2/2 Lunch

Today we find out if surgery is a go or not. My anxiety is so high that I am considering asking the Dr. for something if they are delaying it again.

Lunch is part of an apple from our CSA, tomatoes from the CSA, string cheese, GMO free and organic tortilla chips, and a star shaped meat sandwich.

The Minions are back!

I was trying to be a cool mom today. I think I failed. No one understood what it was I was trying to get them to do. Oh well...  I am not sure how well you can see it, but in ham I have 1 2 _ 4. Then I had 3 slices of sausage, grape tomatoes, and kiwi. I was trying to get the minions to give me the missing number.

The bottom tier continued with the 3 theme. I have 3 wedges of Biscoff spread on a tortilla and 3 slices of cheese.

Isn't Pork handsome! I am so glad they all feel better!

Colonel Sanders was lucky enough to get my bento from Japan today! She has diced kiwi, grape tomatoes, sausage, cheese, and some sandwich wedges.

Can you believe The Colonel has all her baby teeth now? That's right, she has 16 teeth and is 13 1/2 months old.

Tyke and Colonel Sanders checking out their lunches.

leftover rice, and chicken

This lunch was made before but I do not see it posted. Peas and chocolate on the left side. On the right I have left over brown rice to which I added tomatoes and some diced spinach. On top of that I have some chicken sliced and seasoned with Chinese 5 spice. Mmm...

Week of Butterflies: At Meijer Gardens!

This is what lunch looked like after spending 45 minutes in a car, stuffed in a back pack being kicked by a 3 year old, riding in a wagon for 2 1/2 hours, and having a child constantly wanting to carry the back pack. Yes, it still made it! I touched nothing.

Today was a big trip to Meijer Gardens for the butterfly exhibit with Clark's preschool class. Clark rode the bus with his class and the other 3 minions and I met them there. They all had a fun time and no one grabbed a butterfly.

For the boys I packed a peanut butter and jelly butterfly sandwich with no decoration, broccoli for the ground and small pieces of cheddar cheese. The bottom tier has strawberries, grapes, carrot coins, and peanut butter. The small blue container is one of the sections out of my Sassy lunch box. It contains applesauce.

I are some of my lunch before I remembered to take a picture. I packed red seedless grapes, grape tomatoes, and tuna fish sushi. The bottom tier has carrot coins, strawberries and the little boxes have the best homemade kimchi. I also packed a pork and mushroom onigiri. Forgive the poor wrap job on my onigiri. I was using my scraps from other projects to cover it.

Back to the kimchi. I have lived in this area for about a year and a half. I missed the Asian markets in Grand Rapids. Sadly, I had not been able to find one in my area. Grand Rapids is only about 45 minutes away, but when you want only $15 worth of fresh noodles and other items and your gas to get there and back is $18, it just isn't worth it.

One day I was talking food with a friend and she mentioned a small little shop here in Muskegon. We ended up going. Valy Vietnamese Oriental Food and Gifts is at 1147 3rd st. The owner is very nice. It's not a large shop, but she sells many different things. You really need to give yourself some time to look around. She has various rice steamers (some I have never seen in the Grand Rapids shops), various rices, sauces, an onigiri mold kit, rice seasonings (6 or 7 different ones!), gifts, some frozen goods, a small selection of dishes, kids snacks, and a cooler with homemade kimchi and pickled plumbs! I have been looking for those! Just to give a heads up, she cannot accept debit or credit cards at this time. None the less, we all need to go out and support our small businesses.

Week of Butterflies day 2

The butterfly is made up of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, match stick carrots, 2 red seedless grapes and the ends of a grape tomato. The bottom of the box has broccoli cut into minion sized pieces. On either side of the butterfly I rolled a piece of salami into a flower and also places a strawberry. The sky is shredded Italian blend cheese .

This lunch was actually one of the quicker lunches I have made. I am pretty sure I made it in just under 5 minutes for both boxes.

Mama Bento #4

All 4 minions and the Elder are ill. They have recurring fevers and slight coughing. Several of them have gotten ill. I am making sure to keep them hydrated. I really hope I don't get it too. Because of this, no minion bentos till they are eating again. Right now we are just giving them whatever they will eat.


I love this little bento box. I wish I had the others in the series. The only place that has them at the moment wants way to much for them. Since I am the only one eating, I decided I would go back to onigiri and sushi. I love them. You can make very simple ones pretty fast.

The onigiri is filled with canned salmon with some lemon juice. I have a band of nori going around it to help keep my fingers from getting sticky. I then have grape tomatoes and seasoned mini portabella mushrooms.

The bottom tier is sushi filled with avocado,  cucumber, carrot, and canned salmon. Below that is raw carrot coins.

Mama Bento #2 Yellow rice sushi

I must have been feeling my oats today! It only took me 5 minutes to get Clark out of the bath, dressed, coat, hat, boots, gloves and backpack on and out the door. I lost track of time and I did not want him to miss the afternoon bus. After putting a very fussy Porkums down for nap/quiet time, I made myself something. I was trying to figure out what to do with the rest of the yellow rice. I wanted sushi. Only I was pretty sure the yellow rice was not sticky enough. So I reheated it with a little bit of water and gave it a try.

Today's offering is yellow rice sushi with salmon, carrot, and red pepper (this would have been yummy with avocado too!). The veggies are carrot sticks, red pepper, and tomatoes. The bottom tier has 1/3 cup cottage cheese, plumbs (I think), carrot coins, and raisins. This ended up sitting for a little bit since Colonel Sanders decided she would like to be fed. I was afraid to drop food on her, so I waited till she was done eating and asleep enough for me to move. I was surprised how well the fruit kept the cottage cheese in place. Outside of the pieces touching it, nothing else had cottage cheese on it.

As you can see, the sushi came out pretty well. The only way I could get this to work was to make sure I rolled the sushi very tight and cut it double the normal length. As long as I did that, the rice stayed in the roll pretty well. Still, it was not very sticky. Next time I will be sure to have an avocado on hand.

This bento I have had for a while. Does anyone remember Bento TV ? Well, I got this bento from her. The more I think about it, I have had this one for 2 years (it spent most of that time packed in a box). I don't know if she still has this one, but she does have an Ebay store and you can always watch her movies on her site. She makes some simple things.

T is for Turtle

I don't know what I was thinking when I decided to make and bake a bread turtle. It turned out a little to crusty for something it's size. So I put it in a plastic bag while still warm and this morning it is much softer. Also, as you can see, my poor turtle looks more like a ladybug. Oh well, maybe I will do better next time.

Today's lunch is a peanut butter and jelly turtle. The "shell" is made from bologna, nori and had a "T" on it's back. The eyes are raisins. It sits on a bed of left over yellow rice. With that there are grape tomatoes, carrots, raisins, and part of a plumb.

This box is a Dora (I have a matching Spiderman too) "lunch pack" that I found at Walmart. There is a smaller box that comes with it.