Bent on Bento

When I read about Vegetarian Bento contest for the month of May organized by Maki at Just Bento, I knew I wanted to give it a shot.  For one thing, vegetarian bentos would result in not-too-oily bentos to wash up after, and it is definitely a healthier option. 

So I concocted a simple vegetarian lunch today.  It was yummy, and it certainly made me feel healthier!

My vegetarian bento consists of organic pasta in various colors, served with chunky tomato bolognese sauce.  I had triangle-shaped celery and baby carrots with ranch dressing, and for dessert, a few slices of delicious organic strawberries.

Vegetarian bentos are fun to make, this might be the first of many to come! 🙂

Adults carrots, celery, pasta, strawberries, tomato

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 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

My son Ethan is an extremely picky eater.  He doesn’t like meat, vegetables, fruits…he only likes rice with soy sauce or gravy.  I have had to sneak in pieces of meat just to make him eat some, but most of the time, he would insist on inspecting the food before putting it in his mouth.

It is my fervent hope that creating nice-to-look-at bentos for his meals would entice him to try new foods, and hopefully make him eat more nutritiously.

So yesterday evening, I decided to make him a nice bento dinner.  I frankly don’t have any tools to create cutesy shapes for kids so I had to create something from what little items I had.  So I whipped up this simple car bento (made from steamed rice) in about 30 minutes (took a little bit longer because I had to mould the car into shape without the use of a car mould!).  The wheels of the car are decorated with cheese slices and boiled carrot slices, whilst the windows are made from steamed minced pork and egg, which my Mom made.

I added some grapes with food picks to make it interesting, and I put some soy sauce in a mini bottle so my boy could have some fun pouring it over his rice. 

I used a Donald Duck bento box and Ethan was just so excited when he saw it!  He wanted to open it right away!

The first thing he did was to put one grape in his mouth!  But he did not eat it though – he merely played with it…

However, he enjoyed pouring the sauce on his rice, and although he still picked out the meat and did not touch the cheese and carrots, he at least finished most of the rice.  He was very distracted by the Donald Duck box though…do you think I should use something less distracting the next time?

Toddlers & Kids carrots, cheese, grapes, pork, rice