Wendy Copley's Blog, page 7

The Year in Bentos (so far)

When I decided to stop posting my weekly bento round-ups at the beginning of the year I had the best intentions. I was still going to post round-ups but they would be themed and extra informative. They were going to be the BEST BENTO ROUND-UPS EVER!!

But here we are — in the middle of May — and I’ve barely posted anything at all this year. The truth is that I’m off my bento game at the moment. Mornings are rushed, the kids are being picky about food and I just don’t have the gumption to pack super cute lunches at the moment. It’s all good though. I’m still packing the kids bento lunches every day and I still make them cute sometimes — they’re just leaning more toward low-key than they are toward super fly. Here are some of my favorites from the past few months:

First up is one of the fanciest lunches in the bunch. I promise that the rest of these lunches are not this decorative!

I packed this Star Wars bento in our LunchBots Cinco for Augie. All those little compartments are fun to fill! It had pretzel thins, blackberries with a clone trooper ring, a clementine with a Yoda ring (I put the orange in a silicone baking cup so it wouldn’t roll around), cucumbers, sugar snap peas with a Luke Skywalker pick, and sunflower butter and jelly sandwiches in Chewbacca and R2-D2 shapes. (The cutters are no longer available but you can sometimes find them on eBay.)

Wyatt has newly rediscovered his love of bagels and cream cheese so I’ve been packing them in his lunch quite a bit recently. This lunch is a great example of the way I’ve been packing them. He doesn’t usually eat a whole big bagel, so I generally cut them in half, or I get the mini kind. Typically they are filled with cream cheese, but sometimes I give him jam or sunbutter or both. The sides in this lunch were carrots, a mandarin orange, kiwi chunks and some Chex Sweet and Salty mix (we received a bag of the Chex Mix as a free sample and it was delicious). This was packed in our Yumbox Panino. I used the same silicone cups to keep the carrots and orange from flying all over.

One delightful turn of events in the past couple months is that my boys have started to eat (nearly) identical lunches. Halle-freakin’-lujah! For many years, they had almost completely opposite likes and dislikes, but now they are starting to even out a bit so now I can pack them twin lunches which saves me a lot of time in the mornings. Yay! For these lunches they had veggies (cukes for Augie and radish for Wyatt), blackberries, leftover roast chicken, a half croissant, a little jam (in Snoopy and Lego containers) and a few Doritos for a treat. Both lunches were packed in EasyLunchboxes containers.

This was another simple lunch, but it was a big hit. Blood oranges, pretzel thins, deli ham roll-ups, bean dip in a Lego cup, a couple radishes and some carrots. I also added in a Chia Squeeze. They were a Costco impulse buy but the boys loved them and they went really fast. This was packed into a LunchBots Quad.

At one point, Wyatt asked me to pack him a salad for lunch. Um…OK! He had caesar salad (dressing on the side), a little deli turkey, a kiwi and a Z Bar all packed into an EasyLunchboxes bento box. From looking at the archives of my bento box gallery I can see I’ve packed Wyatt a salad a few times before, but this is definitely not a regular thing and it’s never been the main focus of his lunch before.

Speaking of Wyatt, he has started packing his own lunch more frequently. On days when I am really rushed in the morning I’ve started giving him the option to eat a cafeteria lunch or pack his own lunch box. He almost always chooses to make his own lunch on those days and he’s pretty good about following the rules (at least one fruit or veggie, protein, only one treat). On this particular day he pulled out our blue Yumbox Panino and filled it with a blueberry scone, salami, blackberries and a couple juju hearts. I would have liked it if he’d added a veggie too, but it wasn’t too bad!

Oh, and he took the photo of his lunch too!

Here is a hearty snack I packed for Augie to eat at kindergarten. He has been eating a TON lately, so I’ve started making an effort to give him more filling food in his snacks. This one featured a new favorite: crescent rolls filled with ham and cheese. (There were blood orange slices and carrots too.)

The rolls are dead simple to make. In fact, I taught Wyatt how to make them and he has made a batch before school in the morning several times now. Basically, you just start with a package of refrigerated crescent roll dough, but before you roll them up — when they are still flat triangles on the cookie sheet — you add a strip of deli ham and a small sprinkle of cheddar cheese. Roll them up into crescent shapes and bake as you normally would.

This was packed in our Steeltainer snack box.

