Blurry Bento and Birthday Cake

Don't know what happened with my camera here. But it tasted better than it looks: corn and black bean salad with tortilla chip "scoops", fruit salad and trail mix.

We had my older son's birthday party at the movie theater yesterday. He liked the idea of making the cake look like popcorn, but thought real popcorn would be too gross, so we used mini marshmallows with some pretty realistic results.

Carne Asado

Okay, I was at Trader Joe's the other day and the carne asado caught my eye. It was perfect because I was looking for something to throw on the grill quickly, and the packaging promised "authentico". Having been lucky enough to eat real Argentine cow right off of the spit (okay that sounded gross, but it was really tasty) I have to say that "authentico" might be going a little to far. But it was quite good, just a bit spicy for hubby. Which meant lots of leftovers for my bentos. Which was fine with me.


Steak and onigiri, cantelope, baby bell cheese and pocky for dessert.

Hello Kitty Fruit Snacks

I've been so crazed with all of the end-of-the-school-year hecticness that I've barely had time to pack lunch, never mind recording, uploading and blogging lunch. But we did need to eat this month, and I did manage to take a photo here and there. This one is raisin bread & cream cheese sandwiches, veggie sticks, walnuts, cheese, cantelope and cute little hello kitty fruit snacks.

Girls' night leftovers

I never mind leftovers when they're good leftovers. My friend Jen was visiting from Colorado, which is always the catalyst for my old high school friends and I to get together. As usual, I got too much food, so I ate pretty much the same lunch the second half of this week:

Oranges and crasins; sausage and broccoli bread; veggies, hummus and olives; brie and panini.

I started the week off with sesame noodles, grapes, almonds and these cute little koala cookies from japan:

Southern Comfort Food Bento

Fried chicken, corn, sweet potato pie, and fruit. Other bentos from this week include a breakfast/snack bento of cracklin' oat bran, orange, dried cranberries and yogurt raisins.


A bento full of shapes (geometric, no time for fun shaped cutouts): pita triangles, hot dog and cucumber circles, cantelope squares and teddy bear shaped chocolate grahams:


Also for the boy, good old peanut butter and jelly, along with some japanese treats I picked up at the asian market, pocky and koala cookies:



These little koalas are so cute - and so yummy!

Quickie bento

Veggie nuggets still frozen - I really had no time. It works out, though, they thaw and then I zap them for a few seconds in the microwave at lunchtime. Also, a hard-boiled egg (salt in the hello kitty container), carrots, kiwi, cheddar scraps (left over from cutting out cute cheese shapes for my son) and dark chocolate.

New Onigiri Mold & Cutters

Have been neglecting the bento photos lately due to a couple of other pressing projects. Like assembling a quilt from first-graders' drawings of the metamorphosis and migration of monarch butterflies. I'm glad to be done and I hope my son's teacher likes it:




I have also been putting together a power point for a training I have to do at work. In an effort to keep everyone awake, we decided to use a poker theme and make it interactive, like a game. I asked the kids to pose for some poker pics, which I'll use to liven it up. (Nothing like inflicting pictures of one's children on a captive audience. This may be the last time they ask me to do a training.) Anyway, my kids are natural hams and did not need any encouragement to mug for the camera:














But back to the food. Thanks to future sis-in-law, I now have an onigiri mold. So the little guy and I will start off the week with onigiri: mine with sea scallops, snow peas, sweet potatoes, almonds, strawberries and blueberries. His with peas, sweet potatoes, berries and cookies.





My other recent acquisition are a set of fun little food cutters - stumbled upon them because I was invited to a pampered chef party and was browsing the catalog, looking for something to order. It's going to be a good week!