Teaching Good Eaters: Thinking Inside the Box

29 November 2011

I am so excited to finally have a "real" Bento box!

A few weeks ago, I used my Amazon gift cards that I got with my Swagbucks and bought some Bento gear for my giveaway and then used a little to splurge on myself. I bought this cute Urara Blue Dragonfly 2 Tier Japanese Bento Box.

The box was a bit smaller than I expected, but I'm guessing that Bento boxes aren't really supposed to be big. After my initial excitement wore off, I realized that I was facing a bit of a challenge... I was going to have to learn to think, "Inside the box!"

For my first attempt, I made two mini cashew butter and banana sandwiches on some new "mini" whole wheat sandwich thins I found (aren't they cute??!) I added carrots and cheese slices to fill up the bottom box.

For the top box I made a fruit salad with pineapple, banana, blueberries and blackberries.

For my second attempt... I made square and number shaped, bean, cheese, and avocado quesadillas. On the lid, I gave my daughter instructions to try to use the numbers to find pairs that add to 10. (I can't resist tossing in a little math!

In the bottom layer I have a clementine, kiwi, and blackberry fruit salad, and an extremely poor attempt at a hard boiled fish using an egg mold. Anyone have any tips for using egg molds?? It didn't come with instructions and what I did quite obviously didn't work!

I'm linked up to What's For Lunch Wednesday and I'll definitely paying close attention to the other links this week so that I can learn more about how to do a "real" Bento!

9 comments:

Diana of Diana RamblesNovember 30, 2011 at 5:40 AM
These are REAL bentos! Great job! I like the math problem inside the lid. I find that I have to pick different bento containers when I pick out food. I appreciate the smaller containers because the bigger ones are hard to fill sometimes.
Julie@teachinggoodeatersNovember 30, 2011 at 6:32 AM
Thanks Diana- Even though I thought these were small at the start, they were a challenge for me to fill... With a new box, it's like a whole new learning curve. A little more height would have been nice though- I felt like I was smooshing things to get the box to close!
Gnoe (@Graasland)November 30, 2011 at 1:05 PM
Yay for having a real, awesome bento box!

"Thinking insode the box"... I love it! Wish I had thought of that (and may use it sometime ;)
Julie@teachinggoodeatersNovember 30, 2011 at 2:03 PM
Thanks Gnoe! You're welcome to use "Thinking inside the box," any time! :)
UnknownNovember 30, 2011 at 4:50 PM
What an awesome idea! :)
Julie@teachinggoodeatersNovember 30, 2011 at 5:38 PM
Thank you Bentomonsters! I always appreciate looking at your creative Bentos... I'm not there yet, but maybe someday :)
KeithaDecember 2, 2011 at 10:28 PM
What a wonderful idea to put a little math in your bento! Your "real" bentos look yummy!
Sammy-JaneDecember 2, 2011 at 11:49 PM
Great bentos! I'm just looking for inspiration to start trying them out too.

I found this tutorial for using boiled egg molds which should help:

http://www.cookingcute.com/using_egg_molds.htm
Julie@teachinggoodeatersDecember 3, 2011 at 4:34 AM
Keitha- Thank you... I try to "put a little math," into everything that I can :)

Thank you Sammy-Jane! I was so excited to get my egg molds and then so disappointed when I saw the results.

Please add your questions, comments, and suggestions so that we can all learn from each other!