5 Bento #269 - Piggy "Lunchable"

First of all, have you noticed my FABULOUS new blog design?!  Shalon Estrada over at Pretty Lovely Design just completed it for me, and I'm super excited to show it to you all.

So today's lunch is in a Planetbox, and I've done it in the style of a Lunchable, but way lower in sodium and all that stuff, and no throwaway waste!

Here we have some Columbus roasted turkey with a piggie sauce container full of dip for the veggies.

The crackers are melba toasts, a couple of mini crispy oatmeal raisin cookies from Trader Joe's.

A couple slices of cheddar cheese cut into a piggie face using a Cutezcute cutter and a bunch of fresh broccoli, and organic green and red seedless grapes.

Bento #269 - Roasted turkey, cheddar cheese, broccoli florets, dip, melba toast, grapes and oatmeal raisin cookies.

  

0 Bento #261 - Turkey & Cheese Sammy

Ella caught a glimpse of this lunch before I packed it away and she said "COOOL!  Except, I'm going to pretend that's a cat and not a dog."  What can I say?  The girl loves cats.

Quite a blurry picture of the sides - fresh fruit salad and broccoli.

Sandwich is cheddar and smoked turkey on whole wheat, and a side of ranch for the broccoli.

Easy Lunchbox all packed up!

Bento #261 - Turkey & cheddar on whole wheat, fruit salad and broccoli with ranch dressing.

Tomorrow is the LAST day to enter my bento starter pack giveaway!  I'm also throwing in extras not listed in the description, so if you haven't put your name in by now, what are you waiting for?!  Click here. (If you have problems entering, try logging out of Facebook and then back in again.)

8 Bento #259 - Goldfish Ravioli Lego Lunch

I have these cute Nuovo goldfish-shaped "mac n'cheezy" ravioli for lunch today with some Bolognese sauce for dipping.  I made a sea scape using fish picks, broccoli and snips of green onion.

I used an apple slicer for the first time in almost a year! *gasp*  You know, I've been too scared to use one since my incident last year. It's an organic Pink Lady, which is my favorite variety, soaked in fresh lemon juice water to help prevent browning (and it really works!)

With the Lego sauce container top on, I just love it!

Two Lego bento boxes!  I tell you what, this pink Lego box has traveled all over the world to finally get to me, from England to California to Canada to Maryland and finally to Georgia!

Bento #259 - Goldfish cheese ravioli, broccoli, organic apple slices and Bolognese sauce.

0 Bento #219 - Vegetarian Cheese & Crackers

Enter the Bon Ami Giveaway!

Me and my gimpy thumbs are back in bento business!  My poor kid had to buy her lunches all last week (thankfully they really aren't bad, and she will usually grab a salad anyway.)  I decided that I didn't want to pay a $50 copay for 5 seconds so that a nurse could remove my stitches, so I did it myself yesterday MacGuyver-style with a pair of new sterilized cuticle nail clippers.  One-handed, even!  Looks pretty good, but I'm still black and blue over my entire thumb.  

My last few lunches have been vegetarian, not wholly by design.  This bento also happens to be vegetarian.  She's got an assortment of fresh veggies and dip, along with some cheese cubes and saltines.

Dessert is sliced apples (NOT done with an apple slicer...in fact I bought these in one of those pre-cut packages...can you blame me?) and grapes.

We have a special snack of a bunch of yogurt star cookies and an apple sauce.

Bento #219 - Celery sticks, grape tomatoes, baby carrots, broccoli, ranch dip, cheese, saltine crackers, sliced apples, and grapes.  Snack - Yogurt Stars and applesauce.

0 Bento #197 - Inside-Out Tulip Sandwiches (and trip photos)

Today we have "inside-out" tulip sandwiches with cheese and ham, and a large helping of fresh fruit salad.  E likes to make her sandwiches herself and be creative with the order in which she eats them, so it's a good lunch for her.

Bento #197 - 12 grain whole wheat toast, cheddar and Colby cheese, deli ham, broccoli & cauliflower, and fresh mixed fruit salad.

Now, a food picture from our trip.  These stuffed green and black olives were the appetizer at Spaghi Pizzeria Ristorante, North London - we chose a couple of delicious handmade pizzas.  The Quattro Stagioni (ham, mushrooms, artichokes & olives) and the Pizza Romana (ham, mozzarella, tomato, pepperoni & mushrooms.)  Excellent!  

We were literally stranded at this restaurant, so I'm very happy that it was a great meal.  Long story short, our Peugeot rental car died (in a roundabout during rush hour!) on our way out of London on the third day, so we dined here while we waited for the tow truck to rescue us.  (Big thank-you to Lady MiniCabs for being so incredibly helpful and friendly!  In fact, if you click on their link you will see that the green arrow is pointing exactly where we broke down.)

Poor Peugeot.

