Bentovention

A Very Vegan Valentine's Day

2012-02-14T19:04:00.000Z

A very happy Valentine's day to you from Bentovention! Mr. Bentovention was away today so it has just been Big T, little t and I at home enjoying heart themed baking, puzzles, games and crafts. This morning we made vegan chocolate muffins and cherry heart shaped shortbread. Over lunch we solved a few Valentine's Day cryptograms, mazes and sudoko downloaded from Activity Village, a great free resource online for children's craft ideas. This afternoon we sat down together and got our sewing projects out. Big T continued work on her embroidered 'self portrait' that she's creating and little t continued work on his cross stitched little picture of his toy penguin. I like to encourage 'free style' sewing rather than working often from pre-packaged designs. We just pick up whatever bits and bobs we have in the sewing box, thread a needle and improvise. With a child's imagination added to the mix, we get some beautiful, unique results.

While the children worked on their ongoing projects I put together something that I'd planned to make especially for Valentine's Day. A pixellated shaped heart in red felt with an embroidered chemical compound for chili. I have a spot to hang it in the kitchen that will be just right.

While we are renovating the house in bigger ways than usual and I am engrossed in writing my PhD thesis, my bento creations are going largely undocumented. That will change as soon as my kitchen is finished and things have settled down. Best wishes to you all!

Vegan chocolate muffins: 200g of self raising flour, 100g of caster sugar, 100g of cocoa powder, 200g of dairy free spread, 1tsp of baking powder and a dash of rice milk to soften the mixture. Bake for 25 minutes at 170 degrees in the middle of the oven. For the topping blend dairy free spread, cocoa powder, icing sugar and rice milk in small quantities until you achieve the consistency you like. Add a cherry or an icing heart.

Vegan cherry shortbread: 200g of dairy free spread, 350g plain flour, 200g of caster sugar, a dash of red food colouring, strawberry flavouring and chopped glace' cherries. Blend into a loose paste and leave to cool in the fridge for 20 minutes. Roll out and cut with a cookie cutter before baking at 160 degrees for approx. 15 minutes. The biscuits will further harden as they cool so beware of over cooking them. Enjoy!

And finally, here is a picture of my sewing project for the day.

No.102 Christmas at Bentovention

2012-01-04T13:30:00.000Z

Hello all! Big T and little t returned to school after their Christmas break yesterday. We had a nice time together over the festive period and cooked and baked to our hearts' content. Most of our baking went un-photographed, since our priority was relaxing and enjoying one another's company rather than documenting our activities. Sadly, that also meant that we took very few photographs of our Christmas time at all! Just a few on the 25th.

I'd like to share a few of the Christmas things I did photograph. Above is one of the school lunches little t had before the holidays. It contains vegan sausage and stuffing panini sandwiches, a home made treacle-mincemeat mince pie, soy-cheese and crackers, a satsuma and purple plum, a box of raisins and a candy cane. I usually put tinsel and an ornament on the cooler bags the children have for bento at Christmas time but this year I came up with the idea of gift wrapping the actual lunch.

Below are the two centrepieces the children made for our living room and dining room. The gold platter was Big T's design and the red platter was little t's. I gave them glass dishes, candles, ribbon, scented dried flowers, slices of orange I baked in the oven with cinnamon and holly snippets, then I let them make their own arrangements. I was REALLY pleased with the outcome.

Next up are some pictures of the main dish I made for Christmas day, which was a nut and cranberry wellington. The filling consisted of pureed chestnut, chopped walnuts, garlic, wholemeal breadcrumbs, steamed cranberries and fried, diced white onion. The pastry was also my own vegan creation, which I did make a little thick in places. It held it all together though. The children thought it was delicious and my husband thought it was double delicious (he had a double portion!).

For all of you that enjoy a peak into my cooking and my home life here on Bentovention I'd like to wish you a happy new year to come! little t and Big T have started to take soup and tea in their new flasks to school each day while the weather is so bitterly cold. Normal bento making will be resumed again soon!

No.101 'Happy Olives' bento

2011-10-16T22:21:00.000+01:00

Hello all! Here is the bento I have just made for little t for tomorrow. It's wholewheat spaghetti with some delicious, saucy vegan bolognese. In the second layer is some home made (also vegan) garlic ciabatta and a little collection of happy olives! I have drawn the olive faces on with a toothpick and I'm quite pleased with the cute little smiles.

We are all excited about Halloween dress up and activities at the moment. We have quite a nice collection of Halloween decorations that we've made over the past few years so it'll be great to get those out and to make some new ones too. Not to mention the decisions about how to carve our pumpkins this year!

No.100 Vegan Hot Dog Bento and Green Tea Cake

2011-10-14T22:42:00.001+01:00

Hello all! I hope that your week has been a good one. Here is one of my son's bento meals from this week. This one reminded me of bonfire night, since we always have tofu wieners and baked potatoes before we go to enjoy fireworks and a bonfire. In the main section little t has a tofu wiener in a hot dog roll with fried onions, ketchup and American mustard. In the other section he has some baked potato wedges, satsuma and juicy jumbo raisins.

As an added extra, here is a picture of the decorated green tea cake I made last Sunday afternoon for our dessert. It is green tea sponge decorated with lemon frosting and marzipan. Delicious.

And these are the vegan crepes I made for one of our breakfasts this past week. They are drizzled with maple syrup.

A Bentovintage post follows after the bunting...

This week I have been admiring, amongst other things, the beautiful acrylic jewellery made by Callooh and Callay. My absolute favourite item in their current collection is Snappy's Sausage Necklace. I'd love to wear it to the seaside with a garish red and white striped Victorian bathing suit. Perhaps even take in the local Punch and Judy show whilst showing it off to jealous fans in the audience!

This may not seem like a 'vintage' post to you, but recently I've been turning my interest in vintage fashion and makeup into something more personal to me. I have quite a few acrylic jewellery pieces that I had put aside when wearing an outfit strongly centered on a vintage look, but my style ideas are changing. I have always admired Amanda Palmer's style and remember quite frequently how she describes herself as a 'theatrical tour de force'. Wouldn't it be great to be a theatrical tour de force? I think so.

As a small homage to quirky-ness and theatre, I have begun to wear my bold acrylic pieces with a very 1930s or 1940s outfit. I'm also hankering after an endless supply of Le Queues de Sardines tights... they are possibly the best hosiery available to mankind.

No.99 Samosa and Bhaji Bento with Cherry Pie

2011-10-09T21:26:00.000+01:00

Hello all! Here is a tasty little Indian food bento that little t had for lunch the day after his birthday. He asked for an Indian banquet as his birthday dinner and we had plenty of leftovers. He has a vegetable samosa, a cauliflower bhaji and an onion bhaji along with some mango dipping sauce. In the fruit layer he has peach slices and fresh mango. As a family we rank Indian food pretty highly on our favourites list so little t's choice of dinner was met with enthusiastic agreement. He was quite pleased to find that the leftovers made their way into his tummy, too. A lot of Indian cuisine uses ghee in the cooking process so as a vegan I choose my meals carefully and enquire about the ingredients. I have discovered that a vegetable bhuna is a safe option from our favourite restaurant and I can have their chapati but not the naan.

This next picture is of a vegan cherry pie I made for dessert during the last week. I make my pastry with soya spread. The filling is stewed cherries with added sugar. Here you can see it hasn't yet been baked.

And here it is baked and partly devoured! Yummy. We had soya custard with it.

No.98 'Dolphins in the veggies' bento

2011-10-08T22:42:00.000+01:00

Hello all! Today I'm showing you what little t had for lunch on Friday. Dolphin shaped Vegemite sandwiches, carrot angel fish, peas in their pod and thin strips of yellow pepper. In the fruit layer there are seedless green grapes and wedges of peach. Peach happens to be little t's favourite fruit since he read Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach.

For the photo I have placed the dolphins as if they were leaping out of the box, but to assemble the bento I stacked them one on top of the other at the top of the box and arranged the veggies at the bottom. It still looked like a pretty arrangement.

Friday turned out to be a particularly busy day for me and with unexpected (but lovely) visitors in the evening we ate dinner very late and I entered a comatose sleeping state as soon as everyone had gone (before everyone had gone if I'm completely honest!). One lovely memory from Friday was when we were caught in a refreshing shower of rain walking home from school and we managed to find a quick shelter under a tree. Little t took a large leaf he had been carrying around with him and attached it to a stick as an umbrella. He was a little Totoro! I have a picture of him with the leaf umbrella and it's such a sweet image.

Vegan MoFo 2 - Power Star Cake, Recipe, Vegan Makeup Review

2011-10-06T23:28:00.000+01:00

Hello all! Here, as promised, is a picture of my daughter's 12th birthday cake. It's a vegan lemon sponge cake with lemon marmalade filling and lemon flavoured icing. It was really moist and tasty. The shape is a Super Mario Power Star, which was nice and easy to make (unlike Triceratops cakes). I made one rectangular sponge and after cutting out roughly, a smallish circular section from one half of the cake, the other leftover parts easily made the points.

The lemon sponge is easily my second favourite cake flavour, with a strong strawberry flavoured cake ranking first place (also my son's favourite). I was a little lax with my last post about the Triceratops cake by not posting a nice, simple vegan cake recipe for you. So here goes. The following ingredients make up a single large square sponge that can be cut into 'brownies' or made into a decorated cake. Alternatively, the same amount of mixture will make two smaller round layers for a rich, moist tea time cake with a bit of frosting on the top.

Miloko's Vegan Cake Recipe

1kg of self raising flour of your choice (gluten free flour may require extra fluid to mix)
500g of sugar (I actually use any type I fancy, sometimes brown sugar is good for chocolate or coffee cake).
500g of vegan spread (such as Pure spread)
2 teaspoons of baking powder
Rice/soya/oat milk in enough quantity to make the mix as sloppy as soft peanut butter.

Mix it all very well, until your peanut butter consistency is achieved, then flavour it with anything you like. I suggest:

Strawberry oil/essence and pink vegetable based colouring
Lemon oil/essence
orange blossom oil
cocoa powder
coffee
almond oil

Bake it at 170 degrees for between 15-25 minutes, until a knife inserted into it comes out clean. Try to catch it just as the centre is baked, to retain as much moisture as possible.

And that's all there is to it. This cake recipe is one I've come up with myself after realising that all of those hard to come by or often untasty vegan substitutes for eggs just aren't necessary for a delicious cake. The texture will be very much like a moist brownie or muffin, which is how I like my cake, but isn't to everyone's liking. I hope that this ultra simple recipe reaches a few people that love it as much as I do.

Below the Bentovintage banner is a Vegan makeup review for you as an added extra to the appreciation of food. So you can have your cake and look fabulous eating it. Enjoy!

I don't own a lot of makeup because I prefer quite simple makeup routines for daily wear and I find that a few classic colours and makeup items can be mixed and matched to good effect for any occasion. I do however absolutely LOVE a particular makeup blog called Funny Face's Place. I love Lillian's vibrant sense of style and find her to be one of the prettiest makeup bloggers I've encountered, with an absolutely adorable personality that shines through in her posts and video tutorials. Take a look at her blog and find out for yourself.

As part of my love of all things vintage 1920-1940 I've been wearing a bright red lipstick every day for the past few months. It's a great, classic lip colour, and it fits in nicely with the bright hair flowers and generally 1940s air I've been cultivating through the Summer months. Now that Autumn has hit though, I've been falling in love with the more muted shades of autumnal leaves and the high street fashion colours that go hand in hand with them. With that in mind I needed to find myself a new lip shade that would fit well with my few new Autumn wardrobe items in plum, pumpkin, navy, cream, rusts and browns.

Here it is. My new vegan friendly lip duo of Barry M's lip liner in No.6 and New York Color's lipstick in Plum Rum.

Here's a look at how it works. My routine is to line the lip in my preferred shape for the day (this is a natural lip but I love a heart shape or a full cupid's bow, too), then fill in the whole lip with the liner. Next I apply a first coat of lipstick and dab it gently. Then a second coat of lipstick and another gentle dab. I put the lipstick on in this way at 6am this morning and it lasted with only a slight wear to the colour, through breakfast, lunch and a cup of coffee, only needing to be touched up by about 2pm. A very good quality product!

I am particularly pleased to discover as a vegan makeup shopper, that the vegan brands I can find on my high street (NYC and Barry M in particular) are super-affordable in comparison to non-vegan makeup brands, and as proven by this week's thorough field test, fantastic quality for that low price, too. Good stuff.

This particular colour is making me feel like an early 1930's starlet.

Vegan MoFo 1 - 'Terry' the Triceratops Cake

2011-10-05T14:24:00.000+01:00

Hello all! My first post for the Vegan Month of Food is to show you Terry the Triceratops cake. He was made recently for my son's 9th birthday and based on a cuddly toy he loves.

The cake is a rich vegan chocolate sponge with strawberry jam filling and he has been decorated with icing coloured with vegetable based food colourings. There's a whole lot of cake going on here, he's almost as heavy as a real Triceratops!

Coming up later in the week will be the vegan cake I baked for my daughter's 12th birthday and some posts about the yummy vegan lunches my friend makes for me every time I visit her.

No.97 Caterpillar Bento

2011-09-13T22:26:00.000+01:00

Here are Monday's bento and Tuesday's bento together. The caterpillar is made from mini doughnuts, a large strawberry and some fondant icing. In the savoury layer is some leftover spicy vegetable goulash and little squares of seeded bread stacked together. The caterpillar is inspired by a little creature of the same type that we encountered on our walk home from school today.

Below is the 'rose garden' bento I made for Monday. It has squares of banana bread with soya spread, decorated with fondant icing in the form of red and white rose vines. When I was decorating them I explained to little t that its the Red Queen's rose garden. There are also some par-boiled carrot wedges and celery sticks, some banana chips and custard cream biscuits.

No.96 'Little Pink Rabbit' bento

2011-09-09T18:42:00.000+01:00

Ooo, this is a good lunch. I'd be delighted to have this one myself. For today, little t had garlic and herb crackers smothered in vegan olive pate, dried figs and cherries, carrot sticks and humous. On top of the crackers I put a little rabbit cut from the food I am now raving about: Fry's vegan polony! Haha! It's going to be in a lot of food I make at the moment. Yum.

So there we are, the first week back at school is over now and my tired children are ready for a longer sleep tonight. Me too!

One of the highlights of the week has been the morning we found large frogs hopping in the road and we rescued them to be put safely into the damp grass of a garden. We have also found and carefully moved to safe places, many escargot, some of which had very interesting colours and patterns. The conkers are falling again! Each morning after Big T has gone on her way to senior school, little t and I have been collecting the best of them in our pockets on the walk to junior school.

No.95 Happy Face Salad bento

2011-09-07T22:52:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow's salad bento for little t has baby spinach, grated carrot, lettuce, tomato and celery. The happy little round face is made from a slice of fried Fry's vegan polony! Yes, that sentence was exciting enough to deserve an exclamation mark. Or at least it was to me. The eyes are pumpkin seeds, the smile tomato skin and the hair is celery.

Fry's vegetarian polony is such an exciting discovery for me for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it's one of a very few 'meat substitutes' that I find appetising. It tastes like a mild, sausage/bacon alternative but far more delicious than other things I have tried in the past (keeping in mind that I never liked the taste of meat in my childhood meat eating days, either). The second exciting thing about it is that I realised it has the texture and colour of tinned Spam! (Another well deserved exclamation). Spam has been my main barrier to creating a few forties wartime recipes I discovered. Now I have a genuinely tasty Spam alternative I can vegan-ize those recipes and give them a go. Happy times!

No.94 Leftover pizza bento

2011-09-05T00:30:00.000+01:00

This is one of those meals that proves a bento can be made in under two minutes! No decoration today, since the children had this one small slice of pizza leftover that I just cut into slivers for tomorrow's lunch for little t. I use leftovers for bento as often as possible. It saves any waste and also a lot of money. In the second layer little t has a beautifully ripe sliced plum and carob coated raisins. I'll send a pot of fruit layered yoghurt also.

Well, tomorrow will be Big T's first day of big school. New horizons. I think I'm possibly more apprehensive and excited than she is. So much so that my intensity of new school excitement is making her nervous! I really hope that her first day goes as swimmingly as possible so that it eases her into a new routine and social life.

No.93 'Tomato hearts' bento

2011-09-01T22:58:00.000+01:00

I had a really nice day today. Little t had a wonderful first day at school, coming home with happy tales of the new teacher and new class organisation. Meanwhile, Big T and I had our Mummy and daughter day! We now have lovely new hairstyles and a few bits and bobs from around the shops. It was a great opportunity for the two of us to have a long talk and relax in one another's company. One of the highlights of the day: we wrote a poem together while we sat with our fruit smoothies.

The bento for little t's lunch tomorrow is a variation on the one he ate today. The celery and carrot sticks with Mayola are included again (he enjoyed those), along with the carob coated raisins and banana chips. In the main layer for tomorrow he has some thinly sliced baby new potatoes with green peso stirred in. I've decorated the meal with 'tomato hearts' which all in all are a bit of a failure...

