Minestrone Rudolph Bento

Minestrone Rudolph Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

The recent cold weather has put me in the mood for hot soups and stews. The heavy fog that we woke up to this morning stuck around all day long, which doesn't usually happen. It felt like 6pm all day. So everyone was very glad to have some hearty warming minestrone soup to take the chill off. Just as I always do, I threw in a lot of colorful vegetables to make this soup chock full of vitamins and nutrition. There's also some smoked andouille sausage in there for a little bite. TinySprite loved it so much, she asked for more again tomorrow. In her side dish I gave her the cutest little baby crabapple, steamed broccoli, carrots, grapes, a strawberry, and my first attempt at a Christmas character - Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer. He's made from a shoyu-dyed hard-boiled quail egg, with nori eyes and mouth and a baby grape tomato nose. Are you in the Christmas mood yet? We've just put up our tree and are in the process of decorating it now. The kids love this part ^_^
Added to What's For Lunch.