This Valentine’s lunch was kind of fun because I included a couple of hidden treats in it. There were leftover chicken chunks from out dinner, heart-shaped radish slices and an apple with a heart cut out of it. I also tucked some bacon jerky into the chicken compartment which is kind of hard to see. Finally, I put a couple of Hershey’s kisses in the bottom of the last compartment and then covered them up with a little Pirate’s Booty. Sneaky! (This was packed in our LunchBots Quad.)

Another thing I’ve occasionally been adding to the lunch boxes? Taquitos! This was a special request of Wyatt’s because he has a friend who brings them in his lunch pretty frequently and they are a favorite of the entire lunch table now. I got bean and cheese ones at Trader Joes but you can find similar ones in just about any grocery store, I think. I warmed them up in the microwave, then lined one of the inner containers of our Laptop Lunches box with foil to help retain the heat. I put another piece of foil on top of the taquitos, then put the lid on the container. The kids said they were sort of warm still at lunch time. The rest of this lunch had a clementine, cookies in an ELB mini dipper, carrots and hummus and white cheddar popcorn.

And finally, I want to show you a lunch that resulted in me being referred to as the “best mom ever”! Woot! I’d like to think it was because I’m so sweet and patient with my kids, but really it was just because of pizza. I cooked a couple of mini frozen pizzas while I was washing dinner dishes, then let them cool off in the fridge overnight. In the morning I packed them into our new Bentology bento box along with multi-colored tomatoes, sugar snap peas, grapes and white cheddar popcorn. The giraffe picks are just there for a little fun.

And if you are wondering why the Bentology box looks so much like the Laptop Lunches boxes you see us use so often, it’s because Laptop Lunches has rebranded and is now called Bentology. You can get a preview of their new look here, but until they have completed the transition their store is still located on their original web site. And if you’re curious about the new look of their bento boxes, stay tuned for a review in the coming weeks!

What have you been packing in your lunch boxes?

Cute Stuff I Bought at Daiso

Last week I stopped by one of my favorite stores in the world: Daiso Japan. Daiso is a Japanese “100 Yen” store where nearly everything costs $1.50. It is jam-packed with lots of cute and practical Japanese items and when I go into one it takes just about all of my will power to stop myself from walking out with half the store in my bag. Daiso is also the most economical place I know of to buy bento supplies, and I’ve built a great deal of my bento collection shopping there over the last few years.  Unfortunately, Daiso stores are limited to the west coast and their online store is wholesale only so this bounty isn’t available to everyone, but if you are near a Daiso — or traveling near one — I highly recommend a visit.

When I posted the photo above to Facebook, it got a pretty incredible reaction (I think it might be the most “liked” photo I’ve ever posted to social media!), so I thought you might like to see what I bought on this particular shopping trip:

My Week in Photos

For many years, I posted a weekly round-up of photos from our week on Wendolonia. As the bento and lunch stuff picked up, the daily life stuff fell by the wayside and honestly I’ve begun to miss it a little. A lot of these photos have moved over to social media. I post to my personal Facebook page, of course, and I lovey, love, love Instagram but I also like posting this sort of thing here so I’m going to make an effort to get back to it.

Here’s a peek at what I’ve been up to the last week:

Saturday: I tried broiled grapefruit for the first time. I’ve read about this dish many times and I’ve always been curious because cooked grapefruit seems completely wacky to me on some level. I was reminded of it when I saw a recipe for it in my newest cookbook, Sheet Pan Suppers, and I decided to give it a whirl. I liked it. It needed a little more sugar, but the flavor was intense and interesting.

Monday: The light on the hills was weird when I came out of the grocery store, and when I turned around to look to the west, this was what I saw. The sunset was so amazing that I wanted to shout to everyone in the parking lot to look at it, but I was too embarrassed so instead I called Zach and told him to take the kids outside so none of them missed it.

Tuesday: You’ve gotta give the kids a special lunch on St. Patrick’s Day when you blog about bento boxes so this is what I made Wyatt. I packed it in our our new Laptop Lunches​ Bentology box: garlic naan shamrocks, a pot o’ gold (pineapple), carrots and black bean dip, chicken chunks and some gold coins (rice crackers).

Reminder: even though I’m no longer posting The Week in Bentos, I am still updating the Bento Box Gallery with all the kids lunches. Go take a look if you’ve been missing these posts!

