the ghosts of Halloween bentos past

Despite the nippy air and pumpkins all around, I have not been feeling very Halloweeny. So alas,  I haven't made any Halloween bentos yet this year! The horror!

In an effort to get into the spirit I perused some of my past Halloween themed bento lunches. It helped to jog my memory about what supplies I own (my seasonal bento gear gets packed up and stored away after that holiday is over, so haven't seen my Halloween stash since last year!) and hopefully inspire me to get my creative creepy juices flowing.

In no particular order, here are some of my past faves. :)
(you can click the titles to go to the original post for more details about each lunch.)

bento lunch: high on the creepy scale:

Lunchbots bento: bats in the belfy:

Toddler lunch: batty bento:

Halloween jack-o-lantern sandwich bento & a scrappy one too:

I have to say, looking at these got me kinda excited to pull out the Halloween gear and get started with some spooky foody fun. :)

More of my past Halloween bentos can be found here. 

OOO000oooooooooo (that's me being scary).

Disney World bento shopping

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I hoped to find some fun bento goodies while visiting Epcot in Disney World. I did discover a few things there, and also some other lunch stuffs in other places on Disney property.

Let's start with the miscellaneous mouse stuff. Mickey Mouse, that is.

In almost all the gift shops at every Disney place (all four theme parks, Downtown Disney, and in the resort shops) they had this same assortment of Mickey themed kitchen supplies:

Cookie cutters, bread stamp, and pancake mold:

Some silicone items: a cake pan, muffin pan, and ice cube tray:

Sandwich keeper:

Mickey and Minnie plates, placemats:

I kind of really liked the mini Mickey ice cube tray. I just wasn't sure I'd get much use from it (beyond frozen yogurt bites), so I didn't get it. Of these items I only purchased the Mickey Mouse bread stamp (shown in this Mickey Mouse is in the... PlanetBox post).

There were different things to be found at Epcot. Epcot has a Japanese Pavilion in the World Showcase side of the park with an expansive shop of Japanese goodies. I could have strolled around in that place for an hour, easily. Instead, I walked briskly for maybe twenty minutes until my husband called me to frantically report that our natives were growing restless waiting outside. But I was able to take pictures of a few things before I reluctantly left.

First, these were just inside the entrance and stopped me in my tracks. Sanrio lunch boxes. Swoon.

They were designed with two sections, one upper and one lower. Sit upright. Long adjustable strap. Really nice thick insulation. I wanted one badly. I came to my senses and put back the one I selected (Keropi).  I reasoned that I already have a literal mountain of lunch bags and just can not justify another one. Although to be honest, had there been an actual Hello Kitty one I'm not sure I could have resisted.

Beyond these lunch bags there were a couple Hello Kitty sandwich boxes, but nothing that really stood out.

Nothing to do with lunchy stuff, but the store had so much stationery! I'm not sure what caught my eye with this particular display, but for some reason I took a pic of this paper rack (???):

There were also a lot of bags. All sorts of bags. I loved (LOVED) this canvas tote. Sooooo very wanted this:

In case you can't read it, it says "Wash elephant with water" and then "A friend in need is a friend indeed". How hilarious is that? So kitschy and funny. That baby was SO going to be mine. Until I flipped over the tag and read the price - $45.  That is so much money for a fairly simple canvas tote (it had a square bottom and zipped close at the top, but still). Wah! I keep pulling the photo back up on my phone to admire it every few days. So sad to leave it behind.

At the back of the store is where the mega bento jackpot was discovered. The shop did not have any cheapie plastic bento boxes that are abundant in the Japanese dollar stores (nor any fun cheapie bento accessories), but they had a whole table of really nice, high quality, bento boxes:

I'm not sure about all of them, but those in the back row, like the bunny and cat, are Kotobuki boxes. They are so nice. I already have a few of those and wasn't in the market to add to my stash, so I didn't pick any up. They were all priced in the $19 range, which isn't anything out of the norm for Kotobuki. 

I was really digging that big monorail tray at the top. The big monorail holds a removable dish with two or three sections in it. Such a fancy presentation for a meal! It was very big and totally not practical, but so cool. It's probably not really a monorail, it's probably that Japanese bullet train. Practically the same thing, I'm sure. 

The last area I browsed before being summoned back to my offspring was the snacks and foods section. 

I was drooling at this mint Pocky. Mint! I've never seen this flavor anywhere before. Mint and chocolate is my favorite. Yum!

Some individual bagged snacks. How about some shrimp crispies?

And lots of koala cookies (as shown in this Australia Love bento lunch in which I brilliantly showcased the continent upside down). These are a lot like Panda cookies, that are pretty easy to find these days (I've seen them regularly at Target as well as World Market), but I've only seen koala cookies at a Japanese dollar store in CA before. And that shop only had stawberry and vanilla, I think (same flavors as Panda cookies). But these flavors looked interesting! Some sort of coffee (?) variety and one that shows a chocolate chip ice cream cone.

As for what I purchased.... not too much.  I couldn't resist those cute koala cookies, and these coconut flavored animal cookies also landed in my hand basket. I haven't opened those ones up to see, but I sure hope they really have the animal names written on them like they show in the picture!

More foodie treats, these ones are not from the Japan Pavillion, but are the types of snacks available at just about every gift shop, candy shop, and bakery all over Disney World.  A spicy trail mix, Mickey shaped pretzels, Mickey cheese crackers, and some classic Disney character shaped cookies.

