No.81 Quiche and raw veg bento

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.