No.92 Vegan 'Back to School' Bento

2011-08-31T22:09:00.000+01:00

This is my little son's back to school bento for tomorrow. It was really lovely getting my bento cutters and boxes out this evening to make him a special meal. I feel refreshed after the holiday and ready to get greater enjoyment out of bento again. Not that I've ever found making bento a chore, far from it, it's a pleasure, just that I had lost inspiration for 'art' bento by the end of last school year. My bento had become more functional than artistic.

In tomorrow's bento, little t has lemon and coriander cous cous decorated with daisies made from flat bread, spring onion and carrot. In his second layer he has celery and carrot sticks and a small pot of Mayola (vegan mayonnaise). In his snack box, to the left, he has carob coated raisins and banana chips. He'll have those for his break. I'll be including a pot of fruit puree for his dessert, also. It only took me ten minutes to put this together and the only tool I used was a small flower cutter. I like the simplicity of it. Simple, clean food designs can be the prettiest in most cases I think.

My daughter, Big T, is now moving on to secondary school, so she has decided to give up bento and start having hot school meals. I'm comfortable with that because we've discussed her responsibility for keeping her meals and portion sizes healthy. We'll see how it goes. I'm so excited for both of my children starting new school year chapters. Because little t is going back to school earlier than Big T this year, Big T and I are going to have a Mummy and daughter day tomorrow! Happy times! We're going to go for fancy fruit smoothies at a cafe in the morning, then we're getting our hair cut and styled, followed by a trip to buy our favourite magazines and meeting Daddy for lunch. Could there be a better plan? I don't think so!

No.91 'Dijon Potato Salad' bento

2011-07-18T23:45:00.000+01:00

Hello all! The children and I are on Summer break at the moment, so hot lunches at home are what we're having most days. Packing bento won't be something we do regularly until it's time to return to school. However, I did recently make bento boxes for the children and their friend to have for lunch during our visit to the zoo. They had a base of my dijon potato salad (vegan), which is made from tiny new potatoes, a dollop of dijon mustard, and a handful of dried, crispy fried onions. Along with the potato salad they had an assortment of carrot animals and a dessert layer of watermelon cubes on butterfly skewers. In short, they were quite attractive lunches! And I made the terrible mistake of not photographing them before I packed them for the zoo. It's a real shame. Instead, here is a picture of a lunch I made for the last week of school, featuring the dijon potato salad and some garlic bread wedges.

Below is a custom made cake I created for a friend's child's birthday party in June. The little boy is a huge football fan. The cake centre is vegan chocolate with a fudge frosting. Six layers of it to be precise. This thing weighed a tonne!

No.90 Eight Vegan Bento Ideas

2011-05-22T18:06:00.002+01:00

Hello! As I have mentioned before, I am vegan and my husband and children are vegetarian. I will sometimes make vegetarian bento for my children, but because my bento are frequently constructed from family meal leftovers and I cook vegan meals, they have plenty of vegan bento.

I have so many bento photographs I haven't blogged yet, I decided I'd use a small collection of them to put together this vegan bento meal idea post. Enjoy!

Thai curry and basmati rice

Thai style curry base made from orange peppers, onions, coriander, ginger, garlic, lemongrass, kaffir lime, coconut milk, potato and pak choi. The curry has been blended with some basmati rice and served with a fruit salad of red plums and kiwi.

Samosas and vegan coleslaw

Three mini samosas with a fine coleslaw made with shredded white cabbage, onion, carrot and Mayola mayonnaise substitute. Tomato wedges and cucumber slices on the side and a fruit layer of yellow plums, kiwi and satsuma.

Spicy vegetable cous cous

Spicy vegetable cous cous with radish and cucumber slices. The cous cous has been cooked with carrot, onion and courgette and flavoured with masala curry powder and white pepper.

Pasta with chilli tomato sauce

Egg-free pasta with a tomato based sauce with bird's eye chilli, black pepper, onion and basil. Radishes and cucumber in the salad layer.

Quinoa tabbouleh

Quinoa tabbouleh made with cucumber, tomato, chives, white pepper and lemon juice. Green grapes and strawberries in the fruit layer.

Vegan bolognese

Home made vegan bolognese made with vegan mince substitute, onions, chopped tomatoes, bird's eye chillis, basil and white pepper. Served with egg-free pasta and a fruit salad of satsuma and green grapes.

Simple salad cous cous

A simple salad of lemon juice seasoned cous cous topped with tomato, spring onion and radish slices.

Vegan lasagne

Vegan lasagne made with layers of the bolognese recipe mentioned above, egg free lasagne strips and a bechamel sauce made with rice milk, soya butter and plain flour and well seasoned with white pepper. A well seasoned white sauce shouldn't need any cheese substitute to be tasty!

No.89 'Little Flower Fruit Kebab' bento

2011-05-04T23:40:00.000+01:00

Hello! Apologies for not blogging about my bento recently. It doesn't mean I've taken a break from bento, because I've still been producing them regularly, it was jut the blogging bit that wasn't getting done. I've been making a lot of simple but nutritious 'leftovers' bentos, so my next post may feature a whole lot of these bentos together as another of my 'numerous vegetarian bento ideas' posts.

I've just realised that the photo for tonight's bento is very dark. I hope that isn't too awful. Here I've used some of my home-made spicy vegetable cous cous. The vegetable and spice combination in it is finely diced and olive oil fried courgette, white onion, chive, carrot, turmeric and white pepper. Along with the cous cous is a little bunch of sharp tasting baby salad leaves and a cherry tomato. In the other side I've put a small portion of coleslaw and some chopped green grapes and strawberries. Some of which I've skewered on a crepe paper flower toothpick decoration.

Now here's where I have a top tip for you. Don't just look out for food skewers and cookie cutters on your travels for use with bento, also look out for jazzy cocktail decorations like this one. It came in a large pack of crepe paper flower and fruit decorated toothpicks and they are going to be super-lovely for Spring/Summer bento and picnics. They cost me only 49 pence in a shop called Home Bargains. Can you believe that? 49 pence. I really wish I'd bought more.

If you'd like, take a look at the two new cake creations I'm going to be adding shortly to my 'Cake' page on here. That's it for now! Good night readers.

No.88 'St. David's Day' bento

2011-02-28T22:20:00.000Z

Happy St.David's day! Dydd Gwyl Dewi Sant. St.David is the patron Saint of Wales and tomorrow, March 1st, people all over Wales will be sporting either a daffodil or a leek on their lapel to remember it. My children have little felt leeks on their school blazers and they will also have this...

My St.David's day bento! Here in the top layer are some vegetable hash browns cut into petal shapes and topped with cheddar cheese to make a daffodil. Underneath is some lettuce and coleslaw, with some chives for grass and a little spring onion chopped into a leek shape!

In the second layer is a slice of mature cheddar and caramelised onion quiche along with a yellow plum and some strawberries featuring one of my new butterfly decorative food picks. There is also a third box with some crackers to eat along with the cheese daffodil petals.

The one above is the flower in my daughter's bento lunch for tomorrow. What a busy half term holiday week I had! On the Thursday I gave a talk to members of a multicultural society about how I make my bentos and how to create healthy, attractive lunches for children. I got a very good reception and apart from some initial nerves I got stuck in and enjoyed being the presenter! I'll have to do it again some time.

Below is a picture of my bento making table that I set up at the talk last week. I was quite pleased to see everything so colourful and I topped it all off by turning up in a 1950s styled rockabilly dress with the full vintage look going on. In the last picture, taken by my daughter so a bit blurry, you can see the 'little chick' Easter themed bento, which is one of the three that I created for the presentation.

No.87 'Domo Stole My Heart' bento

2011-02-17T21:55:00.000Z

Hello all! A late Valentine bento here from me. I've been too busy to post any bento pictures before now this week unfortunately, but this is one of two nice ones I've made. This one features a small portion of the meal I cooked for my family on Valentine's day. Swirly whirly pasta with a home made pasta sauce consisting of tomatoes. leeks, carrots, onion, garlic, basil and sliced green olives. Domo is stealing the heart shaped mini garlic bread (also home made - and vegan!). In the fruit layer there are strawberries, apricots and a plum.

I have had a particularly busy week and aside from work I've managed to cram in some good times! On Monday a makeup artist friend of mine gave me a 1920s inspired makeover which was lots of fun and made me feel really pampered. On Tuesday I went to a particularly energetic exercise class with two other friends and that ended up being a hilarious experience as well as being good for us. Wednesday was all work but today I have spent some quality hours with yet another of my friends (my my, haven't I been social this week?). We made ourselves a lunch of roasted garlic bulbs smooshed onto gorgeously crusty rye and spelt bread with vine ripened tomatoes, black pepper and olive oil. Divine. We've planned the same meal again for our next get together in two weeks' time.

In fact it has been a particularly big eating day for me come to think of it. For dinner today I made a large salad with a balsamic dressing and humous then for dessert we had warm vegan chocolate brownies. I just can't stop making those brownies! They're so delicious. Got to cut down though...

My daughter took these photos of Domo continuing his adventures in the kitchen after stealing the garlic bread heart. As you can see, he discovered a tin of baked beans, which happen to be his all time favourite food at our house. He looks so pleased with himself.

I'm sure our green Domo friend will come back to the kitchen another day and have similar culinary adventures. He does seem to get about the house a great deal. He's even going in to school tomorrow as a prop for the talk my daughter is giving about cute bento lunches. She's a bentoer of the future!

For this instalment of Bentovintage I have a few food reviews for you. I've been looking out for food items and brands that are about today which have been going strong since the forties and fifties and even earlier. Here are three such items that myself and my family have taste tested and approved for consumption! There's something particularly appealing to me about these products and that is their easily recognisable ingredients! Sure, there is salt and sugar, which can be considered 'bad' but there is no more salt and sugar in these items than there is in modern food stuffs. The best bit for me is that they don't have any of those scary additives with the long names or extra colours and chemical preservatives.

Here we have a bottle of Camp coffee which is a Scottish foodstuff first produced in 1876. It's a blend of coffee, chicory, sugar and water. I tried it mixed in with a glass of cold rice milk to make a quick and easy iced coffee. The taste is quite bitter, but only in the same way a strong good coffee is a bitter. I think I could get a taste for it. The label states that it can also be used to make hot coffee when mixed with hot milk/water and it's good for baking. I can state that the baking suggestion is certainly true. I used a dash of it to make some coffee flavoured vegan muffins and they were delicious.

This next picture is of the box of Force cereal I bought last week. It was first produced by the Force Food Company in 1901. That dandy character on the box is 'Sunny Jim', a cartoon character produced to advertise the cereal. I didn't actually get a bowl of this, since it was gobbled up by my children and husband in no time. What you get in the box is natural coloured, small, fine wheat flakes. My children inform me that it isn't very sweet (not a bad thing) and that when mixed with milk forms a loose, soft flakey breakfast similar in flavour to Weetabix. They loved it!

Last but not least is Vogel's bread, which has been produced since the 1950s. Vogel's declare themselves on the packaging to be 'Experts in seeds and grains'. The children and I laughed about this because we decided that our pet pigeon is without a doubt an expert in seeds and grains. What can I say, I'm REALLY glad I bought this bread to review it as a vintage food product because it has become a firm favourite with us. We're on our third loaf of it now and we're still not tired of it. My children adore it as much as I do and it makes great toast, sandwiches and forms a delicious base for my home made vegan garlic bread (a piece of which is featured in the bento post above where Domo is stealing it away). The slices are small, but the bread is so dense that it's incredibly filling in small quantities. It has a nutty, seedy taste but doesn't have any of those irritating large seeds that get wedged in your teeth and tend to put my children off regular seeded bread for that reason. Check out the Vogel's website if you're interested in the back story for this bread's production. There's a lot of thought been put into these loaves.

No.86 'Sian's Garden' bento

2011-02-02T23:20:00.000Z

Guess what? I found that missing bunny cutter! My favourite one. Even though I had searched through my cutter jars quite thoroughly, he turned up tonight nestled under all the others. Perhaps he has been on a secret adventure... This bento is dedicated to a friend of mine who has been working extremely hard lately and could do with a tranquil little bento garden to sneak away to for a few hours! I've never thought of dedicating a bento before but it felt very lovely making this one and keeping my friend Sian in mind as I arranged it. It's a very hearty bento too, which should be filling and yummy. In the savoury base there is pasta with green pesto, some wedges of tomato, curly lettuce, some chopped vegetarian hotdog wiener and to top it all off a cheddar cheese flower and rabbit. In the dessert layer is a veritable treasure trove of jelly beans and chocolate coated raisins and I've used the divider for the bento box for the first time in a long time to keep the orange segments separate.

The top image is of my son's bento and the second one, in the strawberry shaped box, is my daughter's. Below is a picture of what they looked like with their section lids and closures. Another day, another bento! A job well done and something to feel proud of when I present these lunches to my children in the morning.

On the vintage front, I thought some of you might be interested in these free printable vintage valentines cards from Vintage Holiday Crafts (now featured in my side bar!). I'm certainly going to be printing some off and adding my own touches to them. I've seen some lovely valentines cards out this year and I often make my own, but these ones are just great! "Darn it! You gotta be my valentine!" Lovely.

Image courtesy of vintageholidaycrafts.com

No.85 Strawberry muffin and love heart bento

2011-01-31T20:11:00.000Z

Tonight I cooked a vegetable curry for dinner. It's one of the things I rustle up when we have extra people in the house to feed since a pan of curry can be expanded as far as you like with an extra handful of this and that. It wasn't spicy enough for my taste, but with eight different vegetables and no added salt it was healthy and filling! While making the curry I realised that we didn't have any dessert for our guests so I quickly mixed and baked a batch of my vegan muffins. Tonight I added a little red colouring and strawberry flavouring so that they came out very bright and very yummy!

Tomorrow's bento features one of those muffins along with another portion of the feta, garlic and herb pasta parcels, some cucumber slices and a wedge of ciabatta. The savoury course has a cheese love heart with pink sprinkle eyes and mouth and the sweet section has a little red plum tucked in as a tip-of-the-hat towards a less sugary dessert.

No.84 'Ssssnakey Pasta' bento

2011-01-30T21:37:00.000Z

Goodness me, here's another Monday around the corner! I've managed to fit some relaxation time into this weekend, so I'm not doing too badly, really. The bento the children are having tomorrow features a snakey friend, cut from cheddar cheese using the second of my cutters from the set I mentioned in my Rabbit in Egypt post. Unfortunately, my rabbit cutter seems to have been mislaid in the kitchen, because I can't find it at all. Hopefully the bunny will turn up during the week as things get moved about. This lunch consists of feta, garlic and herb pasta parcels, topped with sliced tomato and cheese snake (green eye made from a green sprinkle), with spinach leaves and a wedge of honey and oat ciabatta bread. In the fruit layer are chopped and stoned plums, strawberries and green grapes.

We have some home improvements going on at the moment, and that feels quite good. Work on our late 1800s cottage, much ruined by the onslaught of decades of bad taste (wood chip wallpaper, umpteen layers of gloss on everything to just begin the list), has been very slow. However, the downstairs has finally been put into a fairly attractive state in the past year with many original features brought out and plastering work done. Upstairs is next, with our daughter's bedroom top priority on the list to give her a lovely new environment of her own before she starts secondary school. These plans being put into action have meant much sorting, stacking and throwing away of things on my part. I have almost completely rid the walls of the many layers of wallpaper and a plasterer is due to come over this week to give us advice on fixing a region of dodgy wall. I must remember to get a photo of some of the earliest layers of wallpaper before I strip it away, because I have got down to a tatty but pretty hand printed wallpaper in a duck egg blue with pink roses. I'd like to record it while it's still about.

Speaking of recording things... I'm now going to attempt my first blog post about how my 1940s vintage restyle is coming along. I'll start with some product reviews.

Bentovintage! But not about vintage bento I'm afraid (although I am considering an attempt at combining the two interests now and then). As 2011 was rolling in I decided that it was time for a personal restyle, since 2010 had brought me a few woes towards it's close and sometimes a change is as good as a rest, so they say. At least, I think I've got that right. My New Year resolutions were as follows:

1. Embrace 1940s vintage

2. Maintain a Vegan diet

3. Be spookier

To explain the second resolution, I have been vegetarian since late childhood and have discovered I am allergic to dairy. Veganism is the most sensible way forward for me, if done properly. As for the third resolution, well... that speaks for itself. Be spookier, right!? So far I am very pleased with myself. I have managed to achieve all three resolutions and kept them going for almost a whole month now.

My first move in discovering the 1940s look was to bleach my vividly pink hair (Atomic Pink by Special Effects) into an extremely pale cupcake pink. I am aiming for white blonde in time by using the Virgin Snow Toner by Manic Panic, which I have already applied after bleaching to take the last of my pink down to the very pale cupcake pink I now have. Going completely blonde is going to require at least one more chemical treatment, but I won't be attempting that for a little while. Intensive conditioning is the way forward first.

The very next day after bleaching I went in to my regular hairdresser with a set of vintage hairdressing plans that got me some odd looks and a lot of confusion. After some gentle persuasion that I really did want to have the cut exactly as the design stated, my hairdresser got stuck in. I have ended up with what I am happy to say is a great 1940s Middy cut. I love it. I have naturally curly hair so when left natural without product I've been told it takes on quite a Marilyn Monroe shape! That is her hair, not all of her... What I've been doing is setting it in old fashioned rollers after washing so that I have a more uniform curl. I find it stays 'set' for at least three days, which takes me nicely to my next hair wash. Easy peasy!