Those Mickey shaped cheese crackers were the secret key to my Hidden Mickey bento!

And that wraps up my Disney World bento/lunch shopping adventure. It took longer to get this post written up than I expected, but I had a visit to California get in the way (I went "home" to visit family and friends last week).  The bad news is: our pixie dust is mostly brushed off by now and the magic is fading away....the good news is: now that I'm nearly through with Disney Detox I might stop jabbering on and on about Disney World. Maybe. :)

how I made a freezer stash of sandwiches

As I mentioned in my pathetic pizza lunch post last week, I was off on a trip and left my ten-year-old in charge of making lunches for himself and for Paige in my absence.

To make things a bit easier on him I intended to make a freezer stash of peanut butter & jelly sandwiches for Paige. But I fell behind on packing and I didn't think I had enough time to do it. We were also down to just the heels of our bread loaf.  I thought maybe it was time to try those Brand Name boxed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches you find in your grocer's freezer. You know the ones. The ones without crusts...individually wrapped...the children of an old friend of mine refered to them detestables. Catch my drift? ;-)

So I came to terms with the fact that convenience may win out this round, and I would just pick up a box of those smuckers suckers and be done with it. 

At the grocery store I saw there was a whole wheat bread option of them. Awesome. 

Then I saw there was also a reduced sugar option. Looking good!

I grabbed a box out of the freezer and notice there are only four in the box. Hmmm. I look at the price. Almost a buck each. Seriously?

Finally I flip the box over and scan the ingredients....not one, but both of my big no-no's jump out at me from the list, one right after the other: HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED SOYBEAN OIL. 

Ugh. I put the box back in the freezer and hoofed it straight to the bread aisle. 

Back at home I quickly gathered my goods:

- stack of fresh multigrain bread

- natural peanut butter 

- fruit preserves

- sandwich cutters 

*side note: this "jelly" is organic fruit spread from Trader Joe's. It's a blend of cherry, red grape, blueberry and pomegranate called Super Fruit and it's DELICIOUS. Seriously, I'm really not a jelly fan at all and I love this stuff! If you have a Trader Joe's and need some yum in your life, try this out!

** second side note: obviously, using sandwich cutters are not mandatory, but they sure are cute. I was going to use my Pampered Chef sandwich sealer, but for cuteness sakes I grabbed a handful of some favored Lunch Punch cutters instead.

Step 1: make your sandwiches. 
If you put peanut butter on both sides of the bread with the jelly in the middle it will help your bread from going soggy. 

Step 2: flash freeze your sandwiches. 
I'm not sure if this is totally necessary, but I was afraid if I wrapped them prior to freezing that moisture may collect inside the wrapping and form ice crystals...which would later melt when the sandwich thawed and potentially make the bread soggy.

So I just laid my sandwiches down on a small baking sheet and stuck them in the freezer for 30 minutes. That was long enough to partially freeze them, but not too long to risk freezer burn.

My baking sheet has a lid which I placed on top slighty askew. If I didn't have this lid I might have tried laying a piece of wax paper loosely over the top or maybe even a clean dish towel, just to protect from the freezer without totally sealing in any moisture (sealing it tight might negate the benefits of the flash freezing).

Step 3: wrap the sandwiches.
I chose to wrap the sandwiches in waxed paper. I secured the waxed paper with washi tape (a decorative paper tape that's all the rage in craft and scrapbooking).

Step 4: put the sandwiches in the freezer

               

And that's it! When it's time to pack up the lunch box one of the frozen sandwiches can go straight in to the lunch box or bento container from the freezer. The sandwich will thaw in a couple hours and be good to eat!

This little freezer stash got my kiddos through my absence (along with two days they bought lunch in the cafeteria). Ethan thought it was pretty cool he just had to grab a sandwich pack from the freezer. Paige thought it was pretty cool too because she told me when I got home, "mama, Ethan made me really cute sandwiches with shapes and he wrapped them up in special paper with your fancy picture book tapes! Like a present!"

I'm happy with how this turned out and I think I'll try to keep a little freezer stash on hand from now on. Might save my sanity on some mornings. :)

Supplies used to make these freezer stash sandwiches:

InLinkz.com

Laptop Lunches bento: kick up the cute

I think this lunch is super cute and yet it was still really easy (fast!) to toss together.

Packed in an original Laptop Lunches box Paige had:
- half a peanut butter and fruit preserve sandwich
- deli turkey, rolled and tucked to the side of the sandwich
- cheddar cheese bear face
- spicy Mickey trail mix
- clementines
- Mott's strawberry applesauce pouch

It's pretty neat how a singular thing can totally kick up the cute a bunch of notches. In this case, that's the little cheddar cheese bear face. I know I've mentioned it before, but those cutters are the cutest things ever. Love them!

The Mott's applesauce pouch is left over from our trip. I don't really like to buy those things too often because they seem wasteful, but they made for really convenient snacks to pack and carry into the Disney parks. Those applesauce pouches have been around a long while now, but Mott's is new to the pouch scene. Isn't that funny? Mott's is like the big dog in applesauce and it took them so long to break into the pouch craze. As an aside, if you like them on Facebook you can get a $1 off coupon on these (but be warned: they will riddle your Facebook feed with a gazillion pictures a day). That brings the price down to under $2 for a box of four, quite a bit less than most of the other brands. Just call me Mama the Coupon Queen. That dolla make me holla.

Supplies used to make this lunch: