octopus hotdogs

Here are the octopus hotdogs that my kids loved (and me too, since they're sooooo easy to make). Of course, they only loved them after I took the faces off, haha!

fall tree

today's bento was very easy, I will probably do this one many times. I should have added a bird in the sky now that I think about it. Next time. My son hates rice so I added a little butter to it so hopefully he'll eat the whole thing (I know, not so healthy, but all in the name of cute food!).

pandas

ok, this one was not so easy. I've been trying to avoid indulging myself in getting a nori punch to do faces out of seaweed easier but after trying to do these by hand I may need to give in and get one. These didn't turn out great, but my daughter loved it.

bento quickies

so I'm trying to see how quick I can do a bento because I don't have hours and hours to do them but I do want to make fun bentos for my kids. So I tried to go simpler with this one, I did 2 in 20 minutes. Not too bad. The second one, with the fish hot dogs took about 30 minutes.

party girl crackers

For my niece's graduation we had a small shindig at our house so I thought some fancy crackers were in order. I made 3 different designs, this was the most interesting one. Its a little messy, but it was 2 am and I had to put the moles on with tweezers. 

car quesedilla

ok, I spent waaaay too much time on this one. Mostly because I went at it without anything planned. It took an hour to make 2 of them and my kitchen was a huge mess afterward. But if my kids will eat cleverly disguised beets, well, it was an hour well spent, right? Right???? The car is a quesedilla done with a cookie cutter and nori for tires.

sleeping bear bento

Today's bento was inspired by one I saw from another blog by a woman in Japan. Her stuff is brilliant. I'd share her name but her entire blog is in japanese. I'd write more but my son is currently blabbering incessantly in my ear, so I'll just post the photo.

onigiri

I just received a huge lot of egg molds and a rice mold for onigiri from ebay this weekend, so I gave the onigiri a try. The round rice mold made it very easy. I made the rice overnight in my slow cooker and it turned out perfect so when I woke up, voila! Perfect sticky rice. I discovered the rice needed to be cold for the rice balls to hold their shape. And since I'm vegan, I had a shortage of meat goodies, I used hummus for filling. It was surprisingly good, unconventional but good.

kissing animals under a palm tree

Here's another stab at my kids lunch. This was a little easier since I did it on a weekend and didn't have to pack it for school. It still took too long to do. But my daughter loved the "grass" and wanted more, gotta love that.

my first bad bentos

so, nothing to be too proud of, but I'll try to add photos of my first two bento lunches I did for my kids. Not great, but its a start...

ok, I'm lisa and I'm a blogging newbie so pardon me as I learn both blogging and bento-ing simultaneously. Now that I'm a mom and have to actually cook things for people to eat all the time, I've discovered a new passion for bentos and the art of lunch. My son, who is 4, hates everything except dinosaur shaped chicken, mac n cheese, and bananas. We've tried calling green beans green french fries, peas are called green berries, anything with cheese near it is called a quesedilla... you get the idea. Picky. My 2 yr old daughter on the other hand loves everything from indian food to capers (she didn't get that from me!) So, my need to feed met my passion for cute little things and the need to make art of some form. Voila, bento! I fell in love. So, with a modest beginning and my big german hands (well, in comparison to the japanese bento masters, I'm sasquatch), I'm off on my new venture. I'll post as many pics as I can, even if they're bad... bare with me!