So next it had to be makeup. I found some good information online about authentic forties makeup but have had to adapt it to my personal taste. I'm extremely pale skinned so there is no way on this earth I can get away with any orangey foundation tones. I have been using small amounts of Max Factor Panstick in 'fair' which gives me just the right vintage matte base. It works for the effect I want, but it's quite a heavy foundation so might give too much of an 'unreal' look for some preferences. Unreal works for me (see New Year's Resolution No.3).

Now, as for eyeshadow and liner, I needed a small colour range which I could wear consistently each day and wouldn't take too long to apply. For a 'pinup' style makeup look I discovered I would need a white/natural/cream eyeshadow and a dark colour such as grey or even black to team it with. The pale colour covers the whole lid and then the dark colour is shaded in from the outer edge of the eye and blended half way in. The effect is a shadowy look to the outer upper lid with the pale colour making the eyes look wide and fresh. The eye shadows are finished off with a sweep of liquid liner on the upper lid that ends in a kick that comes out as far as the crease and then as much mascara as you dare. I wear a red lipstick with a matching liner that I got from the Rimmel range, but there are plenty of good reds out there. That's all there is to it for a day to day look but I'm sure I'll try something more complex when I have an evening out (helloooo, in need of an evening out here!).

The eyeshadows I've been using are:

GOSH Metallic Rose, which I have found to be a great quality powder that lasts all day just as fresh as it was put on. I've used the white and grey shades to do the look I've just described, but I've also used the pale pink instead of the white or as well as the white and it looks lovely. I bought this in a sale for 3.70 GBP but it usually retails at around 8.00GBP. GOSH is one of the more expensive brands on the High Street. I've also used the shadows in this 'FACE' makeup palette by Topshop called Black Orchid.

Another lovely quality set which gives the desired effect. So far I have only used the white and black eyeshadows, a little of the lip gloss and a dab of the blush. The quality of the packaging is nice and it feels very sturdy. The wide mirror is great if you're going to carry the palette as a compact or as your sole makeup supply for a trip. I picked it up in the sale for 3.00GBP but this palette usually retails at 15.00GBP.

The last product I want to mention that I've used in creating my vintage look is Jolen powder bleach. It comes in a little box that retails for around 4.00GBP or a larger box at around twice the price. From what I've found the smaller box will last you for a VERY long time though since you need very little of the product for the purpose I used it for - eyebrow bleaching. The product is specifically for facial hair. It comes with a pot of cream, a pot of powder, a spatula and a small plastic mixing card to mix it on. It does the job and it does the job without irritating the skin, so I can heartily recommend it.

That's it for now dolls and dames! I hope I haven't bored you with the details too much and that some of you out there found my Bentovintage ranting a little bit interesting. If not, you've now got that little warning banner that will come up after the bento post and before the vintage section. As a disclaimer, I bought the products mentioned here with my own money and the opinions stated here are entirely my own.

No.83 "Thursday Duckling" bento

2011-01-26T22:20:00.001Z

Thursday's bento! This one has been added to What's For Lunch Wednesday over at What's for Lunch at Our House. Look over in the side bar to the right and you'll find a button that links directly to the site. You can add your own bento creation over on Bentolunch.net, too! It's a lovely way to share with other bento makers.

This bento has two little slices of my childrens' favourite mozzarella and tomato quiche, mini carrot and cucumber sticks, lots of olives and a cheddar cheese duckling with a strawberry leaf wing. In the second layer is the same five fruit salad I gave the children yesterday: grapes, strawberries, kiwi, satsuma and dried cranberries. Above is a picture of my daughter's bento box, since I showed my son's lunch yesterday and wanted to display a different box today. As snacks they will have flapjack and yoghurt.

The frost has eased off on our early morning walks to school now so it's not so treacherous on the pavements, thank goodness! The frost is extremely pretty, but it's always nice to arrive at school with no broken bones. Since it has been an exam week for my daughter there has been less bird watching than usual and lots of revision questions thrown back and forth. As a treat for the end of her exams next week, she has asked for an Indian takeaway. Excellent choice my little dove! Since many things on an Indian menu are vegan and therefore suitable for your Mummy! Yay! She's not the only one looking forward to the end of her exams. Today we brought sweetie Friday forward and had a sweetie Wednesday because she had her Geography exam, which was the one she has been dreading the most. "It's Asia that gives me trouble." she stated seriously. "So large and so complicated."

I have been letting her cross roads by herself lately. She's eleven, so some might think I have left it a little late. We've just never needed to walk apart, since we spend the majority of our time together outside of school. We also live quite a way out of town, so there has been nowhere safely accessible, at a short distance, she could walk to from home before. She's quite competent with roads as it turns out, and has picked up my daily safety routine on walks over the years. "It's like playing Frogger." she announced today after crossing the road back to me from the sweet shop, and I cringed as I responded "Ah, but on real roads you don't get three lives, my love." Oh so hard to let your little ones grow up! But she's starting secondary school after the Summer and needs and wants more independence. So she shall have it! I will just worry... She will begin walking part of the journey home herself, meeting her brother and I along the way.

Oh look, I can see the end of the week from here!

No.82 "Little Rabbit Holidays in Egypt!" bento

2011-01-25T22:11:00.000Z

Little vegetable samosas are on the menu for tomorrow's lunch, along with basmati rice, tomato wedges and cucumber slices. I pulled out my little rabbit cutter to add a decoration. It's a lovely, quality metal cutter that came in a set along with a snake and another animal that I can't quite work out. Possibly a badger... Might have to have a go with the mystery animal cutter one day soon. So I popped the little cheddar cheese rabbit into the bento, (after adding a tiny eye with the cut off end of a chocolate sprinkle), and what do you know! I immediately saw that the little fellow had gone on his hols to sunny Egypt! There he is now, admiring the sight of the distant pyramids. I wonder where else in the world he might end up on his travels? He'll have to come back home in time for Easter, of course. With 2011 being the year of the rabbit, no wonder our bunny friends are getting about a bit.

The second layer has a five fruit salad of grapes, strawberries, kiwi, satsuma and dried cranberries. With all that fruit packed into the childrens' lunch tomorrow I know they'll be getting they're vitamins! The picture below shows the absolutely delicious batch of vegan vanilla muffins my daughter baked today. Here they are undecorated, just after coming out of the oven. Yummy.

No.81 Quiche and raw veg bento

2011-01-21T10:14:00.000Z

Pictured above is my daughter's quiche bento from yesterday. She had a slice of tomato and mozarella quiche with some chopped raw celery and carrot. I have been super lazy with making bento this week, although that isn't to say I haven't made the children's lunches with love and good nutrition, it's just that I haven't liked my presentation of them enough to photograph each one. Here is yesterday's lunch, but I'll give you a rundown of what my children have been eating on their other school days this week.

Monday: Home made pizza with thyme pizza base (my basic recipe which uses no yeast, just flour, water and a dash of rice milk and pinch of thyme), tomato paste, chopped spinach, yellow pepper, mozarella, cheddar cheese, onion and olives.

Tuesday: Leftover organic brown rice pasta with vegan pesto

Wednesday: Vegetarian sausage sandwich with ketchup.

Thursday: The quiche bento pictured above.

Friday: Onion and garlic pasta parcels with a simple tomato pasta sauce and a topping of grated cheddar cheese.

It just occurred to me that I haven't entered any bento competitions lately, or even looked to see if there are any out there at the moment. That's something I'll have to rectify, since I enjoy having a little food design goal.

Another thing that's on my mind at the moment is my new fashion hobby which is recreating a nineteen forties vintage look. I'd really like to blog about what I've been up to with it, so I need to make the decision of whether I'm creating a second blog or combining it with my bento posts. Preferably, I'd like to stick to just the one blog and adapt the layout of my posts to include '..and meanwhile, on the vintage front...' style addition. I hope that doesn't upset any readers of Bentovention, who might only want to sift out the food content. We'll see! Happy Friday everyone.

No.80 Simple Pasta Bento

2011-01-13T12:43:00.000Z

There is no fancy title for today's lunch! It's very simple, with the macaroni pasta that makes up it's main dish coated in the simplest pasta sauce possible. My children love it. It's just chopped tomato, finely diced fried onion and grated cheese. Along with the pasta is another of those little cheese pastries and in the fruit layer I've put some seedless green grapes and some satsuma segments.

They had some of this pasta with their dinner last night, so this is leftovers, which is the most economic way to create school lunches.

I suffered in the name of beauty last night and bleached my hair. A lot. I usually tolerate bleach quite well, but last night my skin really reacted badly to it. It was too late once it was on though, I had made a commitment! Luckily, after the allotted time was over and I washed out the icky stuff, my scalp was not too tender at all. Phew. So I have gone from Atomic Pink (very bright) to a very pale strawberry milkshake colour, with about two inches of platinum blonde roots. I'm having my hair cut at the weekend so will have closer to fifty-fifty pale pink/blonde. I am absolutely LOVING the pale pink! I thought I wouldn't be happy until I had it completely blonde, but that's not the case at all. I'm glad to be retaining some hints of my former pinkness and really looking forward to the different stages and lengths as I continue to blonde over the next few months. Yay for baby pink candy-floss hair! It rocks.

As an added bonus, my children love it too, so I'm getting lots of lovely comments from them.

No.79 'Smiley Pastry' bento

2011-01-11T21:41:00.000Z

Just a very quick lunch. A pot of pasta with green pesto sauce, and a cheese and onion pastry with a carrot smile and cranberry eyes. The pesto was leftover from yesterday's dinner, so the prep time for this was literally just a couple of minutes.

Not a very eventful journey to and from school today (still dark, still cold!), but we did get the chance to enjoy the early morning bird song! Always a pleasure.

No.78 'Two Gossiping Hens' bento

2011-01-11T10:10:00.000Z

I'm quite pleased with this one. It doesn't have as much colour as it should, but it does have the right balance of being nutritious, yummy and cute. My two gossiping hens are made from vegetarian Quorn nuggets, carrot and cheese. They are sat on a bed of couscous with vegetables with the little bush between them made from a sprig of coriander. My children were delighted when I showed them their lunch this morning.

Yesterday my son was explaining the new lunch table arrangement they have at school. Each table has a picture of a fruit on it, and you always go to the same table to eat. They used to be able to sit where they liked, but apparently the younger ones were very noisy, so they have mixed them all up with the older ones in the junior department. My son is on the plum table, which is very appropriate for two reasons, his love of plums and the fact that he is my plum.

He told me that one of the younger ones on plum table always cried through lunch, which was both upsetting to him and also meant that they were never the quietest table, which earns the privilege of going out to play first. At lunch yesterday, my son showed the crying boy the little piggy pakora in his bento, and the little one stopped crying straight away! They weren't the quietest table, but they did get to go out first along with the winning table, because my son had showed such kindness. Little stories like that overwhelm me so much with love for my children that I have to sniffle back tears.

My son said he will show the crying boy his bento every day, so that he is happy to sit at plum table. I am so proud. I wonder what the little one will think of today's gossiping hens?

No.77 'Piggy Pakora' bento

2011-01-09T19:03:00.001Z

If you look closely, one of the tasty vegetable pakora in this bento box has transformed into a piggy pakora! Little tomato point ears and a cheese and cucumber snout. The pakora are teamed with a juicy salad of frilly lettuce, tomato, spring onion and cucumber. In the additional layer are some crackers, cheese and picked onions.

Sunday night already! How do the weekends fly by so quickly. We made the most of this morning by having a good lie in. Our usual 6AM wake-ups take their toll by the end of the week. Oh well. Off we go again!

No.76 Vegetable Kung Pao Noodle bento

2011-01-06T23:16:00.000Z

Not a decorative bento today, but a tasty one all the same! I spent the day wondering how to go about making a 'Lego' themed bento for my son, since he had requested one. I hadn't come up with any ideas, although my lovely bentoing sister has offered some great suggestions. As it turns out, walking home from school, my son was asking me for noodles for his lunch tomorrow. One of his friends brought in noodles for lunch today and he was really fancying them.

So I simmered some thick udon noodles with very tiny diced vegetables (green beans, carrots, peppers, onions) in just a tiny amount of water, then gently heated through some vegetarian spicy kung pao sauce. I didn't add any peanuts or cashews to the meal, since there is a nut allergy sufferer in my son's class. Mmmm, smells good! I added a sprig of coriander simply to add colour, but I know he'll eat it too. There are two pieces of chili and garlic naan that were leftover from dinner and a fruit pot I put together with strawberries and grapes. I'll send in yoghurt and a high fibre cereal bar as well.

My daughter's meal was slightly different. As the non-vegetarian in the family she has some added pepperoni slices.

No.75 'Sunset Salad' bento

2011-01-05T17:15:00.000Z

Happy New Year! Back to school and back to putting a lunch-making slot into my day. For the past two days the children have been taking little home made pizzas in to school for lunch, so this is the first bento of the year.

Now that we're entering the second Wintery term of the year we're leaving the house for school in the dark and returning home just as the sun sets again! Except we don't see a proper sunset, with those summer warm colours shot through the clouds. It's a cold, gradual darkening with greys and blues and blacks. I was thinking about that when I was chopping salad for tomorrow's lunch, so I turned the vegetables into a colourful sunset over green fields, with a little semi circle of cheese as the sun on the horizon. Well, the children agreed it looked sunsetty at least!

Curly leaf lettuce, cucumber, tomato, cheese and diced crispy coated tofu. There is a fruit box to accompany it for dessert along with yoghurt. Strawberries, grapes and cherries.

No.74 Four Vegetarian Bento

2010-11-25T23:01:00.000Z

Here are a few of my son's school lunches from November. My daughter is still taking in bento to school, but she doesn't like the food to be presented in a bento style any more because it draws attention. She takes hers in separate pots all packed into one larger container.

November has been a month I'll simply call 'interesting'. With too many big highs and big lows to summarise here. On one of the high notes though, I did celebrate my 30th birthday, with a wonderful collection of friends old and new, some brilliant sci-fi costumes and plenty of laughs.

I continue to use leftovers for bento main sections and add a fruit and snack layer too.

Pasta parcels bento

Feta cheese and caramelised onion pasta parcels bought at Morrisons, with a homemade pasta sauce made from simmered tomatoes, finely chopped onion and courgette with garlic and paprika. In the fruit layer are persimmon slices and a mini pealed satsuma.

Vegetable samosa and beetroot bento

These mini vegetable samosas are big hits with my children. Four mini samosas, carrot sticks, a tub of sliced pickled beetroot. In the fruit layer a chopped plum and pealed mini satsuma.

Quorn goujons bento

Every now and then I come across these Quorn goujons in supermarkets and they always go down well for lunches. Here I've sent them with a pot of ketchup, some cheese biscuits and a halved plum.

Falafel bento

This one got me lots of praise from my children. For some inexplicable reason they love coleslaw as if it's going out of fashion. I don't eat the stuff, but I recognise that they are getting some good nutrients out of it if I buy or make it with quality ingredients. Good chunky grated carrots, cabbage and onion, with reduced calorie mayonnaise. I should really try making it with vegannaise, then perhaps I wouldn't be so anti-coleslaw in my own diet. In this bento they have a good dollop of coleslaw, some leftover falafel balls, green olives, strawberries and a halved plum. Yum yum!

No.73 Foxy Pizza bento

2010-11-04T20:22:00.000Z

Pizza Friday again for the bento! This time I've made one of the wedges into a foxy face with a chopped olive for eyes and nose and cucumber triangles for ears. There are three pieces of pizza in there under the olives. Grapes and strawberries in the second layer. My son is now the proud owner of a banana case, so he'll be taking along a banana. I draw a face on the banana as a surprise and tomorrow has a cat face (yesterday's was a Totoro).

Ahhh, more rain today. We missed most of it on our morning walk though. I've got nothing against walking in the rain, and usually enjoy it, but even though we are very well equipped for harsh weather this particular rain is torrential! Cold, wet feet aren't fun.

Tomorrow will be the 5th of November, and the children and I are greatly looking forward to going to a bonfire and fireworks display in the evening. We've never been to this particular one before, and we've been told it is the best in the region. I'll let you know how it goes along with the next bento.

No.72 Raccoon bento

2010-11-03T22:32:00.000Z

Okay, so it could be any kind of animal! I agree, but when I put the raisin eyes and red icing mouth on this slice of crusty bread I thought instantly "raccoon!". So here is our raccoon bread in a layer with a plum and two ginger biscuits. In the main layer is pasta with a simple tomato based sauce I whipped up and a sprinkling of grated mature cheddar.

We didn't walk home from school today because we accepted the offer of a lift from a lovely friend of ours. It has been raining particularly heavily for the past few days. We're die hard walkers but every now and then the elements get the better of us and we just want to get home with dry feet! This morning however, we did have a nice walk into school. We found the most beautiful little frog. It was on it's way into the road and it wasn't clear where it might have come from, so I picked it up and gave it a lift to the opposite side of the road. We were quite happy thinking that the little frog would then make it's way into the friendlier territory of the fields and wetlands beyond.

