Welcome Back Game of Thrones!

Game of Thrones returns tonight and of course some of the Edible Geekery crew decided we needed to celebrate with a mini hop! After you're done here, click on the button at the bottom to head on over to see what's going on at BentoForKidlet!

I had a million and a half ideas of what I wanted to do. I've watched some previews and have looked at tons of pictures for Season 3 and when I saw that two of my favorite young British actors are joining the show representing House Reed I knew I had to continue the trend from my past GoT lunches and do a lunch for their family:

I've seen several different versions of the House Reed crest but it always has a gatorish lizardish type black creature on a green background so I used a cookie cutter and some coloring and my mini letter cutters to turn some provolone into a crest. It's sitting on top of some ravioli with some Mini-Oreos and cocktail sausages in the small compartments.

And I couldn't help the little shout-out to Eddard Stark. After all, House Reed has been devoted to House Stark for thousands of years ....

In case you haven't seen them, here are the original four:

Now, don't forget to go check out the rest of the hop!

Easter Eggs Everywhere! (@Storia_eBooks in @blackblum)

Today is John's last day of school before Easter so what better than a fun Easter book themed lunch? Thanks to Scholastic's Storia John read Steve Metzger's Easter Eggs Everywhere! last night (for free!) and knew immediately that it needed to be lunch ... especially when we both "oh my goodness"-ed over the cube shaped egg that made an appearance!

We had some eggs already hard cooked in the fridge so I ran one under hot water for a couple of minutes and then put it in my egg cuber and let it set overnight. Perfect cubed egg ready for coloring! I also used an egg-shaped cookie cutter for his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and colored them, as well, using the AmeriColor markers. Added some Tings, dried fruit crisps, Omega-3 Gummies, a mini chocolate bunny & white chocolate eggs and he's got lunch all in a black + blum bento box!

Fun in Five!

Yesterday in the store I stumbled upon some banana bread bagels and knew I had to get them for John. He was super excited about them and wanted one for lunch today with peanut butter and strawberry jam. He also said he wanted to Angry Birds ... and that it should be "super fast" ... so out came the iPad timer! Works great for me since he doesn't have school on Friday and I wanted something fun for this week's 15 Minute Friday at Bentos On The Bayou ;)

In his Easy Lunchbox he has the bagel sandwich he requested, grapes, Original Tings, yogurt in a Mini Dipper (already prepared and in the freezer), and his Omega 3 Gummies with a couple of Angry Bird gummy pigs tossed in to go along with the cupcake rings to fit his chosen theme.

Used Here:

Quick Like A Bunny!

Know how to make a super quick bunny sandwich with no bunny cookie cutters in sight?
Neither did I ... until my brilliant 6 year old had the brain storm of using a heart shaped cookie cutter, the nose/mouth from a lollipop dealie, and some food color markers to color in the ears and eyes:

He's pretty brilliant, isn't he?
I think it took longer to pick out which type of jam or jelly he wanted for his pb&j than any other part of the lunch! Total time (picture included): 5 1/2 minutes. I wish I had my stop watch app set up for the pictures!
Anyway, along with the pb&j bunny he has the usual veggie chips, grapes, fruit snacks, Omega 3 gummies and an added treat of a chocolate carrot and some Sixlets. He also has a yogurt in his bag.

F is for Frog

A very simple lunch today thanks to me having no ideas and John randomly pulling the frog cookie cutter out of our cutter stash:

The frog and the "F" are peanut butter and jelly on wheat. The frog is sitting on a cheese stick log. He also has popcorn, grapes, fruit snacks and his Omega 3 Gummies in the box and a tube of frozen yogurt in his bag.

Wall-E's Boot

We all love Disney here ... and Disney-Pixar even more! Friday night John and I snuggled up and watched Finding Nemo and then Sunday afternoon the three of us (well, five if you count the cat & dog) watched Wall-E for the umpteenth-million time. Last year John had a pretty pathetic Wall-E lunch that he took to school one day (I'm almost embarrassed to link to it). This time he took Wall-E's boot (with plant):

The boot was drawn onto a peanut butter & jelly wheat sandwich and the plant was cut from an AirHead. There were also grapes, veggie sticks, his Omega 3 gummies, and he had a frozen yogurt tube also in his bag. All in all this lunch took just under 10 minutes to make -- including the time it took to figure out where I put the stash of AirHeads and cut the plant! Not too shabby!

