Tag Archives: LunchBots

Two Butterflies Bento

27 Mar

How can we not be happy when you see two butterflies?  🙂  The first butterfly bento was such a hit, I had to make another one for Ms. Little Bubbles.  Once again I enlisted the help of my heart cutters.  However, this time I found an oval-ish shaped cutter for the body and used the quail egg nori punch for the eyes and mouth.  This is a very simple bento, but so happy.  🙂

Not much to say on my end.  I’ve been busy so the bento have been kept to a minimum.  I’m excited to say that I put in an auction item for Ms. Little Bubbles school.  Four bento in May (every Monday I think) and a special bento on the child’s birthday.  If you are from Ms. Little Bubbles school and are checking out my bento blog… BID and BID high.  🙂  It’s for a good cause (our kids) and I have so much fun making bentos that it will be great to make them for other kids too.

Hugs to all and I hope everyone is having a great day… week.. year!

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St. Patrick’s Day Lucky Bento

20 Mar

Lucky 4 Leaf Clover Bento

It’s four days late, but I finally made Ms. Little Bubbles a St. Patrick’s Day bento.  I had the concept in my head for a few days, but didn’t have a chance to make it until this morning.  I’m happy to say that my green egg sheet was a success.  If you’ve been following my blog, you’ve seen my past egg sheet attempts/disasters, but this time it turned out perfect.  Not runny, not oily, just right. 🙂  (Bentolicious has an awesome egg sheet tutorial.) The clover leaves are made from a heart shaped cutter (very handy, remember I used it to make my butterfly too?).  I free form cut the stem and leaves and the rainbow, butterfly and star are bento food dividers.  (The Japanese name for them is escaping me this morning… oh, getting old!)

So, although I’m not Irish, I made Ms. Little Bubbles happy and celebrated St. Patrick’s Day.  🙂 Oh, and did I mention I used my favorite Lunch Bots box?  Love this box.  I haven’t tired their new items (as reviewed by Happy Little Bento) but I love the original box!

 

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Mac and Cheese with Edamame (but a story on my Christmas disaster bento)

9 Dec

Simple Leftover Bento

I’m back!  Sorry for the week long break.  I have been making bentos this week, but I had a disaster of a bento on Monday and just couldn’t bring myself to post it.  I tried to make a Christmas bento, and just couldn’t figure out what I wanted to do.  I ended up deciding to try a colored egg sheet tree.  OMG!  It was awful.  There was too much oil, the pan was not hot enough, my first try ended up with a gloppy mess and my second sheet was too shiny (due to the oil).  And then I decided to get all fancy and put sprinkles on it to act as “lights” on the tree.  Well… the sprinkles melted once it hit the oil on the tree, and I ended up with black smudges on the tree.  Oh, I was so sad.  Maybe if I have the courage, I’ll post a small picture of it at the end of this post.

Well… that has nothing to do with the bento picture above.  Besides the fact that I decided I need to stick to good ol’ standbys until I can perfect a christmas bento.  But I only have another week, so I better get crackin’ on that one.

The above bento is a leftover bento.  My motto is that I don’t like to fuss with my bentos, thus the Christmas tree bento is steppin’ out of my element.  Today’s bento is made from leftover mac and cheese from California Pizza Kitchen.  They already mixed it with edamame, I just added the carrots.  You can’t tell, but mixed in with the carrots on the right are sweet potatoes.  I had a large gap next to the carrots/sweet potato cup, and quickly searched in my cabinet for something to throw into the other cup.  I luckily found snack peas.

Happy Holidays to everyone!

Contents: Mac and cheese with edamame, strawberries, carrots, sweet potatoes and snack peas.

😦 my sad Christmas trees

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Happy Thanksgiving – My 1st Turkey

21 Nov

My 1st Turkey

Well, it’s okay, you can laugh. LOL! This turkey is horrible and looks like a big mess. I contemplated putting it up on the blog, but thought, that’s what a blog is for – to share the good and the bad. So, here is my first attempt at a turkey, and maybe my last. LOL.

When I woke up this morning, I didn’t plan on doing a turkey, but for some reason, I thought “why not?”. Well, planning on the whim is not a good plan, as I didn’t have much in my refrigerator to make the turkey, and I didn’t really know what tools to use. I looked over a parenting website for some ideas, tried to follow and example, but ended up with this sad looking turkey.

Under the turkey is some of Ms. Little Bubble’s favorite food – edamame rice, furikake salmon, roasted butternut squash and a cuttie. I hope she at least enjoyed her food, even though the turkey is a bit scary. I followed this recipe for the furikake salmon, but baked it at 350 degrees rather than frying it. I also skipped the added salt on the salmon. The furikake I used has a lot of salt in it already.

Contents: edamame rice, furikake salmon, roasted butternut squash and a cuttie.

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Hello Panda!

18 Nov

Hello Panda!

Yesterday was a sandwich day, but I decided to jazz this sandwich up with a Japanese sandwich maker kit that my sister-in-law gave me earlier this year.  The kit is really cool.  It comes with a spoon to correctly proportion the food for the sandwich, a stamp to impress the panda with, and a cutter that seals the edges.  I decided to put egg salad in the sandwich, but you can put anything you want.  I used my normal whole wheat bread, but I think a truly square Japanese bread would work better as the sandwich cutter was slightly bigger than my slice of bread and thus it didn’t correctly seal the sandwich together.  To help the panda stand out, I toasted the bread.  Without toasting the bread, you can still see the panda, but it’s really faint.

As for where she got the cutter from… I’m not sure, but I’m thinking Marukai.

Panda (or bear?) Sandwich Making Kit

Contents:  Egg salad sandwich, kamaboko, carrots, and a cutie

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She’s Back – Hello Kitty! :-)

12 Oct
Hello Kitty Mac and Cheese

Hello Kitty Mac and Cheese

She is back! 😉  My quick and easy Hello Kitty couldn’t stay away for long.  Although, she almost didn’t have a bow because I didn’t have my usual standby bow ingredient – kamaboko.  I stood looking in my refrigerator for a few seconds thinking “now what???” and then I saw the apples!  Ah ha…. I used the apple peel as the bow. It was a bit hard to cut out but I think it worked out okay.  I guess you can say this bento has a few of my favorites, or Ms. Little Bubbles favorites – Lunch Bots container, Hello Kitty, steamed cinnamon apples, mac and cheese and ginger cookies.  🙂

Contents:  Mac and cheese, steamed cinnamon apples, ginger cookies

 

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Pizza Bento? What are you talking about?

6 Oct

Pizza Bento

This is my American version bento.  Some people think that bentos always need to have Japanese food in them.  But this is not a Japanese food bento.  This is an all American bento – filled with Hawaiian pizza (pineapples on pizza still weird me out, but my kids love it).  Again, I haven’t had much time to think of cute bentos, so this is one that was thrown together very quickly and then decorated with flower picks and the cute bunny baran.  🙂  If you haven’t noticed, I tend to use the same things over and over again.

Contents: Hawaiian pizza, strawberries, carrots and crackers

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I Love My LunchBots Bento Box

26 Sep

Love My LunchBots Bento Box

Last week a blog reader asked me if I had any suggestions for bento boxes that are BPA free.  One of my favorite bento boxes that meets this need is my LunchBots box.  I love this box as it is stainless steel and comes in various sizes that are divided or not divided.

After reading this comment, I was inspired to use my LunchBots box for Ms. Little Bubbles lunch.  This particular box is divided, but you can’t see the divider because it is covered by lettuce.  If you decide to use this box, I do want to offer a bit of advice – although there is a divider, each section is not completely sealed. Therefore, don’t put food that contains water or sauce on one side thinking that it won’t run to the other, because it may.  To be safe, if you have food that contains sauces or are a bit juicy, such as watermelon, you should use bento cup liners and/or silicon cups.

For information on the BPA levels in other Japanese bento boxes, please visit Just Bento’s Blog.  She’s wonderful and offers a lot of information.

Contents: Yaki soba, grapes, ginger cookies and strawberries

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