Chicken Salad Bento and Pancakewich Bento

Chicken Artichoke Salad Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

Just in case you've been wondering if I've turned into a charaben-making mom, here is one to prove to you I haven't! I like to make special event cute bento because they're fun and it's a challenge, but for everyday bentomaking I can't (don't want to) keep that up. My main purpose when I started making bento for my kids was to provide healthy and varied, nutritious meals to sustain them throughout the day. This is still the most important objective. The bento box serves as a means to quickly and visually determine whether a range of food groups, colors and textures is present. This bento, besides being non-kawaii, is also non-cook, meaning it's a double quick one. I used leftover chicken and tossed with spinach, marinated artichoke hearts, cherry tomatoes and sunflower seeds. I added a few carved carrots, grapes and sliced golden plums, and that's it. If you really need to add something cute, a few panda picks will do the trick.

Since I saved so much time with that one, I could take more time for the next one. For TinySprite I had made a batch of mini whole wheat pancakes made with pumpkin puree and evaporated milk (they come out fluffy that way), and decided to make ham and cream cheese mini sandwiches with them. Cute right? I even tried to make a bear-shaped one to add a carrot face to. The rest of her bento contains the usual: broccoli, peapods, carrots, tomato, grapes and plum. And that's it for the last double bento of the week. So there; just remember -- they don't all have to be kawaii. Yippee!