Pretty Bagel!

 

Last night tiny princess A helped pack her lunch for today. I didn't originally plan to have her help, but when she told me she wanted a bagel, I told her bagels were boring, and I was tired of trying to think of ways to make a bagel "pretty". Her exact words were.... "Go away, mom. I've got this!" I left the kitchen and let her do her thing. This is what I came back to....I'm not sure if it was brilliant, or just lazy? What do you think? ♥

Today was chicken sandwich day at school, and though I’ve been trying, I haven’t yet succeeded in getting both princesses to skip it. Just A had a packed lunch today and it was simple!

Along with her “Pretty Bagel” she had some clementine orange slices, cut grapes, a homemade drinkable yogurt (made with real strawberries! YUM!), a few wheat pretzels twists, carrots, and ranch for dipping. ♥ Packed in a Goodbyn Bynto!

 

Some things we used to make this lunch…

Bentgo lunch box review and belated Birthday lunch! (Well sort of)

 

Guess what? Give up? I’ll tell ya!

The ahhhhhmazing people over at Bentgo have generously sent me one of their super sweet lunch boxes to review!

I took the opportunity to use it a few times before conducting my review and let me tell you, I am so excited to share with you my results!

Here is my Bentgo exactly how it arrived to me just out of packaging box. Look, purple!! A perfect tiny princess color!! ♥♥ Don’t like purple? No worries! Bentgo offers some other really vibrant colors including:  Blue and Green, as well as a more neutral sophisticated grey. ♥♥♥ 

Out of the manufacturer's packaging, the Bentgo contains 8 pieces. These consist of: the top container with built in divider, bottom container,  top lid, bottom container and divider lid, which holds the included 3 piece plastic silverware set, and a nylon sealing strap. They even include a coupon code for a complimentary sealing strap should yours become lost or damaged.

 

The Bentgo is sleek, slender, stackable, and even has nesting capabilities for a great storage solution. Each container varies in depth and size creating the ability to accommodate perfect portion control!

The Bentgo is made from strong, durable, BPA-free & FDA approved food grade materials. It is microwave, dishwasher, and freezer safe. All fantastic qualities to look for when searching for a great lunch box! The container lids are NOT leak proof, but both the top and bottom tier lids seal VERY well. I was able to pack food in each container attach the lid, turn it upside down, and give it a little shake. Nothing vigorous, but enough that if the lid didn’t seal it would have fallen off.  Each lid stayed put. You could VERY easily use the Bentgo as two SEPARATE lunch or snack boxes. That is always a plus when packing for tiny royalty with various likes/dislikes and appetites!

 

Okay, who’s ready for some lunch?!?! As I stated before I was able to pack quite a few meals in out Bentgo before writing my review. Since I knew my post would already be bearing photo album qualities I decided to choose just 2 for this review.

The first one was a lunch for myself and it was DELICIOUS!!

In the bottom tier I packed myself a yummy salad consisting of: romaine lettuce, sweet yellow peppers, strawberries and a few raisins. On the side in the light pink silicone cup I had a piece of fresh homemade garlic/dill bread and some olive oil and salad vinegar in the blue sauce cup. The top tier holds a cutie orange blossom with grape center, a few honey wheat pretzel twists, colby cheese chunks on heart picks, and some all natural vanilla yogurt in our Goodbyn sauce cup. YUM!

The next lunch was the lunch that tiny princess K took to school today. She turned 7 years old over spring break and was a little disappointed that she didn’t get a fun birthday lunch at school, so I decided to add a couple *very* small birthday details to brighten up her Monday a bit. ♥

In the bottom Bentgo tier she had: Heart shaped strawberries, carrot coins, ranch dip in the pink sauce cup, 2 slices of ice cream cone shaped Colby cheese (cut and stamped with a fondant press purchased from ebay), a few mini saltine crackers, Goodbyn sauce cup with all natural vanilla yogurt (I added some sprinkles for birthday fun), and 3 all natural chocolate chip animal cookies.

