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Daily Bento

9 Oct

Well, I did it again. I needed to be up at 7, but somehow turned off my alarm & woke up frantic at 8. This is becoming an inconvenient trend. Especially since we need to leave no later than 8:15 to get my daughter to school on time.

I thought for a second about not doing a bento post today but then, after some consideration, I realized that this would be the perfect opportunity to keep things real & show you that bento making doesn’t have to be time consuming. Of course it looks much better if you have more time to make things look “just so” but if you’re pressed for time you can still do a pretty decent job. They key is planning.

It helps me to have a game plan the night before. If I can make the bento at night, I do. Then I can just pull it out of the fridge & put it in the lunch box. I don’t recommend cutting fruits or cheese the night before. Fresh fruit & cheese can go downhill pretty fast once you cut it. But you can slice meat & veggies, portion out chips, crackers, goldfish, pretzel sticks, fruit snacks, dried fruit, or anything else that will keep overnight. Keeping all your bento supplies in one spot close at hand helps speed things along too.

Tuesday’s bento came together in about 5 minutes. One tier held 3 blueberry mini muffins that we made last night. The other tier has carrot sticks, cheese hearts, salami rolls & a diced apple. I also made a smoothie for her thermos & packed some extra crackers.

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Daily Bento

5 Oct

 

Happy Friday!

 
Today’s bento has grapes, peaches & cucumber flowers in the bottom tier. In the top tier, Cam has nutella & flax seed sandwich sushi, multi-grain pringles, and a chocolate covered granola bar cut into bite-sized pieces.

Daily Bento

4 Oct

I used Camryn’s larger Hello Kitty bento today because her smaller ones just wouldn’t fit everything she wanted. I’ll be very surprised if she eats all of this. In any case, what you see pictured above is what she asked me to pack. She has grape tomatoes, sliced celery, sliced carrots, mukimame (shelled soy beans), Space Adventures Goldfish, & a couple muffins we made on a whim last night (I included the recipe below).

In her purple container she has yogurt over fresh strawberries & a few rainbow sprinkles.

Instant Oatmeal Muffins

1 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup yogurt – we normally use vanilla but all we had in the fridge was strawberry which worked just fine.

1/2 cup milk

1 tbsp veg oil

1 egg

1 packet of Instant Oatmeal – any flavor. We used banana bread.

1 tbsp flax seeds

chocolate chips – if desired

Directions

Preheat oven to 350.

Spray a muffin tin with non-stick spray or drop in liners.

Add flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, flax seeds & an oatmeal packet in a large bowl & whisk together.

In a separate bowl, mix yogurt, oil, egg & milk until combined.

Pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture & stir to combine.

Fold in chocolate chips.

Scoop the batter into the prepared tin, filling each cup about 2/3 of the way. For mini-muffins, use a mini-muffin tin & scoop 1 tbsp of batter into each muffin cup.

Bake for 10-12 minutes or until tops spring back when lightly pressed.

* The flax seeds are totally optional. My kid eats them like they’re going outta style so I put them in everything. If you don’t like ’em, leave ’em out.

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Daily Bento

3 Oct

Today’s bento has teeny seedless cucumbers, grape tomatoes, cheese cubes & salami rolls in the bottom tier. I found the cucumbers yesterday at the produce market near my house. At 3 for $1 I couldn’t pass them up.

The top tier has pancake sandwiches filled with nutella & sliced bananas. My pancake recipe is below.

Cam’s Favorite P’cakes

1 cup self rising flour

1 cup Silk Fruit & Protein (we like peach/mango)

1 egg

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp vanilla

Whisk everything together in a bowl until just combined. Batter should be slightly lumpy. Heat a pan or griddle to medium. Add desired amount of batter and cook until bubbles form on top & edges are dry. Flip & cook until golden brown.

I used half a tablespoon of batter to make these tiny pancakes. For regular sized pancakes, use about 1/4 cup of batter.

