Weekly Bentos - #4

It's like all I ever post are bentos anymore, eh?  *shrug*  It's been crazy around these parts and we've all been under the weather and not even close to camera ready!  Thankfully, we're finally starting to feel better. :)  Anyway... here are this week's bentos...

Ham blossoms, cheese trees on a bed of pita chips, fresh fruit cup of mandarin oranges, blueberries and topped with strawberry hearts

Hello Kitty mini pita PB&Jam on a bed of sugar snap peas, cheese cubes, and mini yogurt.  This went with a hot thermos of beef barley chunky soup. 

This was breakfast.  Breakfast pilaf mixed with craisins and garnished with cherry fruit flat that said "I *heart* you"  Miss A hated the fruit flat and threw them to the side.  I know because I watched her.

Pucca ham and cheese pita sandwich on a bed of veggie chips, side of craisins and koala chocolate creme cookies, and a mini yogurt

Deconstructed sandwich of turkey and cheese roll-ups and pita chips, sugar snap peas, and a fresh berry cup topped with a strawberry heart

Made this for myself.  Is that bad?  It's a chef-style salad with turkey and ham blossoms,  pepper jack cheese strips, baby carrot rounds, and grape tomatoes, side of pita chips, and fresh fruit cup of kiwi, blueberries, and raspberries

I'd say I'm definitely improving week to week, wouldn't you?  Now watch.  We'll have another snow day or something tomorrow and I won't be able to show off my pretty bento box salad at all. :(

Weekly Bentos - #3

What a super-duper busy week for us despite the fact that we this past Monday off and then a surprise snowday on Tuesday!  Despite the craziness, I still made plenty of bentos because it's becoming so much of a habit for me that I almost instinctively start assembling one whenever I'm putting together a meal for Miss A.  This coming week is abbreviated for D and I but Miss A will be going to school on Monday so we'll be back to a regular schedule of bento boxing for a full week for her.

This past week I think I was really able to step up the complexity of the visual design because I've found how much more decorative I can be just with the edible markers alone!  I feel like it might be cheating a little bit as opposed to the 3D sculpting that so many other bento artists/designers do to make little pigs or bear faces but in order to keep within the time that I have in my schedule to even bento box, I gotta do some "hacks" to be the most efficient I can with the art of it all.  One thing I've discovered is pitas are WAY easier to illustrate on than regular bread AND the overall design is so much prettier and clearer when its done.

This one was actually one she ate at home.  Mini pita turkey and cheese with edible marker illustration on a bed of grape tomatoes (can't seem them because I used them to lift the sandwich so the presentation was more classically bento), steamed broccoli trees with raw carrot "flowers" and a fresh berry cup

Another mini pita sandwich, sugar snap peas, and fresh berry cup

Leftover Mac n Cheese with a fruit-roll up cut "A" (will use real fruit leather from here on out because the roll-ups were so fake tasting/feeling and they did not cut nicely at all) with a side of steamed broccoli and raw carrot "flowers" and some fresh raspberries.

PB&Jam heart sandwich on a bed of veggie crisp chips, sugar snap peas, and  mandarin oranges and fresh berries.  A hot thermos of beef barley soup was served with this.  Also, one of old colleagues noted that this one looked a little scary perhaps because of the color palate of the picture?  I might agree and the sandwich was kind of a "hack."  The other side of the heart I tried to make into a bumble bee but it looked so bad I just tried to save it by doing a quick heart.

Here's a breakfast one!  Mini pita sandwich with egg and cheese and decorated with food marker, fresh berry stripe and a side of breakfast sausage.

Mini pita ham and cheese with butterfly (edible marker) on a bed of cheez-its, sugar snap peas, fresh berries with canned mandarin sections and decorated with sprinkles.  This one was NOT from a school day and I threw this together this morning because we were running around doing errands!  Bento boxing is proving to be an awesome thing for us to just have a meal to "grab and go" for Miss A if we are every on the run.

Overall I feel like I'm making some really big strides with bento boxing since I started three weeks ago.  Today I picked up about 25 cookie cutters from a fellow freecycler and there are lots of fun shapes that I'm going to start using that will lend themselves to some really cool/fun designs I think!  Will (of course) keep you updated on how it all goes.

Weekly Bentos - #2

I feel like I'm getting faster at assembling and organizing in bento-style but in terms of getting a little more creative beyond just adding some colorful sprinkles, I need a little help.  Not bad for week two though.  And since practice makes perfect, imagine where I could be by next year at this time!

Another thing I've found is that I used to skip meals during the day all together and just run on coffee.  I know.  So sad.  Since I've started bento boxing for our whole family though, I'm enjoying it on the end of eating them as well!  I look forward to lunch and I want to eat lunch!  Last night I went to be early because I just really really needed it and was only able to throw together a bento box of leftovers (see the pierogi one) for Miss A at least.  I woke up at my usual 5AM wake up call intending to assemble the rest of her lunch, do my scripture study and devotionals and ended up having just enough time to eek out two lunches (one for D and one for me).  Not sure how it happened but it did and I feel like I made some of my best adult bentos yet! Anyway, here are the bentos from this week.

Turkey/cheese roll-ups, steamed broccoli, goldfish crackers, canned pears with sprinkles

Grilled chicken pasta with broccoli and bacon bits, apple sauce cup, dark chocolate M&Ms

Broccoli and bacon pasta, mini hot dogs, cheese squares, sugar snap peas,  and sweet yellow peppers

I don't know if the breakfast one really counts but I'm including it anyway because I feel like at this point, any practice I can get will help me.

"Baby" bagel with cream cheese (writing in edible marker) and sausage links

Turkey/Cheese sandwich cut with a Christmas cookie cutter on a bed of popcorn  goldfish pretzels, baby carrots on the borders.  She also got a hot thermos of "noodles" - more like cheeseburger macaroni.

Cheese scrambled eggs with cheese heart cut outs, sausage links, canned pears with sprinkles

"Little girl" sandwich on a bed of goldfish with raspberries and sugar snap peas

Leftover pierogi with flower illustration on a bed of steamed broccoli with apple sauce cup and baby carrots.  This accompanied a hot pot of chicken and dumplings. Not sure why the picture posted this way.  It was supposed to be landscape orientation.

Deconstructed turkey and cheese sandwich into roll-up style with club crackers,  orange cut sushi-style.  This was my lunch and the more I do this the more I am encouraged to NOT skip lunch and actually want to eat it.

"Little girl" french toast slices with sausage links and raspberries

Breakfast slider with egg and cheese and raspberries

D's lunch - Pasta with sauce, raw sugar snaps and carrots and orange cut sushi-style

Week in Bentos - the first ever!!

I have a confession to make. I have mother's guilt in a big big way.  I'm a working mom who is a teacher and though I have my summers and major holidays off, in my off time I don't really have the energy to being more like the SAHM mom I wish I could be.  But because I believe in making the best of any situation, I've joined the ranks of Bento making.

Bento boxes are something I discovered over five years ago at one of my favorite DC lunch places called Teaism.  It's a Japanese teahouse and they serve reasonably authentic Japanese food stylings and beverages.  One of my favorites is the bento box.  This is a little what it looks like...

(source)

 

 

 

The idea of bento boxes is to have a fresh made, balanced, and visually appealing meal.  The foods included should definitely be "whole" in nature and I like that a lot but what I really like about them most is the packaging.  I'm a sucker for cool packaging and clever presentation.

When Miss A was at her previous daycare/second home, she was served hot meals and lunches that you might normally not get in a box lunch.  Because of this, she can be a finicky eater if the food served isn't a hot lunch.  And because I'm a mom and I worry about stuff like what people are or aren't eating, I started researching sure-fire alternatives to hot lunches months ago to prepare for her start of pre-preschool this week.  That's how I found myself making bento boxes!

Most of what I have found is VERY impressive so much that how could a kid NOT want to eat it? This is one of my favorite examples...

(source)

To be fair, the above example is from a very advanced bento maker (for kids) and though I'd like to think I could pull off something like that someday?  I'm far from there today.  But... we build to that, people!  We build to that.  And with that in mind, here's where my week of starting...

Radiatore pasta with peas, baby carrots, sugar snap peas, and turkey/colby jack roll-ups.  She ate the pasta but chewed on everything else.  Oh well.  It was only the first day.

Pigs in a blanket, Mac-n-cheese, sugar snaps, and grape tomatoes.  The pasta was a hit (of course) and the pigs in a blanket were consumed as well as a few tomatoes.  Wednesday was a duplicate of this less the pasta and I learned that when all else fails, I need to include pasta of some kind.

The sandwich was a PB&Jam (illustration with a Wilton food marker), club crackers, fruit, and all of this accompanied a hot thermos of chunky beef barley soup (that she ate all of).  See?  She's got to have some kind of hot lunch component.

Scrambled eggs, sausage links, and fresh peeled apple slices and raspberries.  This is for breakfast because I discovered Miss A really hasn't been eating the continental one they serve to the kids.  I might do more of these to make sure she's eating a better breakfast.  She ate all of this. (Of course!)  Breakfast is her best meal.

Turkey and American cheese roll-ups (I found the American slices rolled better - so much for trying to eliminate processed foods), an natural apple sauce cup, baby carrots, and goldfish crackers.  This accompanied a hot thermos of mac and cheese from earlier in the week.

All in all, I feel like the week went well with the exception being that I didn't have nearly the variety from day-to-day that I know would have been a little bit more encouragement to eat (since she wouldn't have gotten bored with it all!  In time I hope to master the bento packing style a little more easily so to include more fun elements - like making the food look more like objects/animals/things - with greater ease but, like I said, we will build to that.  I'll try and keep posting these at the end of the week as I make them.  I have had fun making them and though they seem a little time consuming, they were really only about 20 minutes a piece to conceptualize and assemble and I think that's reasonable.  I might also branch out and do adult ones (for D and myself) and D has been encouraged to join in on the overall bento efforts so that should help cut down on the labor and also make it a fun activity for the whole family.

School is cool!

Today was a big day for all of us Ellwoods.  Today is/was the first day of Miss A's pre-preschool experience.  

Miss A has actually been in daycare since she was three months old but we never really thought of it like that since the place where she went was so much closer to a second home to her (and the daycare provider very much like an extension of family for Miss A!) than anything else.  Still, after much prayer, we have made the jump to provide Miss A with the "school" experience that we've always felt was essential for her growth and development.

I packed Miss A's lunch and bags for her cubby last evening and cried only one time and we were all up before the sun even rose this morning to pack into the car and start back to school.  We have been talking up "going to school" for weeks now but we weren't quite sure Miss A got the idea of what she was in store for.  Just the same, she seemed to take it all in stride and happily walked herself into the school hallways like it was all no big deal at all.

When we got to her classroom she remembered her previous visit with her new classmates almost immediately and asked to play with the toys straight away.  We could barely get her belongings put away in the cubby area fast enough.

She is growing up SO FAST and we can hardly believe that she's in "school" now but we believe that it will be a wonderful thing for Miss A and we're excited to see her blossom and flourish in her new classroom environment.  

Just what I always wanted

One of my favorite memories of my childhood will always be some of the times I've spent with my dad. Simply put, he's my hero. And I know I'm not biased because my little sister feels the same way about him and every one of my friends have always said they think he's awesome as well.

When I was considering marriage and kids, a huge thing for me was making sure the man I promised my future to would also be a man who would be an amazing father as much as he was an amazing husband.  I'm happy to report that D fits the bill on both items...

If it could get any better...

... it did!!!

Princess costumes from Grammy and Grandpap + butterfly wings from Uncle B and Aunt B = the Butterfly Princess girl named Miss A!!!

She's a singing butterfly

Butterfly girl emerges

Last evening finally wrapped up our 2010 holiday celebrations.  We planned a dinner for my parents and some friends and we completed the final gift exchange with my family.  Gifts have actually been sitting under our tree since well before Christmas day and we held ourselves off from opening them this long - can you believe that Miss A was able to have such restraint?  I'm proud of her for being able to do this.

One of the seemingly BIG gifts of the night came from my eldest brother and sister-in-law (who is really more like my older sister much more since she's known me so long and I love her for that).  The gift was a surprise because I made an agreement with my brother that we would not do gifts this year (long story) but it turned out to be one of the biggest hits with Miss A of the whole holiday.  The gift was large and flat and I couldn't even imagine what it would turn out to be but as soon as Miss A unwrapped it, she could not even contain her excitement and she was more tickled with it than I've ever seen her be.  We helped her put them on right away and lo and behold, Butterfly girl was born...

I have never seen anything quite so sweet as my little girl perched on a "big people" chair donning her wings and wearing her little baby girl high top sneakers.  I took these pictures when she was mid-song of the ABCs (took video of this too but have to find the camera to get them on here first!)...

And even this morning, first thing, Miss A demanded to put her wings on.  Took these with my better/bigger camera and more serious lens...

*sigh* What a way to kick off the New Year. I'm taking this is an answer to prayers full of peace and hope of the promises I know the Lord has for all of us. Happy New Year to you all.