First Week of School Bentos! Bentos 90 - 93

And, we are back. . . back to school, back to blogging, back to bento-ing.  I have actually been bento-ing every school day since my last blog post, but I lost my blogging initiative for while.  Since the school year is starting, and we are all always looking for new lunch ideas, I thought I'd try to get my mojo back.  I'm going to try different formats to see what is the easiest way to keep posting, so bear with me.  For this post, I'm going to give a brief rundown of all the bentos I packed this week.  Since Monday was a half day, I only needed to pack lunch four days this week.  So, here's what my "baby," now 2.5 year old, ate this week.  

Bento for Baby 90:  In the bottom section of our favorite tiffin box, a cream cheese on a whole wheat cinnamon raisin English muffin sandwich, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, a few pretzel sticks leftover from summer travel that my daughter insisted upon.  The top section was a fruit and veggie mix of watermelon cubes, green grapes, sugar snap peas and baby carrots.  

Bento for Baby 91: A snacky bento of crackers and cheese, "woven wheat" crackers with Baby Girl's favorite cheese - Creamy Toscano Cheese Soaked in Syrah, along with some raisins, mini sweet peppers and sugar snap peas. This was packed in the top section of our favorite green tiffin box. This was accompanied by another leftover travel snack, a pack of crunchy dried apples.

Bento for Baby 92:  Baby Girl had an apple sandwich with sunbutter on this day.  I've found sunbutter to be much runnier and messy in apple sandwiches than good old peanut butter, but we cannot send peanut butter to school.  To help with the mess I mixed a little raw oatmeal and coconut with the sunbutter and then rolled the sides of the sandwich in a bit more coconut.  This  gave the sunbutter more structure and allowed for cleaner eating.  Since these are half the ingredients in Baby Girl's favorite sunbutter oatmeal balls, I didn't worry about her not liking the additions.  Along with the apple sandwich, she had some halved cherries, baby carrots, sugar snap peas and more pretzel sticks.  This bag of pretzels is like loaves and fishes, I'd like them to be out of the pantry, but the bag never seems to get any emptier.  

Bento for Baby 93:  Another cream cheese sandwich for Baby Girl on this day, but this time on homemade whole-grain cinnamon raisin bread.  I made this using a recipe from the Smitten Kitchen blog.  I'll just provide a link to the recipe since I couldn't possibly write about or photograph the bread any better.  I made the recipe pretty much as written, but I did add a few more whole raisins to the swirl, since Baby Girl loves raisins.  The bread is very tasty, but it is not a quick, make-during-nap recipe.  I think it is worth the effort, though.  Along with her sandwich Baby Girl had more halved cherries, some mini peppers and frozen edamame.

Items similar to those used in these bentos:

   

Bento for Baby 28: Pancake, Greek Yogurt and Panzanella

Here's the final catch-up bento, just in time for the new school term to start tomorrow!  In the breakfast portion of this bento, Baby Girl had one of Dan's Awesome Pancakes with a couple tablespoons of plain whole milk greek yogurt and some blueberries in the green silicone cup.  For lunch, I packed some leftover panzanella salad, or tomato and bread salad, from our dinner the previous night.  I left out the bread from the salad, but included everything else - beautiful heirloom tomatoes, garbanzo beans, cucumber and fresh mozzarella cheese.  I packed one of her favorite whole wheat Ak-Mak crackers in place of the bread.  She also had some halved and pitted bing cherries in the white silicone cup.  This was packed into the small green tiffin I got at World Market.

So, tomorrow Baby Girl is moving up to the toddler room at her Montessori school and will start going five days a week.  I'm nervous about the changes at home and the changes to this blog.  I'll try to keep posting bentos individually because I think it's better for the readers - I can catalog each bento individually and keep recipes and new foods in separate posts.  But I may need to move to posting a whole week of bentos in one post.  Considering it has taken me two whole weeks to catch up on a few bentos, that may be the direction I go.

Bento for Baby 23: Sunbutter Honey Pita and Zucchini and Rice Crostata

And now for something a little bit different.  This bento breaks the rut we seem to have been in the past few days.  For breakfast Baby Girl had half of a 100% whole wheat mini pita spread with sunbutter and a bit of honey.  I bought an organic sunbutter with no added sugar or palm oil (I try to avoid palm oil - save the orangutans!), but it is a bit bitter, so it needs a little honey.  Also for breakfast I included a small silicone cup with organic blueberries and pitted and halved bing cherries.  For lunch I packed a square of zucchini and rice crostata from the freezer, a few cubes of organic cheddar cheese, some halved cherry tomatoes from our CSA and a few watermelon cubes.  Again, I packed this day's food into my favorite little tiffin from World Market.

Bento for Baby 22: Pancakes and Quinoa Cake

Pancakes, strawberries and sun butter oatmeal balls, oh my.  Baby Girl's breakfast is starting to feel a little stale.  She does eat a lot of different things for breakfast when she eats at home four days a week, so her meals aren't quite as redundant as it seems, but I do think I need to get cracking making a few more things to have in the freezer to pack for breakfast.   For lunch she had a quinoa cake and a little bit of leftover vinaigrette-based potato salad and some green beans from dinner the night before.   I also packed some edamame and a few sliced and pitted organic cherries.  This was packed in my favorite box, the small green tiffin from World Market.  Baby Girl loved her bento on this day and ate every little bit.

Bento for Baby 16: Sun Butter and Honey Pita and Spanish Tortilla

In her final bento of the week Baby Girl had sunbutter and honey spread in half a whole wheat pita and some blueberries in a silicone cup.  For lunch she had a small wedge of leftover Spanish tortilla from dinner the night before.  There are a million recipes for Spanish tortillas out there, I like the simple directions of Mark Bittman's recipe in How to Cook Everything. In addition to the classic potato, we put one large zucchini from the CSA into the tortilla to pack a few more veggies into our meal.  With the tortilla Baby Girl enjoyed some cubes of organic cheddar cheese, a couple sugar snap peas, some sliced cucumber and a few pitted and halved bing cherries.  Everything was packed in the small World Market tiffin.  I picked up this box on a whim for $5 thinking it'd get a couple uses out of it, but it has turned into my favorite box.  It's the perfect size for a toddler's day of food and it's dimensions are perfect for packing things tightly so they don't get mixed up in transit.

Bento for Baby 15: Yogurt, Waffle and Panzanella

This magnificent waffle here represents the last of our breakfast baked goods stash (name that reference), Baker Dan has his work cut out for him this weekend!  For breakfast on Wednesday, along with the precious last homemade yogurt waffle quarter from the freezer, Baby Girl had some homemade plain yogurt with blueberries and a few cantaloupe cubes.  I usually don't send yogurt to daycare, but I thought I'd give it a try.  It appears it was a success, she didn't come home with her head and clothes completely crusted in yogurt and there were no gentle encouragements to leave the yogurt at home from her teachers.

For lunch Baby Girl had a whole wheat Ak-Mak cracker, some halved and pitted bing cherries and some leftover panzanella, or tomato and bread salad, from dinner the night before.  We got some beautiful tomatoes for the salad in our CSA share on Tuesday.  I packed the tomatoes, cucumber, chickpeas, fresh mozzarella and basil from the salad, leaving out the bread so it didn't get too soggy.  Baby Girl thoroughly enjoyed it for dinner and for lunch.  Everything was packed into the small World Market tiffin.