The Many Adventures of Bento Mama

bentomama @ 2009-05-13T21:27:00

2009-05-14T01:27:47Z

Ohai. In case you missed me, I am over here now : http://bentoforkidlet.blogspot.com

Thought I would try my hand at breaking away from LJ land :D

bentomama @ 2009-04-09T22:22:00

2009-04-10T02:23:38Z

Last day of school before Easter so the Kidlet has a pb sandwich under a rice cheese "egg" with carrots, grapes, and apple bunnies.

bentomama @ 2009-04-06T20:40:00

2009-04-07T00:44:32Z

Bakerella made a post on her blog about turning Peep bunnies into Pikachu. Brilliant! It was so cold and rainy here today so this seemed like the perfect activity for the Kidlet and I! Woo!

Happy April Fools Day

2009-04-01T22:31:27Z

The kidlet does not like to be fooled so in celebration of this day I made our breadsticks into a Jester hat :D

bentomama @ 2009-04-01T15:08:00

2009-04-01T19:10:09Z

Kidlet has a Pokemon called Horsea on top of a PB&J sandwich with checkered apple, pineapple skewers, and grapes. :D

Happy St. Patrick's Day! :D

2009-03-17T13:52:10Z

Long time no bento :/ I've been swamped and taking pictures of bento is always the first thing to go. But I am back with my first attempt at dyed onigiri. Woo!

Kidlet has an onigiri clover, clementine segments, apple, and mini soy corndogs. yum :D

Cheesey Tutorial!

2009-02-20T18:51:28Z

Okay so this is something I have been working on for a long time and I hope it works out well :D I have always free-handed my characters but lately I have been trying to develop a way to make cheese characters that anyone can do and I think I have found it! Woo!

Okay so you start out with a picture of what you want!

Next you cut around the outside of the picture and place it on a piece of cheese. Trace around the outline with food color markers.

Remove the paper and this is what you will have


Now you're going to start to de-construct the pattern. Cut away the feet and tops of the ears and place pattern back on the cheese



Trace around the new areas with your food color marker and you will have this.

Now we can cut out the smaller details like the eyes, mouth and other arm. Trace around these new areas.


Now that you have the outline done it's time to start coloring!

Don't worry if you color outside of the lines a litte because we're going to cut the shape out!


  Now you can use a sharp knife to cut out the shape. I use a serrated steak knife but you can use whatever kind you are comfortable with



Voila! A cute cheese creature for your next bento lunch! And you can save the cheese scraps for salads or sandwiches

bentomama @ 2009-02-20T13:14:00

2009-02-20T18:15:31Z

Today's bento has some kind of Pokemon *forgot the name again, oops* on top of a tofurkey sandwich, checkered apple, green beans, and grapes

bentomama @ 2009-01-22T09:09:00

2009-01-22T14:10:24Z

This is a Poliwag pokemon of rice cheese on top of a peanut butter sandwich with checkered apple and grapes. :D

bentomama @ 2009-01-20T21:24:00

2009-01-21T02:27:38Z

Yikes! I lost my camera cord for awhile there so no bento pics. How sad :( However, I found it today in my car of all places :P

Kidlet has some sort of Pokemon (I forget now what he told me it was lol) drawn on rice cheese on top of a tofurkey sandwich with checkered apple and grapes. Can you tell I need to grocery shop? lol

bentomama @ 2008-12-14T05:27:00

2008-12-14T10:28:30Z

Kidlet's birthday bento:

bentomama @ 2008-12-14T05:21:00

2008-12-14T10:27:45Z

It was Kidlet's birthday yesterday. I am officially taking a nap for the next two days lol. I sent in both cupcakes and checkered apples to school on Friday. Whew.

bentomama @ 2008-11-14T19:00:00

2008-11-15T00:00:33Z

This is a perfect example of why I never do rice/nori decorations. I don't know how you guys do it, I need those punches or something. I have no patience for working with nori :P

Kidlet has two rice "pandas", mini soy corn dogs, checkered apple, grapes, carrot, and cucumber

Long time, no bento

2008-11-14T02:30:42Z

Whew, life gets crazy and the first thing kicked out the window is picture time :D so no documented bento for awhile.

