Shamrock and Flower-y Bento Lunches

St. Patrick's Day bentos

3/17/11 - After a late-night drive out to my sister's house, I was able to be there to watch the girls so she could observe at the elementary school all day. Since it was St. Patrick's Day, and since I had to pick up Tually from preschool, I made simple shamrock bentos, with the limited tools available.  

Carrot sticks, sandwiches (varied,) Colby Jack and white American cheese,
broccoli, grapes and "Chewy bars"

The top EasyLunchbox was for Z, and the middle box for Tually. I decided to do a test run in a Ziploc box for Pilu, to see if she could now be trusted to hold her own lunch in the car. Without tossing it into my hair when she was done. Hopefully.

Z and Pilu had PBJ on wheat bread, and I hadn't asked Tually what kind of sandwich she wanted for lunch before she'd left, so I made half of hers plain jam, and half plain butter.

Since I couldn't find a shamrock cutter (and, to be honest, I don't even think *I* have one in my extensive cookie cutter selection) I decided to use four mini hearts to shape into a shamrock. The hearts were a big hit, but everyone thought that they were butterflies. Ah well. But good to know, for when I want to make a butterfly theme! They all agreed that the mini flower cutter used for the cheese kind of looked like shamrocks (which is why I chose it.)

They ate more of their lunches than I would have guessed, and Pilu surprised me by having an empty container at the end, and no trace of sandwiches or carrots on the floor. I did end up finding approximately one heart sandwich and two nibbled carrot sticks after removing her from her car seat, but those were more accidental, I think, than a direct attempt to thwart my "no throwing food in Aunt Kenner's car" edict. On a side note, after all these visits to my sister's house, when I took Z with me to my doctor's appointment and asked if she remembered what my name was, to listen for the nurse to come tell me it was our turn, she said, "Yes. Aunt Kenner." Smartass.

I had scoured their cutter collection for anything small enough to cut the chewy bars into mini shapes, but alas. No joy. But my sister led me to her teensy-weensy cutter stash after she got home that afternoon, so I have hope for the future...

Quickie at-home Flower bento

3/21/11 - After preschool on Monday, Z and I brainstormed a "beautiful lunch" idea. I chose her pink Sassy On-the-Go box, since I could remove most of the compartments and all the lids to have less stuff to wash after. 

Snappea Crisps, apples and raspberries,
macaroni and cheese with hot dog flowers

She had asked for macaroni and hot dogs in the car on the way home from school, so I asked if macaroni with hot dogs in it would be acceptable. It would. And I wanted to try out my new(ish) hot dog tulip cutter, so I chose a flower-y theme. Well. Apparently it was designed for the mini-hot dogs, and it just kind of smooshed and imprinted into my regular-sized dog. [Middle tulip] I had to cut the petals out with a knife. So I just free-handed it for the other end to make another tulip, and it came out okay. [Upper left tulip] I saved the scraps [upper middle] and cut the rest into chubby coins and cross-hatched them, as I've seen done on other sites before. 

Uncooked

Cooked

The tulip cut with my cutter came out all warped and deformed, but the one I cut looked great! And the crosshatched "flowers" came out okay too.