Tonight I am exhausted. On top of the usual chores we went to our karate training. Good times! Good training. But it has left me contentedly tired and ready for a good snooze. We have our first belt grading on Saturday. Fingers crossed for us!

No.71 Persimmon Fishies bento

2010-11-01T21:49:00.000Z

Ooo, we had a lot of fresh veggies and fruits today! Everything looking green and yummy. The children fancied a nice juicy salad for lunch tomorrow so I made them some fruit and veggie layers which I will give them along with yoghurt and a cereal bar. In the larger layer is shredded lettuce, cubed cucumber, green pimento stuffed olives and a spoonful of chunky coleslaw. In the fruit layer are grapes, strawberries and little persimmon fishies! Persimmon is a delicious, mildly flavoured fruit, for anyone who hasn't tried it. I think I'll try cooking a more savoury dish with it sometime. I'm sure it would add a pleasing sweetness to a curry.

It's frosty on our school walks now. Although the mornings aren't cold enough to form a visible show of ice, the pavements are still slick with an invisible film of frozen dew. The grass crunches a little and the leaf drifts are crisp. It's truly beautiful to be walking just shortly after sunrise now that the clocks have gone back. We're awake before most of the birdies are now! Including our own pet pigeon, who snoozes away contentedly while I'm busy getting ready. My six o'clock starts in the morning are very wearing, but the Christmas holidays are so tantalisingly close. I'm such a holiday hopper, jumping tentatively across the days in between as if they were crocodiles.

No.70 Halloween Monster Sandwich bento

2010-10-31T17:04:00.000Z

It's Halloween! I had planned to keep some of my Halloween party food for Monday's bento but the little people gobbled it all up. Instead I have created a Halloween monster sandwich out of a triangular seeded wholemeal roll. The sandwich has cheese and vegemite, with a red pepper tongue and eyes salvaged from tonight's chilli. In the second layer there is the ubiquitous satsuma that appears in nearly all of my son's bento (yes, he REALLY likes them), with this one made into a mini pumpkin with some chocolate sauce features and a bit of lettuce for a stalk. I have also added one of the marzipan tombstones and a marzipan zombie hand from our Halloween party cake.

And, of course, a picture of our Halloween party cake!

No.69 Nine Simple School Bento Ideas

2010-10-31T16:36:00.000Z

It has been cake season in my kitchen for the past two months! A time of year where most of the family and our friends have their birthdays and other small celebrations requiring cake. All the baking and associated cooking really made a dent in my bento creation time. That didn't stop the bento, but it did stop me from spending so much time getting decorative with them. The following are a selection of the simple but nutritious bento that I have made recently.

1. Falafel pita bento

Falafel and salad mini pita wedges with carrot and cheese. Satsuma slices and dried banana in the second layer.

2. Cottage cheese pita bento

Cottage cheese and salad pita wedges with mandarin orange segments and a cheese and onion roll in the second layer.

3. Spicy vegetable samosa bento

Sliced spicy vegetable samosa with carrot, satsuma segments, dried banana and a Frusli bar.

4. Jammy heart bento

Jam sandwich hearts on wholemeal bread, dried cranberries and banana, melon wedges and a satsuma.

5. Veggie sausage and cheese roll bento

A vegetarian sausage, cheese roll, strawberries, dried banana and a Humzinger fruit bar.

6. Tomato pasta bento

Pasta twirls in tomato and garlic sauce, cheese cubes, Quorn vegetarian nuggets and a second layer of dried banana chips.

7. Pesto pasta bento

Basil pesto pasta with satsuma, dried cranberries and mini Oreo cookies in the second layer.

8. Mini samosa and pesto potato bento

Mini vegetable samosas with baby new potatoes in green pesto, melon wedges and satsuma.

9. Cheesy tomato pasta bento

Cheesy tomato pasta bento with green seedless grapes and satsuma.

The Giant Bounty Bar

2010-09-22T22:02:00.000+01:00

Rather than make a cake for my husband's birthday I decided I'd make him a GIANT BOUNTY BAR! By all accounts it was a beast of a chocolate bar. Well loved and respected by all who beheld it and took part in the devouring of it's delicious form. Here it is in it's various stages of existence. BEHOLD!

No.68 Butterfly Sandwich bento

2010-09-22T21:47:00.000+01:00

Hoo-boy am I worn out this week! Both of my childrens' birthdays fall in September so it has meant some preparation time and extra baking on top of my normal kitchen routine. My bentos have been fairly undecorative but just as wholesome as always. Tonight's bento is notable because my daughter's is packed in a non-bento box on her request. Apparently the contents are now fine for senior school lunch, but the clasps on her 'burger' bento box were a bit fiddly and she wanted a regular box. Aww, sadness! I love that burger bento box!

Here is my son's lunch, in his bento box:

The contents are Vegemite butterfly sandwiches topped with a cut out slice of mature cheddar, carrot sticks and humous dip, cucumber wedges and a pealed satsuma. There is also a cereal bar and small pot of yoghurt. I'm sending in a home made chocolate muffin too, since we have a glut of them this week.

My daughter's bento has the same contents, but with slightly bigger portions as usual (four sandwiches rather than two, more humous, more carrot).

Here are a couple of images I took of some of the other bentos this week.

Couscous, olives, cheese, crackers, kinder treat.

Leftover vegetable lasagne, green salad, olives, grapes, cheese biscuits, kinder treat.

No.67 Carrot Stars Bento

2010-09-16T21:18:00.000+01:00

Last bento of the week! I have a busy weekend ahead of me, with two birthdays happening and all the associated baking and creating. Since I love baking and creating, that's not a bad thing! This bento has Quorn nuggets, wholemeal sub roll, spicy couscous and carrot stars. In the fruit layer are kiwi slices and green grapes. I'll send in yoghurt and a chocolate chip cereal bar for break and dessert. Since they have nuggets tomorrow I'll pack a little pot of ketchup.

No.66 Little Duckling bento

2010-09-15T22:34:00.000+01:00

A little carrot duckling bobbing along in his couscous pond. Spicy couscous with vegetables, queen olives and a cheese and onion pastry. In the fruit layer, green grapes and watermelon.

Tonight was our karate night, and despite having eaten a good assortment of Korean food delicacies, home cooked and given to us by a good friend, the children came home hungry from our training! They had shortbread and milk before bed, but had their eyes on the little cheese rolls I had for their bentos. These will be the last of them, so I'll have to come up with something different for Friday.

No.65 Pac-Man Bento

2010-09-14T21:12:00.000+01:00

It's Pac-Man! Under the watchful eyes of two ghosts. I seem to be using a lot of green lately, but perhaps that's not a bad thing. On a bed of lettuce I've packed a mini cheese and onion pastry, some Queen olives and cucumber slices. Pac-Man and the ghosts are hand cut from cheese slice and coloured. The fruit layer has some very juicy watermelon. My daughter's bento has two mini cheese pastries, since she needs to eat more.

Wind and rain greeted us on our school walk today, both walking there and back. It really feels like Autumn is in full swing. Everywhere we go we are wandering through drifts of the most gorgeously colourful fallen leaves, pine cones and conkers. That has to be one of the great, and sometimes unappreciated pleasures of living in a very green, small city.

For dinner this evening the children asked for some of the leftover vegetarian cottage pie from the big batch I made last night, with green beans and crusty bread. Yummy. I love how my 'hearty' cooking is appreciated so much on colder days.

No.64 'Snakey' bento

2010-09-13T22:18:00.000+01:00

If you look closely at today's bento creation, there is a wholemeal snake! Vegemite sandwich made from half a wholemeal sub roll, more of my homemade potato salad (which the children were talking about on the way back from school - so tasty!), two mini onion bhajis and some cucumber shapes wedged at the rear. A handful of grapes and half a kiwi sliced in the fruit layer.

The snake sandwich has cucumber skin scales, fresh peas for eyes and a little sliver of red coloured cheese for a tongue. I think he's after that potato salad.

We brought home some more conkers and colourful leaves for our Autumn collection bowl today. It's a jumble tumble of Autumn! The pretty coloured leaves looked gorgeous in candlelight while we ate dinner. Here they are:

No.63 'Autumn Leaves' bento

2010-09-12T22:44:00.000+01:00

This weekend has flown by! On Saturday we visited a local National Trust house, which takes the form of a mock Norman castle. We had a wonderful time enjoying the architecture and artwork, but didn't stay to explore the gardens because it had rained quite heavily.

The bento decoration for tomorrow was inspired by the Autumn themed table that my son has at school and the 'Autumn collection' bowl we are filling at home, with colourful dried leaves, conkers and pine cones. The meal itself consists of a portion of home made potato salad, chopped vegetarian sausage and a mini onion bhaji. The fruit layer has honeydew melon, pineapple rings and red currants. I made the potato salad fresh this afternoon from some cubed, steamed potatoes with the skins left on, a dollop of mayonnaise, a teaspoon full of vegan pesto and a dash of white pepper. The Autumn leaves on the top are hand cut from a cheddar slice and coloured with food colourings.

No.62 Pizza Friday Bento

2010-09-09T21:51:00.000+01:00

I arrived home late today so my bento prep had a little less time than usual. No cute details I'm afraid, but lunch for tomorrow still has something special: Pizza Friday! Each bento has two small slices of pepperoni pizza, along with a slice of garlic bread, a pot of olives, some cucumber slices, a peeled satsuma and a radish. The grapes and strawberries are separate in my son's lunch because his boxes are a little smaller and I couldn't fit them in. I'll send some yoghurt and a raisin and cereal bar for break time.

No.61 'Little Frog' Bento

2010-09-08T21:48:00.000+01:00

I'm pleased with the colour in today's bento. The little froggy is sitting on top of a stack of freshly cooked little olive pancakes, which I made with quite a thick plain pancake mixture and then combined with finely chopped olives and pimento. Under the cucumber lily pads is a layer of quinoa and lettuce, with some carrot sticks and a radish to finish it off. In the fruit section there are satsuma segments, pineapple rings, strawberries and grapes. This is a real 'five a day' bento!

Below is my daughter's portion, which is a bit bigger and has some added pesto pasta in the main section and some of her favourite physalis with the fruit. Her froggy turned out a bit smaller! I cut them by and from cheese.

No.60 'Dragonfly Salad' Bento

2010-09-07T21:59:00.000+01:00

Hurray! No bento negativity was brought home from school today, so that's good news. Both of the childrens bentos were completely devoured also, with barely a crumb left. For the past couple of days the bentos I've made have been quite heavy, with the pasta content making me feel very sluggish after lunch in my office (since I've been having the same content in my own bentos). For tomorrow I've gone for much lighter content, which is simply two kinds of salad; one fruit and one vegetable. In the main section of our boxes we've got: lettuce, cucumber, radish, green olives, grated carrot and a little grated cheese. In the fruit section there are strawberries, black grapes, kiwi slices and red currants. We'll take along a small package of crackers and a pot of yoghurt also, to round out the meal and have a snack for break time. As a little decoration I cut out some cheese slice dragonflies to sit on top of the salad. It all looked so fresh as it was that I decided not to colour the cheese, leaving everything natural instead.

No.58 'Tattoo Heart' and No.59 'Cupcake' bento

2010-09-06T21:42:00.000+01:00

I've made two different bento details for Tuesday. The reason being that my daughter experienced a lot of bento-caused teasing in the dinner hall today from the senior children. At first, after coming home, she was declaring that she would never-ever-ever take another bento to school. I reassured her that she could take plainer sandwiches and fruit if she liked. It was another sad moment in our bentoing, because I realised that going over to just sandwiches every day would mean a less nutritionally balanced meal. Her father and I explained (again) that being 'different' in any way shape or form can attract negative attention, but being exactly the same as everyone else just to avoid notice isn't necessarily the road to happiness (or good nutrition!).

I was just about to make her a pack of cheese and pickle sandwiches as requested, when she came into the kitchen, saw all the bento food out, and asked me to make a bento! Go my girl! I decided I would use one of my new cutters to make her a very rock'n'roll 'tattoo heart' shaped cheese and pickle sandwich, decorated with a cut out and coloured slice of cheese on top. It's surrounded by strawberries and black grapes. In the middle layer are some mini ring doughnuts and in the base layer is pesto pasta, radishes, cucumber and a square of leftover falafel.

I decided to use another cutter for my son's jam sandwich, featured below (I was on a new-cutter-roll). Because his cupcake shaped sandwich was sweet I decorated it with writing icing and sprinkles like a real cup cake. he exclaimed "Oh wow! My friends will love this!". Which is exactly what I wanted to hear.

No.57 Cute 'Ice Cream' Bento

2010-09-05T21:09:00.000+01:00

Monday's bento! Well, after two days of bentos eaten with the senior department last week, my daughter had no success in finishing her food during the limited lunch period. Despite this fact, rather than asking for less food, she has asked for more! I don't understand her logic but I'm going to go with it and see if she gets her lunch times sorted out. Tomorrow she's going to take our largest bento box (the burger shaped one). I've make pesto pasta for the main layer, finely chopped strawberries and red grapes for the second layer and in the top layer she has three vegemite sandwiches in the shape of ice creams (we have some lovely new cutters!), with cheese detail to one. She also has a few redcurrants and a single physalis. She was thrilled to see it when it was made up, so I just hope she gets to enjoy it tomorrow! I think it's a shame when a school doesn't think of lunch as important enough to give a decent length of time to.

The following bento is the version I made for my son, who needs a much smaller portion. It's in his usual 'busy ant' box.

No.56 'Ooglies' bento

2010-09-02T21:28:00.000+01:00

Since I was putting in a few little portions of different foods, my daughter suggested that I simply put eyes on a few of them so that they could be 'Ooglies'. I liked that idea. The Ooglies are food items with eyes that get up to adventures in a children's stop-frame animation series. The first day of back to school bento went well, with both boxes coming home almost empty and the last few morsels in them eaten before the boxes went in the wash. Apparently very tasty. I had similar food items to pop in the boxes for this next bento, but I reduced the quantity of rice and replaced it with easy to eat bite sized pieces of other foods instead. With limited time for their lunch break it can be difficult to get through a largish portion of rice (so I was told today).

In today's bento (which is sadly not very colourful), they have two vegetable samosas, some chopped vegetable burger, sliced radishes, cubed cheese and a little curried rice onigiri. In the fruit section, some grapes, red currants and physalis. They'll also take a small pot of chocolate mousse as the treat and a cereal bar for break.

No.55 'Sleepy Yellow Cat' Bento

2010-09-01T22:34:00.000+01:00

'Twas the night before school, and all through the house, nothing was stirring, not even a mouse. Well, here it comes! Back to school tomorrow. A bit of a surprise for me this evening when my daughter, who had previously told me that she needed 'serious' bento for this year, asked me to make tomorrow's bento cute! Wow. Well, I suppose we'll see how it is after her first day.

I asked them what theme they wanted for their lunch tomorrow and they both said 'Indiana Jones'. Well, thank you children, you had me completely stumped on how to turn vegetable samosas and curried rice into Indiana Jones. I'm afraid I didn't manage the requested theme, but I did warn them it might be something different. Instead I have attempted to make a large onigiri 'sleepy cat' modelled on a small wooden ornament we're quite fond of.

The rice has been coloured yellow with a little curry powder in it's cooking water (adds a delicate flavour too). The face and tail are cut from a mild cheddar cheese slice. It's pillows are the vegetable samosas and it has colourful radish balls to play with when it wakes up.

The lunch above is my daughter's slightly larger portion and the one below is for my seven year old son. The rice layer dominates in size for my daughter's meal and the fruit layer dominates in size for my son. It works out that way, since my daughter will prefer her savoury dish and my son would rather fill up on fruit. Although having said that, there is physalis in there, which my daughter is particularly fond of. Apart from the physalis, there are grapes, red currents and mandarin segments for my son, who is less fond of the physalis.

So, back to school we go, bento packed and looking smart!

Counting down to Back-to-school Bento

2010-08-31T21:06:00.000+01:00

It has come around faster than I'd have liked, and the day after tomorrow the children will be back at school! We're well prepared for it at least, with new uniforms already hung out and name-tagged, shiny shoes waiting and books and pens organised into their bags. I always find that first day of sending them back to school difficult, even though, all-in-all, I've had school aged children for seven years. It never gets easier being apart from them during the day for that first week back at school. Their company is so delightful. Thank goodness that this first week is a short one, with only two days of school before the weekend.

My almost eleven year old daughter has revealed a new bento creating challenge for me. Although she is technically still a junior for another year, at their school the last year of juniors is incorporated into the senior school. She informs me after her senior department taster day that her lunch break will be a little shorter than she's been used to, and the lunch culture of the department is a lot more serious. This means that really complex looking food art creations might be out and needing to be replaced with simpler fare. I'm hoping that this doesn't mean I need to completely avoid a little touch of cuteness here and there, but I'll see how it goes. Since she still wants to take in bento style lunches, 'serious' ones or otherwise, I'm just pleased she'll be having her usual nutritionally balanced lunch.