The top tier holds two adorable ice cream shaped PB&J sandwiches (cut with our lunchpunch sandwich cutter) complete with with sprinkles and a candy coated chocolate cherry! I adhered the sprinkles and and candy by spreading a thin layer of butter on the top of the sandwich. She also received 8 pretzel twists arranged on either side of the sandwiches.

One of the things I really LOVE about the Bentgo lunch box is that it fits perfectly in our regular lunch bags!

See that! Fits great! And upright, too!

In conclusion we give the Bentgo lunch box 5 out of 5 crowns! It’s fantastic lunch box and a great way to provide portion control as well as a very eco-friendly approach to meals on the go!

My only concern, which really is not a valid concern at all and has nothing to do with the quality of the product what-so-ever, is that I *think* the strap may be a little difficult for tiny princess K to get back on when she is finished. We’ll find out today! ♥♥

I want to give a HUGE thank you to Bentgo for allowing me this opportunity and providing there product for me to review!

Some things I used to make these lunches…

 

Pretzel bites fun with FunBites cube it!

Okay, so this isn’t really a lunch, but it sure was a yummy snack! ♥

Lately my family has been on a HUGE pretzel kick! For serious… they want me to make them like every single day. Salted pretzels, cinnamon sugar pretzels, pretzel dogs, you name it! If it involves pretzel dough they want it! A couple of weeks ago we made some Minnie and Mickey shaped pretzels. I did include those in a lunch, but I’ll save that one for a rainy day!  ♥

Once again, today my tiny princesses asked for pretzels. “Ugh! Really, girls? Do I really have to make them again?” “Please, mama!” “Oh, alright! Go get the supplies!” (They know I can’t resist their cute little princess faces!)

Now, I really don’t mind making these pretzels. It’s not that hard at all. BUT, I hate rolling out the dough into the looooooong thin pieces to form the pretzels. Today I had an idea! FunBites! How incredibly fun would bite sized pretzels be? And so much easier than the traditional pretzel shape!

So, we gathered up what we needed and got started!

Pretzel dough ingredients…

2 cups hot water
1 tablespoon sugar
1 envelope active dry yeast
5 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon salt
1 egg, beaten
melted butter (optional)

We used coarse salt for our topping this time, but we also LOVE to use cinnamon sugar!

We use our bread maker for mixing the dough. You most certainly do not need a  bread maker to make these pretzels. It’s just what we do. ♥

Dissolve sugar in hot water and add yeast. Let sit about 5 minutes. In separate bowl combine flour and salt. Slowly add flour/salt mixture to liquid mixture. Turn bread maker to dough setting and begin cycle. My bread maker mixes the dough for 30 minutes and then lets dough rise for an hour. Sometimes I let this go the full hour, but if you are using rapid rise yeast the full hour is not generally needed. When dough is about twice it’s size you can go ahead and shape your pretzels how you would like them. In this case we chose to roll our dough out with a rolling pin and use our FunBites Cube It cutter to create awesome bite sized pretzels pieces. Yum! Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Spread your pretzel bite pieces on a greased baking sheet, brush them with beaten egg, and sprinkle on salt. If you are using cinnamon sugar skip last step. Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden brown. Remove from oven and brush with melted butter. If you option for the sweet version now is the time to sprinkle on your cinnamon sugar! ♥

We also LOVE to mix an 8oz brick of softened cream cheese and 1 cup of powdered sugar with an electric mixer for a mouth watering pretzel dip. Sweet or savory pretzels it doesn’t matter! This dip is mouth watering and a must when we make our pretzels! Sooooo good!!

I didn’t really need to, but I decided to go ahead and arrange the girls pretzel bite snack in our LunchBots Duo for an alternate view. Aren’t they cute? Any they were so yummy too! Now, I almost can’t wait until the next time the girls ask me to make pretzels! ♥♥

Funbites make everything more fun!

 

Some things I used to make this snack

tiny princess headquarters… a look behind the scenes.

A little while ago I had some requests to do a blog post on “Where to begin, once you decide to start preparing lunches, Bento style!”  Now, I really have only been at this for about 6 months. There are sooooo many other ahhhhmazing bento bloggers out there that have been doing this much longer and have lots more experience than I do. Not that you really need to be skilled or anything, I’m just saying they may know the ropes more than I do. More experience with boxes, cutters, tools, ect. If you want to, take a look over on my left side bar. See where it says, “The best of the best”? I’m telling you, click on those buttons. You will find a wealth of valuable information. ♥

Of course everybody’s tastes are very different. What works for some, may not work for others. If you have clicked on some of the side bar links and are still itching for more (the tiny princess way) keep reading, cause I’m gonna give you a VIP backstage pass to a behind the scenes look of the tiny princess headquarters. (AKA my kitchen) :)

So, I know I could really get this all done in one post, BUT you know me, I like LOVE to talk, er, I mean, type. :) Since that’s the case I figured I would go ahead and make a whole blog series of “how I Bento”. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

I’m going to star off a little backwards. Yesterday, I took the opportunity with some free time I had to organize my bento gears. Since it will more than likely not look this neat directly following the first, post organizing lunch, I decided it would be a great time to snap some pictures to show you just exactly, what we have in our cupboards. ♥

I won’t go into much detail here, other than just the basics of what is in each storage spot. A little later, when I continue the series I will explain my likes and dislikes of each box, tool, cutter, ect. I will also let you know what *I think* are MUST haves if you want to start this awesome addictive journey of making healthy lunch fun for your tiny royalty! ♥♥

Okay, are you ready?…….. Here we go!!!

This is my “main box” cupboard. It is actually the ONLY kitchen cupboard I use for bento stuffs. The other items are kept in rubbermaid type storage/drawer units in our dining room.

 

The rest of the goods. The top two containers are holiday and special occasion cutters.

Top drawer of the left storage unit. This contains a few lidded inner containers that belong with various boxes that we own, food picks/skewers, LunchBox Love notes, and eating utensils.

Middle drawer left unit. This one has sauce/dip containers, silicone cups, and few random containers I picked up at Target in their Easter section. :)

Bottom drawer left unit. This contains any and all boxes that would not fit in my kitchen cupboard as well as my EasyLunchbox mini dippers an Laptop Lunches inner containers.

Top drawer right unit. This has basic shape cutters, some LunchPunch sandwich cutters, my Cute-Z-Cute cutter, and a couple of bread stamps.

Middle drawer right unit has alphabet and number cutters as well as some more LunchPunch cutters and some random sandwich cutters.

Bottom drawer right unit. This one holds my egg molds, some silicone ice cube trays, (I use them for freezing yogurt) lots of fun bread stamps, and both FunBites food cutters.

Whew! And that’s a wrap! I hope I didn’t scare you away with my little obsession. Be careful… it might suck you in! ♥♥♥

 

A lunch of EGG-cellent proportion!

 

Not too long ago one of my super sweet readers left me a link on my facebook page for this EGG-cellent idea!

How incredibly cute and clever!! When I saw it I knew I HAD to try it out for my girls! What a perfect fun lunch to enjoy on the last day of school before the spring break vacation!

I mean seriously…. does it really get much more festive then that?!?! Super adorable, right? ♥

Each tiny princess has the same items (except for the sandwich fillings) carefully arranged in their own (thoroughly) washed carton of (thoroughly) washed plastic Easter Eggs.

Each egg carton contains…. three eggs filled with bite sized sandwich pieces cut using our FunBites Cube It. Tiny princess A had Nutella filling and tiny princess K had PB&J. The other eggs contained a few carrots, a sauce cup with ranch dip, some clementine orange slices, oyster crackers, a couple of squares of grape fruit leather, Jelly Beans for good measure and some all natural trix yogurt. I made sure that I tested the yogurt in the egg first. I assure you that the plastic egg that contains the yogurt has no holes and seals well enough that no yogurt will escape. I also threw in a few fun bunny and carrot food picks for some cute Easter flair! ♥

I originally planned on making this an “at home” lunch, but when I realized how well the egg cartons fit in our PlanetBox lunch bags, I couldn’t resist sending them off to school! How fun!

I wish I could be at school today to see their sweet faces when they realize that these are in fact, NOT a PlanetBox lunch! ♥♥♥

Thanks so much to Ginger for leading me to this awesome idea! I always try to give credit where credit is do, so I decided to do a search to find a few of the different places you can find this idea. I’m unsure of where it originated, but below are some links I was able to find. If you too, have done this Egg-cellent lunch please feel free to let me know and I will include your link with this list. ♥

http://kailochic.blogspot.com/search?q=easter+egg+lunch

http://www.neat2eat.com.au/blog/2013/02/27/easter-egg-carton-lunch/

http://dixiedelights.blogspot.com/2012/03/egg-celent-lunch.html

http://www.gluesticksblog.com/2012/03/easter-egg-lunch-hunt.html

 

Some things I used to make these lunches…

Breakfast on a stick with EasyLunchboxes… and a shake test!

 

Wow! It sure feels good to blog again. I’m still on an internet hiatus, but tonight I was able to grab a few minutes at McDonalds to use their wifi!

Last night we had breakfast for dinner. My tiny princesses LOVE breakfast food.  Morning, noon, and night! Put it on a stick and it makes the PERFECT school lunch!

Since I had some extra time last night, I decided it would be the perfect opportunity to do an EasyLunchbox shake test! ♥

Here is tiny princess K’s lunch before our vigorous shake!

Both girls lunches included basically the same items. The large compartment of our EasyLunchbox contained…. Homemade mini pancakes and fruit skewered on a long butterfly pick. K had strawberries as her fruit with one lone blueberry, and A had all blueberries with no strawberries. The flower silicone cup holds a smaller round lidded container that came with our Sistema lunchboxes. K’s container has syrup and A’s has whipped cream, bot topped with flower blossom sprinkles. I picked up the cute little ladybug containers from Target in their Easter section. They came pre-filled with candy, but I emptied the candy out of these ones and added some yummy sunflower seeds. ♥

The upper right compartment has a small container of all natural Trix yogurt and 2 small graham crackers that the girls can use to crush up as a yogurt topping.

The bottom right compartment consists of scrambled eggs with a few sweet peppers mixed in. (both girls gobbled up their eggs at dinner and agreed that sneaking some peppers in their eggs was a great idea!) I added a few small pieces of bacon around the eggs and threw in a flower pick to sort of tie in the spring theme. ♥

Okay, now what you all have been waiting for…… how did this adorable lunch look after the tiny princess shake test? Keep reading to find out.

Here is A’s lunch pre-shake….

Just like in our previous shake tests we put our EasyLunchboxes through the ringer! We shook it left, we shook it right, we shook it up, we shook it down. We even played a fun game of catch with it! Surely all that shaking made this lunch look a mess, but I beg to differ this lunch stayed put! Hardly any shifting at all. Don’t believe me? Just look for yourself…..

See?!?! I told you so! Everything stayed nice and neat! I find that that placing food on skewers or picks whenever possible really helps things stay put. The little ladybug only moved around a bit and even the sprinkles in A’s whipped cream remained on the surface! Our eggs stayed nice and not one piece of bacon strayed out of it’s space. This was definitely our best shake test yet!!

Tiny princess K’s lunch still looked great too! ♥ Her sprinkles got a bit mixed in with the syrup, but we knew that would happen, so no worries! Her bacon also shifted a bit more than A’s, but we think it still looks cute!  One thing I should mention is that EasyLunchboxes are not leak proof, (on purpose so the lids can be removed by little hands) so  you plan to pack yogurt or something equally “leak-ish” make sure you add it to a leak proof container first. I usually use the EasyLunchbox mini dippers, but since I already used the bigger compartment for the eggs I had to go with a different container that would fit. ♥

So there you have it! Another tplb shake test success! And I have to say I think it’s our best one yet! ♥

 

Some things I used to make these lunches…