Bent on Bento

Trust me, I am no pro at creating intricate bentos that people wow at, but the Who-R-U? Bento contest run by Javapot made me curious enough to challenge myself… that, and the fact that the prize of the awesome Thermos set was calling out to me…

Anyway, I made it before the deadline of the contest and here is the end result:

The contest required the contestant to create a bento reflecting the bento packer himself/herself.  Inspired in part by this fabulously done bento, I created one along the same lines, with a few changes here and there.

My tiger head (which looks more like a kitty cat now) represents my blog identity: The Bento Tigress.  Also, my Chinese zodiac sign is the tiger, so this fits me perfectly!  The tiger’s head is made from egg fried rice, eyes from hard-boiled eggs and nori, the ears are from sliced frankfurters, the nose is a sliced piece of carrot and the mouth is from hard-boiled eggs too.

The simple colorful pasta shapes of garden creatures represents my love for nature, and the musical notes made from nori represents my love for anything music.  Also, I love Italian food like pasta, and the chunky bolognese sauce is the perfect accompaniment for it.

The heart-shaped sausage shows that I am a tender-hearted person, the food picks that held the sausage pieces together turned out looking like outstretched arms ready for a hug! 🙂

What about the teddy bear shaped nori?  Well teddy bears are fuzzy and adorable and full of love, right? … just like me!  Well, not the fuzzy part but you get my drift! 😛

At the top left corner, I added some flowered red grapes with carrots.  I love flowers!  Oh, and the brocolli is my current favorite vegetable!

Creating this bento was a lot of fun!  I am not sure how long I really took to complete it, but it was about an hour or so, because I had to pause intermittently to take care of my baby. 🙂

Adults, Toddlers & Kids broccoli, carrots, egg, grapes, pasta, rice, sausages

I bought some fancy-shaped pasta yesterday and thought it would be cool to incorporate that element into Ethan’s dinner bento.  So his bento yesterday evening was a simple sausage and pasta salad with Mickey & Friends pasta shapes, slices of chicken franks/sausages and some broccoli.  I also offered some chicken fries (frozen cooked ones which I baked in the oven for about 15 minutes or so) served with ranch dressing.

Ethan immediately ate the franks (he loves them), but only ate ONE Mickey-shaped pasta, after Daddy and Mommy each had one too.  He did not even touch the chicken fries, but tasted the ranch dressing a little.  He made a face though. LOL

I am now on the lookout for alphabet chicken nuggets, so if anyone knows where I can find these, please let me know 🙂

Toddlers & Kids broccoli, chicken, frankfurters, pasta, sausages

I decided to introduce something unique to my son for his bento dinner meal last Friday.  I had just bought some fresh chicken breast fillet from the supermarket that afternoon, so I decided to try out this simple Chicken Dippers recipe from Chef Michael Smith.  I didn’t have any corn meal, so I used Quaker oats instead. 

Curiosity got the better of me and I just had to try one of the chicken dippers after they were baked and they actually tasted quite good.  I had wanted to serve the dippers with ranch dressing, but since I did not have any available, I served them with good ol’ mayo instead.

For carbs, there was some steamed rice, and for vegetables, I put some steamed broccoli and sliced carrots.

Unfortunately, Ethan didn’t want any of the chicken dippers 🙁 and only had the rice with some gravy.  Does anyone have any other ideas how to make my boy eat some protein?

Toddlers & Kids broccoli, carrots, chicken, oats, rice