Minecraft Steve

Thanks to the wonderful world of YouTube John got fascinated by Minecraft. After some research on whether it would be appropriate for him (mostly asking friends with sons his age), we got it for the iPads and his iPod Touch. We're hooked! John loves that he can teach me how to do different things and while he mostly plays in Creative Mode with no scary Creepers, Spiders, Skeletons & Zombies ... we play on my iPad in Survival Mode. Sometimes we even survive!
Yesterday I neglected to make his lunch for today. I had too much other stuff going on. This morning we woke up, played some Minecraft (and finally killed enough sheep to make a bed!) and when he went upstairs to get dressed for school I got working on his lunch. It has been deemed the coolest lunch ever:

I made Steve out of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich cut into squares using the crust cutter from the Sesame Street sandwich set. I cut one of them in half for his arms. He (and his Empire Jack cheese pickaxe) was colored using the Americolor food markers. Underneath Steve he has grapes, fruit snacks, Omega 3 gummies and veggie sticks. In the little side dish are White Cheddar Cheez-its.

Used Here:

First Day of Spring in Under 15 Minutes!

On Friday a good friend of mine is starting an exciting new linky: 15 Minute Fridays!
We've seen time and time again people say "there's no way I would have time to do that for lunch" and "you must have too much time on your hands." Now on Fridays you'll be able to go and see that cute, fun and healthy lunches can easily be done in 15 minutes ... or less!

John had requested a "snacky lunch" to help celebrate today being the first day of Spring and I thought that it would be the perfect opportunity to share my excitement over 15 Minute Fridays ... a couple of days early.

This is the lunch that John is taking to school today:

And this is the proof that it could be done in under 15 minutes:

1. I installed a stop watch app onto my iPad mini and started out with that being the only thing on the counter with the Easy Lunchbox John had picked out and the knife that is always there ... and a lot of unrelated clutter because, well, I wasn't going to take the time to clean.

2. In just over ten minutes I was able to get the lunch completed and grab the polka dot towel I use for my shot backgrounds from time to time. I even had to run to the pantry and fight with a bag of veggie chips that didn't want to open... and slice the cheese several times because my first (and second) slices didn't give me as much "cute" as I wanted... and pick out which flavor of yogurt he would want... and remember where in the world I put the last pack of Annie's bunnies! So, finally, in his lunch he has salami (pre-sliced), veggie chips, grapes, Ritz Toasted Chips, Empire Jack cheese cut into flowers and chicks, peach yogurt in a Mini Dipper, Annie's Organic Bunny fruit snacks, his Omega 3 gummies and a little chocolate carrot.

3. I then took several pictures until I got "a decent shot" for the blog before taking the lunch apart since the yogurt had to go into the freezer and the crackers, chips and gummies really don't do too well in the refrigerator overnight. I put those in a container on the counter, put the ELB in the fridge, and wiped things down in time for:

4. The final shot showing that I still 43 seconds left to my 15 minutes! Maybe I should have cut another cheese chick ....


Used here:

Little Critter from @MercerMayer

Last night for John's reading homework I brought him three books to choose from his bookcase. Much to my delight (since it's been a favorite of mine since I was little) he chose a Little Critter book by Mercer Mayer! They've been in his possession for his entire life and now he's thrilled that he can finally read them all by himself. He had a Little Critter lunch in kindergarten but it didn't mean that much to him. Now that he's reading the books it's a whole different story and Little Critter is back in lunch!

I drew Little Critter onto a ham & cheese on wheat sandwich using the Gourmet Food Writer Edible Color Markers by AmeriColor. Underneath the sandwich are his veggie sticks. On the right are grapes, fruit snacks, and his Omega 3 gummies .... and a spider pick since Little Critter always has his spider buddy tagging along! He's also getting a yogurt cup but it's not pictured because it's still in the freezer and, well, isn't overly photogenic anyway.
 

We're loving having Loving Lunches Guest Post!

I'm loving being able to guest post today for Karen. This is my first guest post & this is such an awesome blog, please be gentle with me :-)

I was so tempted to do a cheese/sandwich art to show that even those of us with limited drawing ability could pull it off, when I saw Karen's tutorial here and thought I just had to have a go at making the Toy Story Alien out of an apple like I had mentioned when I did a Mike Wazowski Apple a few weeks ago

This simple snack was made from an apple & cutters (found here and here). The mouth is made extra yummy with some Nutella. Can you see where I had to re-stick the left ear on with more Nutella?


~J

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. This post was written for What's in Our Lunch Bags and Loving Lunches. No product was received for this post. All opinions expressed are my own, based on personal experience with the product.

Happy St Patrick's Day!

It's a super simple St. Pat's lunch for John today in his LunchBots Quad lined with green silicone muffin cups. He has peanut butter shamrock sandwiches, shamrock colby jack cheese on top of veggie sticks (which are already green, white and orange), clementine slices with a Happy St. Pat's pic, and a Little Debbie shamrock cookie. I asked him if he wanted it today or to save it to take to school tomorrow and of course he wanted it today! I'm real glad we have another guest post lined up for tomorrow ;)

We love Big Fish Games!

