Bento improv

So I'm still on my bento box honeymoon. Tonight was a little challenging because due to a Boo meltdown, the supermarket visit was cancelled. My plan for tomorrows lunches had been cookie cutter sandwiches using the Sunbutter (sunflower seed spread-PB substitute) with chocolate sprinkles and a homemade "trail mix" of dried fruits with a few chocolate chips mixed in plus a bit of fruit. However I only had three slices of bread to work with, my second tasting of the sunbutter convinced me that the girls would spit it out and everything I planned to add to the trail mix- yogurt covered raisins, dried cranberries, dried cherries and cheerios- contained "possible traces of peanuts or tree nuts".

So I had to change my approach.... found a tin of salmon in pantry, some mini cucumbers, baby tomatoes and Vegemite, and then had idea to somehow make a salmon mixture with cream cheese and stuff it in the cucumbers.

So they each have some mini Vegemite sandwiches, a cucumber "monster head"- a round of cucumber with a scooped hollow filled with the salmon mixture-, grape tomatoes, carrots, and yellow bell pepper. ( Next time I could make little cucumber slice sandwiches using the salmon mixture-IF they eat it this time). I got tricky and made yellow bell pepper flowers with carrot centers. The twins have cheese stars to match the window on their sandwiches, Boo has a little serve of ranch for her carrots. I used cinnamon and sugar to dust some slices of apple. Hopefully this will disguise any browning since I didn't have a lemon to wipe them with.

I also put two tiny choc chips in each bento. Yep, I'm totally bonkers.

Bear's bento the previous day.. came home totally empty save for the olive pits. The upper compartment had hard boiled eggs, ham and mozzarella, cucumber, olives, tomatoes and fancy carrot curls (forgot to ask what she thought of that !). The bottom section of the bento I filled with leftover kettle corn and pretzel sticks. She gave the ham hearts away to someone who had no lunch. Note to self- give up on the ham.

So onto the experiment in egg molds. Aim is to make hard boiled eggs look so incredibly cute that eating them will be irresistable to all who see them. The problem I have is that "large" eggs were too small so there was still space in the mold. When I tried jumbo sized eggs there was some excess egg and when I tried to remove the eggs there was some sticking.

So TA DA a plate of gruesome eggs , more horrifying than cute. Bear had the heart egg which was the best looking of the three. And I sliced the others up for lunch.Maybe I can do this for Halloween...make the eggs look demented.