Pink eggs – Apparently, not all the rage
While making bentos for the last few weeks, I discovered rather quickly that boiled eggs are an easy addition that pack a nutritious punch. Almost as quickly, I discovered that they get boring after a couple weeks.
I was already drawing faces on them to help make them a little more appealing, but there’s only so far that food markers can take the same ol’ boring egg.
One afternoon after making a batch of them, I found myself with a dozen eggs that were impossible to peel. Or rather, the entire egg would start peeling into layers and chunks of slimy egg white instead perfectly smooth ones as they should be. So I did what any sane person would do and I scrapped the idea of getting the shell off easily, and threw the chunks of egg and yolks into a pan of colored water.
The result? Pink eggs. And strangely orange, weirdly textured yolks.
Gross, huh? What the heck was I supposed to do with that??
Chop it up, of course. Two of the girls loved the little muffin cups I filled with pink eggs and a ball of sunshine on top. The oldest, though? “It was weird. I didn’t like it. It just….it tasted weird like that.” She didn’t mind the pink, but having the egg deconstructed really threw her off. Oops.
Fried pork shiso rolls – Bento meat sushi rolls*
^ Those are not mine. Those are gorgeous, perfectly rolled and sliced pork shiso rolls from Adventures in Bento. I love how the middles ended up looking like miniature whole carrots in some of them.
We determined mine looked more like little mis-colored strawberries. 
I obviously left the toothpicks in for this picture because I felt they needed horns. Or something like that. ><
Aibento has some delicious step-by-step pictures of placing the fresh, colorful veggies and delicately rolling them to perfection. I just have pictures of the most important part….the frying:
See that dark brown, almost black crispness? Oh yeah, that’s where it’s at.
I actually made two batches of these and had plenty leftover for the girls’ bento lunches the next day, too. They couldn’t wait.
This was definitely a day of green and orange, huh? Oh well…they loved it anyway.
* This title is all sorts of wrong, by the way. First of all, I don’t have shiso in my rolls at all. It’s the leafy green edge you can see in aibento’s. And secondly, sushi refers to the rice in rolls we tend to call just sushi….these obviously aren’t actually sushi at all, but but sometimes you’ve gotta call ‘em what the kids think they look like.
** In the boxes, from top of the picture: Leftover salad with light spritzes of Italian dressing so it didn’t spread all over the box, sliced mango, stuffed pork rolls, boiled egg, homemade fruit roll up leather, leftover rice with peas, corn, and soy sauce. Thank goodness these guys love leftovers.
Bento boxes – Or how I gave a boiled egg its first black and blue eye
Somewhat last minute, we decided to start sending the kids’ lunches again and cutting out some possible trigger foods. Dairy and sugar are being mostly tossed out the window for a little while and while I don’t use much processed food anyway, it’s completely gone, too.
So when I realized first off that sandwiches weren’t going to cut it, bento boxes were my go-to plan. They’re extremely versatile, can be made as healthy as you want, and hopefully the occasional cuteness will keep the kids interested.
I don’t have actual bento boxes, but standard plastic bowls with lids worked just fine. They’re a bit on the large side but I think that can be adjusted as I get more used to how much food is enough vs. too much.
Because of the time pressure, the only “cuteness” in these boxes are the simple drawn on faces and the hamburger lookalikes. I’ve got Anna to thank for that one again. Mine are made with barbecue meatballs sliced in half and put back together with a slice of carrot and lettuce leaf to make them look like mini burgers. For some reason, I didn’t take a picture of one individually so you can see what it actually looks like, but they were a big hit.
What’s in the box?
- Boiled egg (edible markers were used and it was actually black the night before but melted into a blue by morning…..I squished each one slightly so two are round balls and the other is a triangle)
- Grapes (cutting them in half and mixing them up only took a couple extra minutes and was also a huge hit, so well worth it)
- Ants on a log
- Leftover rice from the night before (a light Spanish rice of sorts)
- Edamame on toothpicks (not a big hit….needed a bit more salt….probably won’t use again once the bag is gone)
- Hamburger lookalike meatballs
- Homemade fruit rollups (no sugar is needed….just toss some apples into the mix and it’s sweet enough…..not shown in the picture above, but can be seen in the bottom of this one)
So uh, the guy above had a little accident. I had partially prepared them the night before and stacked them in the fridge without lids. One bowl shifted so that it ended up resting in this guy’s face overnight. Oops!
I ran into a few other issues but nothing too major. I forgot the girls switched to the lunch bags from Subway last year instead of the old bags I remembered from before. The bowls I chose didn’t quite fit easily, so we had to do some squishing. B pointed this out almost immediately in her least offensive tone….”Are you really going to send those to school with us?” I was afraid she was talking about the food, but it was really just the logistics of getting them in the bags that worried her.
Their excitement was less than peak before they left for school which really threw me off because they’ve been begging to take their lunches again for a while. They weren’t really sure what to think of the sheer lack of sandwiches, I don’t think, but when they got home from school, it was a whole ‘nother story. “I’m so happy we get to take something other than sandwiches,” L told me first thing and N couldn’t stop talking about what the other kids wanted from her box, but she couldn’t/wouldn’t share. Definitely a success and now they’re full of a huge stream of ideas of things they’d love to take. :D
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