Today’s Bento is Jimbo from Jimbo and the Jet Set, and completes my 80’s cartoon characters Bento theme week. To read how this bento was made and to see the other bentos in this theme, please visit my Wordpress Bento Box

I gave bento videos a try for the first time. Watch how I made this bento on my blog.

Break in dam looses the waters of Frenchman Creek, a tributary of Missouri River in Montana. Water broke earthworks first and later carried away concrete spillway.

I was very much in doubt of what to make today, I have one thing in mind (which I've divulged to mombento already but since I'm not sure if I can make it at all, I'd rather not make any promises. And it will also mark the end of my "Farm Theme" - and I'm not sure I want it to end just yet *L*

Still, it's getting increasingly hard to think of farm animals I haven't already made... until it struck me.. on a farm there must be a CAT! So here it is. A black and white typically mixed breed cat. Had this bento been for myself, I would have used nori for the black parts, but as it's for my kid and she isn't the greatest fan of nori, I decided to go with black food colouring, applied with a Q-tip *L*

The egg is shaped with the normal Bear shaper, but I cut the eats more pointed in order for it to look more like a cat. I also used the trick of placing a slice of carrot under the egg, because the egg I had wasn't QUITE large enough to fill that mould, and in order for the ears to fill out, the egg should be LARGE. But with some "padding", even medium sized eggs will work in an egg mould.

Bento # 737 Cat made out of a regular- and two quail eggs. Sugar snaps. Carrot-Kitties. Kumquat. Cherry tomato. Broccoli. Fresh pasta with tomato sauce and herbs.

I'm still not trusting LJ-pics so I'm keeping this on my own page. It shoudl still be possible to see the full sized pic by clicking it if anyone would want that.

I'm moving into the second stage of my bento fascination. No longer am I trying to do something different and exciting each day. Now I'm trying to get into a groove, where I look at the food available for lunch and immediately know exactly which box I should use. After several tries I have finally figured out how to make perfect use of the large, double-tier, microwavable Hakoya box. The starting point for this lunch is having enough ingredients for a big, fancy salad that will comfortably fill up the bottom tier. I usually start with a big pile of baby spinach, and then keep piling on little salad treats until I run out of space. I have 3 of those little honey bears, so there should always be a clean one on  hand for the dressing. I then quickly fill up the top (hot) tier with a serving of frozen dumplings of some kind from my Trader Joe collection with random leftovers in the small removable compartment. Voila!  Lunch that is not only pretty, tasty and healthy, but QUICK.

Bento #41 - Perfect Hakoya A perfect example of the kind of lunch I had in mind when I bought this Hakoya box. Hot Tier: fancy ravioli of some kind and leftover vegies. Salad Tier: spinach, sprouts, black olives, blueberries, mozarella cheese, carrots, walnuts. Dressing in the bear.

This one was from Tuesday. I had Parent-Teacher conferences at night so I wanted this one to be filling. Part of the reason I started making bento was to avoid spending money at the myriad of tempting but unhealthy eating venues located near the school where I work. I'm counting calories and pennies, and bento helps me save both!



Red section: homemade coleslaw
Purple: breaded and baked chicken "nuggets" (made from cutting up a chicken breast cutlet)
Green: roasted potatoes
Yellow: grapes