Thursday: Have you ever had a shrub? I hadn’t until yesterday. A shrub is a drink made by combining a fruity, sweet vinegar syrup with soda water. (They’re non-alcoholic but you can add hooch if you want.) Coincidentally I’d read about shrubs in my new Cooking Light on Wednesday, then I was offered one the very next day! Did I want to try one? Heck yeah! I liked it and now I want to try making them at home.

Friday: This morning while I was having coffee with my friend, Whitney, the guy at the next table kept engaging us in conversation. I chatted with him a bit between talk of orthodontia and YouTube and when he got up to leave he asked if I’d like an autographed page from David Copperfield. “Sure,” I said. Because how could I not?

More Friday: On the way home from coffee I stopped at my favorite produce market to get fat carrots for an upcoming blog post (Mark Bittman just wrote about it in the NYT!), and I ended up buying a bunch of bee-YOO-tiful fruits and veggies.  The mangos are probably the best thing I’ve eaten this month.

What did you do this week?

For more photos of my daily life, follow me on Instagram!

Quick Lunch Box Recipe: Taco Mac and Cheese (Gluten Free!)

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Horizon Organics. The opinions and text are all mine. In other words, I created the recipe and my kids ate it.

My kids have been loving taking hot lunches to school lately. They love twisting the tops off their thermoses and digging into a warm meal at lunch time. They love it so much that they almost always eat all of their meal! But other than reheated leftovers, I’m often at a loss for what to pack into their thermoses. I want something they’ll like, but it also has to be easy to put together in the morning when I’m running around fixing breakfasts, getting myself ready and hollering at everyone to put their dang shoes on.

Enter Horizon macaroni and cheese.  I’ve been making mac and cheese since I was seven year old — it was the first thing I learned to cook on my own — so I barely have to think when I’m cooking it. I can put on the pasta while I’m doing something else, then come back and finish the dish in less than 5 minutes.  Horizon also makes organic and gluten-free mac and cheese varieties, so I can pick the right one to support our family’s dietary choices.

Plain macaroni and cheese is a hit with my boys, of course, but sometimes I like to take an extra 3 minutes to add some mix-ins to their mac and cheese. This Taco Mac and Cheese recipe is something we’ve been enjoying lately and it couldn’t be simpler. Add some corn, beans and spices to the finished pasta, pack it into a thermos, add some sides and you’ve got a fast packed lunch that you know they’ll eat!

This short video will show you how to make Taco Mac and Cheese:

And here is the recipe:

Here’s what you’ll need to make a Taco Mac & Cheese lunch:

Horizon Gluten-Free Mac (plus milk and butter to prepare it) — you can use any other kind of Horizon mac and cheese too.
1/2 cup frozen corn
1/2 cup black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 teaspoon cumin (not pictured)
1/4 teaspoon chili powder (not pictured)
Horizon Super Squeeze — any flavor
veggie sticks — I used a mix of carrots, cucumbers and red pepper
cookies

And here’s how you make it:

Step one when you’re sending a lunch in a thermos should always be to pre-heat it with hot water. I usually use boiling water from our tea kettle because I always have that going in the morning while I’m packing the lunches but you can also use really hot tap water in a pinch. Put the lid on your thermos and let the water sit in it while you prepare whatever you’re filling it with — at least 5 or 10 minutes. This keeps the cool thermos from pulling the warmth out of your hot food once you add it in, thereby keeping your lunch toasty warm all morning long.

And I’m sure you already know this, but just in case — dump the water out before you put your food in.

Make the Horizon mac and cheese according to the package directions with one minor variation — about a minute before the noodles are done cooking add a half cup of frozen corn to the boiling water. Drain the corn and pasta, add the milk, butter and cheese packet and stir to combine. Then stir in the black beans, cumin and chili powder.

Dump the hot water out of the thermos and place the taco mac and cheese in the thermos. This recipe makes enough for a generous serving for both of my kids, plus a little extra for me to tuck away and eat at lunch time.

Fill another box with some fun sides to round out the lunch: crunchy veggie sticks, a few cookies (use gluten-free cookies if you’re gluten-free) and and a Horizon Super Squeeze pouch. I like these Super Squeeze pouches because they give the kids 5 extra grams of protein and a good shot of calcium. The kids like them because they’re yummy.

