Friday, June 29, 2012

Red, White and... WHO?! Charlie the Unicorn Bento - Patriotic Blog Hop

My Bento Bloggers and Friends are doing another fun blog hop, this time for the 4th of July. We decided to just have it be a general patriotic theme, rather than 4th of July specific, to allow for bloggers from other countries to show off their national pride as well. Plus you might get some good general ideas for things to do for Presidents Day, Memorial Day, etc!

My original plan had been for a stars-themed lunch, replete with red, white, and blue foods. I had it all planned out, and was waiting for Hubby to get home so I could go to the store to buy the last few items I needed. And then it came. The dreaded question.

"When are you going to make me a Charlie the Unicorn lunch?"

Thanks to my "friend" Jenn from Bento for Kidlet, I was under the misconception that the Charlie the Unicorn cartoons were okay for little kids. Heh heh heh. Not so much. But this was not discovered by me until the very end of the first webisode. After she had already seen it and fallen in love. Ugh.

[Warning. Don't watch this with your little kids around. Ten-and-up only, and only if you let them watch PG-13 stuff. No blaming me if your kiddo gets hooked now. It's on YOU!]


So now Z loves this show. Luckily she doesn't "get it," so she thinks they stole his baby carriage or something, since she doesn't know what a "kidney" is. And she still thinks the blueish and pinkish unicorns are his nice friends.

So I quickly revamped my original stars idea to include Charlie and his two "friends." At least it's all still Red(dish,) White, and Blue!

Red, White, and WHO?! Charlie the Unicorn. And "Friends."
Ham, mozzarella, grape-white nectarine-raspberry skewers, peppermint,
roasted cauliflower and bell pepper, blue corn chips
Click the link or the hop button above to blast on over to see what Chef Corey from Family Fresh Meals has come up with! After you read more about MY lunch, that is!

Red, White, and Roasted!: I opted to try her on a red pepper versus getting radicchio or red chard. I've learned that veggies often taste sweeter or less bitter if you roast them first, so I decided to give that a try. While I was at it, I decided to roast the cauliflower as well. She enjoyed Astrid's Cauliflower Popcorn when I tried it once before. Hopefully she still thinks it's good in a lunch the next day!
For the peppers, I cut stars out first with a star cookie cutter, then roasted them and the scraps flat on a parchment-lined baking sheet at 400 F for 20-25 minutes. I hate red peppers. But Hubby says the scraps were okay. I ground some Himalayan pink salt over the tops, in the hopes that she'll be more willing to try them. She loves the pink salt we found!

To round out my red-white-and-blue veggie options, I got some blue corn chips. She can also use these in lieu of crackers if she wants to make ham-and-cheese sandwiches.

Firecracker Fruit: On my tinsel starburst picks, I skewered blue (purple) grapes, chunks of white nectarine, and red raspberries. Easy peasy! But SO fun!
Charlie and "Friends": Using a mini unicorn cutter, I cut 6 ham-icorns and 6 cheese-icorns. I had the all-natural (no nitrates added) ham cut double thick, to help them keep their shape. I used my blue natural food color to lightly paint onto one of the cheese unicorns with a wetted finger. I used a toothpick to try and draw on their googley eyes. No luck. The eyes turned out really bad. I had started on the blue one, and since I didn't want to go to the trouble of painting a new one, I just made crappy eyes on Charlie and the ham unicorn too. To be consistent.

The peppermint, my nod to the whole Candy Mountain bit in the cartoon, is an all-natural, dye-free version from NaturalCandyStore.com
Silicone muffin cups from eBay (red,) and World Market (blue.)
  

16 comments:

  1. Even though I already saw the preview pic of this it STILL made me snort coffee! Excellent (albeit twisted) job!

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  2. Love your consistency on the "crappy eyes". Hee hee. Well done on this bento. I am amazed that you were able to incorporate Charlie the Unicorn and the Patriotic theme together.

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  3. My daughter's first love is unicorns and horses. And she woke up seeing your lunch. And asked for one now. Never mind Charlie :) We're on the hunt for unicorn cutters.

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  4. I can't watch the video yet but I look forward to watching it later haha You always crack me up :) Those unicorns though... ;)

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  5. OH MY STARS! Keeley's right. Laughing is good. Happy unicorn hump weekend to you!

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  6. Super cute, colorful and I love the firecracker skewers :)

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  7. Okay the lunches are great, of course, but now I desperately want to watch that clip.. unfortunately my 3 year old is watching over my shoulder and oooing at all the fab lunches.. You are officially bookmarked for naptime! :)

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  8. Hahaha love it! Your posts are always so fun to read and of course I love seeing your lunch creations :)

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  9. Love Charlie and his "friends" hehe :D

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  10. Great lunch! I hadn't ever watched Charlie the Unicorn until I saw the discussion earlier. I watched the episode above. I'm sure my 12 year old will love it!

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  11. Great job! Love the unicorns n fireworks! :)

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  12. I love when your lunches are unintentionally naughty ;) But I'm a bad mother - I let all my kids watch this YouTube today. They loved it. Yes, I ignored your 10+ warning. I told you...bad.

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  13. Thanks for introducing me to Charly. I had to look it up - it was worth it!

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  14. Hahaha! Charlie is hilarious. Great lunch! Thanks for linking up at Bento Blog Network!

    Diana
    Diana Rambles
    Bento Blog Network

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