Kawaii Bento Penguins for Lunch or Party

OMG! One of my friends at work brought these for our holiday potluck; they are SUPER easy to make and pretty much the cutest things ever. Plus they taste good, even for picky eaters.

Ingredients:

• Olives
• Carrots
• Cream Cheese
• Toothpicks

… Pretty straightforward: Slice the carrot(s); cut a “V” out of them. Cut a wedge out of half of the olives; stuff this with cream cheese. In the other half of the olives, place the small carrot wedge so that it is sticking out like a beak. Assemble as shown – large carrot slice on bottom, cream-cheese-filled-olive endwise, olive head with beak skewered through the middle – and voila! You have the most unbelievable cute and totally yummy little winter bento additions or hors d’oeuvres you have ever seen, and even the kids will eat them.  (A big thanks to Christine Duval for the inspiration!!)

Cute and (sort of) Healthy Bento Treats!

Alright. Because I seem to be lacking in creativity and free time this week, here is a link to a nifty little treat that I found for your bento! Super cute, super easy, and - as an added bonus - even mostly healthy! And hey, strawberries are high in Vitamin C. Very important for boosting the immune system this time of year. ;)

So, go check out these Delectable, Simple, and Adorable Santa Hats!

Meat Buns - Bento or Mennonite, these are awesome.

In nearly all of the anime shows our family watches, bento lunches are a huge part of the interaction between characters. One of the most intriguing foods to me (besides yakisoba sandwiches, which I have yet to try) were the meat buns - so I went ahead and made them for dinner last night! Granted, the recipe was from a Mennonite blog and the "real" name for them is "Meat Perishky", but still.

These are from the original blogger's page, but mine really did turn out like this!

I used the dough recipe from the site and BBQ pulled pork for the filling, and out of the 5 dozen or so buns the recipe made, there were maybe a dozen and a half left this morning! ALL of the kids - and my husband - loved them, which is essentially unheard of. Most of us had them for breakfast this morning as well, and took them in our lunches, too - which is kind of the point, right?  :)  A bit time-consuming but VERY easy to do, and we are looking forward to experimenting with fillings (think homemade Hot Pockets). Even better - they freeze beautifully!

You can find the recipe at http://www.mennonitegirlscancook.ca/2008/06/meat-buns.html.