As well as back-to-school bento, I'm going to be making my office bento a more regular thing. I will often go to great lengths to create healthy bento for the children and then let myself down with a lunch of a quite unnecessarily huge pot of leftover pasta or rice. All carbohydrate. It usually leaves me sleepy and unable to concentrate after lunch on those bento-tardy days.

Here is an example of one of my office bento over the summer. Leftover thai red vegetable curry and sticky rice. Not terribly attractive, but it was a controlled portion size and quite nutritious.

2010-07-26T17:15:00.001+01:00

In Association with

Week 7: Finding Inspiration

Kawaii bento Club's Summer School is well under way, and this week I'll be adding my contribution. Finding inspiration for creating bento is something that all occasional bento makers and dedicated bento hobbyists alike can find tricky. Even if you aren't making 'character' lunches, it's easy to get stuck packing the same meal day in day out. Especially with fussy eaters to cater for and a limited budget for lunch items.

Personally, I take my lunch ingredients from the same salad tray and cupboard essentials I buy for all my other meals in the week. I purposely try not to go out of my way to buy 'special' foods unless I find something on offer or have a very particular idea of making something out of, well, something! That way I'm sure that my hobby doesn't put strain on my household budget.

There are ways to overcome using the same bits and pieces in your bento each day, without buying in special ingredients that cost the earth. One of these tricks is to put aside small portions from the previous night's dinner for the following day's bento. That works a treat. Another way to add variety is to alternate between different stock base ingredients. For instance, rice, pasta, couscous, garden salad and bread.

The next thing to consider is how you'll make your selected ingredients appealing. I have two methods for making this important decision! One is to draw upon ideas from my week's experiences with the children, and another is to lay out my food on the chopping board and look for shapes that are already part of the meal, which might be used to create a character.

A good example of one of my past bentos that drew on the week's experiences was the Egyptian bento I made in preparation for my daughter's Egyptian party at school.

Another example is the Dojo Pride bento I made for my children to celebrate our new found love of Karate training.

As for finding inspiration from the shapes already present in food in your cupboards, how about this caterpillar bento I made from a hot dog roll that looked suitably bug-like. With a bit of thought I worked out that cucumber could be used to make segments out of the bread and it was made in no time at all!

Assignment 1

Which brings me to the first assignment for this week. I'd like you to have a go at planning your bentos in the same way I do, and that's by drawing on special things I see in the week and experiences I have in daily life. If you;re making lunch for children this can be especially appealing. It captures a shared memory in their lunch.

The first week of Bento Summer School encouraged you to start a journal in one of several forms. Beginning today, use that journal to note down one or more things from each day of the next week which you found special.
Some examples are:

"On Monday evening there was the prettiest sunset."
"On Tuesday morning I/we saw a woodpecker."
"On Wednesday afternoon we stopped for ice cream."

Here's a page from my diary where I have doodled the designs that later became my Rockabilly and Sisters bentos.

Assignment 2

Once you have a few special ideas from the week, pick a day that you;re going to make a bento from one of them and decide beforehand what ingredients you have available to put into it. Once you;re ready to put the bento together, cut, slice, chop and rinse everything then lay all the bits out on a chopping board so that you can see what you have available. That way, once you're in the creative stage you don't have to stop and rummage around for things in cupboards or start cooking something that will take a long time and start to frustrate you.

I'll give you an example of how I might create a bento that was inspired by one of the above sample ideas. If I chose the 'ice cream' day, I'd be thinking I could make the top of the ice cream with a small cup of cottage cheese, with some toasted sesame seeds to make sprinkles on the top half. I would nestle the little tub at the top of my lunch box and surround it with vegetable sticks of cucumber, celery and carrot that will make a colourful background, hold the cup in place tightly and be great for dipping! For the bottom section I need to make a 'cone', so I'd fist put a bed of salad in to raise up the level to the cottage cheese 'ice cream' then cut a wedge of toasted garlic bread into a cone shape to pop on top. I could score the bread with a tooth pick to make it look waffle-y. Ta-da! I have an ice cream themed bento and it's healthy and yummy.

Get Kawaii!

For the final touch, I'd make some cute facial features to put on the cottage cheese. A pair of little eyes can be made by cutting two circles of sliced cheese with the end of a straw. Use the end of a toothpick to dot in two tiny circles of black food clouring. You can hand cut a smile out of sliced cheese too, or use a piece of nori (seaweed sheets) cut out with some small scissors.

Submitting your assignment

Once you've had a go at creating your week-inspired bento submit it for teacher's comments and advice. Upload a picture, a description of ingredients and an explanation of what inspired you to make it to a Kawaii bento Club lens, your own online blog or any alternative such as a Flickr account, then post the url to your creation in the comments section below along with your email address. I'll get back to you!

No.54 'Rilakkuma bear' bento

2010-07-22T13:09:00.000+01:00

This Rilakkuma bear (relax bear) bento is for my husband, and will probably be eaten for supper tonight. I wanted to try out using all natural food colourings for this one. The base is a layer of leftovers from last night's dinner. Rice combined with sir fried pak choi, carrot, green beans onion and spring onion. Rilakkuma bear is made from a piece of cheddar cheese and the colouring and detail is added with some soy sauce and vegemite. Not a very brightly coloured bento, but I think it should be tasty!

"Hello! time to relax" says Rilakkuma bear.

Giant Toblerone Cake

2010-07-21T23:30:00.000+01:00

This week I made a giant Toblerone segment and replica box for a friend's 50th birthday. It has been posted in the cake hall of fame on my Bentovention cakes page. I'm very proud of the result, and just hope that it's frightening chocolate content didn't do anyone too much damage.

Also proud to announce that the box was partly made from recycled materials! Two cereal boxes that were put aside specially for it. I had to fight off my daughter a couple of times, since her chore is to collect and sort the household recycling into the outside collection boxes. The precious Toblerone box cardboard was almost lost to her thoroughness!

No.53 'Red stars' bento and the start of summer break

2010-07-20T12:24:00.000+01:00

This red stars bento was made as the last bento for the school year and I've been very late blogging about it! The noodles are thai green curry flavoured after I combined a little of the base I had made for the meal with them (garlic, coriander, galangal, white pepper, green chillies, onions). The meatless balls are vegetarian and in the second layer the children had crackers with grated cheese and carrot to top them with. Because it was the last day of term I knew they'd be eating all sorts of chocolates and cakes that people had brought in, and also the school was putting on a French breakfast of croissants and toppings, so I didn't expect them to eat their lunch. I was surprised though, because the boxes came back empty! The noodles were a big hit.

The children are in their second week of summer holidays now and we had planned picnic bentos. It has rained so heavily though, that even when it's not raining the ground at our favourite playing places is sodden. We did manage to get one day out playing, and took some expertly designed paper aeroplanes to try out. These came in a pack, all the way out of the eighties. They were bought for my husband when he was a child and we've been given the rest of them to make with our children. They fly brilliantly, but my favourite bit about them is that it takes about twenty minutes for the children to cut out all the layers for just one of them! A great way to keep them busy for an hour or so when we're not busy with other things.

Another small project I've come up with for our trapped-indoors-by-the-rain period has been our pet pigeon's indoor vegetable plot. Our rescued wood pigeon has been with us for almost a year now, and since we don't yet have an outdoor aviary for him, I've been thinking up ways to make his indoor environment more interesting for him and encourage some natural behaviours in him. I started by providing him with hanging parrot toys in the room he stays in most of the time. They went down well. Next up was the vegetable patch, that you can see in the picture below. In the wild, a wood pigeon would graze for edible vegetation, fruits and shrubs, and even pick at the soil for nutrients and seeds. The little indoor veg plot lets him do all those things and he has been so pleased with it! before he would walk back and forth on the carpet, grazing for the occasional dropped seed from his bowl, and although he still likes to march around and do that, he also spends a lot of time in and around his veg garden, picking at the soil and eating the greens. I hide seeds and sweetcorn in the pots and he hunts them down as an added bit of enjoyment for him.

The first day I set the boxed garden down for him, he inspected it very proudly. Taking a strange offence at where I had placed his miniature watering can, picking it up and throwing it about with his beak. I think it was his way of telling me he's in charge of the indoor garden now. He'll decide where the watering can is kept!

No.52 'Cutie-pie' bento

2010-07-06T22:19:00.000+01:00

Hello all! Here we are, right in the middle of the childrens last week of school before summer break. We can't wait for the wonderful relief from routine that the weekend will bring us, but at the same time we've had such a lovely few days of school that it is a little sad to be parting from everyone for such a long break. Yesterday I accompanied my son's class on their school trip to visit a museum and castle. We were all treated to a wonderful meal at a hotel and had a fantastic time being shown around the museum and castle.

Today's bentos have miniature savoury pies made with the same filling as the big one I made for dinner (Quorn, potato, onion, carrot and mushroom seasoning). The children always enjoy my pies even when eaten cold as leftovers, so I thought I'd make them their own mini versions for lunch tomorrow. As you can see, I've added square eyes to make the little pie in the picture look like a cutie-pie! Also in the box layers is some grated carrot and cheese mixed together to go on the crackers found in the second layer, some grapes and a smallish tomato.

They'll be taking in a cereal bar for break time and a rhubarb custard pot for dessert. I'm quite pleased with how the crease in the pastry of the pie looks like a clam-shell mouth at certain angles. In the other bento (not pictured here), the eyes are on the lower half of the pie, so it has a bit of an overbite!

No.51 'Big Heart Bibimbap' bento

2010-07-01T23:10:00.000+01:00

Hello all! The children won't be needing a bento tomorrow because they have a Prize Giving day at school where they only take a snack. I'm really looking forward to seeing them awarded a prize in recognition of their own personal achievements throughout the year. It's a half day of school too, so we get to go for a treat lunch together afterwards!

The bento above is actually today's lunch (prepared last night), only I was too tired to write the blog post for it before bed last night. It really isn't a terribly pretty bento, or one that took me a great deal of time to make, but it was delicious! In the savoury layer is Thai fragrant rice and leftover Bibimbap (a Korean dish). In the dessert layer is a little jam sandwich, a pealed satsuma and some chocolate chips mixed together with raisins. The big red cheese heart is in there to add a touch of 'cute' and also some colour.

Only my son took this bento, because his sister didn't take so well to the Bibimbap. She did take some of the rice though, with a salad, some brie and a mini bottle of soy sauce.

No.50 Humpty Dumpty bento

2010-06-29T21:10:00.000+01:00

Phew! Last night's storm and heavy rain really cooled everything down. I slept a little better for it, I think. I skipped making a bento blog post yesterday, since I only had to make a bento for my son (my daughter had a school trip), and his bento, although still pretty and fun, wasn't very photogenic. It was marmite dolphin sandwiches with cheese slice dolphins in between and a fruit layer.

Today's bento took a little more time to prepare and in my opinion is a little more interesting than yesterday's. I began without inspiration, just cooking up boiled eggs as the main ingredient and thinking over what I could do with them. After I told my sister that the base would be egg, she suggested Humpty Dumpty! Thank you, Sis. All the ingredients just came together quite nicely then, really.

Under the lettuce I have some sliced tomatoes and a dollop of humous to mix in and make a dressed salad after the egg is gone. Humpty is of course a boiled hen's egg, with hand cut carrot arms and legs and food colouring features. The wall underneath him is a very thin slice of sesame tofu, that already had that grid pattern on it. The King's horsie is cut out from brie cheese, with food colouring features put on with a toothpick. In the fruit layer are satsuma pieces, strawberries and seedless grapes. I'll pack a granola bar and a Big Pot Petits Filous, too.

All in all, I'm quite happy with it!

On the bird front, because we're ALWAYS bird spotting in mornings and afternoons, we saw a magnificent Jay the other day, while stopping to talk to our dog walking friend. It was gorgeous. We've also been spotting some very young birds indeed, all new and naive and still a bit fluffy. We've had a few escargot to rescue today after last night's rains and we've also been seeing plenty of butterflies.

Tomorrow there is going to be a teddy bear's picnic at school, and parents are encouraged to bring in their own teddies as well. I'm taking one of my old favourites 'Efnisien Gwrtheyrn' (I used to name my toys from the Mabinogion). He has a very large brown nose made from embroidery thread that I stitched on when I was eleven years old after his three-strands-of-wool nose came loose. I still think I did a good job of it now, looking at it as an adult. There will be cakes and tea at the school picnic and a violin recital from my son. I'm very excited about it!

No.49 'Sandy Beach' bento

2010-06-27T23:50:00.000+01:00

Ugh, the Summer heat is now really withering me and also melting my bento creativity! The kitchen is too hot to be standing around in, even hours after the cooking is over. There may be one or two days of non-bento lunches or rather, non-decorative bento lunches this week, but we'll see how it goes. Only two more weeks until school breaks up for the Summer holidays and this blog begins to see picnic bentos and other cooking rather than school lunches.

Today's bento has a base of moroccan spiced couscous leftover from a weekend barbecue. The top is simply decorated with some hand cut cheese slice bucket and spades, since the couscous looked very beach-like. It's simple, but tasty and quite healthy. In the fruit layer are pineapple slices, seedless green grapes and morello cherries.

In the second picture you can see the boxes of Graham crackers I'm sending in for break time. The quantity may seem excessive, but I'm sure the children will be sharing them with class mates in the playground (or munching the leftovers on the way home). I'll add a dried fruit bar to their lunch bags, too.

In other news, the children had a great time at the school sports day! My daughter came 1st, 2nd and 3rd in her three races and my son came 2nd, 2nd and 3rd in his. Very good effort, little ones!

No.48 'Gold medal' School Sports Day bento

2010-06-24T18:35:00.000+01:00

Sports day! The children will be competing at their school's sports event tomorrow, so I wanted to provide them with a very filling and energy rich bento. For the little athletes' carbohydrate I made mini 'bread sushi' rolls by de-crusting and flattening with a rolling pin, several slices of bread. Then spreading them thinly with soya spread, vegemite or jam before rolling them tightly and cutting them into sections. There are two layers in each box. They also have crackers and cheese and some cubes of sesame tofu.

In the fruit layer I've put some tangerine and halved grapes with a 'gold medal' Jaffa Cake! (writing icing for the lettering). That way, they'll be getting the gold even if they stagger in last. The third box has sweet animal shaped biscuits.

I can't wait to see them compete and to get out there and join in on the Mum's race, too!

No.47 'Rainbow birds' bento

2010-06-23T22:49:00.000+01:00

Hello all! I missed making a decorative bento yesterday for the first school day in along time. I have posted the bento that I did provide at the bottom of this post. Despite it's undecorated state I am informed that it was none-the-less delicious. I have provided similar ingredients today in the form of a slice of broccoli and gruyere cheese quiche, with a portion of vegan worcester sauce flavoured couscous replacing yesterday's pesto pasta. The rainbow birdies are cut from a cheese slice, simply inspired by our many bird experiences lately. In the fruit layer are pineapple rings and seedless green grapes.

As I have written separately, we are the carers of a year old, hand reared Wood Pigeon by the name of Sammy. He hasn't been the only bird in trouble that we have brought home in the past year. A month or so back we found another young fledgling pigeon injured and dehydrated. That one was a 'feral' pigeon as they are known. Domestic pigeons that have found a place for themselves, and bred, in the wild. I took it home and provided emergency care and attention, but even with my best efforts the little creature (beautifully feathered in white and brown) died before the day was through.

I'm sad to say that we had a similar experience yesterday, when I brought home a very sickly, flightless Carrion Crow fledgling. Again I provided emergency care, rehydration fluid and a great deal of love, but the little guy passed away at the end of the day. I can only hope that the ones who don't survive my 'rescue' have at least been rested and their distress soothed before they go. Each one leaves myself and the children very saddened, but I firmly believe that my efforts are a lesson in compassion for my offspring.

There is a lot I could say about how the experience of raising a wood pigeon has altered my life, but using the fewest possible words I will only say that my life before The Bird was lacking in a special kind of richness and connection to the natural world.

And back to bento. The last image here is of yesterday's undecorated bento. Product of a very busy day indeed!

No.46. 'Poppy field pasta' bento

2010-06-21T23:18:00.000+01:00

The bento for Tuesday was planned around the fact that I haven't given the children a pasta bento for a long time. I decided that the green pesto coated pasta would make an excellent field for bright flowers! When I think of fields of flowers my first thought is always of poppies. There was one fine Summer day in my childhood when I saw such a field and also some very impressive kites being flown over it. Funny how a single day can leave a lifetime's impression. So here is the pasta poppy field I put together, using the flower cutter from my new little collection and some mild English cheddar.

In the fruit layer I've put tangerine segments and jaffa cakes as dessert. For break they will have the box of crackers and cheese that can be seen on the right of the picture. I'll also put in a Petits Filous Big Pot to go with their dessert.

I bought the children some adorable Sigg flasks for their lunch boxes today. My daughter's is bright yellow with little monsters all around it, and my son's is a 'space robot' on blue background. They love them! The flasks have been with them to their climbing lesson and Karate this afternoon. Speaking of Karate, we attended the Monday training session this week with an aim to do two days training instead of one. Monday's session turned out to be very rigorous and we three were the only 'white belts' there. It didn't exactly put us off going again on a Monday, but we have decided to do much more additional training at home between sessions to push ourselves a bit more.

Must do more Kata!

No.45 'Caterpillar' bento

2010-06-20T22:54:00.000+01:00

Usually, finding a huge wriggly caterpillar in your lunch box is an unpleasant experience, but who wouldn't love this cute little guy! Luckily, he's also a sandwich. Today's bento is a cheese and piccalilli finger roll, with the top half sliced and filled in with cucumber segments to give it that 'creepy crawly' look. Underneath there are just a few pieces of lamb's lettuce (which my son enjoys quite a bit). In the second layer today, instead of fruit, I've put vegan worcester sauce flavoured couscous and a couple of vine cherry tomatoes.

The fruit layer is now in a second little box and they have some lovely morello cherries. I'll also send in a cereal bar for break time.

No.44 'Sala(d)mander' bento

2010-06-17T21:10:00.000+01:00

Last bento of the week! Meet the Sala(d)mander. I had leftover tofu and asparagus teriyaki noodle stirfry for tomorrow's bento boxes (seen here under the cucumber) and I wanted to get away from using cheese to decorate. Some cucumber carving seemed like a good idea, and this amphibian shape is what I ended up with! My daughter walked in and said "Ooo, a salamander! Or Mum, a saladmander!" So now that awesome name she gave it has stuck and we're really pleased with the two I made. I've put a sprig of lamb's lettuce in too and coloured the cutout bits in the cucumber saladmander with ketchup. In the fruit salad layer, by request, I've chopped mango, strawberries and kiwi. My daugther said she wanted to eat it right there and then, even though she had eaten a big bowl of my noodle stirfry for dinner!

They'll have Hoola Hoop crisps and a Big Pot Petits Filous to go with this tomorrow.

No.43 'Dojo Pride' bento

2010-06-16T23:02:00.001+01:00

Good evening, bento world. Tonight's bento is not terribly sophisticated I'm afraid, but I know the children will LOVE it. Tonight was our Karate night and we've been feeling a lot of 'Dojo Pride' (hence the title!). We're very new to Karate, but we're determined to be good students. I want the three of us to benefit not only from the martial art itself, but also from the traditions, discipline and deeply respectful environment. The children and I talked about how storming through belt ranking is not what we're hoping for from Karate. I look a little inspiration from what I've read about the founder of the Dojo and discussed how possessing 'good' Karate, even if that is just a very few moves that are very well formed and strong, is what we should really be proud of. It all seemed to sink in very well.

So, in honour of our Dojo and to put a smile on the children's faces at lunch time tomorrow, I re-created the Seki Ryu Zan Dojo banner. The banner itself is cheese and underneath they have vegemite sandwiches, lamb's lettuce and pimento stuffed green olives. In the second layer they have carrot cake and strawberries.

No.42 'Blue Rocket' bento

2010-06-15T22:49:00.000+01:00

Oof, another bento made! I was having one of those "not...sure...I...can...drag...the...energy together...to...make...a...bento..." days. As usual though, once I set out my chopping board, cute cutters and ingredients I had a new lease of life! When will I learn? Bento is my happy time not my chore. Keep forgetting, silly me. I had it in mind that I wanted to make a kind of Tapas bento, with lots of nibbles including some lovely fresh coriander naan bread I had. To add the 'Kawaii' I took a look at my cutters and noticed the little carrot shaped one looked rather like a rocket when upside down. It reminded me of the hilarious "He Came From Outer Space!" t-shirt that my little boy wore for climbing this week, which prompted a discussion between him and his teacher about who came from outer space.

My boy: "Yes, he came from outer space."
Teacher: "Who did? Was it you?"
My boy: "No, it wasn't me, it was him."
Teacher: "Him?"
My boy: "Yes. Him. The one who came from outer space." Matter of factly.

I don't think you can beat a conversation with a seven year old for entertainment value. So there I was, looking at my upside down carrot space rocket and then I realised I could cut the naan with the star shaped cutter too. Intergalactic Tapas was born and this in the end result.

Cottage cheese at the top, with salad onion, pimento stuffed green olives and a cherry vine tomato. Partitioned off with lamb's lettuce are a few naan stars and a pot of humous with the little cheese rocket. In the fruit layer is chopped mango and strawberries. The children enjoyed their pear today, so I have another couple to pack with their lunch tomorrow. Super healthy! There'll also be a Petits Filous 'big pot'. They were on offer this week (can be quite an expensive yoghurt), so I've stocked up because they're yummy and I like them too.

I hosted the school Mums' coffee morning at the house today and had a great time chatting to everyone and making teas and coffees. It has been a while since I got everyone together like that, and with new additions to the school there were new faces than should have a proper friendly welcome. I was so pleased that so many turned up, despite fairly short notice. Our house is on the smaller side, but everyone found a spot to sit. I hope to have another morning like that again soon.

In other news, we had postcards from our friend who is visiting Scotland this week. She has been bird watching and reported back some sightings of Plover. We weren't sure what they were, so we Googled them and discovered that they are a lovely looking bird! What bird isn't lovely looking though? They live on the shore.

I have begun to have a small collection of photos my Big Sister sends me of her bento creations now. They are marvelous, she is so creative! She finds interesting shapes and patterns in food that I would not find myself. Really lovely work. She's a bit shyer than I am about showing them to the world though, so for now I will not post any up here. Keep up the great work though, Sis! I love to see them and also love knowing that our children share the bento love.

Great day. Very tired now...

No.41 'Sausage Dog' bento

2010-06-14T21:43:00.000+01:00

This sausage dog bento is something I've wanted to try for a while. I think it might have turned out better had I used more contrast in the colour scheme, but it's not far off how I imagined it would be. My children and I always love seeing those miniature dachshunds or 'sausage dogs' with their proud little faces and cute, stubby legs. Whenever I see one I think "I wonder if I can make one out of nothing but a sausage". That may or may not be an odd thought to have, but I would not know, because I am the one that has it! Hurray! So this bento has my first and perhaps last attempt to make a dachshund out of a sausage. A vegetarian sausage in this case. No dachshunds or sausage-ingredient animals were hurt in the process.

Apart from the veggie sausage I made one of those cheese eyes I've been using for the past few lunches. Cut out with a straw and then coloured in the centre with a toothpick and some black food colouring. The rest of the ingredients are also quite yummy (we had some tasters while I was making it). In the base are fine noodles coated in Thai Sweet Chili sauce. The asparagus at the base (there's a little stack of them underneath it as well) was pan fried after being coated in sweet Teriyaki sauce. Delicious. Less fruit than usual in the second layer. I've put in half a very large strawberry and white chocolate muffin and some dried apricots. I'll pack a strawberry yoghurt to add to dessert and perhaps a juicy pear for break time.

No.40 'Little Hen' bento

2010-06-13T23:53:00.000+01:00

Monday has snuck up on me again! On Saturday we had a barbeque in my in-laws' garden and enjoyed many (many) vegeburgers. While moving some bricks to put under the barbeque tray, the children and I found a tiny ecosystem of insects and escargot. It was a beautiful day. The rain returned today, but we had planned a relaxing indoors afternoon anyway. 'Relaxing' I say, even though I spent most of the day cleaning the house! I did sit with the children and play XBox games for a couple of hours though, something I NEVER do. Or rather do only very rarely. I'm not much of a sharer when it comes to playing games (or anything else), so it's a good job that they enjoy watching me playing as much as they enjoy playing themselves! Teehee!

Tomorrow's bento has a little hen, which I was inspired to make after seeing the shape of the Quorn nuggets I had cooked as a lunch box portion. The base is couscous seasoned with vegan worcester sauce, mini-carrot and cucumber sticks and a juicy vine cherry tomato. The hen's features are: cheese circle eyes, tomato skin comb and wattle and a little carrot beak. The wings are also pieces of cheese. In the fruit layer I've put some cranberries and a sliced kiwi.

I'll pack a slice of garlic bread, a blueberry yoghurt and a dried fruit bar as extras for break time and dessert. I particularly like how these cheese eyes always manage to have different expressions!

No.39 'Duckies and hearts' bento

2010-06-10T22:45:00.000+01:00

Hello! Today's school plays about China and the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb were brilliant! The children and their teachers had a lot to be proud of. I got a front row seat in the school hall, a cup of tea and a chocolate chip biscuit too. I Couldn't have been more content.

It seems as if we've had the longest day today. A walk to the dentist after school drew out the outdoors bit of the afternoon. Then a trip to the new clothes shop that has opened nearby made dinner very late indeed. Dinner was delicious though, when we finally got it. I cooked a vegetable and Quorn pie with a very peppery white sauce. I decorated the pastry to look like the pie in Kiki's Delivery Service, but the photos didn't turn out very well.

With a late start to making tomorrow's bento, I was stuck for time and energy, so resorted to just using one of our small cutters to add a character element to the meal. The colours don't add very much contrast in the photos, but there are two little duckies in these lunches!

In the top layer I've put a little cheese roll and the last of the vegetable samosas, with cucumber, cherry vine tomatoes and a pot of hummous. The ducks are just cut from slices of mature cheddar.

In the second layer I've put two pieces of fruit loaf, cut into heart shapes and a handful of cranberries. As a snack I'll give the children a packet of mini-cheddar biscuits and a blueberry yoghurt for dessert.

No.38 Ancient Egyptian bento

2010-06-09T22:11:00.000+01:00

Rain again! Nice and refreshing. The weather has been behaving itself and only pouring down when we've reached the safety of indoors. Perfect. Many many escargot to rescue from the pavements today. Today's bento boxes came home empty, which I like to see. Even the dreaded lettuce had been eaten. I had an abundance of leftovers to get through, so instead of my own bento, I had a large pot of pasta for lunch. Looks like I'm having homemade vegetable stew for tomorrow...

And now for the bento! My daughter's class have been studying Ancient Egypt this term and the latest part of their work will be to put on a play depicting the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb at school tomorrow. I wanted to make an Egyptian bento, but by the afternoon, the only thing I had thought to put in it was a hand cut cheese sphinx. Then as I was fetching the cheese from the fridge and wondering what I would add with the rice, I found these mini vegetable samosas that I had forgotten I bought today! Pyramids! So in they went as a pyramid backdrop to my slightly dog-like sphinx. I'm pleased with the result. To use up further leftovers I put in the cucumber rounds from yesterday's cucumber flower shapes. There are two cherry vine tomatoes also, and a base in the Egyptian section made from sushi rice. I can't wait to hear what my children think of it tomorrow!

No.37 'Jiji' Kiki's Delivery Service bento

2010-06-08T21:54:00.000+01:00

Almost mid-week already! Wow. Yesterday's bento was reported back to have been very tasty, with the cute eyes on the 'soot balls' particularly loved. I decided to use the same shape for eyes in tomorrow's bento and stick with a Studio Ghibli theme. After reading Slinky Malinki with my son at bedtime (a favourite of ours that stars a mischievous black cat) I was reminded of Jiji, the black cat from Kiki's Delivery Service that has those same cute, wide little eyes. I only made the head, because my mature cheddar cheese slices are very crumbly and difficult to work with. The box below is my son's version, with slightly less salad than his sister's box, since he eats much less. The cheese slice Jiji is on top of two small marmite sandwiches, with finely chopped radish, lettuce, mini carrot sticks and cucumber flowers as salad. In the fruit layer is half a Jaffa orange and a sliced kiwi. I keep the cut-outs from the flower cucumber in a separate pot, no need to throw them away. My son and daughter will snack on them after school tomorrow.

I rarely mention what I pack along with the bento, but I should get into the habit of doing so. Sometimes the bento on it's own is not enough to cover all the food needed for a full school day. I almost always pack a 'dessert' of some kind and a snack for break time. For instance, yesterday's snack was a box of animal shaped sweet biscuits and the dessert was a pot of tropical fruit in juice (lots of fruit yesterday!). Tomorrow's snack will be two slices of buttered fruit loaf and the dessert will be vanilla yoghurt.

Another rainy day today, so we had plenty of escargot to rescue to and from school! The bird life was mostly taking shelter though, so not many feathered friends made an appearance. At the weekend we were lucky enough to see two Partridges though, which were so pretty. It was only this morning that I looked them up in our bird book to find out what we'd seen.

No.36 'Makkuro Kurosuke (Susuwatari)' bento

2010-06-07T21:39:00.000+01:00

Hello! Monday brought rain, so the scorching hot Summer school walk was avoided for one day at least. Lovely damp air was very refreshing. We saw Chaffinches and Magpies along the way. Late afternoon had a climbing wall session for the children, so as usual for a Monday we were late starting to cook. Ravenous Mr.Miloko ate his leftover vegetarian chilli from yesterday, but the children and I managed to hold out long enough for a pot of pasta and broccoli to cook, as well as a tray of delicious vegetarian Swiss meatless meatballs. We threw cheese into the pasta and had toasted pitta bread with butter too. Delicious.

For tomorrow's bento, made from leftovers of our meal, I managed to make something I have promised to create for my children's lunch for a while now. The little soot creatures that appear in Studio Ghibli films, particularly in our favourite 'My Neighbour Totoro'. They are known as 'Makkuro Kurosuke' (pitch-black blackie) or Susuwatari (Traveling soot). In the main dish the pasta sauce is tomato and basil. For the eyes of the Susuwatari I cut cheese with a straw and dotted in a spot of black food colouring. In the fruit layer are watermelon wedges, dried cranberries and dried apricots.

No.35 'Blue Skies' bento

2010-06-06T22:21:00.002+01:00

Back to bento! Half term break is over and school lunches are back. Today my husband made another of his Mexican meals, so the protein for tomorrow's lunch comes from a small portion of vegetarian chilli topped with a little grated cheese. Rather that add the salsa and salad how I did the last time I created a Mexican bento, I decided to go for rice.

I was a bit hard pressed on how to get creative with this one, but at the last minute added a tiny splash of blue food colouring to the rice while it was cooking, so that I could make it a blue sky background. We've had gorgeous blue skies all through half term break. One of my new cutters is a sweet little aeroplane, so I cute a few little fajita wrap planes and then hand cut little baskets to add to half cherry tomato hot air balloons (This is one of two identical bentos). I'm fairly happy with the result. To add detail to the wrap pieces I used a tooth pick with the tip dipped in black food colouring. Now that I look at the pictures I'm seeing what looks like a pencil drawing. I like that. In the fruit layer I've put some mini wedges of a VERY scrummy watermelon we got this week and some kiwi slices. Mmm.

Awww, the children and I, as always, are sad that school break is over. The next break is the eight week long Summer holidays though, and I think we only have five or six weeks of school left before we get to them!

'Besto' pasta

2010-06-03T22:49:00.000+01:00

Half term break from school has meant no bentos required for this week. Wow. I'm seriously missing my bento routine. The children and I had planned to make a picnic bento today, but discovered that it was so scorching hot outside that we'd prefer to eat indoors before we went out to play. My daughter has been requesting pesto pasta for lunch all week and I've been a meanie and made alternative lunches with food that would otherwise spoil if left in the fridge. I don't like to be wasteful. But today, she got her pesto pasta wish! When I decorated it with our new bento cutter flower shape in cheese and cucumber, she immediately called it 'Besto' pasta. Which is why I wanted to share this meal on Bentovention. A little bit of bento leaked into our non-bento lunch and made it the best.

On our trip to the local botanical garden to play out and make dens, my daughter and I practised our 'Kihon Kata' movements to be ready for the next Karate belt grading that comes up. We're new to Karate, but very enthusiastic. My son wasn't interested in practising his Kata today, because he was having too much fun building pretend camp fires and roasting buttercups and daisies over them. Today was a busy day at the botanical garden, since they are getting ready to properly open up a newly built pond and planted walkway to visitors. The children and I went to inspect the pond and very pretty new borders. While we were looking for dragonflies it occurred to me that we were seeing as much of the pond today as visitors will see after the 'unveiling'. How do they intend to 'open' a pond? It just made me smile.

No.34 'Bunny in the Carrot Patch' bento

2010-05-27T22:40:00.001+01:00

Post Script: Because of it's Beatrix Potter-esque associations, I have linked this blog post to Bento Box Blog for it's British Themed Bento page. Making it a tribute both to a British author and British childhood in bygone times.

Click here to view: British Themed Bentos at Bento Box Blog

Hello! I received the package of cute food cutters I won in the contest put up by Lexi of Diary of a Delinquent Housewife today! My children were so excited to see what new designs we can come up with using them. My son carried the package around the whole time I was cooking dinner. I hope they'll be happy with what I've come up with for tomorrow's lunch. One of the cutters is a cute little carrot shape. I knew I wanted to make the base of my bento a boiled egg today, so that quickly turned into a white rabbit in my mind, and with some plain, buttery couscous as a bottom layer with some salad leaves I soon had 'soil' to plant the carrot patch in. The mini tomato is more the size of a pumpkin now, don't you think?

The whole time I was making this little bunny I was thinking of my own childhood fondness of Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit. Always getting caught stealing carrots and cabbages and spoiling his fine clothes as he went. My favourite was Peter's cousin, Benjamin. I'm not sure why, but looking back I think he seemed more wily and capable than Peter while remaining utterly laid back. The James Dean of Beatrix Potter's rabbits. When I was four, I named my own pet rabbit Benjamin.

