Chinese New Year Monkey Bento

Chinese New Year or Lunar New Year is approaching soon and falls on the 8th of February. This year it will be represented by the Chinese zodiac sign of the Monkey, Nikolai was also born in the year of the monkey! I am sure those who are celebrating will be busy with baking yummy cookies, cleaning the house, getting new clothes, wrapping ang pows (red packets with money), etc.

I'll be quite busy myself with the celebration followed by our wedding anniversary and Valentine's day, all on the same week! For this bento I made a simple monkey themed lunch with pumpernickel bread. I used a collection of circle cutters for the face. The largest was used to make the main head shape and to trim the ears which were made with smaller ones. For the eyes I used the smallest circle cutter on the provolone cheese as I had on the ears and a punch for the nori pupils. I freehand cut the larger provolone for the mouth and nose area and also the nori for the nose and mouth..

In this bento lunch (packed in a Planetbox rover):

• Main compartment - Monkey sandwich.
• Upper left - Organic baby carrots.
• Lower left - Organic apple slices and a couple of grapes with banana shaped picks.
• Center - Dye free choc covered sunflower seeds.
• Upper right - Organic granola bar with a cute monkey pick.

Wishing all who celebrate, Kung Hei Fat Choi (in Cantonese and one of the dialects that I speak) ! Happy Chinese New Year! Gong Xi Fa Cai (in Mandarin)! ♥

Continue Reading »

Monkey Roll-Ups Sandwiches

We are getting so close to Thanksgiving! Will you be hosting the feast or will you be attending? This year we will be hosting and my amazing husband is going to do the cooking. You see, he is our cook during the holidays as well as the weekends when we decide to eat in.:)

I didn't make any Thanksgiving themed lunches this year since school will be out from this coming Wednesday which is also Nikolai's birthday. You can find my previous Thanksgiving themed lunches here. These roll-ups sandwiches are so easy and fun to make. I've also created other characters before such as bear, bunny and dog with the same roll-ups method. I used a small heart shaped cookie cutter for the monkeys face, small circle cookie cutter for the ears (cut into half), and a paper puncher for the eyes and mouth. I find that my paper puncher works better on nori sheets and a little quicker, lol. I found some banana shaped picks which I collected years ago. His sides were some grapes in a silicone cup and a Clif Kid organic bar.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This lunch is linked to:

Here are the supplies that I used to create and pack this lunch.

Continue Reading »

5 Quick and Easy Sandwich Ideas

Thanksgiving is approaching soon and Nikolai's birthday will be one day before Thanksgiving this year. As you can imagine, we will be quite busy, but on the bright side, there will be no school on his birthday. I believe I've mentioned before that I usually start my Christmas shopping months before November but this year I've not even started yet! I'll have to  need to start shopping as soon as possible. Not that I'm complaining, I LOVE shopping.

Some of the below sandwich lunches were enjoyed by Nikolai last school year, which means more than half a year ago. I decided to combine all of them in one post. All of the lunches were packed in our leak-proof Yumbox Panino

Bento making should be all about having fun and never something about which you should feel  intimidated. You should ignore any suggestion that bentos are too much work, or take too much time, or that they need to be based on Japanese food, for none of that is necessary. It’s really all about adding that bit of fun, color and whimsy to a meal. And sometimes that extra cheer can make a big difference in a day. Here are five examples of how one can add a little something extra to a plain sandwich.

Bento lunch 1: Cheese lettering. I created the letter SMILE from my alphabet cookie cutters, included a cute eye pick and a cheddar mouth. Alongside are Annie's organic crackers, seedless grapes, apple slices and strawberries.

Bento lunch 2: Face cutout. Simple sandwich which I used a mini circle cookie cutter for the eyes (you can use a straw as well) and free hand cut the mouth. His sides were a babybel cheese, organic apple sauce with extra cinnamon topped with frozen blueberries, yogurt covered raisins and seedless red and green grapes.

Bento lunch 3: Topped with a topper or baran: I love Keroppi and used our Keroppi topper on a sandwich, how easy is that. His sides were string cheese, seedless grapes, Annie's organic fruit snack, organic baby carrots with a pick.

Bento lunch 4: Stamped sandwich. I've not used my CuteZCute Animal Palz in a long time and use the monkey stamper on this sandwich. His sides were cookies from Ikea, string cheese, yogurt covered raisins, strawberry pieces a pick.

Bento lunch 5: Use a cupcake ring or a food pick. This is one of the easiest of them all and also the day when we are low on groceries. I used a cupcake ring on the sandwich, Trader Joe's yogurt stars, Annie's organic fruit snacks and organic apple slices.

Here are the supplies that I used to create and pack these lunches.

Continue Reading »

Monkey Veggie Burgers, Bento Lunch #224

N was born in the year of the Monkey according to the Chinese Zodiac.I received a small hamburger cutter from Japan last month and decided to use it. N does not eat meat burgers for some reason and whenever we make meat burgers, we have to make separate veggie burgers for him. I decided to use Morning Star Grillers Original veggie patties for his school lunch today. I  heated the veggie burger in the microwave for 1 min, cool down for a min and cut it with my monkey cutter.

•  Monkey shaped veggie burgers stacked. Monkey shaped cream cheese sandwiches.Made the ears with baby carrots,eyes for the sandwiches are made from nori and green peas for the burger,Provolone nose.
• Grapes(halved) and pretzel snaps

Here are the items or similar that I used to make this lunch.

Continue Reading »