Flower Bento

I was looking at my old bentos on Facebook and realized that I haven't made anything cute in a while. I am not someone who can do the characters or intricate work usually, but I can make some flowers.

Yesterday I made a batch of plain meatballs that were only flavored with some garlic powder. That way I can use any sauce (or none) without the flavors clashing. There are enough for quite a few bento in there, but Pippy likes them so they won't go to waste.

On the left there are meatballs underneath as well as stringed snowpeas. Don't ever let them tell you they are string-less, it is usually not true and it is gross to eat them with the tough string still on them. On top of that I have some daikon pickle flowers and a bunch of grape tomatoes. I have no idea if she has been eating the tomatoes or not, but this batch were sweet like a fruit (which they are, I know). On the right is a bed of sticky rice with two flowers made of one strawberry, halved and fanned and I used the snow peas to fashion stems and leaves. I know I can do this everyday, but I need to make the lunches more fun sometimes.

Having a Hard Time Getting Going

I was so exhausted that I slept through my alarm not once, but twice. My husband had to come in to wake me up. That meant a speedy bento for Pippy. I used my mini hamburger stash and snow peas for the main course and grated some carrots to make her rice pretty. Hopefully there is enough sauce in the meat for her rice, because I forgot the soy sauce. I also used strawberries as a filler with the checkerboard apple on top. I had originally tried for a bunny, but that ended horribly with people in tears.

So, her lunch isn't terribly original, but that is usually the case.  When I get some money I plan on trying out some new ingredients on her like shrimp and such.

The cloth behind the bento is the bag she takes it to school in. I also added a couple of mini blueberry muffins on the side, so we did use a sandwich bag today. The is really a bad bento because it isn't filled up all the way. I should have built up some fillers on both sides, but again, not really with it this morning.