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Smiling Daisies Bento (413)

Is it really Friday already? Is it already November? I really don’t know where the year went, but the coming of November reminds me that I have to start Christmas shopping. I hate being that one rushing home thinking, “DID A BOX COME FOR ME???” because I didn’t order early enough. I remember one year I was stalking Toys R’ Us because I wanted a particular desk for my daughter to draw on. Now we use the chair for brushing teeth and the desk for storing papers.

Today I have a small little bento for lunch, which worked out quite well for me. I’d wanted to link this box to J-List, but I guess that box is now out of stock. It’s one of the few metal tin boxes that I have and although it’s a tiny little thing, I love it! It’ll make a great size for when Baby Girl finally accepts my lunches… whenever that day may be.

I’m actually quite proud of the two lunches I packed today because it took me less than 20 minutes to do both. I woke up earlier than usual because Buddy woke me up with his sobbing because he peed on the floor while sleeping, so I used that time to cook some hapa rice. My lunch has one teriyaki hamburger patty (from Grandma J) cut in half, a small sprig of steamed broccoli sliced in half, a piece of simmered kabocha that I sliced up and fanned out, and a baby Roma tomato cut in half for some red.

I think I mentioned before how the baby Romas are almost gone and it seems like ever since I said that, the basket just doesn’t empty! *sigh* I think I have about six more to go. For the flowers, I cooked a bit of egg substitute on low heat, then cut out the flowers with one of my sandwich cutters. The middles are simply sliced baby carrot. I didn’t even need to use a straw, I simply cut two thin slices off a thick carrot and added the nori faces.

Mr. Pikko’s manly lunch looks basically the same as they’ve looked for the past two weeks, except with different food. I added some grated carrot to his broccoli for more color, as I didn’t think the yellow of the squash was doing a good enough job.

OC Weekly recently did an article on bento and features some of my bento. Take a look at the article here and the slideshow here!