Bento! What in the world is Bento? Wikipedia says, "Bento is a single-portion takeout or home-packed meal common in Japanese cuisine. A traditional bento consists of rice, fish or meat, and one or more pickledor cooked vegetables, usually in a box-shaped container. Bento can be very elaborately arranged in a style calledkyaraben or "character bento". Kyaraben is typically decorated to look like popular Japanese cartoon (anime) characters, characters from comic books (manga), or video game characters. Another popular bento style is "oekakiben" or "picture bento", which is decorated to look like people, animals, buildings and monuments, or items such as flowers and plants."
Well who in the heck has time for that? Seriously around here it's a three ring circus in the mornings and there is no way that my kiddos would eat rice, fish, and pickled vegetables for lunch...seriously?! But Bento doesn't have to be those things and it doesn't have to be all that time consuming. Really all it is, is small portions of different kinds of food. Whatever they like or will eat neatly packed into a little box.
What got me was a photo that I saw on Pinterest of a Bento lunch that was styled after Angry Birds. Since my son (then in 1st grade) was obsessed with Angry Birds, I just HAD to make him one. And truly it wasn't that hard and he LOVED it!!! Begged for another one each day after. So I've made him bento style lunches since. It is fun, for me and the kiddies! Plus, they are more apt to eat healthy things in a bento than they would otherwise.
Try it...you just may like it :)
No comments:
Post a Comment