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As the children go back to school and nursery it's time for packed lunches to make a return. However I didn't want to get stuck in a rut with boring butties in a box after all the fun we'd had with food this summer so I decided to turn to Pinterest for some inspiration! After spending about two hours browsing (why is it so addictive?!) I created a
Pinterest board of my favourite Bento Box lunches that had given me some great ideas. There was one particular theme that I really liked. The amazing creativity of my fellow pinners had encouraged me to do something a bit different...
During the summer we had lots of picnics, from the park to the zoo and even on a blanket in the living room on rainy days. They were great fun and it really encouraged an interest in choosing and preparing food, both the children would help to decide what we were having, choose it in the shops, help to make it and of course enjoy eating it! Not only does this help to teach them about the food they eat but it also expands their tastes, prompting them to try new things. Among their favourite new foods this summer are; Olives, hummous and (vegetarian) Sushi! I love how they have taken this over to imaginative play, I have I watched them having 'play dough picnics' with their teddies, dollies and action figures, sharing out food and telling their soft toys what's in the picnic basket!
Last week we visited the forest to go on a
Teddy Bear Hunt and Elizabeth loved it, she's been talking about it all weekend! So I decided I was going to create a Teddy Bear's Picnic themed Bento Box lunch...
I wanted to provide a healthy meal for my children that would still be appealing to them. I would use colour and fun shapes to transform a salad based lunch into a fun adventure!
While shopping at Asda for the ingredients I had come across this fabulous expandable Bento Box lunchbox from cool gear that just had to buy! As well as separate compartments on the top, the main bowl was expandable and the middle section was also a freezer block, ingenious!
I set out a selection of ingredients including cherry tomatoes, peppers, celery, broccoli, grapes, kiwi, raisins and a few treats in the form of mini gingerbread men and pretzels. I used a teddy bear shaped cookie cutter to create little bears out of some wholemeal bead and cucumber.
I started off by creating a salad with baby leaves and grated salad, this would be the 'grass' where our picnic would take place...
I added 'trees' made from broccoli florets resting on cucumber sticks, pretzel fences and a picnic blanket made with red pepper slices, some kite shaped bread represented the picnic basket and raisins and puffed rice hearts became the teddies food. The generous teddy bears kindly invited some gingerbread men to join them for their delicious picnic!
Some of the creations that had really caught my eye when looking on Pinterest were the lunchbox kebabs, as well as picnics we'd enjoyed some lovely barbecues over the summer and both myself and the children created some delicious kebabs using vegetables and halloumi for Daddy to grill on the BBQ. I decided to build on this by creating some fun mini kebabs using raw spaghetti as sticks!
I mixed up kiwi stars with cherry tomatoes and dried fruit, grapes with teddy bear butties, strawberries and heart shaped cucumber slices, they looked fantastic...
I added the final touches with pots of grapes, baby carrots and a tub of hummous, then almost decided to make butties for the children and keep these for myself!
Both children really enjoyed them and I will certainly be carrying on with the Bento box creations for lunches. They won't be this creative every day, but the kebabs and pots of veg with dippers were so quick and simple to make I have already repeated them a few times this week, do you think I could get away with taking some in to the office for my lunch?!
You can take a look at our G+ album and
Check out our shopping experience at ASDA and I would love to hear about your children's favourite packed lunches, do you create surprise treats for them to discover?