I've also used the flower shaped cutter to shape a few pieces of cucumber, which you can see around the rabbit's face. I used a tooth pick and some food colouring to tattoo in the facial features. Below is a picture of Lexi's cutters now that they have arrived in my kitchen. I love it when you can see something at both ends of it's journey like that! Reminds me of how some school classes have a soft toy for the children to photograph on Holiday with them. The cutters aren't exactly sunning themselves at any exotic locations, but they are being well loved in the North of Wales.

No.33 'Dolphin Pod' bento

2010-05-26T23:11:00.001+01:00

A nice fresh looking bento for Thursday! Little dolphin shaped marmite sandwiches with sultana eyes, green leaf salad, cucumber wedges, vine ripened mini tomatoes and some sweetcorn. In the fruit layer are a few juicy dried apricots and seedless green grapes. To accompany the box I'll be giving them some cheese nibble biscuits for playtime snack and a vanilla yoghurt for dessert.

Since chatting about positive bento lunch times and dealing with doing things a bit 'out of the norm', I've had two bento boxes returned empty from my son! He said he found the mini burrito wraps a little tricky to fold today, so he asked his teacher for help. She told him "I'm always ready to help and never mind you asking.", which he quoted proudly. Fantastic! The cheese mustaches were very much enjoyed.

My two children were having parties at school today and trying new foods from different cultures. My daughter's class had an Egyptian party and the mother of an Egyptian pupil cooked some amazing goodies for them all to share. They had gibna beyda cheese and very sweet baklava. I was lucky enough to try one of the baklava at home time and as I savoured it I dreamed of being invited to dinner at their house! Unfortunately, my son's class' Chinese party was cancelled until after the half term break because they couldn't get the noodles cooked properly in the staff room. He was quite disappointed because it was the school highlight of his week, but he enjoyed trying the Egyptian food from his sister's class.

I've decided I'll try making some Chinese sweets at home over the half term break (time allowing), so that if they have the Chinese party when they children go back I'll be able to contribute.

No.32 "Arriba Bandido!" bento

2010-05-25T21:58:00.001+01:00

Onwards and upwards in bentoland! Today's bento crosses three cultures. Packed in a Japanese box, made with Mexican style food and cooked by a Welsh man! My husband made burritos tonight and as usual the children and I enjoyed them. He has perfected his chilli recipe so well so that my dislike of Mexican food is overcome and I enjoy every bite. Yum Yum.

For the children's lunch I've cut out mini seeded wraps from the larger ones. In the top layer of the box is some vegetarian chilli and a portion of tomato salsa. In the second layer is salad leaves, mini vine ripened tomatoes and grated cheddar cheese.

Finally, the bit that adds some fun to the meal! A life-size bushy bandido mustache cut out of cheese! The children think it's marvelous that they can prop a fake (yet edible) mustache on their top lip before tucking into their lunch.

No.31 'Proud Bento Eater' bento

2010-05-24T21:57:00.001+01:00

Awww, sad bentoing today! My little boy told me that the reason he brings lots of his bento food home is that the other little boys tease him about his 'silly' food. That made me so sad and sorry for him. He's been keeping it to himself so that my feelings wouldn't be hurt. After we talked about it I asked him whether he'd like to just take sandwiches instead and he said "NO!" that he enjoys his bentos and he's going to keep taking them. I'll have a chat with his teacher tomorrow, to see if we can make lunchtime more enjoyable for him. I think the children in his class would respond well to just talking about the bento meals out in the open, so that they are less strange and 'silly' to them. Here's hoping. Luckily, my daughter is having the opposite reaction from her classmates, who are all really interested in her lunch designs and food.

For today's bento I wanted to make something that would tell Toby that it's alright to just be who he is and enjoy the things he chooses to enjoy. He doesn't have to follow the herd and shouldn't let people get him down. He knows I make his bentos with love. There's a lot of my love in every one of them, even the plainer ones! It's about caring about his nutrition, his enjoyment of food and experience of new things. It's also supposed to be about fun. What a shame that the fun has been forced out of them by thoughtlessness in other little children. Unfortunately, I couldn't possibly convey all of that strong sentiment with a piece of vegetarian sausage and leftover stir fry...

What I've done instead is simply personalise the children's lunches with a love heart and their initial (they share the same initial). On the way to school tomorrow, I'll chat to them about what I meant by putting their initial in there and hopefully we'll get some good feeling back into bento meals for my little boy.

Along with leftover vegetable stirfry and noodles there are slices of vegetarian sausage and some rocket leaf salad with a cheese heart. In the second layer are slices of sweet pancake spread with jam and sprinkled with sultanas. My wonderful daughter made these pancakes all by herself! I'm very proud.

No.30 'Smiley Pin' bento

2010-05-23T23:01:00.000+01:00

Another bento week is here! Today's bento is my entry for the 'Happy and Healthy' contest at Kid's Dream Your Dream

I try to make all of my bentos happy and healthy, but for this particular contest theme I wanted to keep the colours and proportions really clear and clean. I've added three smiley face 'pins' made out of cheese, and those have a little story behind them. A couple of years back I started wearing a smile pin on my coat, because a smile pin made me smile! I had a few people ask me whether I worked with children because of the pin and I would explain that I am a mother, but not really understand why they thought I worked with children. Anyhow, I gave my children smile pins shortly after I started wearing mine and they have stuck to wearing theirs on their coats too. It has become a sort of family emblem! A nice, happy little thing we share between us.

The contents of the bento are plain sushi rice, rocket leaves, tuna mixed with coleslaw, cucumber sticks and sliced radishes with mild english cheddar smiles. In the fruit layer I've sliced a bit of big, juicy Jaffa orange and some seedless green grapes.

No.28 'The Bluebird of Happiness' bento

2010-05-21T01:03:00.000+01:00

When I'm feeling a little down, I'll often think to myself "I'll look out for the bluebird of happiness". It's something that has always stuck with me after reading the first of the K-PAX books by Gene Brewer. The character Prot, who is institutionalised for his delusional behaviour and claims, becomes an enigma to his psychiatrists and a source of inspiration to his fellow patients. One chronically depressed patient Howie, rarely lifts from his melancholic slump, but Prot tells him to look out of the window until he sees the bluebird of happiness. I later found out that the bluebird of happiness appears in the mythology of early civilizations from all around the globe.

The bento consists of home-made tuna fritters, paprika stir fried mini corn, sliced radishes, cucumber sticks and humous. The little bluebird and the nearby tree are cut from mild English cheddar and rubbed with food colouring. The bluebird is seated amidst the colours of a garden beyond the cucumber fence. In the fruit layer are strawberries, grapes and kiwi.

I have entered today's bento into the An American In Bento themed bento competition, after leaving the entry until the very last minute before I could think of a theme that meant something to me.

I didn't collect the children from school myself today, because I had a meeting to go to in the afternoon and early evening. As it turns out, I had a fantastic time meeting new people and volunteering my help with a few things I'll enjoy doing. The children also had a great time being picked up by their Dad and having dinner with him as well as going to buy cakes for dessert. We were all in such a brilliant mood when I came home. We bathed our pet wood pigeon together, read stories and cuddled before bed. Although we have one more day of the working/school week to get through, I feel that ending today on a very warm high note will have a knock on effect on how much we enjoy tomorrow!

This week, due to my weariness, I have jokingly asked the children in the mornings (as we stand ready to open the front door and go out) "Are we ready for a Monday?" (and on the other days also). These have been good de-stressing and bracing moments where we've been able to say "Yes!" to the days of the week! "Yes, we're ready for you! Bring us some good things to do and see."

No.27 'Little Owl' bento

2010-05-19T23:10:00.000+01:00

Hello! The couscous in yesterday's bento was enjoyed very much by the children, so there's a little more for their lunch tomorrow at the base of the boxes under the cucumber slices. I've put a Marmite sandwich in the bottom, because they haven't had many sandwiches lately and love their Marmite. The rest is pieces of spring onion to eat with the couscous and a mild cheddar owl with radish and cucumber detail. I had decided it was going to be a birdie bento today, but I wasn't sure which one. The shape of the little owl is roughly similar to some cast iron ornaments that I have in my kitchen.

Nothing very difficult to make here, except perhaps for carving the little circles on the radishes for eyes. I'll be giving them some yoghurt to eat with their fresh fruit and a dried fruit bar for their break time. All in all, a fairly nutritious meal.

We had more stick sword fights on the way home from school today. Half way home my daughter found a stick that was longer than she is tall and that was her sword for the rest of the journey. It reminded me of those ten foot long, three foot wide, ten ton heavy swords that are brandished by tiny people in animated roleplay games. Only, you know, the stick equivalent.

Tonight was Karate night for the children (only the second time they have been) and this time I went along to watch them too. I'm very excited about joining in myself in a couple of weeks, it looks like so much fun!

No.26 'Baby Bear' bento

2010-05-19T00:10:00.000+01:00

I'm posting this bento very late into the evening because I've been busy re-dying my hair (a rare bit of self maintenance does wonders!), but I'm quite pleased with the result of my bento efforts. I saved a piece of breaded haddock from the children's dinner to add a little protein to their lunch tomorrow.

I'm not sure if they'll enjoy it cold, but it's good to experiment. The 'baby bear' peeking out at the top is made from half a buttered burger bun, with the piece of fish underneath. They can add it to the bread if they decide to eat it. The ears are thin slices of tofu wiener and the eyes are circles of mild cheddar. I can see now that the cucumber sticks look a bit like baby bear's arms! The rest of the bento is some couscous made with a dash of mushroom ketchup and topped with grated cheese and carrot. In the fruit layer is some melon, a pineapple ring and a few strawberries.

Our school walks today were quite swift affairs, because we left five minutes late in the morning as well as stopping to chat to our good friend walking her dog, and on the way home had to be back by a certain time. Still, the children managed to fit in a half dozen funny accents and impersonations along with a very energetic stick sword fight! So good to watch them playing in the sunshine.

No.25 'I love you' bento

2010-05-17T23:00:00.000+01:00

Today I had some pink rice left over in the fridge from the piggy bento, so I wanted to use that up. I split it into two portions and wrapped it in cling film while I thought of what to make out of it. As it turns out, I ended up making two more heart shapes (like the piggy faces). It's a bit late for Valentine's day, but this is a bento of love! A message of love from me to the children and also "I love you bento!" from them to their lunch. I hand cut the letters from nori and surrounded the hearts with mini sticks of carrot, cucumber and cheese. I'm disappointed by the lack of colour in the fruit layer, which has pineapple and cantaloup melon. It should be tasty anyway!

A bit about my day. I can usually recognise and name the bits of nature my children point at and question, but I'm not infallible. In my efforts to improve my knowledge of birds, plants and everything else I have started to teach myself, one bird and plant at a time, from reference books that our good walking friend has kindly donated to us. Over the weekend, I picked up details about Nuthatches and decided to look out for them this week. Our friend will often point out a Nuthatch song as we walk, but I haven't managed to memorize their little tune and have never knowingly seen the bird.

On our walk home from school today we were under some low trees when I heard a single bird singing in the upper branches. "Ooo! Might be a Nuthatch!" I thought, and luckily for me I managed to wait long enough for the bird to come into sight. It wasn't a Nuthatch, it was our old friend the Chaffinch (mentioned in earlier blog post as one of our all time favourites). The children and I imitated the song a few times as we carried on our walk, but that wasn't such a good idea. By the time we got to our front door, we had distorted whatever the original bird song had been into a horrible three-voiced bing-bing-doodle-iddle-aggle ump! ump! accompanied by my son's impromptu jazz hands and jigging legs. Ah well.

No.24 Bento for Asfora "Piggies at the fence"

2010-05-16T21:25:00.000+01:00

A fellow bento-er, Asfora, has passed my previous frog and dolphin bentos to her frog and dolphin loving friends. Another of her friends is a piggy lover, so I couldn't let that friend go without a bento of their own! Today's bento is dedicated to Asfora and her piggy loving friend.

I put a drop of pink food colouring into the rice cooking water for the pigs and got a much milder pink colour than I've had before when using a drop of red colour for pink rice. I'm quite pleased with the lighter colour because it's far more naturally 'piggy'. I shaped the pig faces in cling film while the rice was still very slightly warm, then placed them for a couple of minutes in the freezer to take all the heat out of them. I get a nice firm result that way, without making them too soft to decorate or too well squashed and hard to be nice to eat later. The shape is the same one I made for the frog last week, with a round ball, flattened a little and then a thumb impress made at the top to create ears or eye areas. I cut the snouts out of a thin slice of tofu wiener with two dots of soy sauce for nostrils. The eyes are sultanas. The bottom section is leftover macaroni and broccoli cheese and the fence is made from pieces of tofu wiener.

In the fruit section are a few tiny vegan pancakes and a handful of grapes. I don't eat eggs myself so I will often find egg alternatives for my cooking. I also give up milk for long periods when my dairy intolerance flares up too badly. It was in one of those times that I tried making these pancakes, with banana instead of egg and soya or rice milk instead of cow's milk. I don't own a blender, so I mash the banana with a potato masher.

Vegan Banana Pancakes

1 mashed banana

two tablespoons of lemon juice
1 1/2 cup of plain flour
1 cup of soya/rice milk
1/2 teaspoon of mixed spice
1/2 cup sultanas

No.23 "A dolphin ate my lasagna!" bento

2010-05-13T21:46:00.000+01:00

One day away from "sweeties after school day"! Hurray! Also, we got a new bento box in the post today (another eBay purchase). This one is burger shaped, with the tiers made to look like a burger bun with lettuce and meat. The children and I have decided it's a tofu burger. Compared to our other boxes, this one is huge, so I have only needed to use two of the three compartments. I haven't got those layers packed as tightly as I'd normally like either, but putting any more food in for one meal for a seven year old would be way too much.

Today's bento is super-nutritious. It has a small piece of leftover home made vegetable lasagna from dinner tonight, carrot sticks, cucumber slices, radishes and mung bean sprouts. The dolphin is made from a emmental cheese slice. In the fruit layer I've put some pineapple slices, grapes and raisins.

No.22 'Frog Pond' bento

2010-05-12T19:40:00.000+01:00

It's Wednesday! A day that is better measured by my children than the Gregorian calendar. To most of us, today is Wednesday May 12th, but to them it is "Two days from sweeties after school day" and "Three days from a long sleep in.". Nice! I prefer the way they look at a day. Again, no woodpecker on the way home today, but when we stopped to look up into the tree we saw it in, a squirrel threw a pine cone down at us and it hit my son solidly on the head. Wild life watchers obviously not appreciated by the dwellers in that tree.

Today's bento has a froggy in it, since I had green rice left in the fridge. While I was making it I thought of the garden bento I made a month back. That one had a frog pond in it, so I suppose this bento is a close up of the pond! Very poor photography today, sadly.

Green rice frog with cucumber lilly pads, radish lilies and a carrot stick pond border. Lettuce underneath. In the fruit layer today, I've put pineapple, strawberries and grapes.

No.21 'Dragons in the dandelions' bentos

2010-05-11T22:24:00.001+01:00

No woodpeckers in the trees on our walks today, but plenty of other birds to watch as they gather nesting materials. Lots of apple blossom strewn on the ground and falling from overhead along our route to school and back. All the cherry blossoms are looking gorgeous in full bloom and the many well tended gardens filled with bright colours.

I started my bento making for today with a dendelion bento for myself. It will be submitted to Hapa Bento 's B.O.M.B (Bento of the month) which has a flower theme this time. It's a dandelion 'clock'. Here it is:

The base is sushi rice cooked in green food colouring, the stalk is spring onion and the hairs from the dandelion clock are emmental cheese. A bit of cress at the base and some lettuce underneath. For my own bentos I like things fairly simple but stylish. Our walks home for the past two days have involved lots of dandelion clocks being picked by the children and the 'puff' of hairs on them being blown about all around us. Beautiful.

This morning I discovered that our cats had eaten the sweetcorn I left out last night to defrost for the pigeon's breakfast. I know they like an old corn cob to chew on, but routing out the corn from amongst the peas in the pot and throwing the peas all over the floor was a bit much! The pigeon had to make do with dry bird seed for breakfast. He was not impressed. Another miss-hap of the morning was Batman's unfortunate jam incident. While I was picking up peas my son called out, in a most distressed tone of voice "BATMAN IS IN THE JAM!". I went through to find that his little Lego Batman was face down in the jam on a slice of toast. It looked as if he had given up on Tuesday all together, or perhaps he's just very fond of jam?

The children enjoyed their 'Rainy Day, Sunny day' bentos today, particularly the element of surprise in which one they might have when they opened their boxes at lunch. For tomorrow I have decided to go with a surprise again, but this time the same bento for both of them. Dragons! Well, hopefully they look like dragons... with big, fierce radish eyes that GLARE (and are yummy).

What's in it? Sushi rice cooked with one drop of green food colouring (amazing colour from just one drop, really) forms the dragons, which I shaped using cling film. They have carved radish eyes, as mentioned. Little cucumber skin arrows to make a scaly nose and emmental cheese for teeth and nostrils. The few greens added to the box with the dragons are cress, spring onion and the cucumber centres.

