Spring Breakfast Bento

It's such a beautiful day, I decided it called for something special.

This is the Spring breakfast bento I made for Blaze. My husband has joked about how people make fake meat out of vegetables, so why can't someone make fake vegetables out of meat. I think I just came pretty close with that egg and bacon flower.

Cowboy Day

About the middle of last week, Blaze announced that we needed a holiday and that Monday (today) would be Cowboy Day. He reminded us about this all weekend. So...



This has not been an excuse to get out of school work. He's been doing all of that, too, but he's been doing it while dressed in his Tesla Ranger costume.

There have been cowboy activities too, though. We finished reading The Original Adventures of Hank the Cowdog and discovered that there are online games related to the book.



http://www.hankthecowdog.com/games

For art, Blaze colored a chain of paper cowboys to hang on the wall.





For our lunch break, we watched the newest episode of Dr. Who, entitled "A Town Called Mercy", which is set in a wild West town



and ate a bento lunch with a cowboy theme, kind of East meets Wild West.



The lunch included a hardboiled egg, shaped like a sheriff's badge, seasoned black beans (a cowboy meal has to contain beans), a cowboy boot and hat, both made of sweet rice and colored with soy sauce, beef jerky, and a celery stick "cactus".

Piratical Lunch

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day!

I haven't really talked like a pirate much today, but I did dress like one to go to school, and made Blaze a pirate themed lunch that included a hard-boiled egg skull and a cheese pirate on a bed of carrot coins.

The Lots of Love Bento

This was the first time all school year that Blaze and I had lunch at school. Usually we leave at lunch time, but today was the school Valentine's Day party after lunch.

Here is the special heart-theme bento that I made for us to share:



My sweetie had to go out of town early this morning, and won't be back for a week. He has a week-long job excavating a shell mound in a National Park, which requires him and the rest of the crew to camp out in a tent for the week. Before he left, though, he did show me a picture of the Valentine's gift he ordered for me.



I am so excited, because a little tea kettle was the last thing I wanted to add to the supplies for my picnic basket, and this one is really cute!

Cute Cheese for Boys

At the beginning of January, the blog Cute Food for Kids featured a post titled, "Babybel Cheese...Just for Girls".

http://www.cutefoodforkids.com/2011/01/babybel-cheese-just-for-girls.html

The little cheeses were adorable, and perfect for a little girl's lunchbox, but they made me think about what I could do to make a boy-friendly version.

Here is what I came up with:



I did not use the same precision tools she did. I just used a paring knife and a pair of kitchen shears. I also used a long lighter to melt the edges of the wax for the hat brims, so they would stick. The eyes are brown mustard seeds.

Attack of the Air-Kraken Bento

The online community, Steampunk Empire, had a food challenge posted this week for the best steampunk food presentation.

Inspired by this picture



I made a bento for Blaze, with the theme of an airship under attack by air-kraken. He was very excited, because it had been a long time since I made him a fancy bento lunch.

The battle takes place in a blue sticky rice sky, as the molded, hardboiled egg moon begins to rise.



Luckily, a heroic zeppelin captain is on his way to save the day!



Incase this has sparked your interest in the illusive air-kraken, Air Kraken Day is March 17, the same day as St. Patrick's Day.

Ready to Support the Team

I think I'm ready to cheer on the United States soccer team against Ghana this afternoon. I made soccer bento lunches. America is a melting pot of culture, so even though the food isn't especially American, the spirit is there.

A soccer ball made of sweet rice and decorated with toasted nori, cooked spinach "grass", grape tomatoes from the garden, vanilla yogurt with fresh raspberries and blueberries, and a tuna salad sandwich made with a cream puff shell.



I figured we needed a festive dessert, as well, so there are cream puffs filled with whipped cream and strawberries.



This should be an exciting game! The two teams are pretty evenly matched, and one of Blaze's best friends is from Ghana. We live in very ethnically diverse housing and several of our neighbors are from African countries.

Pirate Projects

I love any excuse to celebrate, and one of my favorite silly holidays is coming up. September 19th is International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

The Official International Talk Like a Pirate Day website

For the past 3 or 4 years, I've done a lot more than just talk like a pirate. I've also dressed like a pirate and made food with a pirate theme. If you would like to go all-out for this piratical holiday, too, here are some pirate projects from years past.

