We were so inspired by our friend Diane and fellow blogger at http://busynursebento.blogspot.com/, and her wonderful yummy creations that Chick decided to order some really fun Bento products for us to try out. Yum Yum Bento Box, the book, was really fun and did provide a ton of fun food ideas for kids. We cater parties but when it comes to kids it seems it is best to go with a sure thing. Chicken nuggets, pizza and mac n' cheese. We love the idea of healthy eating but Bento creating is very time consuming, especially, if you are doing it on a large scale. Most parents make Bentos for creative ways for their own cherubs to develop healthier eating habits. I am on board with that but my kids are naturally non-picky eaters so if I serve it, they will eat it...even if there is no smiley face on it.
Above we see rice shapers. There is bear, a heart and a star. We also have some really good quality metal cut outs. They are like mini cookie cutters. They can make flower shapes in vegetables, meat, cheese or fruits. Below we see egg shapers. Many people add food dye to color the eggs.
Most people use dried sea weed strips to make faces on their food. I really love these seaweed by Annie Chun. My kids like them too and they come in different flavors.
I wanted to show you the egg shapers. They were not perfect and needed to be trimmed a little. Interesting observation. The brightly colored yellow egg is from one of my mothers free range chickens and the light yellow yolk is from the super market. Interesting.
These are little condiment containers. They could be used for salad dressing, soy sauce or ketchup. My kids just wanted to play with them. They kept filling them with water, pulling off the heads and drinking from them.
This was my rendition of franks n' beans. I did little octopus hot dogs, with chicken stock flavored rice and basil, tomatoes with seashell and star mozzarella and beef bologna. I threw in a couple sea weed snacks as well. Below I had little heart shaped peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, an egg and an almond butter ball, bird with apple slices. Note to self. More greens needed. More colors needed. Too much white food. I could have colored it up with multicolored peppers that the kids would have picked out. Maybe next time.
These look great! Is that a bologna dolphin swimming in the baked beans? It's adorable.
ReplyDeleteYou're right that the more you get into creating specific shapes and things, the more time it takes. And the eggs often do need trimming. Very intriguing about the yolk colors!
I love the Annie Chunn seaweed treats too, especially the sesame!
Color-wise, if peppers aren't likely to fly, what about berries? There have been some surprisingly good deals these past couple of weeks at Stop & Shop.
Thanks for the mention. Glad to see you trying this too! (It's all part of my evil plan of world domination. Shhh!)
Lol....Yes, Diane, that is Bologna. The kids kept eating every little thing I cut out but if I handed them a piece of bologna in it's plain circle shape they would run.
ReplyDeleteBerries are a great idea. I have been seeing multicolored tooth picks with little plastic animal shapes..that would fool kids as well. Am I missing the point? I think my sodium filled food choices go completely against the healthy inspiration behind Bento meals. :/
I really like your world domination idea. Maybe you can get me a comfy job when you get to the top. ;)
I think at this time of year it's harder to avoid the preserved/prepared foods that are going to have lots of sodium. During the summer and early fall, I tried to do about 75-90% of my shopping at the farm stand down the street, which worked well. They're closed for the season now, though, and so there'll be more things like lunch meats and such in mine as well.
DeleteIf you check out some of the Bento Blog Network blogs, you'll see lots of bentos similar to yours, with the mini-franks and lunch meats. Those things just work better for kids. And while juvenile hypertension *is* a growing problem, so long as you're balancing with less-salty things, not adding a side of chips for example, I think you're fine. All things in moderation, you know?
I think the job of chief henchman is probably open, if that sounds interesting? ;-)