Halloween theme Lunch #11 (Pumpkin Bento)

I can't admit that Halloween is over.  As I said before, it is 2nd on my list of favorites. I'm just not ready to put away the cookie cutters and fun yet.  Sure, the decorations can come down - but not the cookware.  As it turns out, I have supplies I didn't even use this month! 

So, when I settled down with my nice glass of wine after two and a half hours of trick or treating, it came to me: use the baking molds and make little pocket sandwiches!

I got this Halloween baking cookie pan as a gift, and kept trying to get to a point in the day when I could make some cookies...but with two little ones, it just didn't happen. But with some store bought bread dough, lunch meat and cheese - presto - little pocket sandwiches you can serve hot or cold (well, I mean AFTER you bake them.)

And who says, you can't bake Halloween cookies in November?!?! I've got another 30 days to try!

Plated Lunch:

 - Two pocket sandwiches with Ham and White cheddar. (How-To do this)

 - Snickers candy (for dessert) - I have to take this off when Thing 1 sits down to eat, or he will eat it first!

 - Potato stix and a Mellowcreme pumpkin

 - Roasted pumpkin seeds - he ended up not liking these, even though I sprinkled with Italian seasoning, garlic powder and parmesan cheese

 - Cheese candy corn - I made this with Vermont orange cheddar, Kraft American cheese, and a Baybel.  You can see my post on that here.

 - Pumpkin cookie cutter with apple slice

 - Carrot pumpkins - My little guy is not keen on carrots, so I only gave him two.

Bento Version:

 - Two pocket sandwiches with Ham and White cheddar. (How-To do this)

 - Pumpkin seeds (I ended up taking these out for her, because she's still a little young)

 - Apple slices made with a pumpkin cookie cutter

 - Carrots cut into pumpkins

 - Potato stix and a Mellowcreme pumpkin

 - Cheese candy corn - I used a Baybel (white), Kraft American cheese (yellow), and Vermont Orange Cheddar (orange).  More on that here. (posting coming soon)

Halloween Theme lunch #10 (Halloween Bento)

The day is officially here! I hope all the little ghouls, witches and goblins are ready for some goodies! And I certainly hope you are leaving your porch light on tonight to hand out some candy.  When my husband and I were just "us" we used to have a large display of pumpkins in our yard each year.  We started off with 13, then 31, and the next year 57.  I can't explain where the 57 came from - we just kept buying pumpkins that year.  We had so many trick or treaters; it was amazing!

We moved across the country after the last year of pumpkin carving and have been living in a condo for two Halloween seasons.  Soon, we will get a house again and resume the madness of carving the most pumpkins in our neighborhood. I included a picture below the lunches if you are interested.

Plated lunch:

 - Whole wheat cheese quesadilla cut out with a pumpkin cookie cutter
 - Cup of whip cream and crushed up Oreos (we call this "dirt") with some gummy worms
 - Celery filled with cream cheese, pretzel legs and two craisins for eyes
 - Pepperoni slices with white cheddar and a half of kalamata olive
 - Apple "jaws" slice with a piece notched out and almonds as teeth
 - Roasted butternut squash that I cut out with a pumpkin cookie cutter.  The flesh was pretty thick, so when I got the big piece, I sliced it down the middle and ended up with pieces that were about 1/4 inch thick.

Bento version:

 - A prepackaged cup of mandarin oranges with a jack-o-lantern face drawn on there. I found this on pinterest!

 - Pumpkin cookie cutter on a cheese quesadilla. I tried to do the eyes with the knife, but it was just messy (because it's time to sharpen my knives) and an apple slice mouth with almond slivers as teeth

 - Cup of Halloween pasta (I found this at World Market, but also have seen at TJ Maxx)

 - Roasted butternut squash cut out with a bat shaped cookie cutter

 - Celery bug - filled with cream cheese, pretzels for legs and craisin eyes.

Here's that picture of our old house with most of the pumpkins in the picture. Some of them were cut out because of my lack of a wide angle lens. *sigh  - still on my Christmas list.

