Bento Rescue

Sometimes, things don't go according to plan. For example, any time I decide to paint, it only takes 30 min.... In my head. In reality, it seems to take all day! I'm trying to set up our new homeschool space and had a wild hair. I decided to make a mini-dream come true. I painted my piano yellow!!

Before

After

Not going to lie, I love it. I'm going to sand the edges a bit to give it a shabby chic look.

Now... In doing all this, my main floor & dining room are trashed!

However, we still needed to eat. Bentos to the rescue! I made the meal I was going to make and just kept the ingredients separated. I seasoned some ground beef with sage, salt, pepper, onion powder, parsley flakes, & garlic. I also made rice (next time, I'll make it sticky rice & shape it all cute) and sautéed some summer squash & zucchini in canola oil. Those who could have dairy had cheese, those who could not had black beans. OK, truth be told, all the kids asked for black beans. We obliged. We also had a side of kiwi.

Tada!

posted from Bloggeroid

Pretzel Bites Bento Box

Tonight's dinner wasn't intentionally a Bento Box. I was not TOO comfortable with the new recipe I tried and we made a big 'ol mess of the kitchen table. I made pretzel bites and they were delicious! Instead of trying to clear the table, we threw the yummies into the Bento Boxes and had a BLAST eating. Even the adults got Bentos! Now, it's a good thing we weren't really going anywhere because it was not nearly enough food the adults, we had seconds and thirds, lol.

Here's how pretty they look!!

Xman and Puppy wanted photos with theirs!! I will eventually get the picture thing figured out!

Ok, now to the recipes!! We have to alter almost every recipe. First, the Pretzel bites. I got the recipe from A Cozy Kitchen. The only alteration we had to make there was replacing the butter with canola oil.
To dip the pretzels, Hubby made a Honey Mustard Sauce. He got the recipe from Food.com and left out the Paprika so my kids could eat it (Paprika is Feingold Stage 2)

Now to the surprise of the night- the salad!!! I chose this recipe simply because I happened to have cabbage and chicken that was already cooked. I was honestly nervous about making it because I wanted to like it so badly. Well, guess what? I LOVED IT!!! And so did the kids. There was not one single complaint about dinner. The original was from The Urban Poser, but I'll repost OUR version here.

Chicken and Cabbage Salad

Ingredients:

Leftover chicken, shredded

1 small head Savoy Cabbage, thinly sliced

1 cup julienned carrots

3 green onions, the whole thing!

1/4 cup  Mint leaves, roughly chopped

1/4 cup  Basil leaves, roughly chopped

1/4 cup  Cilantro leaves, roughly chopped

Dressing

1/4 cup water

3 tablespoons fresh lime juice (to taste)

1 tablespoon Sweet and Sour Sauce

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 1/2 tablespoons honey

1/2 teaspoon vinegar

1 tablespoons Olive Oil

Just put them all together and pour the dressing on top. SO FRIGGIN DELICIOUS!!!

Bento Boxes

Ok, I have a tendency to get a little carried away when an idea hits me. It is July. Every July, my kids write their letters to Santa. This year, they have all decided to ask for a family pass to Thanksgiving Point. Because our entire lives currently revolve around food, I thought it would be fun to also get them each a Bento Box so we can take lunches or what not with us! Whether these will be from Santa or as Mom and Dad's "something to need" gift, we haven't decided. However, I decided that I need to start practicing. I hit up the dollar store and bought a bunch of small bentos, disposable ones to play with.

                                           Um, not sure why the picture is upside down.....

                                           These are some smaller ones that I love!

For our first Bento box, we went super simple. It also was NOT ENOUGH. Three minutes after finishing, they kids were starving.

I sliced cantaloupe... I tried to do triangles, but I'm not that cool yet. I added strawberries (they are Feingold Stage 2). For most of the kids, I added some cheese cubes, but Puppy is Dairy Free, so his has a hard boiled egg. The toast has coconut oil, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and a tiny bit of onion powder. The chickpeas were a recipe found  Modern Parents Messy Food. We did the honey cinnamon variety. My kids liked em. My husband liked em. To be honest, they weren't my favorite. But that's ok! Like I said, everyone else liked em!