Friday, May 9, 2008

back to bento

Monday:May 5th was Children's Day, a holiday in Japan where carp streamers are flown to represent the family, often a larger one for the father, then smaller streamers for each child. So I cut out two carp streamer shapes out of nori and put them on either side of an onigiri triangle for AJ's snack, along with: edamame; a mini pumpkin muffin; blanched spinach; 2 cantaloupe bears.
Ryan's class was celebrating his teacher's birthday, so he brought a chocolate cupcake cone with vanilla rainbow frosting--I forgot to get a photo of it, doh!

Nate and I shared a
second breakfast of
blanched sesame
spinach and miso soup.







Lunch & dinner was a polenta lasagna. I've used rice lasagna noodles to make a gluten-free lasagna before, but using polenta really works well too! I only used half the polenta called for in the recipe though. I veganized this recipe from a Food Network show and it turned out fabulously! My husband really enjoyed it and the boys liked it too. Some of my substitutions included:
- for the sausage: Tofurky Sweet Italian Sausage with sun-dried tomatoes...I hadn't bought imitation sausage in at least a decade; this stuff was pretty good and smelled marvelous.
- for the 3 cheeses: Vegan Gourmet monterey jack; Galaxy Vegan Grated Topping for the parmesan (though I only used about 1/2 a cup instead of 2 cups); a homemade tofu ricotta of my own (this worked really well keeping the top moist so it could be cooked without covering for 50 minutes).

Tuesday:
Basketball bento for Ryan: Basketball sandwich; baked sweet potato fries; a container of ketchup; orange slices.
I recently bought some edible food coloring markers and wanted to try them out. They didn't work too smoothly writing on slippery orange soy cheese! But I have another idea which was my main reason for buying them that I will try next week....stay tuned!

I froze the remainder
of our anniversary
cake. We'll save it
to eat after the new
baby's arrival...in
only 7-12 weeks!




Here are AJ &
Ryan imitating
my 30 week
pregnant belly
with some mini
beachballs they'd
just gotten at
the garden center.
hahaha

Wednesday:
Ryan & AJ: green beans dressed with a little soy sauce; cantaloupe chunks; baked Ian's Alphatots; container of ketchup.

Friday:Ryan & AJ: grilled nutritional yeast cheeze sandwiches; mango slices; dill pickle pieces; baby carrots.

Lately Ryan has been creating some of his own meals & snacks. He calls them his Iron Chef food.

He has some very
interesting sandwich
combinations, like
sliced banana, sliced
apple, lettuce, &
cream cheese.

Or strawberries,
peanut butter, &
spinach.


What's more, he's
been handing out
sticky notes at
mealtimes so that
everyone (myself
included) can rate
the food and see
which part of the
meal is the winner!

2 comments:

Jumbleberry Jam said...

I love Ryan's food combos...not too far from the green smoothies we make around here.

Do you, by chance have a moment to share the ingredients list on the food writers? I don't see details on the web page.

veganf said...

Wilton Foodwriter--ingredients: Propylene Glycol, Purified Water, Yellow #5 or #6, Red #40 or #3, Blue #1 and one or more of the following: Sodium Benzoate, Citric Acid, Methyl Paraben or Propyl Paraben (as preservatives).

I actually emailed a few makers of various food coloring markers asking about their ingredients. Some assured my that they did not contain any animal ingredients, but would not divulge the actual ingredient list! Hence I ended up finding a store that carried stome (instead of purchasing online) and found the Wilton ones that had a printed ingredient list. Certainly not health food, but fun nonetheless!