egg shapes

School lunch days are coming up, which means back to bento! Over the summer, Lo has taken a liking to hard-boiled eggs. This is after she started begging for me to make eggs 'that are white with the yellow in the middle.' And I was like, 'Yes honey. Eggs are always white with yellow in the middle unless they're scrambled.' And I kept making fried eggs for her until she finally said, 'No, the kind we had at Easter.' Ahh! I was excited because I love having hard-boiled eggs on hand. And hard-boiled eggs give me a super good excuse to put my egg shapers to use.

If you're into the bento thing, you can find inexpensive egg shapers here. And if you've never given these a try or wondered how in the heck they actually work, the whole process is pretty easy. Just boil your eggs as you normally would, and then rinse them in a bit of cold water or put them in a bowl filled with cold water. Don't let them cool off completely, because you'll want to peel them while they're still hot. Peeling the shells off of hot eggs can be a bit painful, but it's not too bad.

So, yes. Peel the hot hard-boiled egg. Try to get the shell off while leaving the surface of the egg white as smooth as possible. And then place the egg (firmly) in the shaper and close it with the tabs.

Put the shaper in the freezer for a couple of minutes or until the plastic mold feels cool, and then pop your egg out. That's it.

Beware that if your egg isn't exactly the right size, you may end up with something like this. A bear with no ears. But no biggie – it's still pretty cute. Also, if your eggs are super big, you'll end up with a ring of smushed egg white around the little face, but you can just trim it off with a knife. I've been boiling six eggs at a time to keep in a covered bowl in the fridge and they're great at lunchtime, on a salad or for a snack. I'll definitely be boiling a few each week during the school year for Lo's lunches. Now that I've finally figured out which kind of eggs she wanted.  :)

** Want to read more bento posts? Click here to see my attempts at Phineas and Ferb/Hello Kitty bentos from last year, or here for all my other bento posts ... including some pics of teeny-tiny preschool Lo eating bentos on a plate. **

Lo's lunches

I haven't posted lunch/bento pics in awhile, but this is what they're looking like lately. I've been having fun carving jack o'lanterns, ghosts and bats out of slices of cheese. Isn't Halloween the best? Also, I've been loving Trader Joe's Cinnamon Schoolbook alphabet cookies to go along with Lo's letter of the week. She has been begging for apple slices each day (eeek, kind of in a rut with that) but I've been packing them in separate small containers to ensure that the lemon juice that I put on them doesn't make everything else soggy. I still need to do some work on convincing this kid to eat a bigger variety of foods, but we'll get there. (I'm honestly just happy that she's eating her lunches!)

a week in bentos

Lunches! I'm starting to find out a few things about packing lunches. My new lunch-packing motto is borrowed from Bubba Sparxx and the Ying Yang Twins. Get it ripe, get it right, get it tight. (Ahem. Nothing like getting crunk while packing school lunches.) I try to use fresh fruits and veggies. Which I guess would be the 'ripe' part. But most importantly, I get it right, get it tight. You have to fill that lunch box right up to the top. I have been using my smaller bento boxes more often, and I can actually fit a lot of food in there. When you pack it nice and tight things don't slide around and get mixed together, especially if you fill up every open space available. This also keeps the wet foods contained so you don't end up with a soggy sandwich from the juice on your apple slices.

We tried Goldfish brand Honey Whole Wheat sandwich bread this week with a stack of cheese hedgehogs and a mozzarella letter 'A' for the letter of the day. On the side are carrot sticks and edamame, and the pink container has apple slices inside.

On Wednesday, I packed pretzels, cheese stars, apple slices, fruit leather and yogurt on the side.

Thursday's lunch was salami (Lo's favorite) and cheese with Annie's white cheddar bunny crackers, with a squirrel jam sandwich and apples on the side.

And finally, another Goldfish bread sandwich, cheddar crackers, rasperries, snap peas and yogurt (not pictured.) Lo has been on an apple kick lately. She wants apples every day. But I need to branch out and start including things she normally wouldn't try. Next week, I will do better. (Get it right, get it tight!)

last week in bentos

Here are the lunches I packed for Lo last week. I'll start off by saying that she quickly let me know that these lunches were not as cool as the Phineas and Ferb ones I made for her last week. (Ahem.) Lo had short school days again, so some of her lunches ended up being more snack-y. Monday started off with rabbit food. Rabbit sandwiches with jam, cheese flowers, Annie's bunny crackers, carrots and a strawberry.

