Monday, August 24, 2009

Dry Run - Bento Box

My dd is staring Junior Kindergarten in a few weeks and I have been slightly panicked as to what to do for her lunches. She is NOT a sandwich child and is a bit fussy.

My husband and I purchased a Disney style lunch container for her and her brother from our local grocery store, with the expectation that I would try doing Bento Box style lunches. Without researching Bento lunches of course, my Disney purchase is rather deep for a Bento box use, but still do able with some fine tuning. I saw a few samples online and was flabbergasted how clever some mother's are. I am inspired. Imagine, star shaped watermellon chunks, pretty decorative skewer of cheese and meat, a veritable party.

Here is my first attempt. It is NOT a clever lunch, but it was a run through just to see how to make the Disney container work. I don't have any of the cute Bento accessories YET, so used some regular silicone muffin wrappers as dividers and a small round snap lid container from the dollar store. The dollar store container I thought would be good for cottage cheese, yogurt, applesauce or pudding.
It even passed the true Bento test. With the lid on I gave it a good shake and turned it all upside down and everything remained in place, even the two tiered muffin wrappers.

This isn't characteristic of a lunch for my daughter. She wouldn't eat a whole sandwich and would prefer more fruit options. She's pretty much a sampler kind of eater. As well it is a P B & J sandwich, they aren't allowed in our school district due to nut allergies. I should have used a cookie punch on it to dress it up, but again, this is a dry run to see how to best utilize this particular container.

I have done some eBay shopping and will have cute decorative cocktail sticks, cheese/meat/veggie cutters and dividers, condiment holders, to dress it all up and make it look pretty - even the sandwiches she occasionally has will be done up to the nines. Hopefully it will inspire my dd to eat her lunch for a change. Then again, maybe not.

1 comment:

Amy said...

Don't feel you have to make lunch "cute" all the time with cutters and shapes and decorations. Bento can be very simple - just make sure it's colorful and includes all of the food groups so that your little one is getting a balanced meal.

Will your school allow sunbutter as an alternative? It tastes a lot like peanut butter, but it is made from sunflower seeds.