Winter Wonderland

Here are a few more wintery Bentos I did. Since it has hardly been a real winter this year, I figured I'd better get them in while they were still appropriate.

Red and green bell pepper, buttered sourdough toast, salami, provolone, roasted cashews, strawberry fruit leather, mini marshmallows, and a shortbread cookie.

Homemade butter croutons, yellow and white American cheese, red bell pepper, cucumber, salami, ranch in the container, and a North Pole marshmallow (no pun intended).

Ramen noodles, with snowflake shaped fried egg and provolone cheese, some red bell peppers, more provolone 'snow' and letters, and in the closed container under the letters, there is some applesauce.

Christmas Cookie Cutouts

I love baking, so making Christmas cookies, while it can be tedious, is a natural extension of what I do. Here are a couple batches we did this year. I do a few other cookies as well, but these butter cookie cutouts are always the artsy fun ones!

 

Beary Special

I discovered AllThingsForSale.com and placed my first order. This is the first Bento in which I got to utilize some of the fun things I purchased, which would be a bear mold, sauce container set, and animal pick set. Beary cute!

Homemade tuna pasta salad, mini bear grilled cheese sandwiches, yellow bell pepper with ranch (in the sauce container), and trail mix with mini marshmallows, raisins, pecans, and teddy graham crackers.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas..

This post has a few of the first Christmas/winter themed Bentos I've done. Such fun to use my cookie cutters in a new and exciting way!

Red and green bell pepper, Colby-Jack cheese, provolone snowman w/ mini chocolate chip accents, homemade English muffin croutons, and vanilla pudding with mini m&m's, or as my daughter calls them, M-O-Ms.

Vegetable bean soup w/ Parmesan 'snow', mozzarella, cucumber, red, green, and yellow bell pepper, potato chips, and a mini candy cane, which turns out to be the candy of choice for our little one.

Snowflake toasts w/ mayonnaise, provolone, and pepper, salami, roasted cashews, cucumbers, red bell pepper, salami, grapes, marshmallow twist, and some more provolone 'snow' for good measure!

Dyno-mite!

Seemed like a good day to go for the dinosaurs again with some fun picks this time!

Couscous, salami and provolone cheese 'mushrooms', dinosaur shaped rye crouton, cucumbers, red bell pepper, and American cheese.

Halloween Line Up

Over Halloween, which is my favorite holiday and time of year, I did a few different Bento lunches for my daughter. I figured I'd just include them all in one long post, so I apologize in advance. Again, this is before I had any fun cutters or picks, so hopefully they will become more ambitious and exciting come next Halloween. But, I found some great ideas that I took a crack at anyways. Enjoy!

Ramen noodles, red bell peppers, melted American cheese on toast, mandarin oranges, Granny Smith apple fangs, Trader Joe's veggie straws, and a mini 3 Musketeers.

Spanish rice, deviled egg, orange bell peppers, cucumbers, black olives, bone shaped graham crackers, gummy worms, and a skull sugar candy.

Tomato pasta stars, ghost toast with melted provolone cheese, Club cracker tombstones, green beans, salami, orange Jello moon, and a couple of candy corns.

Pumpkin shaped grilled cheese with bean accents and sauerkraut, cucumber, orange bell pepper, potato chips, and a skull sugar candy.

Cheese ravioli in tomato sauce, a mix of corn, peas, and carrots, American cheese accents, Trader Joe's veggie straws, banana ghosts w/ sprinkles, green grapes, and a skull sugar candy.

Mediterranean Inspired

We frequent a fantastic deli at Yasmeen's, so I decided to incorporate some of the goodies into a Bento for our daughter. Turned out beautiful and delicious!

 

Hummus, cucumbers, sharp cheddar cheese, tabbouleh, felafel, picked radish, and homemade pita chips.

Out to Sea

I think anyone's that has looked up Bento style meals in books or online has come across the Octo-dog, so we gave it a try too! What fun!

 

Colby-Jack cheese, a deviled egg with yellow bell pepper sail, dill pickle, half of a turkey hotdog made into an octopus w/ mustard accents, strawberries, and Goldfish crackers.

Jurassic Bento

I figured I might as well utilize the whole box this time. It is the Sassy On the Go Feeding Set. It's the only one I have at the moment, but I love it! I'm also trying out my DynoBytes Sandwich Crust Cutter, which turned out well, but doesn't fit quite right on the bread I buy, so I do have to press the bread a bit to get the full design out. Oh well.. still cute!

 

Egg noodles, black plum, shredded carrots and bell peppers, and dinosaur shaped homemade garlic croutons.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears.. Maybe..

It's a bit of a stretch, but for my first attempt at this sort of thing, not too bad over all. At the time, I had no cutters at all and everything was free hand. I'd like to give it another shot with some of the cute cutters and some modification to the amount of food. Turns out it was WAY too much food for my wee kiddo, but she still liked it and that's what matters in the end.

Vegetable fried rice, turkey balogna w/ ketchup accents, American cheese, cucumbers, yellow bell pepper, crackers, checkerboard apple, strawberries,  and a chocolate chip cookie.

Bento #2

Still excited about the success of the first Bento attempt, I went for it again with the same positive response from my daughter! Fabulous!!

Cucumbers, orange bell pepper flowers, pumpernickel toasts, and dried cranberries.

My First Bento

My first go at a Bento style snack for my then 2 1/2 year old daughter was a success, and by success I mean that a very .. um.. let's call it selective little girl polished off her food happily for the first time in a long time!

Checkerboard Granny Smith apple, Trader Joe's veggie straws, American cheese, and strawberry fruit leather.

Starting Out

In the past year, I have seen so many fantastic blogs about crafts, homeschooling, creative lunches, delicious recipes, and so much more. Each of them inspired me in different ways and now I'm finally ready to give it a try myself to not only document my own fun (and failures), but also in the hope that I too can give inspiration and share ideas with someone new.

Look forward to my posts being mainly about bento style lunches and snacks, toddler activities and projects, recipe successes and failures, and a little bit of random craziness for good measure.