Gigi's: Fun Food

Never heard of this before...

In Japan, showing off one's lunch is a bit more competitive, due to the art of Bento.

Bento Boxes are lunch boxes filled with visually appealing meals. And in Japan visually appealing is a synonym for cute! There a variety of categories when talking about Bentos, each with a specific purpose.

Young children are prepared charaben ( キャラ弁 ). These are the exceptionally cute lunches we see with an egg molded into a "Pikachu" sitting next to a "Hello Kitty" rice ball/ onigiri/ お握り. Parents prepare these cute meals to encourage kids to eat their food.

Loving Wife/ Aisai Bento あいさいべんとう is a Bento made by a wife for her newlywed husband. In the early stages of marriage, women often make cute Bentos for their men to take to work with loving notes or messages on them.

Down the road, then the honeymoon is over and the newlywed wife is now a busy mother, aisai bento changes to hokaben/ホカ弁 this is the standard , "manly" Bento. It is a simply decorated nutritious meal, packed in a thermos.

A safari bento box with safari jeep PB & J sandwich, alligator carrot, giraffe and lion cheese with fruit leather accents, blueberry elephant picks, and veggie booty.

Cut the body with cookie cutter or knife; insert half of a toothpick into each ears ( spaghetti works too!)

Cheese car with nori wheels on ham and cheese sandwich, checkered apple, blueberries.
*lemon juice or salt water can prevent apple from browning

Treasure map ham and cheese sandwich with bell pepper accents. Grapes, blueberries and golden raspberries. Cherry tomato and carrots with ranch. A little golden “treasure chest” of chocolate and a babybel cheese pirate. I really love how he came out, even though kidlet *will* pull off the nori.

Cucumber
Pretzel rod
String cheese
Baby carrot

To make Tree Swing:

Slice cucumber and arrange on plate for the leaves.
Break pretzel rod in half and put in place for the tree trunk.
Cut string cheese in half lengthwise and put in place for the swing rope.
Cut the carrot in half and put in place for the seat of the swing.

We cut the corners off of the bread to shape it like a cone. Save the scraps. We buttered our bread and placed our cheese in between to fit on the bread. Grill it up and place on the plate. Take the crust off of the scraps and pinch off pieces of it to cross on top of the bread. You can skip this, but we thought it looked more like a cone that way.

Take 1 banana and slice it. Pile the slices on the top edge of the bread to look like ice cream. Take a strawberry and cut it to look like a cherry.

1 croissant
Sandwich filling*
6 baby carrots
2 toothpicks
1 black olive
2 cream cheese balls (1/2-inch)
1 red bell pepper
1 radish

Slit open the outside edge of a croissant, as shown, and stuff it with sandwich filling.*
Tuck six baby carrots into the sides to form legs.
Slide two 1/2-inch balls of cream cheese onto toothpicks, top each with a black olive slice, and stick them in place as shown.
Snip off the tips of the croissant and slide a red bell pepper claw into each end.
Finish the crab by attaching a radish slice smile with a dab of cream cheese.

Tips:: We used crab salad in our sandwich, but chicken or tuna salad, ham and cheese, and PB&J also make delicious fillers.

What You'll Need:

Two slices bread
String cheese
Banana

To Make Viking Helmet:

Cut a hat shape out of the bread and then make any sandwich your kid likes.
Cut the string cheese in half lengthwise and put in place at the bottom of the helmet for decoration.
Use a straw to cut out small circles of crust and place on top of the cheese for added decoration.
Cut a strip of crust for the center of the helmet.
Use a chunk of leftover crust/bread for the top piece of the helmet.
Cut the banana in half and put in place for the horns.

Sun dried tomato tortilla, cucumber, crushed graham crackers, goldfish crackers

car sandwich, yellow, green, red peppers, cheese road stripe.

Sugar wafer, fruit roll up, cookies.

Maybe, this could be made with tomato sauce, mozzerella and cheddar and olives

Ham and Cheese on Wheat bread

Egg salad bunny sandwiches with cheese and spinach accents, cheese and spinach “carrot” and butterflies , corn on the cob, carrot and spinach flowers, grapes and blueberries.

kamaboko - pink fish cake butterfly

What is it exactly? It is pureed (can't do the accent on the e on this comp!) white fish that is steamed to create a firm texture and then sliced into little loaves. A common nickname for Kamaboko is 'Fish Cake'.

What does it taste like? It has a bland rubbery taste, but when in a soup, it takes on the flavours of the broth and adds a uniqueness to the soup! It sounds strange, but it is really quite tasty!

rice with chopped teriyaki beef in the center, kind of like a rice with teriyaki beef sandwich. And since Easter is almost here, I decided to start with the Easter themed bentos! The bunnies are made of cheese, kamaboko, fish sausage, and nori for the eyes.

Ham, Green beans, mac and cheese shells

What You'll Need:

2 slices bread
Cheese
4 slices ham
Grape tomato
Green beans
Snow peas

How to Make Flower:

Use a heart-shaped cookie cutter and cut out hearts in both slices of bread.
Cut the hearts in half, spread on any condiment on each petal and put in place for the base of the petals.
Use a heart-shaped cookie cutter to cut two hearts out of cheese.
Cut the hearts in half and put in place on top of bread petals.
Fold a slice of ham in half. Bring one end in a third of the way and then fold the other end in to create the flower. Repeat. Put in place on top of cheese.
Place the grape tomato in the middle of the flower.
Arrange green beans on the plate for the stem.
Arrange the snow peas for the leaves.

Hot dog, pretzel sticks, broccolli, blueberries

Regular and chocolate pancakes, banana

Rice, mushrooms, green beans

Turkey sandwich, carrot and celery, olives, walnuts

Turkey sandwich, apple, cheese

PB and blueberry jam leaf shaped sandwich, grapes, babybel, grape tomatoes and carrots.

cheese slice on top of sandwich, pumpkin seeds

Pancakes, food coloring

Peas, fruit roll up, cracker sticks, candy corn

Spinach tortilla, reg tortilla, cheddar cheese, pinto beans, apple slice

spinach tortilla, cherry tomatoes halved, pretzel rods, cream cheese or mozzerrella, baby carrots

Don't like the way this dino looks, but a dino cookie cutter with a spinach tortilla is a good idea

What You'll Need:

1 spinach tortilla
1/4 cup shredded cheese
String cheese
A pea
Ocean Spray Fruit Snacks

To Make Dino Quesadilla:

Fold spinach tortilla in half and cut into the shape of a dinosaur.
Place 1 half of the dino into a hot skillet.
Sprinkle the 1/4 cup of cheese onto the tortilla half.
Place the other half of the dino-shaped tortilla on top of the cheese.
When the cheese is melted, flip the tortilla over.
Pull the quesadilla out of the pan when it's as crispy as your kid likes it and put it on a plate.
Cut small triangles of string cheese to make the teeth. Put into place.
Cut a small circle of string cheese for the eye. Place on quesadilla.
Place the green pea on top of the string cheese eye for the pupil.
Arrange fruit snacks down the dino's back for spines

Santa's face is made from a burger; beard and eyes are made from Swiss cheese and seaweed; the hat is made from a slice of apple. I also use a piece of wax paper to separate the burger and apple.

Here, a fun and super easy appetizer idea for the Christmas party. This cheese reindeer is made from Laughing Cow cheese wedge, pretzels, olive and red pepper.