I'm a bit of a game junkie. Puzzle games, card games, hidden picture games, games that let me blow the bejeepers out of zombies ... I spend FAR too much time on Facebook playing them. Imagine my delight, then, when I found out that one of my favorite game companies had started to release Android-compatible games! Crazy addicting games on my phone?!? Score! Big Fish Games is now on Android!

I've played their games on the computer a lot and have done test runs of some on my iPad (you can download a sample of pretty much every game on every platform to see it you like it first) ... and now the addiction can go wherever I go since I've always got my phone! There are even games that are suitable for John which makes him a big Big Fish Games fan, too.

But back to my phone. I decided that I wanted one of the hidden picture puzzle games since those have been my favorite type of puzzle since I was knee high to a grasshopper. SOOOO many to choose from but I finally decided on Adventure Chronicles: The Search for Lost Treasure. It's like a cross between hidden pictures with National Treasure and a little bit of Carmen San Diego tossed in for good measure.

A screen shot from the first puzzle.

I had assumed that I would be flying through each picture since, well, I'm pretty good at this sort of thing. Oooooh no. Not only are there a lot of things to find (including the Geo Cache that you pretty much just have to stumble upon), but puzzles using the things you've found that need to be solved before you can move on! At first I was a little frustrated that the pictures were so small ... you know, it being a phone and all ... but then I realized that I could do the whole pinch drag and zoom and it got so much easier! This is going to be keeping me busy for quite a while...

I had thought of making myself my own hidden picture lunch but then John saw the little fish guy from the Big Fish Games logo and asked for that. I couldn't say no!

In his EasyLunchbox he has some leftover pizza with the Big Fish Games fish drawn onto colby jack cheese. He also has some Sour Cream & Onion goldfish, a clementine, and Swedish Fish.

And now I go back to Ulysses S Grant's house to try and figure out how to put his clock back together ....





Please note: While I did purchase the game I am now addicted to with my own funds, I am receiving game credits as a thank you for oohing and aahing reviewing. I would have oohed and aahed anyway, but I felt you should know. Now. Back to that clock ....

Happy Pi Day!

Happy Pi Day!!! Being a very important Geeky Holiday we're doing another Edible Geekery Blog Hop! After you take a look at what I've got, click the button at the bottom to hop on over to see what's next and keep going until you get back here.

Of course, I'm celebrating with a Doctor Who lunch. You should know by now that if there's something to be celebrated there's a very chance that I'll do so with Doctor Who. Or Supernatural. I was debating the Supernatural when I got a notification on my cell phone. My notification sound at the moment is The Doctor and Sky saying "RoseTylerMarthaJonesDonnaNobleTARDIS." That got me thinking of  the episode it came from, "Midnight." One of the other tests of Sky's duplication skills came from the square root of Pi ... and roast beef ... and bananas ... and ...

Here's the lunch:

Roast beef with mashed potatoes, gravy and mixed past veggies with provolone cheese, banana chips, and Cheese Doodle-Os (just because) packed in an Easy Lunchbox with my favorite TARDIS napkin.

And here's the YouTube:

And here's the button that will take you over to Robot Squirrel and the Monkeys:

And here's a linky if you've made a Pi Day treat you would like to show off as well:

Sandra Boynton's Barnyard Dance!

We pulled out an old favorite as part of John's reading homework last night. He has read a short story in a book that was a little on the advanced end of his reading spectrum, so then we went for just pure fun: Sandra Boynton's Barnyard Dance!
It's one of the first books he owned thanks to a Boynton box set I bought when I was expecting. After seven years it has some dings and smudges, but it's still in amazingly good condition all things considered. The fiddle-playing cow has always been one of John's favorites so it only made sense to me for him to be lunch for today:

The cow is drawn onto a peanut butter and jelly on wheat sandwich with Americolor edible markers. He also has his favorite veggie sticks, grapes, fruit snacks and his Omega 3 gummies. There are music picks in the grapes and fruit snacks just because they seemed to tie the cuteness factor in a bit more. After all, you can't have a fiddle-playing cow without music, right?

Faster Than Fast - Quicker Than Quick

My poor boy was home sick from school yesterday and now that he's finally feeling better we needed a fun lunch with an old friend -- Lightning McQueen! Cars was the first movie he ever really paid attention to and it's been, pretty much, a lifelong love for my 6 1/2 year old. He loves both movies and Mater's Tall Tales and has shirts and books and almost every car with multiples of his favorites in different styles. (He even had a Lightning McQueen shaped bed that he slept in from the age of 1 until he moved into his new enormous queen-sized one just before school started this year!)
Today, he has a Lightning McQueen lunch:

I found the sandwich box and snack container a while back in the dollar bin at a local store (Family Dollar or Dollar General -- one of those). The lunch really did go together "faster than fast," too. He has a ham and cheese sandwich that I cut with a metal race car cookie cutter and I did the coloring with my Americolor food markers. I've drawn Lightning so many times over the years the sandwich took less than 3 minutes to have completed -- including the time it took to slice off a chunk of colby jack cheese and cut out the number 95 and a lightning bolt! He also has Cars fruit snacks, veggie sticks, dried cranberries and his Omega 3 gummies. Altogether? A quicker than quick lunch that clocked in at 5 minutes.

