Bat in the Curry Halloween LunchBot Thermal Bento

Bat in the Curry Halloween LunchBot Thermal Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

I made keema curry (see the recipe and method I used here). I tried to make a black rice spider, but the thought of forming eight rice legs just didn't thrill me. So a bat it is! I put the usual stuff in the curry (potatoes, onions, carrots, celery) and I also added cubed red kuri squash, packing it all into the Lunchbots Thermal Jar. I think it goes well nicely with the flavors. The side box holds sliced sugar plums, grapes and a strawberry.

Flatbread Pizza and Jacks Bento

Flatbread Pizza Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Yes, I know we just had flatbread pizza like, 2 weeks ago, because I see it in my flickr photostream there. Actually, we've had it even more recently than that for dinner. Okay, we probably have pizza and calzones every week. The kids clamor for it, and they love it, and it's so easy. I'm thinking we should have been doing this all summer, in fact. Today's version is meatless. We used zucchini, baby portobella mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, mozzarella and basil. I added steamed corn and broccoli, a bat-shaped Okinawan sweet potato, pluots, strawberry, and carved orange cherry tomatoes. I carved these tomatoes into jack-o-lanterns for our twitter tomato party, and decided to use them in the bento here for festive fun. Is it too early for jack-o-lanterns and Halloween decorations? Last year I was on a mission to carve as many jack-o-lanterns as I could, from as many orange foods that I could find. You can see the collection in my set here. (I also did it in 2009, here.) I discovered there are quite a few orange colored foods that can be carved. Should I continue the tradition? ^_^

I've been asked: how did I carve the tiny tomato?

With a tiny knife.

Here's a tutorial I made showing how I carved a mini sweet pepper. The technique is basically the same for, well, all the little foods I carve into jack-o-lanterns. ^_^

Bat and Char Siu Bao O'lantern Bento

Bat Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

Today's double bento post is from last Friday. MisterMan got a bacon-wrapped turkey burger and roasted purple potatoes. He got a colorful selection of veggies including broccoli, purple cauliflower, carrots and a tomato, as well as a piece of corn on the cob. I think that's the first time I actually used 5 different color vegetables in a single bento. Yay! Only bummer is that this one is light on the fruit. I used a bunch of black grapes to design a bat on the corn. You might need to use a bit of imagination. My boy called it an octopus until I hinted that it fell into the Halloween category. After awhile he guessed "Uh, a bat?" Um, yee-ssss. Sigh.

TinySprite gets a more finger friendly bento -- a perfectly round char siu bao just called for transformation into a jack-o-lantern. I cut the features with a small paring knife, and rather than punch out the cutouts, I just lightly pushed them in. So much easier, and it looks fine this way. I used a piece of corn on the cob for the stem, and filled in the rest of the gaps with the same veggies as in her brother's bento. Done! Love these quick ones. Just a few more days of Halloween themed bento, but it's been fun! ^_^