Imperial shuttle

Half way through making this bento I realized I shouldn't have! Ryan has not seen Return of the Jedi yet...I'm making him wait until he's closer to the age I was when I saw it...because I'm mean and evil that way, hahaha. Oh well...
Ryan's lunch: Tofurky sandwich w/ lettuce & soy cheese; carrots; cucumber wontons; green mini gel cup (you can pretend it's the forest moon of Endor if you'd like).

I was running short on time and went to get out the food markers to finish the details on the shuttle...and I couldn't find my set with the black marker in it! Did I throw them away?? Who knows. So maybe it looks stupid with blue, but whatever.

Hey, do you wanna lower my odds of winning a cool bento cookbook? Of course you do! Go visit Happy Little Bento by tomorrow and you too can comment for a chance to will a copy of Hawai'i's Bento Box Cookbook (second course), by Susan Yuen of Hawai'i's Bento Box Cookbook: Bentos and More for Kids.

chewie soba

Chewbacca is camoflaged in a food jungle!
Ryan's
lunch:
white
rice (I
ran out
of brown,
usually
I mix
the two);
soba
noodles
(with a
face of
nori,
black
bean,
and
tomato);
meat-
less
meat-
balls;
steamed
broccoli; foraged chickweed.

cantina characters

So many great Star Wars characters to choose from! I think I like how Greedo turned out best...
Ryan's lunch: tofu salad
sandwich on wheat bun,
topped with 4 Mos Eisley
cantina characters; straw-
berries; steamed broccoli.

From left to right...the jawa:
flax wheat rollup, nori,
carrot...the green-eyed alien:
smoked Tofurky, cucumber, nori...big headed musician: corn muffin, black olive, nori...Greedo: gherkin pickle, black olive, nori. Everthing was adhered using either Marmite or agave nectar.
The drinks are soy cheese, nori & blue food marker...and carrot and nori. The little white ice cubes (or maybe money?) are just soy cheese.

moisture farm meal

If you're working all day on Tatooine, I'd imagine a boxed lunch would come in handy...
Ryan's lunch: baked sweet potato strips; brown & white rice; smoked Tofurky; soy cheese; carrot & nori embellishments.

Making a rather monochromatic lunch and keeping it balanced nutritionally can be challenging. It also has to be made with foods that go well together, and that will actually be eaten. Cute lunches are great, but in my opinion they are worthless if they're not delicious too. I try my best to stick with the Japanese approach to bentos with more or less proper ratios of grain, vegetable & protein, with fruit added as a bonus (in this case Ryan had a fruit & vegetable juice on the side today, more than enough simple sugars for one meal). Sometimes fruit just lends itself well to carving or colourful kyaraben art, but I never let it replace vegetables in a meal. After this lunch, I'll just make sure to load on the green veggies at dinnertime.

Food Rebellion

With the conclusion of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution on ABC friday night, I thought a little food rebellion was in order! I just picked up a new Star Wars Thermos at Target this week, along with a new lunchbox and sneakers for both boys (their shoes literally fell apart within days of each other over the spring break).
Ryan's lunch: small pbj sandwich on 12 grain bread embellished with the Jedi order symbol on soy cheese; mini corn muffin; a strawberry; 2 gherkin pickles; Thermos of vegetable black bean
soup
with 8
veggies
(onion,
shallot,
carrot,
celery,
purple
topped
turnip,
parsnip,
butter-
nut
squash,
kale)...
and a
base of
vege-
table
broth
and
tomato
(which is
most definitely a fruit folks! Though technically speaking so is the butternut squash!).

If you haven't already done so, please consider signing the Food Revolution Petition to improve public school lunches in the U.S. and the support the training of cafeteria staff.

Also consider contacting Congress to urge them to support the Healthy School Meals Act. To Learn more about it you can visit the Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine's Healthy School Lunches website.

In case you haven't watched Food Revolution yet, here is a YouTube link to one of the highlights! You gotta watch! It's the Jungle Flames flash mob from episode 4.

I have noticed a lot of new beginner bento bloggers popping up lately, and a resurgence of posting on other older blogs. Yay!

And just last week I received
a new award from Heather
of Don't Forget Your Lunch.
She makes lots of cute lunches
for her 3 boys using the
Laptop Lunches system.
Thanks Heather!

I love the variety of lunch
blogs out there. If you're
not feeling inspired to make
lunch some days, just get online and browse what others are doing and you're sure to come up with something healthy and delicious!

Just the Facts

"These astrodroids are getting quite out of hand...even I can't understand their logic at times."

Ryan's lunch: sesame tofu; Tofurky & lettuce sandwich on wheat bread w/soy cheese R2D2; cucumber slices; snap peas; steamed broccoli.
No snacks for AJ this week...he finally has chicken pox.

As part of receiving the Kreativ Blogger award, I must share seven random facts about myself. So consider this a prelude to next month's post about me!

#1 - I can quote all of the original Star Wars, episode IV, including the droid sounds. I lost count somewhere in my teens, but I have seen the film well over 100 times...probably double that. Just yesterday Dada
played Star Wars Monopoly
with Ryan and AJ. Ryan has
Star Wars sheets on his bed.
When we met, my husband
and I each had x-wing fighters
prominently displayed in our
living rooms, his a model, mine
made of Lego bricks. I wore
earrings made of Star Wars
ccg cards to the 12:01am showing of Episode I. Our boys could battle with toy lightsabers before they could competently say the word lightsaber. Ryan dressed as Darth Vader for Halloween last year. And I've made Star Wars bentos in the past.
But I am stubbornly refusing to allow my children to watch the animated series The Clone Wars, nor will I let them see all the movies at such a young age. I saw the first film at age 3 1/2...my mother took me and read the titles to me in the beginning. I am forcing Ryan to wait another year before seeing Return of the Jedi. Hey, I had to wait longer than that!

#2 - All four of my kids
were born at home, with
the same midwife, who had
all five of her kids at home
too. Two of mine--#2 and
#4--were considered
"precipitous labors" because
the entire labors were less
than 3 hours long (#2 was
half that). If you live in Massachusetts and want to find a certified professional midwife, visit the Massachusetts Midwives Alliance website.

#3 - Snorkeling the Great
Barrier Reef was the best
time I've ever had. It was
like something straight out
of National Geographic,
absolutely perfect. Add to
that the great buffet on the
boat, Vegemite and bread
at teatime, and doing all that
with my husband (then
boyfriend) and not even the births of my children--as easy, empowering and perfect as they were--could compare. Sorry kids, no offense! We'll take you there someday!

#4 - I love tomatoes. They are my favourite food. In Vermont, I once grew 39 varieties. Nowaday, we get most of our
tomatoes from Stearns Farm.
One thing I love about our CSA
is the unlimited cherry tomato
picking in August when the
crop is at its peak!
And wouldn't you know it, my
first two kids don't like tomatoes.
Oh, they like them as salsa, pizza
sauce, or in a soup. But they don't care for them plain. And then along came Nate--he will happily eat his weight in tomatoes straight from the bush. But the other boys love to help pick them regardless. And Maia had a few bites of tomato from a burrito a few weeks ago and seemed to like it...fingers crossed!
How much do I love tomatoes?? I dvr'd and saved the Jamie At Home episode about tomatoes...it's better than any adult dvd for a tomato-holic.

#5 - I am a closet Yankees
fan. You have to understand.
I live just outside of Boston. You
can get beat up wearing a Yankee
hat at the wrong time. And yet I
put my kids in Yankees shirts as
babies. But I was born in New
York City. It's in my blood.
My husband (also born in New
York state) is a traitor. He now
routs for the Red Sox. I think he just can't stand the peer pressure. Wimp.
And no, I have not made a Yankees vs. Red Sox bento...yet.

#6 - I do not iron. Nope.
Not at all. Not even the pants
I wore at my own wedding
(yes, I wore pants, not a
dress). My husband had to
use the hotel room iron to
de-wrinkle his pants before
our wedding. And I turned
down a nanny position once
when they listed "ironing the baby's dresses" as one of my would-be tasks. And it's not like the laundry gets put away promptly at home either (hey, you try it with 4 kids, 2 still in cloth diapers). The only time I even understand ironing is when you need to flatten a piece of material when sewing...and I also do not sew.

#7 - My wedding was on the
Travel Channel. Actually it
was filmed by a PBS film crew
from Chicago, in Las Vegas, and
later sold to the Travel Channel.
And get this...I've never even
seen the footage. So if you're
ever watching wedding re-runs
and you see two geeks getting married on the bridge of the Enterprise, surrounded by an entire wedding party in Star Trek uniforms, would you tape it for me? Please??