Dress Like a Pirate:

What be a pirate without his/her horded jewels?

I don't really have much in the way of jewelry, so last year I made some. One big hoop earring would be the best choice for a pirate, but since I didn't have one, I made these instead:


I found these at Micheal's. They're like "Shinky Dinks" that you can print on with your computer printer.

This is a very simple project. First find the pictures you want to use (this is actually the hardest part), print the picture(s) onto the plastic sheet, let the ink dry, cut the picture out leaving just a small amount of white around it, and use a regular hole punch to punch one or two holes in it. Then in an oven that has been preheated to 375 degrees, bake for 2 minutes. That's it. The little plastic charm is now ready to use.


Before baking:

After baking:

Next, I added a jump ring to each one ( 99 cents a pack ) and earring hooks (also 99 cents a pack)

And they were ready to wear:

Using the same process, I was also able to make fancy coat buttons using vintage pictures of famous pirates:

I traced around a juice glass to make the circles:

I don't actually have anything to sew these onto right now, I just wanted to see if this worked, so instead I used some elastic thread and braided it together to make a bracelet out of the buttons.

Here is the pirate necklace that I made for Blaze:

By punching two holes in the top of the charm, I was able to thread it so that it would lie flat. He wanted it to look like a dog tag.

Head gear is also an important accessory for the well dressed pirate, so here are two ideas:

A square of silk dyed red with cherry Kool-Aid and a little cider vinegar:


How to fold a news paper pirate's hat:

Pirate's Hat



This is my favorite pirate shirt pattern. It's not really meant to be a pirate shirt, but it works well for that, as well as being a good basic man's shirt or under shirt for a variety of historical periods:

Eat Like a Pirate:

Aye, ye scurvy dogs! It be time to cook up some pirate grub!

The pirate themed bento lunches had a little extra flare because I had a new toy, a black food coloring marker that I bought at Micheal's.
DH says he wishes he was in the marketing meeting when someone introduced the idea of an edible "sharpie". I think it's shear brilliance!

This lunch was supposed to be "pirate school". The students were red bean mochi:


There was also a treasure chest made by making a mini loaf of bread, cutting it part way open, scooping out some of the insides, and filling the cavity with humus and sliced carrot "gold coins".


The final product also contained fish sticks with a slice of cheese over the top and a hard cooked egg as the "teacher":

The next lunch had goldfish crackers and a ship made from tuna salad in a half of a mini pita bread with cheese sails:

Pirate pizza with pepperoni patches:


This was from one night's dinner, but I had trouble keeping the sails up:

There are also ready-made pirate foods in the grocery. Pirate Booty is a snack food sold in the chip or health food section of the supermarket. Our local grocery store chain always has it on sale around Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Pirates need dessert too. Here is a picture of the cake we had for Blaze's 6th birthday:

Last year's Talk Like a Pirate Day picnic:

The food included: Cape Cod Brand sea salt and pepper chips, sea food soup,

fruit-kabobs on little plastic swords, and pirate pasta salad.

Shell shaped pasta, chopped tomatoes, onion, and bell pepper, with a piece of the pepper saved to make the skull. Covered in Newman's Own Brand Caesar Salad Dressing and parm. cheese. Garnished with the green pepper "skull" and carrot "bones".

We also had celery "planks"

Cream cheese stuffed celery with Sponge Bob Fruit snacks walking the planks

For dessert we had box mix spice cake baked into mini loaf shapes and turned into treasure chests with a filling of cream cheese frosting and "fruit gusher" jewels, along with peanut butter cannon balls.

For the peanut butter cannon balls, mix 1 Cup of room temperature natural peanut butter with 1/2 cup powdered sugar and 2 cups of rice crispies.


Then, roll the peanut butter mixture into small balls and cover each ball with melted chocolate. Cover a plate with waxed paper and set each chocolate covered ball on the wax paper. Set the plate in the refrigerator until the chocolate is set.

For beverages we had root beer and cider:

When we had eaten so much we were uncomfortable, we retired to the adult bedroom to sprawl across the bed ( Blaze said we were in our hammocks) and watched Pirates of the Caribbean The Curse of the Black Pearl.

P.S. If you want to be more authentic with your pirate grub, serve beef jerky and hard tack. Here are some recipes for hard tack if you want to try it:

Sea Biscuits