Lovely Lunches for your Valentine
February 13, 2013
Better late than never, here is a gallery of hearty lunches I’ve made over the last year, just in case you are looking for some ideas for sharing the lunch love tomorrow. And while I have your attention, don’t forget to enter the CuteZCute Giveaway. The giveaway ends tonight, so hurry on over and enter now.
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- Cheese pocket sandwich, heart fruit salad, heart shaped hard-boiled egg
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- Fruit salad, english muffin with almond butter and banana decorated with a cheese heart, pretzels
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- Almond butter sandwich, broccoli with a sprinkle of cheese, hearty fruit salad
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- Cheese sandwich hearts, raspberries, melon and pineapple hearts
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- English muffin with cream cheese and banana, pretzels, fruit salad, cucumber and carrots, heart cups filled with hummus for dipping
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- Watermelon heart skewers, mini heart almond butter sandwiches, vanilla yogurt, strawberries, yogurt covered pretzels
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- Mini heart pocket sandwiches, yogurt covered pretzels and raisins, coconut milk yogurt, two mini tomato hearts, watermelon and pineapple heart salad
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- Leftover pizza, carrots and hummus frozen into heart shapes, melon and berries
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- Pizza cut up with a Funbites LuvIt cutter, fruit, carrots and hummus
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- Cheesey bean bite hearts, almond butter sandwiches, berries
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- Tortilla and strawberry cream cheese roll ups, car shaped egg dyed with natural colors, fruit
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- Strawberry cream cheese sandwiches, plum, berries and bean and cheese bites molded into mini hearts
I hope to get a shopping guide up shortly 
Hello Hungry Kitty!
February 11, 2013
Our almond butter and banana kitty is giving us a quick wink before pouncing on the yummy strawberry mouse sneaking behind her (thanks Bentoriffic!). If she misses, she still has a raspberry mouse hanging around on top of buried berries topped with vanilla yogurt. Kiwi and pineapple kitties are rooting her on from a bed of yogurt covered raisins.
This cute kitty is one of the adorable characters in the CuteZCute cutter set. Want to win one of your own? Enter the CuteZCute Giveaway, open through Wednesday, February 13.
To make this lunch I used:
CuteZCute Giveaway
February 6, 2013
This winter, the Veggie-Bento household has been under siege by a viral invasion. Actually, make that multiple viral invasions. As you’ve seen, I did not manage to post my lunches during that time, BUT I still made cute lunches . Looking back, at least 75% of those quick and easy, but CUTE, lunches were made using the CuteZCute. I love love love this set! I wake up, tired and late (at best) and have no idea what I am going to make. I reach for the CuteZcute, and the rest of the lunch just comes together. So far, I have used it on both of Cora’s staples – cheese and almond butter/jam sandwiches, with cut outs in the bread itself, cheese, fruit leather or all three. Some of my favorites are in the pic above and will get their very own posts over the next few days. And, here’s the best thing, I have just begun to scratch the surface. There are already loads of brilliant (and yummy) ideas to be found on the CuteZCute Pinterest board.
To celebrate my triumphant return to blogdom, I am honored to be hosting a giveaway – you can win your very own CuteZcute set! To win, you need to visit CuteZCute and leave a comment below telling me which character is your favorite and ‘like’ CuteZCute on Facebook. You can also get extra optional entries by showing Veggie-Bento some love and sharing this giveaway. You have until midnight EST Wednesday, Feb 13 to enter and the winner will be picked the next morning. The winner will have 48 hours to claim the prize by email before I pick again. Open to domestic and international entries, so UK friends go for it!
If you can’t wait that long to get your own set, or need to buy a bunch for friends (they make GREAT gifts for families with young kids) you can buy them on Amazon.
Giving Thanks
November 15, 2012
This is going to be short and sweet. I am oh so thankful for my family. I can’t imagine life without Cora and my hubby. So, when my blogger friends and I decided to do a Thanks bento blog hop, I knew just what I wanted to do:
Almond butter and jelly people, cheese house with fruit leather hearts and soy paper drapes, fruit hearts and plain greek yogurt with natural food colored sprinkles and fruit leather letters.
Now, follow the thankful blog hop to see what Glory is giving thanks for this year:
To make this lunch I used:
Firefly Kaylee and her Frilly Dress
November 9, 2012
I am just now recovering from the flu and fairly happily spent the duration of the bug in bed with my iPad watching the short-lived but awesome series Firefly on Netflix. The 10th anniversary special for the series airs on 11/11 (http://science.discovery.com/tv/firefly/10-anniversary) and I can’t wait! To celebrate, some of my geekier bento friends and I are having a Firefly-inspired blog hop, starting at 9am PST. I went live a little early so please check back and catch the rest of the hop!
