'm loving the opportunity to guest post for Cristi while she gets some well deserved family time! To be honest I'm quite nervous, Cristi is one of my Bento idols and I still get a little giddy when I see her name pop up on my screen. I had intended to do a Monkeys in Suits lunch for you today, with lots of geeky references, but I'm afraid I'm only on geek level 1 and failed you there. I did however make sure I included some peanut butter for Pickle. Anyway, here's lunch!

Today's muffin tin was made for my Miss M, now 3 1/2 and contains

• banana/peanut butter/nutella smoothie (in a Take & Toss cup)
• bow-tie pasta (because bow-ties are cool... hey hey, I got one in there!) with tomato dipping sauce (using these silicon food cups)
• half a banana (I do keep wanting to sing *bzthhhhpppfft, half a banana*) with some almonds & yoghurt covered sultanas
• mashed banana/peanut butter monkey sandwiches with Nutella and peanut butter detail
• yoghurt and almonds (in a cute little banana silicon cup)
• monkey egg

When thinking on ingredients I knew I wanted to include peanut butter, and my inspiration for this lunch came from my new Animal Palz monkey, so banana was a must. Why not combine the two? I remember having banana sandwiches as a kid and earlier this year I rediscovered the joys of banana smoothies. So half a mashed banana and peanut butter it was.

I then added some Nutella and had a mummy sample with the bread offcuts.

The leftovers were wizzed with some milk and voila - smoothie. The other half of the banana ended up in the lunch so there was no waste there either.

Thank you for letting me share some Loving Lunches love with you today. I do believe you will be returning to your regular program by this time next week :-)

Lunch Guest: Feeling A Little Lunchy!

feeling a little bent on better lunches today...

Well, hello there to all of Cristi's loyal fans!  I'm a huge fan of hers as well.  In fact, I have been more than inspired by her amazing lunches...enough to start my own blog and attempt to make our food look as fabulous as hers...I try, but she's pretty talented with the food stuff and creativity and camera and cool fonts. I'm feeling a little lunchy, you can find me at www.feelingalittlelunchy.com and also on Facebook. I feel so honored that Cristi would let me hijack her blog for a minute to share one of my mustachioed lunches with you. I tried really hard to channel her creativity, but I still wasn't happy with the result...maybe you will like it anyways.

I have two daughters, ages 10 and 12 who are two very different people.  The 12 year old will not allow me to add any flair to her lunches anymore, but the 10 year old loves it and says she wants me to do this forever. Therefore, quite often, I make the same lunch, but two ways. One with flair, one without.

I do realize there's tomatoes in one lunch and none in the other, that's how my girls roll. They're both getting turkey and cheese with lettuce, carrots, a clementine and some pineapple chunks. They'll have some ranch to dip the carrots tossed in their bags. I always send reusable water bottles with them as well. They like me to freeze the bottles overnight so they will be good and cold all day. Basically, I just fill the bottles half way, freeze them, then in the morning I will too them off with water so they're not completely solid. They work well as ice packs, too. 

The flair-rific lunch is adorned with a couple of mustaches...mainly because we love them, but also because it's Movember, and we would love it if the men in all of our lives took the time this month to get a check up, avoid any cancers and just take care of themselves.

These lunches, as most of ours are, were packed in EasyLunchboxes. If you don't have any yet, they're great.  I'm sure you'd be able to hunt down a link for them somewhere on this blog. Look over there at the sidebar...go....buy some. 

Thanks again for letting me steal you from BentOnBetterLunches!

Lunch Guest: Bentos On The Bayou!

Hello readers! This is Rebecca from Bentos on the Bayou,  and I could not be more honored to be your guest blogger today.  Cristi is a sweet friend and someone I admire so much, so when I found out her Sailor was coming home, I jumped on the chance to step in and offer to do a post for her.

While I absolutely adore Cristi, her amazing husband Andy is kind of a super hero at my house, quite literally.  I hope this week is truly wonderful and beautiful for these 7 people that so truly deserve it.  Thank you Andy for serving our country.  I have so much respect for you and know that words can never express the gratitude I feel for you and your fellow sailors, soldiers, pilots, etc.  Thank you Cristi (and all 5 of your beautiful children) for supporting him and all you do as a military family.

The lunch I am sharing today is simple, healthy and fun!  I truly love the plethora of colors available in fruits and vegetables and love to use as many of them as possible in my bentos.  As you can imagine, I was thrilled when I cut into this Chioggia beet!  I didn’t realize it was this variety until I cut into it and saw the candy cane stripes.  I was absolutely giddy!!

What’s in the box?

Chioggia Beet Flower, Edamame

Fresh Pole Beans, Carrot Sticks, Cucumber

Clementine Orange, Raspberries

Rotisserie Chicken, Colby-Jack Cheese

Raw Corn w/ Nori Face, Cherry Tomatoes

Thank you for the pleasure of your company today!!  I hope you enjoyed this lunch, and I hope Cristi enjoyed a little extra time with her Sailor today.

Ladybug Lunches

I'm guest posting over at Ladybug Lunches today...  so I've made ladybug lunches for the occasion, what else? You can see Birdie's ladybug lunch here, and Sprout's similar but different version there!

Birdie's Yumbox bento lunch contains:

• mozzarella string cheese
• strawberry hearts
• cherry tomatoes
• a ladybug cheese sandwich
• raspberries with a little heart fork
• chocolate covered raisin treat

Kindergartner Sprout's ladybug lunch is even cuter, I think!

Get Sprout's lunch details in my guest post at Ladybug Lunches!

Birdie's ladybug themed preschool lunch is packed in her new & improved Yumbox Leakproof Bento Lunch Box!

The Yumbox shell still needs to be hand washed, but the inner tray is now made of dishwasher-safe Tritan plastic. We have Nalgene bottles made of Tritan, and they've been through the dishwasher hundreds of times, so I know it's tough stuff and can be confident this new tray will survive, yay! Sailor Boy is the chief dishwasher around here and I don't like to make things difficult for him by having too many things he has to hand wash :) 

Some stuff used to pack this lunch:

Impossible Astronaut Day

It's Impossible Astronaut Day! How many times have you already seen this lunch? I'm hoping that you've forgotten so I can get away with posting it again (I'm sick and don't feel like making food).  But if it does look familiar... 

... then you saw my guest post on Bento for Kidlet... or did you look away? 

If you're a Doctor Who fan, you'll know what's up with the tally marks, but if not... well, sorry, one does not simply explain Doctor Who :)  Just try to look past them at Bella's yummy lunch of:

• cheese tortilla TARDIS sandwich
• romaine lettuce, cabbage & carrot salad
• green & red grapes
• cucumber & carrot "jammy dodgers"
• cheesy star crackers
• yogurt star cookies & real Jelly Babies

Lunch is packed in our PlanetBox Launch Lunchbox.

Now, click the button to go see what Eileen of Robot Squirrel and the Monkeys has made... quick, before you forget!

Wonderful Wizard of Oz Cowardly Lion Bento

Surprise! Wizard of Oz Hop, Take 2 ! I already blogged my Oz bento in yesterday's hop, but I just had to jump into today's as well, so I could share this wonderful Cowardly Lion bento, that I did NOT make :) 

Isn't it incredible? My friend Lauri Fitzsimmons made this bento. Lauri is an amazing food artist.  She not only contributed her gluten-free recipes, but she helped Kelly Lester of EasyLunchboxes choose & style some of the lunches for the Cooking with Trader Joe's: Easy Lunch Boxes cookbook, (that I am featured in!), and she makes bentos for her husband & son. Lauri is one of the few Bento Bloggers & Friends who don't blog, but this awesome bento needed to be seen, so I asked her if I could share it. Thank you Lauri!

Now,  get back on the yellow brick road to 

visit Robot Squirrel and the Monkeys!

OR, scroll down to read more about Lauri's bento...

I took the liberty of playing with Lauri's photo above, just for fun,  but here is the original, and the description of her bento, in her own words:

This lunch was in honor of my fateful meeting with Kelly Lester, the ELB queen. (More on that below, keep reading.) The face is provolone cheese, the mane is a combo of roast beef, ham, turkey and prosciutto, and the eyes are corned beef. The whiskers are sliced chives (from my garden) all on a slice of potato bread with mayo (so basically, an open faced sandwich) all lying on a bed of wild greens. The upper right corner is blue jello with cupcake sprinkles for the rainbow, the lower right is pomegranate applesauce with pineapple slices and half a maraschino cherry for the "medal" and that's it. It took 20 minutes tops to make!

More on Lauri & the ELB Queen...

Lauri & Kelly working on the TJ's cookbook

I met Kelly Lester through an amazing “Small World” story. I had become a fan of her EasyLunchboxes on Facebook and had been following her for about a year and a half. I loved admiring all the lunches, since I enjoyed making bentos as well. When I saw that she had posted a video about a Summer Camp that she taught at for young actors, I private messaged her and asked her for information about the camp because I knew my son would love it. She wrote back and asked if we lived in Northern California, and I told her no, we were in Southern California. She wrote back that she did too! What a small world! But wait, after a few more messages back and forth she said that she had noticed that we have several friends in common. She asked how I knew Ronnie Sperling, and I told her that we had known each other for quite awhile but that my son happened to be in a show he was directing. Kelly wrote back “The Wizard of Oz?” Um, yes! She wrote again that her daughter was playing Dorothy! Well my son was playing the Cowardly Lion! And thus a friendship was born, our families adore each other and I owe it all to EasyLunchboxes!

Thanks for reading! Now go visit Robot Squirrel and the Monkeys!

Like the look of the EasyLunchboxes? Get some!

And the Mini Dippers, and of course,  the cookbook too!