CopycatBento

The ancient Japanese tradition of packing lunch in a bento box, a decorative container with small compartments, has now become mainstream. We love bento box lunches because the compartments help control portion sizes and they are great for kids too.  However, creating these amazing lunches is not always so easy. I envy the Pinterest lunches with perfectly shaped animal characters and flowers made from meat. These lunches are healthy and beautiful. I consider myself creative and wanted to incorporate some of these bento ideas into my lunches. The first thing you must have as a novice is rice molds and nori cutters. This made things so much easier to create cute animals and facial expression. Putting it all together still was challenging. I never used nori before, but my grandchildren eat it all the time at their home. My bento box comes in already sized compartments and adding lettuce to surround characters was not easy. For this lunch it was easier not to include the lettuce t...

I learned a long time ago that the best way to serve lunch to my picky child is to make it into something fun. She is all about My Little Pony this year. I wanted to style the food to look adorable with flowers, shapes, and even vibrant colors. While I admit that I’m a sucker for these sweetly styled meals, I don’t have nearly the amount of time or patience it takes to create such detailed works of food art. However, I have mastered the art of creating deceptively simple bento lunches that look like they took a long time to create. To do this, I tend to use laminated cliparts. By doing this you’re able to add the little details without sacrificing time. I know this might feel like cheating, and I should have taken the time to make the eyes out of bread or nori. However, with only ten minutes to spare this works for me.   My grandkids love that I made them something special (that they can show off to their friends at lunchtime!), and I love that they’re guaranteed to eat their h...

No job’s too big, no pup too small!” All you preschoolers parents know exactly what tune I’m singing: It’s the P-P-P-P-PAW Patrol!  the  Paw Patrol . My grandson is hooked on the hijinks of this Nickelodeon cartoon, while I’m stuck with the theme song in my head at all hours of the day and night. It’s worst then Baby Shark. I don’t allow him to watch too much TV, but when he does it’s Paw Patrol. This show is educational in its own way. It teaches how different skills can help in different situations. Kids learn how to thick of way to solve problem and think outside the box. I will always encourage my grandson’s creativity and learning. Even if it means watching the same episode over and over and over again. I also love that it acknowledges to services provided by essential workers. During the pandemic we had to speed lots of time indoor and I used this time to teach about our community helpers. So in honor of this , I came up with a Paw Patrol lunch. I had to include ...

I have five grandchildren. Four girl and the youngest is a boy. When he was born everything changed. Pink and yellow bedrooms were repainted. In addition to Frozen and princesses cup, we added dinosaur cups.  A playroom once filled with dolls and princess costumes, had to make room for power trucks and toy soldiers. The lunches I make also needed to change to reflect his interest. Since he is homeschooled, I get to have a little fun this his lunches. This happens to be everything transportation. Yesterday, we sat in the car watching a train pass and he got so excited. As he looked it seemed to delight in wonder. There is nothing like the magic of trains when you’re a kid. This prompted me to create a train theme breakfast for lunch. I wanted this train to have cargo and the appearance of smoke. I wanted to add a fruit item and still stick to a gravel look, so using grapes worked out just fine. I ncluded in lunch: Two Waffle Sausage links Grapes Strawberries Powder su...

Over the weekend my granddaughter was so hurt that her aunt bought a Hello Kitty pencil for herself and unicorn pencil for her. She pouted, “ but I Love Hello Kitty too.” We had to talk to her about what it means to have gratitude. These are hard, but needed lessons.   Gratitude, thankfulness, or gratefulness, from the Latin word gratus ‘pleasing, thankful’, is a feeling of appreciation felt by and/or similar positive response shown by the recipient of kindness, gifts, help, favors, or other types of generosity, towards the giver of such gifts. I love my grandchildren and want to give them everything, but without nurturing gratitude they will end up spoiled and ungrateful. As a parent (and grandparent) teaching our children to be have gratitude is actually molding them into kind human beings.  I ncluded in lunch: 🥪 kitten - raspberry jam sandwich 🥮 heart shape pound cake 🥣 strawberry yogurt 🥒 cut cucumbers 🧆 Snack: yogurt cover raisins  S trawberries Direct...

Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street. In 2020, Sesame Street  celebrated its 51st anniversary. Yup, that means 51 years of singing, dancing, rhyming, and learning ABCs and 123s with Big Bird and the gang. It's one of the few programs I can tell my grandchildren that I watched this as a little girl too. Over the years Sesame Street evolved with technology and community issues. Today I wanted this lunch to include all of our favorite  Sesame Street  characters.   Ingredients: crackers, salami, white cheese , cheddar cheese, yogurt, blue food coloring, edible google eyes, one cookie, nori, broccoli, smiley face potato fries, and mandarin orange. Directions:  1. cook  smiley face potato fries as directed and add to bento box. 2. print a clipart of the character Ernie faces. Cut is out and stick to orange using glue stick ONLY.  This wont run or leek into the orange and will be removed with peel before eating...