No.20 'Weather Forecast' bento

2010-05-10T22:22:00.000+01:00

Today was a promising start to the week for us. A pleasant morning walk to school, a productive day in the house for me, a good day at school for the children and a very rare, close up sighting of a Great Spotted woodpecker on the way home! We were almost at the house when wood shavings started falling on my head from the trees above, accompanied by a sharp tapping noise. I looked up, but couldn't see the little guy from where I was. I was ready to carry on our walk when my daughter called out excitedly "WOODPECKER!", startling me, her brother and the bird. It wasn't too put off by the loud little human girl under the tree though and actually carried on it's chore of chipping the wood for a few minutes. This meant that we got a very close up view of it's beautiful plumage. Fantastic.

For today's bento I have been inspired by the weather, which has been temperamental since the middle of last week. We've had rain, blustery winds and gorgeously warm sunshine, overlapping at times. While I was making the bento I remembered the little bit of text on my son's bento box lid and had another look at it. "There is a fine day and there is a rainy day." it says. Quite true and wise.

For tomorrow, one child will have the rainy day lunch and the other will have the sunshine. They won't know which until they open them, something they enjoyed from when I previously made the 'Sisters' bento.

'Rainy Day'

'Sunny Day'

Just like yesterday, the protein in this meal comes from some sliced vegetarian sausage. I don't think I've mentioned it before on the blog, but my husband and I are both vegetarian (he is lacto ovo vegetarian and I am an often dairy sensitive lacto only vegetarian). We have raised our children to have some meat and fish in their diet, but not in large quantities. This means that most days they eat vegetarian food, like today. There aren't a lot of meats that they like. They like spicy sausages like chorizo and pepperoni and sometimes bacon. I like to give them some oily fish now and again, which my daughter enjoys but my son is not too keen on. I'm interested to see whether they will switch to complete vegetarianism with time, but the choice is theirs.

Back to the ingredients! Yesterday I put in a large portion of curried mushroom risotto, today that has been replaced with leftovers from dinner, which was some deliciously garlic-y noodles with some stirfried vegetables. The sun and rain characters are cut from emmental cheese slices and coloured with food colouring. I put in a little cress. For some reason both my children get extremely excited about eating cress! It could be because we've been growing it in egg cups since they were both just babies. They'll eat it with bread and butter as if it were mana from the gods. The bentos have a fruit layer, with some dried Sweet William pears, raisins and Jaffa orange segments. Mmmm.

Today's Lego showcase has been made by my daughter and she describes it as "A swimming pool that constantly cycles it's water like one of those big fountains in grand houses, so that the water pours out of the giant lions head and makes a water fall. There is a separate swimming pool for the Lego frog, in case he gets hurt." Which I think is pretty fantastic! and says it all.

My last picture is of a Great Spotted woodpecker, in honor of our pride in meeting one today. I wonder what we'll see tomorrow?

No.19 'Robin sings at sunset' bento

2010-05-09T23:13:00.000+01:00

First bento of the week! I had originally intended to make the little birdie in this meal a Chaffinch, since the children and I had a very enjoyable close encounter with one on the way back from school on friday. It's quite often that we meet birds that are as curious about us as we are about them and the little Chaffinch on friday was a great example of that. We stopped a good five minutes to look at him hopping between twigs in a garden bush and he was studying us as much as we were him. Chaffinches just happen to be the first birds that we looked out for on our earlier nature trails before and after school. There was a time last summer when we seemed to run into a friendly Chaffinch wherever we went! Good times.

Unfortunately, that particular bird is not so easy to craft out of a cheese slice and some primary coloured food colouring. That's what I've learned today. I compromised with creating another garden favourite: the robin. The robins' call can be heard in the trees near our home all through the day, but especially at sunset.

The contents of the bento: The setting-sun sky is a portion of curried mushroom risotto, with a little cress and a broccoli floret for greenery. The lower half is sliced vegetarian sausage. I used a slice of emmental cheese for the robin, with the eye socket formed from a natural hole in the cheese! A dab of red food colouring for the chest and a little black for the legs.

The last picture is of my son's latest Lego creation. We sat down together and photoshopped the speech bubbles (to his specification). The minifigs have been competing in some tough acrobatic competitions lately and as you can see here, even the pirates and Darth Vader himself have got in on the action!

My children have been enjoying Pikko's 'Bento Hoodlems' antics from Adventures in Bentomaking so much, that they wanted to get involved and show their toys getting up to mischief and having fun. Since we have more Lego in our house than is entirely sensible, it had to be the minifigs! These little judges don't seem too impressed with the minifig pyramid...

No.18 'Berrylicious' bento

2010-05-06T20:40:00.000+01:00

This morning I got this great new two-tier bento box from eBay. The quality of the plastic is superb and the layers are quite roomy! It came with a deep spoon which will be ideal for using with leftover goulash, when that makes it back into the bentos. I love the shape and colour of the box and so do the children. We've agreed to share it, with my eldest getting the first use of it for school lunch tomorrow.

I didn't have a theme for today's bento, which is a little disappointing, but the excitement of a new box to fill made up for it. I made pasta for dinner this evening, along with smoked tofu and baby corn in tempura batter. Putting aside some of the pasta, I made a separate sauce for the bento portion with tomato and paprika. I put it into a paper cup in the box and topped it with some hand cut cheese flowers with cucumber centres. Some sliced cucumber and carrot sticks on a bed of shredded lettuce accompany several pieces of the smoked tofu and baby corn in tempura batter. A very filling bento. For the dessert layer I have a foil cup of chocolate fudge sauce with strawberries, grapes and melon to dip into it. I was a bit hard pressed to come up with title for this one, but my daughter came up with one. She wanted to call it 'Very delicious bento', so I have compromised with 'Berrylicious bento'. Just because.

We've had a short week due to the holiday on Monday, but here I am on Thursday evening feeling as if the working week has been twice as long as usual. I don't think a single weekend is going to be enough to recover!

No.17 Doctor Who bento #3 "Good dog, K-9"

2010-05-05T23:16:00.003+01:00

Not completely a Doctor Who bento actually, because K-9's latest residence is with Sarah Jane in the Sarah Jane Adventures series. Until recently, K-9 had the task of preventing the end of the world by sealing an artificially created black hole as he floated in space. A lonely job, but Sarah Jane checked in on him via a window in her safe quite often. Giving little K-9 encouragement. "Good dog, K-9!", she would say. "AFFIRMATIVE!" he would call back. I was looking through Doctor Who images today, when my children chose K-9 as a subject for tomorrow's bento.

Because I do everything double for bento (two children), here is a picture of both K-9s. Although there is a base of vinegared cucumber sushi rice, this bento is essentially a simple salad and sandwich lunch. K-9 is a marmite sandwich with some smoked tofu, chorizo and radish for detail (and flavour I hope!). The K-9 is hand cut from nori. In the second box I have made a finely chopped salad with grated cheese, cucumber, lettuce, carrot and egg noodles. Because the salad box has been made to become K-9's black hole/nebula, I added some planetary bodies in the form of carved radishes rubbed in a little food colouring. And finally, a close up of the little guy.

No.16 "Escargot?, Escargone" bento

2010-05-04T22:44:00.001+01:00

As promised, I made little falafel patties for today's bento from leftovers. There's something hugely satisfying about creatively using leftovers, I feel. Despite lots of bento ideas piling up in my diary, I ended up doing something that wasn't on my list! As you'll hopefully be able to see, the main dish is in the shape of a snail.

This is what it's made from: Underneath, for the body, is the falafel patty, which I cooked into a sausage shape. The shell is a ball of sushi rice made the way my children love it best. It's cooked and then stirred through with diced cucumber and a little rice vinegar. Yummy. A swirl of tomato adds a snail-shell detail. The antennae are carrot sticks dipped in cream cheese with a bit of detail from a dot of food colouring. The whole creature sits on a bed of shredded lettuce, with a couple of carved radish 'mushrooms', some more tomato and some sliced baby corn. In the dessert layer are some strawberries and grapes with a paper cup of chocolate filled koala bear biscuits.

There is a little history to this one. For all the years that my children and I have walked to and from school we have 'rescued' snails from the footpaths in damp weather. We don't move them very far from their intended trail, but we ensure they aren't underfoot for the next passers by on the walk. Sometimes, if we're on one of our earlier school walks which let us do some nature spotting, we'll even chat to them! Since the children are learning French, we've started referring to them as 'escargot'. Which leads me to explaining the title of this post. On occasion we find just empty shells when we inspect our snail friends. That has led me to question "escargot?" as I pick them up and to conclude "escargone" if there is no-one home. Here is a picture of both the childrens' bentos together. I'm sure they'll get a few smiles!

No.15 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears' bento

2010-05-03T23:35:00.001+01:00

For today's bento I had a piece of smoked tofu that I wanted to use and the children had requested more noodles. I noticed that the inside of the tofu block was a much paler colour to the outside and that gave me the idea for Goldilocks' face and the brown of the bears. The egg noodles made a nice tangle of curls for our Goldilocks. There are a few carrot flowers and a tomato ribbon for her hair. A bed of chopped greens and some lettuce will add crunch to the noodles.

The second layer has some diced melon, slices of kiwi and a few chopped grapes. For dessert the children will take a yummy chocolate fudge muffin from the huge batch I baked today. They want to take one for their teachers too! We gave a box full to a friend today as well. A huge batch will turn into 'just enough' in no time.

We took a long walk around the coast today with our bird spotting friend and her little dog. Beautiful clear skies and crisp wind. Lots of territorial singing from the birdies and plenty of nests in sight. It definitely put a few more nature related bento ideas in my mind.

I made some fried falafel patties for dinner with roast potatoes and vegetables. With some of the falafel mix left over, I may make some miniature patties for the next bento. Yummy!

No.14 'Hungry Chick' bento

2010-04-29T23:44:00.001+01:00

I was extremely tired tonight after a busy day fitting a lot of things in. I wasn't sure whether I would manage a bento at all, and as it turns out I have made tomorrow's lunch very late into the evening, just before finally giving up my semi-comatose sleep under a blanket and heading to a more comfortable spot in bed.

There were lots of things today that I could have taken as inspiration for the last bento of the week. For instance, my children took part in a concert at their school and did very well singing in front of an audience. There were some fabulous instrumental pieces put on for the parents also. I considered a music theme, but put that thought aside as I set out my chopping board to prepare the meal. Instead I thought of the most peaceful time of the day, when we walked with a good friend of ours and her little dog before dinner. We always have nature spotting expeditions with this particular friend and today was no exception. As well as introducing the children to the names of newly flowering wild plant life, we all stood quietly by the woodland for some time, listening to the bird song of the newly paired birds. The nests are in full swing at the moment, with some very impressive constructions put up if you know where to look. A pair of magpies have set up their nest in a tree along our route to school, so we have been able to see it's development from a modest bungalow, to a dignified three storey townhouse. Nests mean new life and hungry chicks to feed. So here they are, two hungry bento chicks to feed my two hungry bento children.

A bed of leftover egg noodles, chopped spring onion and carrot, cream cheese sandwich trees and a cheese bird with chorizo wing. The same few ingredients have been used throughout this week, which has been quite economical, with the change in layout and vegetables keeping the food from getting too boring to eat. The meal is teamed with a layer of fresh strawberries and black grapes. Bon appetit, little ones.

No.13 'Sisters' bento

2010-04-28T22:06:00.003+01:00

Today's bento has been inspired by my big sister. She's been on my mind all day today, and that's never a bad thing. She has started making bento lunches for her little girl after being inspired by mine and the new joint-hobby is already giving us yet another bit of shared creative enjoyment. We weren't raised together, but we are alike in a multitude of ways. Apart from our similar aptitudes and abilities there are things which we share which are most valuable to me. Our loyalty and deep love and respect for one another and for our families. Our understanding of what is truly important. So today, in a very small way, I have put together a tribute to our relationship in bento form.

On the left, with the dark hair, is my amazing big sister and on the right with the pink hair is myself. I've left our curls in, because no matter how much we fight them, they always come back! I have us facing one another with big smiles, because in the land of bento we've just met up for that cup of tea we keep talking about and I've brought my special mug as promised. We've been teamed up with a layer of yummy looking fruit salad.

The portrait layers have been made with the same method as the rockabilly bento, but there is pickle added to the cheese sandwich today, because my son and daughter saw my new jar of pickle and gathered around me to make sure that some of it went into their bentos somewhere! The base of the portraits has some spring onion, (which my children love) and we have carrot flowers in our hair for an added touch of colour and fun. Here are the sisters up close. I'll tell the children in the morning that one box contains a picture of me and one has a picture of my sister. They can wait until lunch time to see who they got!

No.12 Rockabilly bento

2010-04-27T22:47:00.002+01:00

Inspired by a suggestion from Pete Custom of DC and the Customatix(link) fame, this bento is an attempt to capture two of the things which spring to mind immediately when I think 'rockabilly'. Pretty pin-up girl 50s style and the double bass. I made two identical bentos, but the faces of the girls ended up with completely different forms and character. I'll display the second one below, for comparison.

The blonde girl began with a base of lettuce, then a shaped cream cheese sandwich. Her face was cut out of a hand cut strip of red leicester cheese (try cutting a block lengthways on it's facing edge- not easy!). I was using individually wrapped cheese slices for making layers, but my children expressed deep displeasure with the 'plastic cheese'. Her features are 'tattooed' on with food colouring and tooth picks. I gave her green eyes and sulky red lips. Her hair is egg noodles and the ornament she has pinned in is half a strawberry. You can just see the shoulder of her tomato red dress.

The double base is a kind of open topped sandwich. A shaped piece of deli wrap 'varnished' with chorizo (a firm favourite with the children). More deli wrap for the detail and blue-dipped egg noodles for the strings. I think the meal should be quite filling, but I'll team it up with a little pot of yoghurt and a fruit 'Zinger' stick (shown in photo).

And here's the other girl. See how completely different she is. I think they are close friends that dress alike to go to concerts. Or maybe I'm giving them a bit too much personality for people made out of food... I'm brimming with bento ideas today, with at least three or four more formulated in my mind already. I have a quite complex Dr. Who themed one that I need to draw up carefully before I attempt. Also a Lichtenstein bento, which was inspired by today's bento and also by handling my violin so that I could put the bow into the picture as a prop. The violin's name is Warhol, and it was through reading Warhol's biographies that I first found mention of Lichtenstein. There is also a robot bento to consider...

No.11 The 'In-between' bentos

2010-04-26T23:04:00.003+01:00

Tonight's post is about those in-between-er bentos that happen when I'm too tired to spend more than five minutes on lunch boxes but know that the children will be expecting something fabulous. The in-between-er bentos are far from fabulous, but they usually put a smile on their faces anyway. The one to the left is 'Happy hearts bento', which has a layer of carrot and cheese sticks with a ketchup dip and in the second layer some jammy heart shaped sandwiches with writing icing features. The funny thing is, despite it's simplicity, the children talked about this one quite a bit after eating it. Ketchup, cheese and jam are obviously winners at lunch time.

To the right is 'Jammy pancake bento', tonight's quick and simple lunch made from all sorts of things found in the cupboards on the night before shopping day. The savoury layer has brown rice noodles with a pinch of paprika stirred in for colour and seasoning, with a few cheese slivers on the top. The dessert layer has two slices of homemade sultana pancake, rolled with morello cherry jam (a particularly nice jam), a few extra sultanas and a piece of chocolate coated flapjack. The side dish is half a jaffa orange. I hope the noodles go down well with the children, particularly since one of them is certain to think that the pinch of paprika might be super-hot curry powder instead and not take a bite. I'll mention it in the morning to save the spicy misunderstanding...

With this picture I have made a weary attempt to create a more colourful background for the meal and set the bento up nicely. More practise with this in future!

No.10 Suki Doll bento

2010-04-25T20:44:00.001+01:00

This bento was inspired by the many Japanese doll images I've come across recently. The pattern on my insulated bento carrier is of these kinds of dolls with different outfits and cute expressions. I am now also the proud owner of socks with the same doll pattern. It was while I was admiring my socks that the idea came to me about making one of the dolls out of food items and I let the idea grow throughout the day until I matched my potential doll parts with available food in my fridge.

It only took me ten minutes to make, so I'm thrilled with that fact. I used a bed of basmati rice and made up the doll out of half a boiled egg, a shaped tomato hairdo and a cucumber dress. She has carrot flowers at her feet. Her facial features were 'tattooed' into the egg with a tooth pick and tiny amounts of food colouring. I've never tried the tattooing method of colouring food before, but it turned out to be quite effective. The little tooth pick holes contained the colouring very well and let me achieve a lot of detail with no mess. In the next layer are some meat free swedish style balls and a few more little bits of carrot.

No.9 Hickory Dickory Dock bento

2010-04-25T20:17:00.003+01:00

This week I had a packet of chocolate mice in the cupboard and wanted to use at least a few of them for bento creation. That meant turning my mind to nursery rhymes in this case. I found all the verses to Hickory Dickory Dock in an internet search, and both the children and I were surprised to find that there is a verse for every hour of the day!

The main dish is tofu yaki udon leftovers from the dinner I made tonight (very very tasty). The dessert dish has a hot cross bun clock spread with buttercream icing. Pitta bread slivers make the base and clock's pendulum. Three white chocolate mice run up and down.