We didn't do much bento over the summer so I'm feeling a little rusty. All in all I'm pretty happy with our first 2 days of 2nd grade lunches!
For the first day we have "Power Pasta" - Power Rangers branded pasta. For sides there's a sweet red pepper in a party hat, carrots, apple bunnies and GIANT cucumber slices from my Mom's garden. The green star in the center was propped up with carrot pieces and dyed with natural green dye we bought for a birthday cake a few years ago. I have to say that the natural dyes I've used have been mondo disappointing. Hopefully, India Tree dyes will show up in my Christmas stocking this year! Monstro wanted a special note for the first day so I used an assortment of glitter glues to make a little card.
Second day lunch was pretty funny to make. I asked Monstro on Sunday to write a menu for the week. I let him know that it needed to be foods we already have on hand and that each day needed 1 protein/1 fruit/1grain/2veggies. His menu for today was: "Peper Jack Cheese, Radish Mice, Banana, Long Horn Colby Cheese." Hmmm... we seem to be missing a few things here! So, we worked together to adapt the menu to include all the categories and to drop the items we don't have. We've got cucumber stars (the left over centers from yesterday), wavy cut carrots, zucchini-pineapple bread (from Gramma's house), peaches with apple stars and wavy cut pepperjack and colby cheeses. I made sure to include the foot as a little surprise. I also put in a little note with a silly joke on it and wishing him a good 2nd day.
Both lunches were packed in our new LunchBots Trio. We bought it at the grand opening of The Green Nursery's new location to support a great local business and to give us something to look forward to at the start of the new school year. I am LOVING this box! I've been using a LunchBots Eco for a while and love it for myself. It's way too big for Monstro unless he's having something like a sandwich but I can fit my lunch plus a mid-shift snack in there for me! It fits perfectly snug into the bottom compartment of his new lunch bag too. We also found a great drink bottle at Old Navy that fits perfectly in his lunch box, doesn't have tiny parts to wash and (so far) doesn't leak!
I've been looking back through past lunches to get inspiration. Where have you been finding great lunch ideas?