My big challenge was making a fun lunch that would work for me as a Firefly fan and Cora, who has no idea what I’m talking about. Then, I saw the episode in which Kaylee gets to dress up in a frilly pink dress and knew I found my hook I usually avoid the overly-girly with Cora, but every once in a while I make an exception for all too-selfish reasons. This was one of them.
I decided to capture the end scene in which Kaylee curls up on her bunk, gazing at her pretty dress (decorated with strawberries pureed and mixed in with cream cheese and a touch of natural food color) and eating treats. In this case, she is eating cream-cheese stuffed strawberries and an apple (sliced up of course!). To commemorate her beloved ship, we have melon and pineapple fireflies in the corner.
I realized that this might not be enough food so I added another layer to the sandwich. I called it a ‘hidden dress’ to Cora. She then decided the hidden dress needed to be decorated too.
Then Cora decided the dress was so pretty Kaylee needs to be wearing it. And she needs to have a face. And she needs to have hair. Hair that is blond, like her.
And there you have it – a lunch suitable for a Firefly fan AND a particular 4 year old girl. Kinda
Don’t forget to follow the Firefly to the next blog and check out Shannon’s celebration of the Firefly anniversary special. Shiny!
To make this lunch I used:
Princess Pig
November 7, 2012
Last night, I read The Princess and The Pig to Cora, then this morning made her lunch from my memory of the pig princess. I should have looked at the book, she needed more bling!
To make this lunch I used:
Finally! A Mermaid!
October 25, 2012
Cora has been asking for a mermaid lunch for quite awhile. So, far, I’ve gotten away with a variety of under the sea themed lunches, but I really wanted to honor her request without resorting to one of the sexy mermaid cutters I saw everywhere. I spent a little time studying different cartoon mermaids (no, NOT Disney) and came up with a design I could feel good about. So, Cora finally got her mermaid lunch!
I made our girl using a shark cookie cutter. I cut off the fins and the head, and used a small circle cutter to make her head. Her hair is made from organic, dye-free cheese curls
To make this lunch I used:
Fall Leaves
October 24, 2012
To make this lunch I used:
Cute ‘n’ Creepy Halloween Lunches
October 16, 2012
Wow! Time is really flying – I can’t believe Halloween is almost here already! We’ve been getting into the spirit with goofy witches in the front yard, silly ghosts in the back, and lots of creepy and cute fun in Cora’s lunches. My bento blogger buddies are doing the same and we have a zillion great ideas for dressing up YOUR lunches. Make sure you click the button at the end of this post to hop on through. You don’t want to miss it!
In the first lunch, a clumsy witch has fallen into her cauldron (an almond butter and marmalade sandwich) while the pile of melon jack-o-lanterns and a veggie-juice bloody skull laugh at her. I made the skull by freezing our homemade veggie juice (beet, carrots, kale, spinach and apple) in a skull candy mold. It’s not really suitable for a school lunch, it will melt too quickly. So, I ended up stirring it into Cora’s coconut yogurt to give her a nice creepy swirl of color. I used mini food cutters to make impressions for the faces on the melon pumpkins and scored lines using a sharp knife. The cheese bats were made using a moth fondant cutter, and then trimming the bottom with a scalloped edge cutter.
The second lunch is a cheese sandwich jack-o-lantern, watermelon patch of more jack-o-lanterns, ghost potato chips, ghostly string cheese and quail egg eyeballs. The ghost and eyeballs are decorated using natural food colors. Love that stuff!
The third lunch is a last minute quickie. Seriously, I only spent 15 minutes on it from conception to finish because we got a late start this morning. The ghost is an almond butter and marmalade sandwich in front of a cheese slice house with a Babybel jack-o-lantern. The cute kiwi monster with cheese monsters was inspired by Another Lunch. In the third compartment, our clumsy witch finally climbed out of the cauldron and stumbled into a vat of coconut milk yogurt (a tardy mama’s best friend!).
Don’t forget to check out the blog hop, starting with Beth’s super fun post on A Boy & His Lunch
To make these lunches I used:
CuteZCute Cat Lunch
September 26, 2012
I was so excited when my new sample of the CuteZCute kit arrived! I immediately plopped it in the dishwasher (top shelf) so I could use it the very next day. This thing is so dang cute! This morning, I couldn’t wait to dig in, but first I had to decide which cute critter I wanted; panda, frog, pig or cat. I opted for the cat – look how cute it is!
Our cute kitty has a lot of fun in store! There is a quail egg, cheese and spaghetti mouse to chase, a plum buckwheat noodle ball of yarn to dismantle and a passel of watermelon kittens to wrestle.
To learn more about the CuteZCute cutter and stamp kit, check out this fun tutorial by JeeJee from AllThingsForSale and the creator of CuteZCute, and stay tuned because I plan to use this set A LOT!
To make this lunch I used:
