Easy Korrilakkuma Bento

 

When I'm stumped for ideas, I often turn to my bento accessories for inspiration! I just got a load of fun Rilakkuma and Korilakkuma items, so decided to give them a whirl! Since the bread was so pale, I decided the sandwich looked more like Korilakkuma, so chose accordingly.

Lunch contains: India Tree natural colored sprinkles, organic carrots cut with flower veggie cutter, uncured ham and cheese with mustard sandwich on Udi's Gluten-Free bread, organic cottage cheese with more sprinkles, and organic strawberries with a flat Korilakkuma pick.

To make the sandwich, I used my CuteZCute cutter set head to shape the bread and fillings. You can use the panda cutter eye to make a snout, but I just used a slice off an organic string cheese.
I used a winky eye nori punch and cut two lines off to form the mouth, and a round eye nori punch for the eyes and nose. Had I been thinking, I would have cut ham ears with the panda ear cutter, but I recall deciding I didn't care and it was time for bed!

allthingsforsale.com will be carrying San-X products soon! I had to have a friend find these and ship them to me from Japan! Or you could pay through the nose on eBay. I recommend waiting for ATFS to get their first shipment up online!

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Plan Ahead For Easy Lunches with me at A Boy & His Lunch

For tips on how to save time packing yourself healthy lunches and reducing food waste throughout the week (and a sneak peek at some of my Mama lunches,) check out my guest post over at A Boy and His Lunch! That mama is busy graduating and getting her degree, looking for a job in her new field, and raising her little one, all while packing fun and healthy lunches for the whole family!

Earth Day Lunchbox Love

 

Reduce  - Recycle - ReUse

For Earth Day, what better way to pack a lunch than to make it Earth-friendly? 

Reduce - The EasyLunchboxes are reusable, and prevent the waste of several plastic baggies each day. The  reusable silicone cups to keep foods separate help with that as well.
Recycle - And while the Lunchbox Love notes are paper, my daughter saves them and brings them home, so we can use them again. (But if they get too gross, I can always recycle or compost them.)
ReUse - Not shown is a cloth napkin - packed in the large compartment both to prevent the waste from paper, but also to keep the fruit in place and protect the Lunchbox Love note from getting ooky.

GF PBJ, organic apples and strawberries, organic sugar snap peas, organic cheddar cubes and string cheese nibblets

Peace: I snipped the bottom off of a soft plastic peace sign stir stick to skewer some squares of a gluten-free PBJ sandwich. While Earth Day is focused more on environmental awareness, wars and discord can be very harmful to our ecosystem. Chemical warfare, bombing the land, radiation... Peace is a huge step towards preserving our planet for the future.

Love: The green silicone divider cup has a few organic apple slices strawberries. Her current favorites. Green is, of course, the color of nature, and represents eco-friendliness.

Bento: I used a star muffin cup to help fill the space, so that the small portion of cheese looked fuller. A plastic leaf pick through a few cheese bits gives her a fun way to eat them, and a reminder that plants are an important part of our lives, and we need to keep the world safe for them as well. And anything you do to help preserve our planet makes you a superstar!

And the message on the Lunchbox Love note - "Be Kind" - is a message for everyone. Be kind to each other. Be kind to the animals. Be kind to the planet.

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April 2013 - Preschool Snacks, Week 1

 

Monday, April 1 through Wednesday, April 3

Only three snack days this week, as she developed a fever Thursday morning. We stayed home sick.

Monday

TJ's Seaweed Snack and White Cheddar Popcorn

This set of nesting snack boxes was sent from my friend Grace at Eats Amazing, all the way from the UK! They're from a company called Paperchase, and are not available in the US (although Target has been carrying a few designs in their stationary department. Only one set of boxes so far though.)

Tuesday

Kale chips (home-made)

I had just made up a batch of kale chips, which are among a select few favorite foods, so naturally they had to go to school. I was called out on the way home though, since apparently just ONE thing is too "boring."

Wednesday

Whale Tail Tort"Chia" Chips, Wholly Guacamole

She's been a big fan of guacamole lately, so I've been trying to capitalize on that. Yum!

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Bento Backfire - The Heart Orange Affair

I had packed Z a fun lunch to take with us to Baby's co-op preschool class on a school district late-start day (no morning preschool,) and drew a fun face on a mandarin orange, just to make it less boring-looking. For some reason, when I peel the oranges in advance, the membrane gets a little dry and stiff, and she doesn't like them. So I either peel them right before putting her lunch in her backpack, or leave it in the peel if I will be around to help her get it started.

But unpeeled oranges look a little dull. So, fun face it was!

At first she was thrilled, and had me take photos of her new friend. She kept kissing it and telling me how much she loved it. And then I offered to peel it.

NoOOOOoOoOOo! She could not possibly ever eat her special orange.
I told her it would go bad and we couldn't keep it. Pouty face.
I offered to peel carefully, and keep the face intact, and we could dry the peel and keep that part. Unacceptable.
I offered to draw faces on her oranges for the rest of eternity. "But I love this one the MOST!"
"Well, we're gonna have to eat it or throw it away. It's going to go bad eventually."

And you see the results. Fun times!

I ended up finding it in a pocket of the diaper bag a week or so later. Bleah.

Quick and Easy Preschool Lunch

 

Thursday, 2/28/13 - I think I fell asleep the night before, so had to toss this lunch together quickly that morning. Packed in an EasyLunchbox, cloth napkin by Red Poppy Crafts on etsy.

Van's GF Everything Crackers, ham and cheese on toasted GF bread, organic sugar snap peas, organic apples 

 

This was a quick and easy lunch, made cute using a Lunchbox Love note, a cloth napkin and some animal face picks. (These ones are super cute - from the top they look like animal faces, but from the side, they are desserts! The bear is a custard, the cat is an ice cream cone, and the... uh... stripey face thing is a cupcake!)

Since Z only takes her lunch to eat as snack at her morning preschool (rather than fill up on snack foods!) she brings the leftovers home for her "lunch hour" before we head off to her afternoon preschool. She was deeelighted to find this "most ginormousest pea EVER! Is it the BIGGEST one you've EVER seen?! Take a pictchur Mama!"

[If you've been paying attention on my Facebook page, you'll notice that this picture was taken before she cut her hair...]

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