* You can also use the same amount of regular milk, unflavored soy milk, almond milk, whatever floats your boat will work.

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Daily Bento

2 Oct

Cam’s Tuesday bento has sliced carrots, tiny grape tomatoes, & cucumber flowers in the bottom tier. She has apple slices, salami & turkey rolls, Colby jack cheese cubes & some crackers in the top tier.

To keep sliced or cubed apples from browning you can soak them in a little pineapple juice diluted with water. Lemon lime soda works well too. Of course you can always soak them in water that has had a few drops of lemon or lime juice added but we find that this can make apples taste too tart.

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Daily Bento

1 Oct

You may have noticed that there was no “Daily Bento” last Friday. Cam bought her lunch that day but told me on the way home from school that she would not be doing that again. The fruit cup that they served was less than satisfactory, the brownies had vanilla frosting on them, and the lunch lady did not give her enough time to choose what she wanted. Needless to say, the whole experience has turned her off from buying her lunch.

So we’re back to bento! And that’s fine with me.

Her Monday bento has sliced carrots & green beans in the bottom tier. The top tier has tiny grape tomatoes, Colby jack cheese slices wrapped in salami, cheez-its, and 3 vanilla creme brulee flavored rice cakes.

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Daily Bento

27 Sep

My daughter has become a yogurt lover pretty much over night. She always liked it in smoothies but I could never get her to eat it by itself. All that changed this afternoon. She’s become a full fledged yogurt maniac. So I figured why not make her day & put some in her bento?
Her bottom tier has strawberry yogurt with chopped fresh strawberries & a few rainbow sprinkles since today is her Aunt Jill’s birthday. Her top tier has ham roll-ups, cucumbers cut with apple-shaped cutters, and sliced grape tomatoes. Not pictured is a biscuit left-over from dinner that she requested I add to her lunch.

Cass

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Daily Bento

26 Sep

I found out last night that all of the sandwiches I had been making my daughter for lunch had been (purposely) accidentally dropped on the floor so that she wouldn’t have to eat them. The beginnings of an evil genius? I think so.

The kindergarten kids eat lunch at 10:45 in the morning which is crazy early. Especially when you consider that most of them eat breakfast at 8. So it’s no wonder that most of their lunches go uneaten. When the school year first started, I would pack leftovers from a previous dinner, I would send her with colored pasta, I would make cute little bite-sized pb&j sandwiches. And for all my efforts, I would get to throw those things away at the end of every day because she wouldn’t touch them. What annoyed me even more was the fact that she would normally eat these things at home. So naturally, when I should be worrying about asteroids & zombie apocalypses like a normal person, I’m consumed with anxiety about my kid not eating enough. That’s nuts.

I’ve decided after much trial, error & disappointment over the last 4 weeks of school that I’m just going to make things easy on myself. My daughter seems to prefer a more “snacky” lunch loaded with fresh produce. In fact, I’ve seen that little weirdo choose a bowl of spring greens with a little sea salt sprinkled on top for snack over everything else in the house on more than one occasion. So that’s what I will be packing her from here on out unless she specifically requests something else. Lots of fresh fruits & veg, some kind of protein, something with a little crunch & no sandwiches.

This one is pretty straightforward. Just some carrot & celery sticks in the top tier. The bottom tier held sliced strawberries & one of our homemade oatmeal bars that we made together last night. I also packed her a sliced banana in a separate container.

Daily Bento

25 Sep

Tuesday’s bento was a super easy one. In the first tier, there is half of a ham sandwich & some naturally colored Goldfish Space Adventures crackers. In the second tier, I cut cucumber slices with leaf-shaped metal cookie cutters & put them in a silicone heart-shaped cup next to sliced grape tomatoes & carrots.

I can’t forget to mention her little friends peeking out from behind her tomatoes & cucumbers. These are food picks that she will actually use to eat her lunch with. No big utensils required.

 

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