2 Bento #176 - Chicken Ravioli & Bruschetta

New bento box!  Yes, I have a problem.  My sister and I went to get our brows threaded at the mall, and we just had to stop in at Niko Niko.  They had this new Hello Kitty square box that I had to get.  I think this is the first purple one that we own, which is nice because it's E's favorite color.  I also threw in some Hello Kitty chocolate pocky as a special treat since World Market is donating 100% of the proceeds that come from the sale of Japanese products to earthquake/tsunami relief through September.  We stocked up on sake and other items, including the cute containers of pocky you see below.

Bento #176 - Chicken mozzarella ravioli, bruschetta & sliced grape tomatoes, organic steamed broccoli, red grapes and Hello Kitty choco-pocky.

5 Bento #168 - Hello Kitty Egg & Pears

I'm getting better at making these egg molds!  This one came out pretty well.  I had to crumple a bunch of plastic wrap in the bottom because the mold is so big.  That way the egg would be elevated enough to take all the impressions at the top.  Still a little messy, but Miss E thought it was fabulous.  She said it was too cute to eat (though eat she did, including the yolk which is a big deal!)

Bento #168 - Hard boiled egg, steamed organic broccoli and sliced organic pear.

2 Bento #167 - Mini Meatballs & Puzzle Class Snack

We have a smallish bento today, since it's a special day at school - 'Grandfriends' day.  Not only did we bring a special class snack for the kids and visitors, but my parents, Ella's Mumu & Obbie are visiting from Maryland!  We are so excited that they were able to come for a nice visit.

Here is our class snack (plus two other trays not shown) - they are just simple cheese sandwiches cut out with the puzzle Lunch Punch Match & Munch cutter, and assembled  using their nifty puzzle diagram (which had my mom and I scratching our heads more than once!)  Their's looks a lot nicer than ours, that's for sure, but it was still pretty neat.

Bento #167 - Mini meatballs, steamed organic broccoli, mini pretzel sticks, salad cream, and an almond butter-stuffed Aussie apple.

Enter the AllThingsForSale bento giveaway here!

3 Bento #166 - Frog Prince Sandwich

Today I used one of my Lunch Punch Sand*wishes cutters to make this cute frog prince.  He's even got a sparkly green scepter.  Two tadpoles are peeking out of fresh blueberries and broccoli florets.

Bento #166 - Almond butter & organic strawberry jam sandwich, fresh blueberries and organic broccoli florets.

Enter the AllThingsForSale bento giveaway here!

4 Baked Mashed Potatoes

Okay, so we're really stretching it here in our house.  We haven't been out of the house since Sunday!  Today is yet another snow day stuck at home.  We're getting creative with the items I have left in my fridge.  Remember those mashed potatoes I served with the stuffed peppers?  Well, I used the leftovers in last night's dinner.

When I was vacationing in England as a girl, a fast food staple besides fish & chips, bangers & mash and Cornish pasties was a loaded baked potato.  You could get them almost anywhere.  They had a variety of hearty and delicious toppings, my favourite of which was ham, cheese and broccoli.  It's really so simple with mashed potatoes, just layer the potatoes in an oven-safe dish (and I mix it with a little shredded cheese), diced ham, lightly steamed broccoli and cover with as much cheese as you like.  Bake at 375 for about 10 minutes or until it's heated through and the cheese on top is bubbly.

Hmmmmm.

Ella really threw a fit when she saw hers because she did not want to try it.  However when she did, she said it was "REALLY good" (several times!) and ate it right up.

Hopefully we'll be able to get out at some point today.  Otherwise one or more of us may go nuts!

18 Bento #151 - Moose Mac n' Cheese

I whipped up a batch of whole wheat mac n' cheese - so simple!  Takes 10 minutes, including the pasta cook time.  While the pasta is cooking, add 2 Tbs heavy cream, 4 oz cream cheese and a handful of shredded or cubed hard yellow cheese (I used cubed Colby Jack.)  Gently melt it together, and toss pasta in with it (about 1.5 cups.)  Salt and pepper to taste.

Today I picked up my first produce basket from Farmers Market Baskets.  I got so many great things for $20! I got a small organic basket which included 1 whole head each spinach & fancy lettuce, 3 stalks broccoli, 2 pears, 4 unripe bananas, 3 cameo apples, 3 oranges, 3 white potatoes, 2 tomatoes, 1 acorn squash and 1 onion, all organic or a 'clean 15'. It's really the perfect size for our family! Next time I will get extra apples, we eat tons of them in our house.

Last thing, I picked up a sweet masala dabba spice tin from World Market today, love it!  I can put any variety of spices and herbs in there I want, but I went the traditional Indian route and filled it with mustard seed, cumin seed, ground cardamom (don't have whole pods), curry, garam masala, coriander seeds and tumeric.  I get a hankering for one every time I watch Aarti Paarti on the Food Network.

Bento #151 - Whole wheat mac n' cheese, cherry tomatoes, organic steamed broccoli, clementine and a twin cherry gummy.

3 Bento #117 - Sushi Franks & Ginger Carrot Dip

Here's an ocean-inspired PlanetBox bento!  We have more "sushi" rolls, which E loves, and the yummy ginger-carrot dip (recipe in yesterday's post) with Goldfish crackers.

Bento #117 - Kosher beef frank "sushi" rolls with cheese, steamed broccoli with cracked kosher sea salt, Goldfish crackers, ginger-carrot dip, berry yogurt star and green grapes.

5 Bento #102 - Butterfly Grilled Cheese & Yogurt

Here's a cute garden lunch!  We made a Lunch Punch butterfly grilled cheese with sugar snap pea antennae, and a special dessert was some peach yogurt with rainbow butterfly sprinkles.

Bento #102 - Butterfly grilled cheese, sugar snap pea antennae, peach yogurt with butterfly sprinkles, broccoli & carrot "snails" and vidalia onion dressing.

4 Ebelskiver Experiment

What the heck is an ebelskiver (aebleskiver)?  Well, it's a traditional Danish pancake that is made into a spherical shape, usually stuffed with apples, but can be stuffed with just about anything sweet or savory!  I ordered this special pan a few weeks ago, and it finally arrived the other day.  I was super excited to try my hand at it.  I found just a very, very basic ebelskiver recipe for the batter, and grabbed items I knew could be a tasty filler - and who doesn't like broccoli, ham & cheese?

These were ridiculously simple to make, very surprisingly so.  This particular batter turned out quite thick, which resulted in a dense (but nice) finished product, so you may want to experiment with the liquid levels.

You'll need:

4 Eggs
1/2 cup Water
1/2 cup Milk
1 tsp Salt
2 cups Flour
2 tsp Baking Powder
1 tbls garlic powder (opt)
3 tsp Italian herbs (opt)
ham, broccoli, cheese or any other type savory filling you like
2 wooden skewers/chopsticks or the like for turning
an ebelskiver pan (sorry, no getting around it!)

Okay, so whisk your eggs, water and milk in a bowl and then add to your dry ingredients, and mix (not too much, though.)

Sautee your fillings if you wish - I used ham and broccoli, but you could use almost anything you like!  It should be noted I hadn't added the herbs or garlic powder to the batter at this point, I added that later.  I did say this was an experiment, right?

Heat your ebelskiver pan over medium flame, and brush each well with melted butter.

Fill each well about 3/4 of the way up.  I don't know how I could survive without my spring-loaded scoop, it makes things so simple.

Now, in this point in my experiment I tried loading my fillings on top, thinking that they would sink into the middle like I'd seen in other ebelskiver recipes.  My batter was too thick to sink, so it stayed on top, but they turned over beautifully and the cheese melted into a crispy cap, which was yummy.  When they start to brown around the edges and you see bubbles in the middle, they are ready to turn with the chopsticks.

I taste-tested the finished ones, and found them to be a little bland, so that's when I added extra salt, some pepper, the herbs and garlic powder, and mixed in the cheese, broccoli and ham throughout the batter, and started again.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Okay, yummy!!

Bottom line - I have so many ideas in my head right now for other types of ebelskiver, and I was just really pleased with the way the majority of them came out.  I can't wait to try another batch!

3 Bento #83 - Turkey Meatballs & Veggie Fried Rice

You have until midnight EST tonight to enter the giveaway contest!

First of all, I'm so excited about choosing winners for the giveaway contest tomorrow!  There have been some wonderful ideas and recipes posted, such an imaginative group (and what good eaters!)  I have plans for more contests in near future, since this one has gone so well.  Thanks to everyone who participated!  I will post winners around noon tomorrow.

Using the tray again today, we have some cute tree animals in our broccoli forest and hanging out on our meatball boulders.  The meatballs are turkey, and they are from Trader Joe's.  E really loves them, she squealed "HMMM, these are soooo yummy!"  She thinks they are chicken, though, which is fine by me.  She is still quite wary of most meats, except chicken.

Bento #83 - Veggie fried rice, flame broiled turkey meatballs, steamed broccoli, marinara dipping sauce and craisins.

4 Bento #79 - ABC Mac n' Cheese

I dragged my family and our best friends and their daughter out to Super H Mart.  I told them is was a field trip, and they would love it.  Of course, I was right and they did love it, and we came away with some amazing produce, and naturally, some new bento items!  That post will come in a bit.  For now, I introduce E's newest bento box, with matching fork (just a super simple lunch, nothing fancy.)

Bento #79 - Organic ABC pasta with homemade cheese sauce, steamed broccoli and sliced strawberries.

I just love the little sayings they always seem to have on these boxes.  It says "Leaflet tight - It is so wonderful to be able to maintain your dreams."