Meowth of cheese on top of a "ham" sandwich with grapes, carrot, and cucumber

Ghost peanut butter sandwich, carrots, checkered apple, and mandarin oranges

bentomama @ 2008-10-15T14:26:00

2008-10-15T18:26:43Z

Kidlet wanted Pokemon AND Halloween in a bento lol. So here we have a rice cheese Ghastly *Pokemon* on top of a tofurkey sandwich tomb with grapes, carrots, cucumber, and two apple ghosts. OoooOOoo :)

bentomama @ 2008-10-10T03:37:00

2008-10-10T07:37:22Z

This bento is a rice cheese Pokemon on top of a tofurkey sandwich along with grapes, cucumber, and checkered apple. Kidlet's class now eats a snack mid-morning so his lunch stays small even though his appetite has increased :D

Okay this bento gets to be under a cut because the lighting was awful :( I was heartbroken when I woke up and it was storming terribly outside. Does not make for good bento pic taking


This has a rice cheese pokemon on tofurkey sandwich with checkered apple, green beans and carrots.



And this is our bento box collection thus far. I just put in an order with ichibankan so coming soon are triangle onigiri boxes and sandwich boxes!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not pictured are bento we have duplicates of. Like the clickety click bear box I have 4 of because we use so many of them during the week!                                                                                      .

bentomama @ 2008-10-06T02:37:00

2008-10-06T06:39:58Z

Yet another Pokemon bento. The usual rice cheese on sandwich with green beans, grapes, and orange slices. Apparently all of the Pokemon have made me very popular among the 2nd grade boys :) lol

Thinking Pink

2008-10-06T05:19:58Z

Kidlet and I made these this morning for his gramma who is a cancer survivor :D

Loose tooth strikes again

2008-10-01T14:20:02Z

Kidlet has a really loose tooth so all crunchy veg are out until the tooth is gone. This seriously limits my choices for bento since he won't eat cooked veggies at lunch for some odd reason.

So today he has a Pokemon called a Teddiursa made of rice cheese on top of a tofurkey sandwich, checkered apple, and grapes.

Venturing in to new territory

2008-09-27T09:21:24Z

I am going to start using this journal for my other kitchen exploits as well as bento. The thought of maintaining two food related journals seems silly to me. So, if you are offended by this then let me know and I can set up some sort of filter :D

I've always had a love of baking but sometimes forget to take pictures of the things I have done. I'm going to try to be better about that!

I thought it would be fun to make my first venturing out post one of some cookies the Kidlet and I made for his father to celebrate Fathers Day. Kidlet chose the theme and I chuckled a little at the implications...

Behold, slightly wobbly Darth Vader cookes! Dun Dun Dun.

bentomama @ 2008-09-22T10:20:00

2008-09-22T14:25:26Z

Yes, I am a very lazy mama. I love to see all of the amazing bento lunches that people create by shaping rice and nori and all manner of things into amazing pictures. But I will never have the patience for all that. So you will only see cheese pictures from me lol.

Today Kidlet has a Charmander *the Pokemon strike again* of rice cheese on top of a tofurkey sandwich, carrots, cucumber, grapes, and strawberry.

bentomama @ 2008-09-19T09:44:00

2008-09-19T13:44:51Z

It has been a sad week for bento making!! We lost power because of hurricane force winds and as a result kidlet had no school. We also lost all of the food in our fridge and freezer. Sad as I had just made a huge bento freezer stash of things. Back to the drawing board. Here is the first and only bento of the week!

Kildet has half of a Gardenburger riblet on top of rice with a checkered apple, carrots, grapes, cucumber, and some dragon fruit.

bentomama @ 2008-09-09T20:45:00

2008-09-10T00:47:11Z

Kidlet loved his Superman bento and today requested a Super Panda!!

Super Panda is rice cheese on top of a fake ham sandwich with a checkered apple, grapes, and green beans.

bentomama @ 2008-09-09T15:30:00

2008-09-09T19:31:29Z

This is Kidlet's bento from yesterday. He has a rice cheese Superman logo on top of a tofurkey sandwich along with some cucumber, carrots, grapes, and a piece of dragon fruit.

bentomama @ 2008-09-03T21:53:00

2008-09-04T01:54:08Z

When I told Kidlet what the challenge this week was he shouted "OOOOO Scrabble bento!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" So I slaved away to make this for him :D

This scrabble bento has a sandwich of tofurkey under a piece of rice cheese decorated as a Scrabble board. Also featured are a checkered apple, grapes, green beans, and orange slices