Halloween Muffin Tin Lunch

It's Halloween season again!! Halloween is one of the most enjoyable times for most bento enthusiasts like myself! I just love cruising the Internet and seeing all the spooky creativity out there! I still don't do the fully creepy bentos (even though I love being grossed out happily by those that do!)Never the less I'm starting out my Halloween season with a muffin tin Monday!

In this Muffin Tin Meal there's

1.  A witch's brew gone all wrong (Mac'n' cheese)
2. One egg (pumpkin patch) on peas
3. The bewitching hour (Turkish yogurt and homemade applesauce)
4. Two chicken nugget witches
5. Witches brew kiddie cocktail (Frozen o.j. and milk)

Making a Party out of a regular Monday! Lol

Linking this lunch to Muffin Tin Monday at Michelle's Journal Corner. Be sure to check it out!!

Dora the explorer and a Invention!

Today I decided to go with the star catcher herself Dora!  I definitely had a little fun coming up with a different way to create this adorable little girl. So this is what I ended up with today...

Here in this lunch we have:

1. "Dora" Potato smiles (home made using instant potatoes, need to perfect my recipe though.)
2. Fish sticks with lemon slice
3. sauteed spinach
4. garlic mayo and ketchup for dipping
5. more potato...this time (salad) was out of the girls favorite cottage cheese. There's also a cherry tomato with a star pick.

I love the idea of potato smiles; this is what they look like, if you have no idea what I'm talking about! (Lol) Smiles   They are simply smiley face tater tots or baked mash potato. I doubt if I'll ever find them here in Finland so I tried to recreate them myself. I used instant potato mash and corn starch to help the consistency and baked in the oven...but they were a little stodgy, so I need to keep experimenting. (The girls ate them fine smothered in mayo and ketchup of course.) I topped my baked potato smiley with nori and voila it's Dora!

For Missy Lulu's snack bento I did more experimenting. To make the Dora potato smiles, I used a biscuit cutter for the face and some small bento cutters for her eyes and mouth; I did the same on some left over tortilla from yesterdays lunch. I spread the tortilla with cream cheese and sprinkled on  raw organic coconut palm sugar. Coconut palm sugar looks and taste like brown sugar, but has a lower GI than brown or white sugar; and it has essential vitamins and amino acids. Mixed with the cream cheese was it quite nice. After the sammie was done, I was left with this:

Not very cute right!!?

I didn't want "creepy skeleton Dora", even though it is October! I wanted the cute little face on my daughter's napkins and party hat left overs...then  it came to me!

I'm calling it a sandwich protector! All I did was cut out the card board hat and used my home laminator to seal! My scary sammie went from scary to this:

Much Better Amigos!! I figure I could adapt this idea around a lot of her sandwiches, just make a design more generic like a circle with flowers or a simple hello kitty bow. No more messy sandwiches no matter how rough my kids are with there backpacks!  What do you think? 

Linking this lunch to What's for lunch Wednesday week 123 .

Bentos gone to the dogs!!

It's a overcast day today and baby sunshine is fast asleep! I have a cup of tea and my laptop, happy to have a few moments to myself to blog! We had nice lunches today using the Hello Kitty tins...

and

For lunch we had:

1. Homemade cream of chicken soup
2. cottage cheese with bologna doll! (instead of paper) cheese and nori details. Above skirt and hair is eggplant)
3. Steamed peas
4. Tomatoes and slice cucumbers
5. sliced chicken nuggets 

For school snack I picked dogs as the theme..my oldest loves dogs. She would make a wonderful vet someday!!

In this snack bento she has two poodles...I used marzipan again. I would love to try and make pink bread like what you see at Bentomonsters, remember that pink poodle? (It was super cute!!)But until I find a good recipe, Marzipan is my medium!

1. Poodle  sammie made of butter bread and marzipan (sausage and nori paw)
2. Tiny cheese and nori poodle face...used the tiny Carl craft punch.
3. Two sausage bows
4. Apple juice

The day before Missy Lulu took this bento:

1. A doggie apple muffin...homemade from our own apples!
2. Two sausage puppies with cheese details got this idea from the amazing Luckysudnae at her blog cuteobento. (Careful you'll spend hours drooling over her work!)
3. Sliced plum and nectarine
4. Apple juice

 Linking these meals to Whats for Lunch Wednesday week 122

Having fun with Steele Lunch trays

I love muffin tin lunches, with the bits of food in each section and the element of " bento style creativity," to make eating a pleasure to children. Foods in a muffin tin also has a  nostalgic t.v. dinner feel that was always a hit with me and my little sister growing up in America. The next step
are these  stylized Steele sectioned trays. For me they're perfect; all the fun of the bento and comfort of a hot oven meal. Here are a couple I've done for the girls:

This is a lovely steel tray is from the company Din Din. It's wonderful because it can go in the oven and dishwasher. Also the sections really encourage you to use all the food groups for healthy eating! Here, they had:

1.   a bowl of tomato soup with basil
2.  an orange wedge mouth, slice grape tongue, cheese teeth
3.  cheese eyes and a cherry tomato nose, 
4. two small salmon balls with cheese details and a taste of spinach hair 
5.  a little cottage cheese with cheddar cheese sliced head and ears. 

 The theme was parts of the body this particular week. (In the Elmo bento above was a fruit leather and peanut butter sammie, cheese and fruit for Missy Lulu's snack time at playschool.)

I couldn't resist this Hello Kitty steel tray set from Bento Craft. It even came with a cover (Shown up top) and a carrying case bag. But I will only use the trays for hot home meals for the girls. The food:

1. Beef Stew...still using plastic bowls till Baby stops throwing them. Smh
2. Oven fries
3. Ketchup for dipping
4. Sliced cucumbers and mozzarella ball on food pick
5. Strawberries

Another lunch here:

Served:

1.  Hello Kitty Pancake with fruit leather hair flower and cup cake decor nose 
2. Sliced oven potatoes, Ham and green beans
3. Wilton muffin cup with nectarines and a Hello kitty cupcake ring
4. Carrot hearts with a Hello Kitty pick
5. Apple sauce made from our own apple tree!