What do you add to mac and cheese to jazz it up? Or are you a macaroni and cheese purist?

Find more quick and easy mealtime solutions by following Horizon Organics on Pinterest, Twitter and Facebook!

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Horizon Organics. The opinions and text are all mine.

Lunch Box Staple: A Dozen Ways to Pack Ham

This is the first installment in an occasional series showing different ways to pack lunch box staples in kids’ lunches.

Do your kids love ham? Mine do! I buy ham for their lunches two or three times a month and it shows up in their lunch boxes almost every week. It’s a tasty and versatile ingredient that can be presented in lots of different ways. In this post I’ve gathered a dozen different ways I’ve packed ham into my boys’ lunches over the years to give you a little inspiration for your own lunch packing. You can see all the ways ham has ever gone into their lunches by clicking the “ham” tag in the Bento Box Gallery.

Not a ham eater? Most of these techniques will work with turkey too!

Spirals:

Spirals are probably my all-time favorite way to prepare ham for a lunch box. To make them, I lay a slice of ham on a cutting board, then I cut the ham into four long strips. I roll each strip up jellyroll style and then stand it on end in the lunch box. Sometimes I’ll roll two strips together to make a big fat spiral and other times I’ll put a piece of cheese in the mix and roll it up for a contrast. Usually I just put the spirals in the box by themselves but sometimes I thread them onto decorative picks like the leaf picks you see in the photo up above. I love the way it looks and it’s easy for kids just pick them up and pop them in their mouths.

This lunch was packed in a EcoLunchbox Solo Cube. Get more information about this lunch.

Put a Ring on It:

A variation on the spiral is to take whole pieces of ham, roll them up into long tubes and then slide them through the hole in a decorative ring. I’m using Star Wars rings here but we also have robots, superheroes, etc. You can find rings in almost any theme you can think of at cupcake supply stores, online bento shops and at Amazon.

This lunch was packed in a Laptop Lunches Bento Box. Get more information about this lunch.

Wrap It Around Something Else:

You can also wrap long strips of ham around other tasty morsels. In the lunch above I wrapped ham strips around big fat pretzel sticks. The kids pick up the whole pretzel stick and eat it along with the ham at lunchtime. If you wanted to get fancy you could spread cream cheese, honey mustard or Boursin cheese on the ham strips before you wrap them around the pretzels.

This lunch was packed in a PlanetBox Rover. Get more information about this lunch.

You can also do this with cheese.

This lunch was packed in a Yumbox Original. Get more information about this lunch.

Or you can go all retro and spread cream cheese on the ham strip before you wrap it around a pickle. It’s just like you’re at a party in the 70’s!

This lunch was packed in a monbento. Get more information about this lunch.

Ham Cubes:

Let’s move away from deli ham for a minute and talk about ham steaks. My favorite way to send ham steaks — and my kids favorite way to eat them — is to cut a nice fat ham steak into cubes. The lunch above was packed when my son, Augie, was a toddler so the cubes are fairly small but you can make them larger for an older kid.

Get more information about this lunch.

Ham-mers:

Sometimes we like to kick ham cubes up a notch and make what we like to call “ham-mers”. This is something my son Wyatt thought up a few years ago. All you do to make them is poke skinny pretzel sticks into large chunks of ham. They look kind of like hammers. Get it? Get it?

Get more information about this lunch.

Strips:

Let’s deviate a little bit from our wide strips of ham, by going crazy and cutting them into narrow strips. I usually cut my ham slices in half before I cut them into thin ribbons so they’re not too long to eat easily. This is a great preparation for smaller children though I’ve found my older kids like to eat them this way too as long as they have a fork.

Get more information about this lunch.

Ribbons:

Ah geez! I’m back to wide strips of ham again. But…but…they’re so versatile! For this one, I folded those strips of ham back and forth onto themselves accordian style, then slid them onto decorative picks. I think they look kind of like that old-timey ribbon candy — ham flavored ribbon candy!

This lunch was packed in a LunchBots Trio. Get more information about this lunch.

Ham Rose:

Ham roses are another one I do a lot. Get your ham strips (yeah, yeah — I know), then layer them one by one around the edges of a silicone baking cup. Overlap the ends each time you add a piece of ham, working in from the outside to the inside. For the last piece, roll the ham up into a spiral, then let it unfurl a little when you place it in the middle of the cup.

Get more information about this lunch.

Fluffy Flowers:

One of the fancier bento tricks is to make fluffy ham flowers. I have to admit that I’m not super adept at this technique (and it’s not being shown off very well here) but with a little practice I’ve managed to get the hang of it. AnnaTheRed has an excellent step-by-step tutorial showing how to make these.

This lunch was packed in a house-shaped bento box. Get more information about this lunch.

A Good Old Ham Sandwich:

I have a feeling this idea isn’t going to blow your mind or anything, but it’s worth noting that sometimes a good ol’ ham sandwich is the best lunch there is. Put it on white bread, add a thin layer of mayo, maybe a little cheese and you’ve got something most kids –even picky ones — are going to like.

This lunch was packed in an EasyLunchboxes bento box. Get more information about this lunch.

A Fancy Ham Sandwich:

While we’re making sandwiches, consider making a jambon beurre sandwich. See how I used a French name there? It must be super fancy, right? Well, not really. A jambon beurre is just ham and butter on a baguette. So simple, but sooooo delicious. It’s extra tasty if you use higher fat European butter.

This lunch was packed in a Goodbyn Hero. Get more information about this lunch.

Prosciutto (aka: Fancy Ham):

For all of the rest of these ideas I’ve used regular American deli ham, but it’s worth thinking about changing that up and packing something a little more sophisticated like prosciutto or Spanish jamon Serrano. I was really surprised when my kids tried prosciutto and immediately expressed their love for it. They like it wrapped around sliced cantaloupe but they also enjoy it on crackers or sliced baguette. Worth a shot, right?

This lunch was packed in a Laptop Lunches Bento Box. Get more information about this lunch.

What do you like to do with ham?

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Happy Birthday Everyday Bento!

Happy birthday, Everyday Bento!

One year ago today, my book Everyday Bento: 50 Cute and Yummy Lunches to Go was released. Since then I’ve received lots of fun emails and messages from readers who say that they have started packing bento lunches for their families based on the lessons and ideas in the book. Let me tell you — NOTHING is more fun to hear as an author than that!

If you are one of the few people on Earth who doesn’t have a copy (there are only a few of you out there, right?) you can find it in your local bookstore or you can buy it online. Amazon proper does not have the book in stock at the moment, but you can get it on Kindle or you can buy it from other sellers on the site. It is also in stock and ready to ship at Powell’s and Barnes and Noble.

If you’d like a preview of what you’ll find in the book, I made a series of videos last year showing how to make five of the lunches featured in it:

Learn to Make the “On the Farm” Bento Box from Everyday Bento
Learn to Make the Dinosaur Bento Box from Everyday Bento
Learn to Make an Autumn Bento Box
Learn to Make the “Under the Big Top” Bento Box from Everyday Bento
Learn to Make the Space Bento Box from Everyday Bento

Now let’s move on to the fun stuff! No birthday is complete without presents, of course, so to celebrate I will be giving away one copy each to three lucky readers! Enter below!

If you would like to give a present yourself, I always appreciate fair and honest reviews. If you have the book you can share your thoughts on the Amazon review page. These help tremendously to spread the word about Everyday Bento and get it in front of people who may not even know they want a copy! Thanks so much to those who have already written reviews and to everyone who has supported Everyday Bento in the last year!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Crazy Typewriter Lady

I’ve been in a bit of a typewriter frenzy the past month.  A few years ago, my husband gave me the best Christmas present ever: a burgundy 1939 Corona Silent typewriter. I don’t use it as much as I would like, but I pulled it out a few weeks ago and used it to do some scrapbooking and some other writing and it reminded me how much I love using it.

Man, I really love typing! It is so much more satisfying to bang away on a clickity-clackity manual typewriter than it is to type on a computer keyboard. Harder though, too. White out isn’t nearly as good as the backspace key!

Just a few days later I found this beauty at a garage sale for a mere $5. FIVE DOLLARS! What the what?? It came with a hard case, a cover, a little wheely eraser thingy, a few sheets of erasable paper and the original receipt from 1969. Unfortunately, when I got it home I discovered that it did not come with a working carriage return. Drat! I’m hoping I can find some instructions showing how to fix it online, but if not I’ll probably take it over to the typewriter shop in Berkeley and see if they can help me out.

Coincidentally, I stumbled upon an app called Hanx Writer in the featured apps section of the Itunes store the very next day.  The little gold typewriter icon intrigued me and when I clicked through I saw it was a fun little typing app made by Tom Hanks (a famous typewriter aficionado) and based off actual typewriters in his very large collection. It’s not quite as good as a real typewriter, but I still enjoy using it to type when I’m on my iPad.

By this time I was bordering on woozy from my typewriter addiction (or maybe it was the musty smell from the typewriter cases) so when I saw an ad for this letterpress typewriter calendar and the little typewriter cardholder, I was utterly powerless against them and bought them on the spot.

And finally, this is not a recent thing, but I want to share this great print I found on Etsy a few years back because it’s so dang cute.

How about you? Are you a crazy typewriter lady/dude?

Cute Pinky Bear Lunch — Just for Fun!

As the mom of two boys, I don’t get a lot of chances to make girly-girl lunches and sometimes — every now and then — that makes me sad. Like kids clothes and scrapbook supplies, it seems like bento manufacturers create waaaaay more products that are targeted at girls than they do for boys. Despite the fact that my kids wore pink pajamas and played with tea sets and dolls when they were younger, they both began adhering to strict gender norms when they entered elementary school and now the color pink is strictly forbidden in their lunch boxes. Boo hoo for me!

I happen to like pink a lot though and I also enjoy hearts and bows, so on a whim I decided to make myself a girly-girl lunch last week. Basically, I just pulled every bento tool my kids won’t let me use on their lunches out of my supply stash and I went to town. I started by adding slices of a Cara Cara orange which is supposed to be kind of pink-ish inside. (Yeah, I dunno…maybe.) I also filled a small container with some Eat Well Embrace Life beet hummus. I was sent a sample of this hummus and I love it. It’s a little sweeter than normal hummus and it doesn’t have that strong cumin flavor that so many store-bought hummuses (hummi?) have. Also, it is the most gorgeous pink color I’ve ever seen. It’s like fairy princess hummus. Next up: snap peas and cauliflower with every pink pick I could find jabbed into them. There were flowers and jewels. It was glorious. Finally, I made a cute little bear sandwich filled with tuna salad using my CuteZCute Cuddle Palz set. I put another pink bow pick on top of her head and I gave her a thin slice of radish cut into a heart shape to hold. Unfortunately, I realize now that I forgot to give her hands to hold the heart. Sorry, cute bear sandwich…

Wyatt’s 1000th Bento Box Lunch!

This morning I packed Wyatt’s 1000th bento box lunch!

1000 lunches packed with love, fruit, salami, dinner rolls, a ridiculous number of strawberries and probably approximately 40 pounds of carrots that were never eaten!

In honor of this occasion, Wyatt and I put our heads together and came up with a celebratory lunch this morning. If I’d planned a little in advance I would have hit the store last night and picked up some of his favorites, but I didn’t give it that much forethought so we pulled this together with items we had on hand.

Wyatt chose our red Yumbox Panino because red is his favorite color. He wanted a bagel and cream cheese in his lunch so I made that and then cut “1000” from slices of Monterey jack cheese that I “glued” to the top of the bagel with a little cream cheese spread on the back. Wyatt spotted the Facebook thumbs-up in the cutter set I was using and asked me to add that too. Below that is a silicone cup filled with sugar snap peas. I layered a carrot stick and three little meatballs on top to include another “1000”. I also chopped up an apple and carved “1K” in that with a  U-shaped carving knife. The last two sections were filled with savory rice crackers and peppermint mini marshmallows.

In honor of this milestone, I thought I’d share a few of my favorite lunches I’ve packed for my boy throughout the years.

Let’s start at the beginning with wbento001! If you’re wondering how I know that today’s bento box was #1000, this is why: I was a web developer back in the olden days, and part of my job was to come up with logical naming conventions for photos (and other files) that were used on the web sites I built. So, from day one I named Wyatt’s bento boxes as wbento001, wbento002, … etc. right on up to the file I renamed this morning: wbento1000. (If you’re curious, Augie’s are abento[number] and bentos I pack for myself are bento[number].)