On Tuesday she had Wheat Thins, two kinds of cheese, salami and carrot sticks.

The letter of the day on Wednesday was the letter B, so I cut out a couple of B's from cheese to put on top of two heart-shaped ham sandwiches and threw in some apple wedges and Nilla wafers. She also had a container of yogurt.

Thursday! A Hello Kitty ham sandwich with raisin eyes and cheese for the nose and bow, with slices of string cheese on the side and graham crackers and carrot sticks under the sandwich.
Friday was a bit rushed but I did a repeat on the apple wedges and sliced-up string cheese, with bear and rabbit jam sandwiches. There are a few Cheez-It crackers underneath the apples. And that was it for the week! Poor Lo has had a bit of a rough time adjusting to the crazy shenanigans of lunchtime in an elementary cafeteria, and she asked me last week to make sure her lunches weren't too big so she could finish eating everything. She's complained of stomachaches a few different days, and I think it's because she gets nervous about the whole lunchroom thing. (Unless I have somehow given her food poisoning. Sheesh – I use two or three ice packs each day to make sure things stay cold!) But I'm sure things will get better as the next few weeks go by. I'm hoping that these lunches help to put a smile on her face when she opens them up each day. 

my first Kindergarten bentos

This week Lo started Kindergarten, which means that this was my first week packing real, actual school lunches! She went to school four days this week and has been lucky to have a 'transitional' schedule (which means she starts off with shorter school days) so this was a good chance to test out my portions and packing skills. I decided to kind of go big this first week and make a Phineas and Ferb character each day. I definitely don't plan on doing these fancy lunches every single day, but I thought this first week was special so I went with it. However, I am telling Lo not to expect cartoon characters in her lunch every time. Although now I'm sure she does. Anyway! Above, we have Phineas: a sandwich, salami, two kinds of cheese, tiny fruit leather pieces for eyes, with crackers and a strawberry.

And Ferb! Again, a sandwich, two kinds of cheese, raisin eyes, cut-up fruit leather rolls, edamame and baby carrots.

This is supposed to be Isabella. (Whatcha do-in'?) I wasn't as happy with how she turned out, but whatever. Cheese, sandwich, fruit leather and a layer of carrots and Nilla wafers underneath that you can't see here.

And finally, Candace! She's my favorite. Her head is a quesadilla, with cheese for facial features and hair.  And edamame, crackers under her head, more cut-up fruit leather rolls and a strawberry. This was a ton of fun but I'm ready to move on to something different (and more basic) for next week. I also felt like I was repeating a lot of the same foods this week so my goal is to branch out more next time.

**If you want ideas for your own Phineas and Ferb lunches, check here and here.

the bento drawer

After the recent remodel of our kitchen, I decided that I wanted to designate an entire drawer to the bento stash. Because the bento stash had grown a little out of control. But I wanted to use this stuff more. I needed to keep it all in one place to keep all of the tiny pieces together. Easy access. I wasn't about to store all of this stuff in random plastic containers high up in my cupboards, where they had been stashed before. I'm sure there's nothing more entertaining than watching me teeter on a chair, reaching to the top shelf just to have an avalanche of six plastic Glad-lock containers bounce off my head. But yeah.

Everything is in a messy, unorganized state at the moment but this has been so nice. Even when it's messy, it's so much more convenient. It's become the kid catch-all drawer. To break it down, in case you're interested, here are my most-used must-have bento supplies.

1. Rabbit hard-boiled egg shaper and rice shapers. Small silicone cups and containers. Silicone baran (food separators.)

2. Another hard-boiled egg shaper (bear) and tiny sauce containers, which are great for ketchup or soy sauce or what-have-you. Food picks. I love food picks and use them a ton.

3. Baby spoons for Bowie. Two enclosed lunchbox utensil sets that hold a fork and spoon. And the rounded oval things are hotdog shapers. They are crazy. You can find them here.

4. More baran sheets and a small nautical deco cutter set.

5. Spoons. A plastic dog. A weird straw. But it's supposed to be just spoons.

6. Forks. Usually, just forks. I think someone helped me unload the dishwasher and the spoons and forks got all mixed together.  :)

7. Silicone pancake molds. Three small sandwich shapers. And a couple of bread imprint stamp things. (That yellow one says 'smile!')

8. Metal cookie/food cutters.

I love seeing other people's bento collections and how they organize everything. How do you do it?

the bento drawer

kindergarten: the lunch

Is anyone else out there sending a Kindergartener out into the world this fall? I've been spending this summer trying to prepare Lo as best I can for her first year of elementary, and our biggest focus has been on independence. I admit it: she's my first kid, and I may be guilty of babying her a tiny bit. Opening containers for her, cleaning up after her ... I'm always there to help. And so I do. Probably too much. I'm trying to learn to step back and let her do her thing.

And then it hits me. OMG. She has to survive an entire school day without me.

Academically and socially, Lo is ready. But there were a few things I decided we might need to practice before she went off to school to ease any first-day stress.

One of those things is lunch. Yes, we're practicing how to do lunch. And that might sound silly, but stick with me here because we learned some good stuff. I'm super guilty of the whole 'let me help you with that' thing. And I plan on using a bunch of different plastic bento boxes to pack her lunches. I had no idea if she could open all of the lids without assistance, so this was our chance to practice. (Good thing we did, because I discovered that the containers in this awesome Skip Hop bento mealtime set are super hard to open. Even for me! Bummer.)

I made it into a game, because I figured she'd be down with playing 'school.' I prepare a lunch and water bottle for her, pack up her lunchbox and put everything inside her backpack. Then I pretend to be her teacher and ask her to find her lunch in her cubby and bring it to the table in our 'lunchroom.' And then, I'm totally hands-off. She has to unzip and open every container by herself, and when she's finished, I ask her to (neatly) pack up whatever is left over into her lunchbox and zip it into her backpack. I also set a timer for 30 minutes. My kid is a painfully slow eater, and at home we let her graze. It's time to learn about time management!  :)

This little lunch game also gives me a chance to check my portions. She ate everything today and said she was full. This is good. I plan to send her Klean Kanteen bottle with water every day this year. Occasionally, we'll do juice or milk, but water is great. I will fill the bottle with ice cubes in the morning so it will stay cold until lunch time.

This is also great lunch-prep practice for me. I learned my bento-packing skills from my friend Wendy. I've read her blog for years and have taken lots of mental notes. For instance, I know that you can fit quite a bit of food in a pretty small container, and it's good to pack it nice and full and use extra bits of food to fill in the spaces so food doesn't shift during transport.

My favorite boxes to use are the smallish ones that are sandwich-shaped, and sometimes I'll add in another smaller container of fruit or carrot sticks or cheese/crackers. I also really like the small-sized bento boxes with two hinged side clips, like this one. They're easy for kids to open and food doesn't spill or leak all over the place. And my new favorite ice pack is this Thermos ice cube mat. They're inexpensive, flexible, and contain only purified water – none of the blue goo.

So yeah, I'm getting pretty stoked about Kindergarten. So is Lo. This lunch thing is fun. If you're a rookie like me, check out this super comprehensive list of lunch-box ideas over at Wendolonia. (It's printable!)

7 days of bento on a plate

This past week, I've been practicing with my bento supplies. Little Lo starts Kindergarten in the fall, and I've been wanting to get faster at packing lunches. It's an acquired skill. No lunchboxes yet, but soon enough. So here we go again ... bento on a plate. (You can see more lunches like this here and check out the supplies I use here.)

(it's okay to) play with your food

This is something I like to call bento on a plate. It probably doesn't even qualify as 'real' bento but whatever. (This is just a grape jam 'hedgehog' sandwich with a raisin eye, teddy grahams, clementine sections, salami, edamame, and cut-up string cheese.)

And in case you're wondering what I do with the rest of the bread (no, I don't throw it away!) I usually end up eating my own sandwich, which looks something like this. Ha.

Lately, my most-used cookie cutter set is this one from IKEA. The wilderness edition, I guess. Forest friends? It's pretty cute.

 Sometimes we eat quesadilla dinosaurs who walk on raisin rocks underneath a colby-jack sun.

 Or have a edamame/peanut butter cracker flower with a fruit leather squirrel for a snack.

But all that matters is that she eats it. :) I've been playing with cute lunches for a couple of years, since Lo is stuck in that picky-eater phase. I definitely make more of them now that the weather is sunny and we're heading out on picnics and playdates more often. And I love reading bento blogs; my very favorite is written by my pal Wendy, so if you like this kind of stuff, you should def check out Wendolonia.