Guest Post: Feeling A Little Lunchy gets feeling a little geeky!

A HUGE thank you to our dear friend Erin from Feeling A Little Lunchy for offering to do a guest post for us today!  If you don't already follow her blog (and her Facebook page) you really should! But not until after you see what she made for us here!

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I'm guest posting for What's in Our Lunch Bags today. So, in trying to keep with her awesome geekiness, I'm making an ode to Doctor Who lunch for my daughter.

"Are you my mummy?" lunch consists of wheat bread with nutella, bananas and raisins, roasted chicken roll ups with cheese letters. All packed in our Lunchbots Duo. It's a bit of a small lunch for a 10 year old, so she will get an apple and a bag of pretzels on the side too.

Hopefully my girl will eat it...she was a bit creeped out by this particular episode.

Go Green, Get Lucky! Angry Birds a la @BentoUSA

I normally don't go out of my way to make cute lunches on weekends, but John hasn't been feeling great the past couple of days. He finally decided he needed to eat and was beyond excited when I suggested a lunch based on the Angry Birds Seasons Go Green, Get Lucky for the upcoming St. Patrick's Day!

He wanted turkey and cheese so I used our CuteZCute cutter to make the pig with some spinach tortilla and tossed him in a frying pan to melt the provolone a bit before topping him with more provolone for the snout, eyes and ears. His hat is a cupcake ring. The mustache and pupils are drawn on using AmeriColor markers. He also has Angry Bird Gummies, Omega 3s, Cheese Doodle-Os, grapes, a mozzarella stick chopped in half with an Angry Bird ring & Shamrock ring, and a Lucky Charms cereal bar. It's all packed in one of his favorite EasyLunchboxes!

Everything but the food itself can be purchased at our favorite store, BentoUSA by AllThingsForSale!

We got a new @ThrifTeeGear bag! (Thanks, @BitingMyHand!)

It's a very simple lunch today -- your basic pb & j, veggie sticks, clementine slices, gummies & a cookie ... but the exciting part is that we got our new ThrifTee Gear bag that we won from Biting The Hand That Feeds You!

This is actually our second ThrifTee Gear bag. The first one we used a Doctor Who t-shirt for and this time we went with my poor old tattered Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends shirt. John was beyond thrilled when it showed up!

"Look, Momma! It looks just like your shirt!"
"Umm ... sweetie? It is my shirt!"
"Whaaaaaat? That's soooooo cool!"

Yes. Yes, it is.

Fluffy Meets The Dinosaurs - @Storia_eBooks in @EasyLunchboxes

John is in the midst of reading Fluffy Meets The Dinosaurs on his Storia app on his iPad (which used to be mine until I got a mini). I remembered that I had the dinosaur picks and he suggested I make a Fluffy one by printing a picture & attaching it to a random pick. I think it turned out great!

Packed in an EasyLunchbox Bright, John has mini ham & cheese sandwiches, colby jack "Fluffy," Bugles, a hard cooked egg that almost looks like a star, grapes and fruit snacks with Omega 3 gummies.

Used for this lunch:

Guest Post: Red Nose Day

Hello everyone :)

My name is Keith and I write the Oh!Bento UK blog. My lovely friend Karen has allowed me to hijack her blog :)

My post today has a slight serious tone but it is well worth it I promise.

In the UK we have a charity raising event called Red Nose Day which helps raise funds for children in Africa. The event is a huge production that features many celebrities taking part in sketches, specials of TV series ( like Doctor Who! ) and many celebrities go to Africa to highlight the horrible conditions in which children live.

I want to do my part so I have made a donation page and have set a small target of ￡50 ( ￡15 has already been donated and I hope we can raise more.)

I will be making some Red Nose Day themed bento to help raise awareness of this great event. I hope you can all spread the news as the more people that know, the higher the chance we can make a difference.

And if you can make a small contribution it would be highly appreciated.

More information and donations can be made here.
[Note From Karen: Outside of the UK you can still sponsor ... but you need to fudge the system a bit by entering a proper UK zipcode and street. Feel free to email me and I can hook you up!]

Here is a Red Nose Sandwich to celebrate the first donation :)

And from Karen ... a favorite Red Nose Day sketch in two parts:

(The best Red Nose Day clip can be found here)

Happy Birthday, Dr Seuss!

Tomorrow is the birthday of Dr Seuss! Today John wanted a snacky lunch but we couldn't let the occasion go unnoticed so he has a Snacky Seuss. It's a bit of a mish-mash of his favorites. How many can you pick out?

Linked to: