Fall Picks!

Today's Fall-ish bento for Bella was a perfect example of what my friend Kendra refers to as "pickography" - that's when you make a bento with nothing really artistic done to the actual food, no carvings or shapes, just plain food, "where picks and cups and accessories do all the work."  You may know my friend as bloggess Ludicrous Mama of Biting The Hand That Feeds You (and if you don't, check out her blog).  Pick a theme, any theme... if she doesn't have a pick for it, they probably don't make one!

Bella's EasyLunchbox is packed with carrot sticks, turkey & cheddar wraps secured with Autumn Leaves cupcake picks, a tomato in a yellow flower cup, & grapes embellished with a flexible plastic Sunflower pick:

The picks I chose were inspired by the sunflowers I had seen in the courtyard of her school the week before. Sunflowers make me smile. I hope the simple touches to her lunch made her smile :)

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 :

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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.  

Throwback Thursday - Bynto Bentos

It's Throwback Thursday,  (the internet says), so I'm throwing back (is that right?) to a Thursday last February, almost a year ago! My bento blogger buddy Beau - aka The Lunchbox Dad - had just begun hosting a weekly Throwback Thursday lunch link-up :) That week I had linked up this heart-filled Goodbyn Bynto from the previous Spring.

Sydney Bean still loves her Bynto lunchbox, in fact she took lunch in it yesterday. No pics of that lunch though - it wasn't anything creative. I'm still trying to find my groove again - life just seems a whole lot more hectic now than it was 3 years ago when I began this blog. I thought this parenting thing would get easier as the sproutlets got older and more independent, but it seems like the more independent they are, the more involved I find myself having to be! Gone are the days when I could gate them safely in the playroom to amuse each other while I accomplished something. Lately I'm just not finding the time I used to have for my blog :( Oh well, at least I'm making them lunch, right? And it was a bunch of her favourite fruits & a granola bar in a colourful container she likes, so she was happy with it ;)

Here are some more throwbacks to Bynto lunches she's loved:

That rainbow bento was one of my favorites too.

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I don't think I ever blogged this one!

 

 I love how happy she is with her lunch :)

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We both liked this one because it goes with a book!

How Did That Get In My Lunchbox tells about the journey foods make from where they begin until they get to us. Read more about it in this post :)

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And I love this one because my little Bean Sprout made it herself!

Sharknado Cinnamon Rolls!

Yesterday was a gloomy, rainy day, but I didn't mind, that made it the perfect day to stay in and watch Shark Week on Discovery, and since it was a little chilly, to bake!  The sproutlets love cinnamon rolls, and watching Sharknado 2 the other day, I got the idea to make Sharknado rolls!

I took the easy route and used Pillsbury Grands! place & bake cinnamon rolls. I frosted them while they were still warm, and while the icing was still all melty, sprinkled them with shark shaped Wilton sugar sprinkles. Easy peasy!

Aren't they fun? Sugary sharks swimming in a swirl of sweet icing atop cinnamon roll tornados. Of course the kids loved them!

Today was another gloomy day, and the kidlets asked if I would bake Sharknado rolls again. I kind of did... just not cinnamon rolls... but that's for tomorrow's post :)

Speaking of baking... Eek! Have you seen these Fred and Friends Snack Attack Cookie Cutters? 

I totally want to bake some shark attack cookies for my next snack attack! Too bad I don't own them - yet :) But my friend Keitha does, & she used hers to make a Shark Week breakfast for her little guy - complete with ketchup blood! Check it out on her blog, Keitha's Chaos!

Here's one more pic of my sharky cinnamon rolls, because I'm hungry!

An Elephant Lunch Parade for World Elephant Day

Today is World Elephant Day! I packed Birdie's lunch in her Boon Trunk Snack Box. Nothing fancy - the box itself makes the lunch fun :)

She has mini croissants, grapes, honey ham rolls, a Babybel cheese, & a banana. I tucked some reusable ice cubes next to the ham to keep it extra chilly until lunch. And I used a mini cutter to cut a little birdie out of the Babybel wax, then stuck the cutout to the box, for an extra cute touch :)

The Boon Snack Box is quite roomy. The largest compartment is big enough for a juice pouch or small squeeze pouch. The lid is easy for a kid to take off, yet stays on securely when carried. It's pretty cute!

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Birdie has loved elephants since she was a toddler - she even chose an elephant theme for her 3rd birthday party :) So, we have a lot of elephant stuff, including bento accessories, & I have made a lot of elephant lunches - so I'm marching out my favourites for World Elephant Day:

Pink Elephants Lunch Parade

I like the smiling blue elephant cupcake ring I put on the string cheese :)

Parent & baby elephant sandwich made with a Lunch Punch Critter Cutter embellished with sugar eyes. So sweet ;)

3rd birthday bento!

Elephant Garden Muffin Tin Meal

Elephants & Carrot Peanuts :)

There's an elephant pick party in this lunch! I added a crown to the Lunch Punch sandwich - it reminds me of Babar & his family :)

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And this adorable bento is not mine, but I wish it was! I so love those elephant buns. It's by Eclectic Lamb, bento maker & bread artist extraordinaire!

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It's an Elephant Party & all are invited! 
Link your elephant food below :

An InLinkz Link-up

A Birdie Bento for my Baby Bird

We haven't called Birdie Baby Bird in a long time... at some point the nickname evolved, but that's how it began - when she was a toddler she liked to chirp, just like a baby bird. I packed her a Birdie-themed PlanetBox Shuttle for lunch:

My friend Venia (of the lovely Organized Bites blog) sent me a birdie sandwich cutter she found at Target. It makes 4 birds (or chicks) that can be arranged as you like. I spread Birdie's cheese sandwiches around her yogurt-filled Little Dipper. I remembered I had some chick-shaped sprinkles in an Easter mix so added a smattering, & glued some sugar eyes on the sandwiches with honey. On the side she has grapes, a clementine, & tomatoes.

Since we planned to take lunch to the lagoon at the park, I added a cloth napkin & a happy little spoon atop the sandwiches, which besides being useful for eating & wiping fingers, fills the empty space & helps keep things from tumbling in a heap when the PlanetBox is carried. 5 year old Birdie's just learning to read so I chose a simple Lunchbox Love note for her:

I love the little bird that's on every Lunchbox Love note ♥

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Some stuff I used to pack this lunch:

Heart-y Happy Nuts

When I saw the adorable decorated pistachios in this football bento by Becoming A Bentoholic and this Valentines Day bento by Eclectic Lamb, I made a mental note to draw on some for my girls. It only took a few minutes to colour them, while I was drinking my morning coffee :)

Seven year old Sprout got pink & purple hearts on her pistachios, strawberry yogurt, grapes, strawberries sliced like hearts, Craisins, & a Jammie Dodger cookie, packed in her Framboise Pink Yumbox.

11 year old Bella got smiley-faced pistachios, a smiley-faced string cheese, Balance bar, grapes, tomatoes, carrots, & a Jammie Dodger cookie. I packed her lunch in one of our EasyLunchboxes, whcih have transparent lids, but I thought it would be fun if the smiley faces were a surprise, so I covered everything with her cloth napkin topped with a Lunchbox Love note :)