Halloween Spiders, Pumpkins, and Ghosts - oh my! Theme #9 (Halloween Bento #8)

I've realized that I am not much for consistency with titles each day with these Halloween lunches. I've got to get better with these as I do "seasonal" lunches so that they are easier to find.  I also plan on adding some tagging too.

While I do have a nice camera, most of the pictures of these lunches are done from my mobile phone. I hope that my pictures show a "detailed enough" view of my designs.  If you ever have any questions, feel free to contact me or drop me a comment! Thanks!

Plate lunch:

 - Halloween pasta that I found at World Market (but I've also seen at TJ Maxx.) It is mixed with some cheese sauce that I made with a roux, milk and grated Parmesan  
 - Carrot slices carved into little jack-o-laterns.  I got this idea off of searching through images of halloween lunches
 - Two marshmallows made into ghosts with a food grade marker
 - Nutella and bread sandwich with sugar pea pods cut up as legs and I took two of the peas to make the eyes

Bento version:

 - Halloween pasta with an Alfredo cheese sauce.  Although, if you were concerned about sending to school, I would just leave the noodles plain - maybe a little Italian dressing

 - One marshmallow made into a ghost with a food grade marker

 - Two Nutella sandwiches made into spiders with sugar snap peas as eyes and legs

 - Carrots carved into little jack-o-lanterns

 - Apple slices with a bell shaped cookie cutter that I made into ghosts by just adding little sprinkles for eyes

 - Yogurt raisins made into ghosts with the same food marker

 - Stacked sugar snap peas

The past three days have been crazy due to hurricane Sandy and threat of losing power.  Fortunately, the lights remained on where we are, but my heart is with all the families that have damage, flooding, and lost loved ones. I am also sad about the HMS Bounty, that sank off the coast of North Carolina.  
Mr. Man and I were just there for a visit in September.  We also had some trips this summer - seeing the ship, enjoying the oceans along Long Island, and visiting Atlantic City.   I realize I went off on a tangent there - but this situation is heavy on my heart and I just wanted to share my thoughts. I certainly hope FEMA and our great country will provide strength and support to help everyone affected through this time.

As always, thank you for stopping by!

Halloween pizza Theme Lunch #8 (Pizza in Bento)

Well today was sort of a cheat day.  I mean, we still did lunches, but I made a special lunchtime Halloween Pizza. We have threat of the hurricane here on the east coast and so I wanted to do something that was fun to try. As you will see from the picture below, I sectioned off a small portion for me (and for Mr. Man to try) that is Greek - seasonings, oil, grape tomatoes, feta and kalamata olives (we can call it the "graveyard"- but the rest of the pizza I filled with ghosts and spiders.

The ghosts are from a mozzarella cheese ball that I sliced and then used a small ghost cookie cutter on. The spiders are a slice of pepperoni, legs are green peppers and an olive cut in half to make eyes.

The kids loved it.  They were both home today - so unfortunately there's no bento on this post today. But stay tuned for tomorrows!

Thanks for stopping by today. I hope you are all getting ready for the "spooky" celebration - two days away!

Halloween Fingers and Goo Theme Lunch #7 (Slime and Fingers Bento)

So this was technically Friday's lunch, but I'm playing "catch up" since I missed posting on Thursday.  Today's lunch took a little bit more time as I didn't think about the fingers until right before.  However, you could certainly cook these in the toaster oven, or regular oven when preparing dinner the night before.

Plated Lunch:

 - Vanilla yogurt with green food coloring and a plastic spider ring added on top.  

 - Ghost - White Chocolate covered strawberry on a toothpick with two chocolate chips for eyes

 - Halloween Pretzels.  These came in little snack packs that were made for Halloween and we got some in an early "trunk or treat" event we went to.  They are made by Utz a regional snack/chip maker.

 - Spaghetti with ribbons of carrot mixed in; I said these were worms.  Small bread dough rolled lengthwise and a grape tomato sliced up as little finger nails. Baked in oven for 10 minutes.