Anyway, the first bento I ever packed for Wyatt was made for his first day of preschool when he was 3-years-old. He had strawberries, pieces of plain white bread, Cheez-its, two pieces of Laughing Cow cheese and deli ham and cheese roll-ups. Dang! That’s a lot of cheese! I packed way too much food for him the first week or so I did this, until his preschool teacher suggested I cut the amount I sent in half.

Wyatt’s all time favorite things to have in his lunch are salami, strawberries and a dinner roll. This early lunch is a perfect specimen! You can see many more lunches with strawberries, buns and salami in the gallery.

I love the way this lunch looks with the frosty berries, turkey roll-ups and a piece of banana bread.

I love the way this lunch looks with the frosty berries, turkey roll-ups and a piece of banana bread. Simple, but pretty!

This bento is notable because it was one of the first ones that inspired a critical comment! Some person on Flickr said, “Hmm. Do you think there might be just a little too much salt in here, especially for a preschooler? I mean, salami and pretzels?” Probably true, but she could have just kept it to herself. (Believe me, there have been many more — much meaner — since then!) I was especially upset by it because I read it while I was in labor for Augie. Good times!

This breakfast for lunch bento is one of my all-time favorites: leftover pancakes cut in half and stacked on one side of the box, a little dude cut from fruit leather, frozen blueberries in a heart-shaped silicone baking cup, pieces of chicken apple sausage and a small container of syrup.

I packed this Christmas lunch for Wyatt in July and we both were super amused by it! It had baked tofu cut and decorated with food-safe markers to look like candy canes, garlic toast cut with a christmas tree cutter and some grapes (under the toast). I used to pack baked teriyaki tofu for the kids all the time, but they’re sort of off it now. Maybe I should buy some and see it they like it again soon.

When Wyatt was in kindergarten and first learning to read, I used to write messages on his bread with food markers all the time. This one said “You eat buns.” Hee hee!

Let’s wrap things up with my all-time favorite bento I have ever packed for Wyatt! This little beauty had it all: rice balls with cute faces made from nori cut-outs, sprinkles on the peaches, and tofu with Wyatt’s name spelled out with a little heart! (It also had clementines, pretzels and dried cranberries.) I was SO PROUD of this lunch (and I still am) and I couldn’t wait for him to open it up at lunch time and see all the love and care that I had poured into it. I knew his eyes would light up and he would smile beatifically as he glowed from his mother’s love.

And this is what came home.

To quote my original post about this lunch:

“The rice balls…they…um…what the hell did he do to them? None of them looked like they even had a nibble taken out of them. So what’s up with the faces? Did he just scrape random facial features off? Why would he do that? I’m baffled. Anyway, this just goes to show that no matter what you do to a lunch, you can’t make a five-year-old eat anything he doesn’t want to eat.”

And five years later I’ve learned that you can’t make a 10-year-old eat anything he doesn’t want to eat either!

Looking back at 2014, Looking forward to 2015

Happy new year! I hope you had a fun, restful, and joyful holiday season. I’m excited to start a new year and I’ve been enjoying looking back on the year that has just passed.

To wrap up 2014, I made a video showing all of the 365 bento boxes I packed throughout the year. (No, I’m not claiming to have packed one a day — some days I packed three bentos, other days I packed zero. Though it’s cool that it worked out to one per day on average!)

365 Bento Boxes in 60 Seconds:

Phwew! That’s a lot of lunches.

Changes are Coming:

I also wanted to take a minute to fill you in on some changes coming to Wendolonia this year. The biggie is that I’m no longer going to be posting The Week in Bentos. I took a good hard look at the amount of time I was putting into these posts (a lot) and compared it to the number of people who are reading them (not many) and decided it no longer makes sense for me to devote so much time to a weekly wrap-up in this particular format.

But fear not! I will still be taking daily lunch photos and posting them to the Bento Box Gallery and I hope this continues to serve as a valuable resource to those of you who are looking for lunch-packing ideas. This morning I posted the TWO THOUSANDTH photo to the gallery, so there is tons of inspiration in there! I’m also going to be making a big push in the coming months to ensure that every photo in the gallery is properly tagged and updated with a title and at least a brief description.

And I will continue to post lots and lots of bento photos to my blog — just not every photo.  Instead of weekly posts, keep an eye out for themed lunch round-ups, lots of bento ideas and more frequent tutorials.

Thanks for reading Wendolonia! The year ahead is going to be fantastic!