Bento Version:

 - Vanilla yogurt with green food coloring and a plastic spider ring added on top.  

 - Halloween Pretzels.  These came in little snack packs that were made for Halloween and we got some in an early "trunk or treat" event we went to.  They are made by Utz a regional snack/chip maker.

 - Spaghetti with ribbons of carrot mixed in; I said these were worms.  Small bread dough rolled lengthwise and a grape tomato sliced up as little finger nails. Baked in oven for 10 minutes.

(and I left out the two white chocolate ghosts I made for Thing 2.  Oops! I took a strawberry and sliced it in half, dipped in white chocolate and used mini sprinkles for the eyes.)  As halved strawberries, they nested better on the upper side of the yogurt and spaghetti.

Thanks for following these posts! I encourage and welcome comments and suggestions. Please feel free to leave in the section below.

Halloween Monster mash Theme Lunch #6 (Monster Bento)

I missed posting this yesterday because the kids were crazy and Mr. Man got home a day early from his trip (yay!)  
This was so much fun!  Super easy and since it fit perfectly in the box, I just did two of them for both of the kiddos. 

 - regular spaghetti for hair
 - two chunks of meatloaf cut out and stick in toaster oven for a few minutes to cook the ketchup on top.  This will give it a more frightful look, and leak or mess up in the lunch box.  After you take out of the oven, stick a small piece of mozzarella cheese on top and let set. *I actually made meatloaf muffins and cut the chunks out of it*
 - carrot end for nose, just cut to height of bento box
 - Pizza bagel - half a bagel and slice open one half.  Spread pizza sauce (or regular tomato sauce as I did).  Next take a mozzarella cheese stick and slice horizontally in half so it makes the stick "less thick."
Begin cutting triangles from - giving you pieces for the teeth.  Slowly arrange them on the top row.  For the bottom row: as you lay them across, it might be better if you trim off some of the bottom of each "tooth" so they don't intersect with the top row. You can see what I'm talking about in the picture below.
 - I added two apple slices along the sides as ears
 - And I threw in two Brach's Mellowcreme pumpkins for dessert (or you can call them little knobs like Frankenstein has.)

Frightfully fun lunch!

Halloween Frankenstein Theme Lunch #5 (Frankenstein Bento)

ok, so I'm not perfect.  I (again) did a trial and error with what I saw in my brain versus what went down on the plate and in the box.  It didn't seem like enough food, but now that I have time to sit down and post this - I realize that they ate all of the food without any left over.  That differs from the amounts that I've been throwing away on some days.  This was actually a pretty packed lunch and my kids aren't asking for snacks yet, so we are good for now.  

Plate lunch:
- Jack O Lantern cheese slice. I just cut out the pieces with a knife
- Monster jaws eating a green bug. Of course, I did the red and white backwards, but you can't see white on a white plate, so go figure.  The white is a writer white chocolate pen (Duff's line sold at Michael's), strawberries, and a piece of celery.  
- Apple slices cut out with cookie cutter, two chocolate chips for eyes, cheese nose, celery mouth. Also, two sugar candy bones that I found in some halloween decoration that we bought recently.
- Frankenstein chicken sandwich with butter - cut out with larger version of same cookie cutter, celery for hair, grape tomato eyes, cheese nose and mouth.

Bento version:
 - Monster jaws eating a green bug. Of course, I did the red and white backwards.  The white is a writer white chocolate pen (Duff's line sold at Michael's), strawberries, and some slices of avocado with sprinkles as eyes
 - Frankenstein apple slice under sandwich (same shape as sandwich)
 - Frankenstein chicken sandwich with avocado for hair, tortilla bread, grape tomatoes for eyes and a small cheese slice for his mouth

As always, thanks for stopping by my site. I've been having great fun with these lunches and I hope I can share some of my ideas with you.  If you have any suggestions, or thoughts, I'd love to hear from you in the comments below!