Paige’s Food Art

As a school project the children were asked to make something creative using healthy food as their medium.  Paige came up with what she called her “Island Ocean” theme.  When I asked her where the island was, she gave me a funny look and told me the platter was the island “of course”.  She then said the blueberry yogurt showed where the surface of the ocean was and that most of the island is under sea level.  I was pretty impressed with her answer being that she’s only six!  Then my husband reminded me that I had explained that to her on our last trip to the Bishop Museum a few months ago.  Her aquatic animals included fish (the one with the stripes was Nemo), a jellyfish, and an octopus, as well as a few well placed sprigs of “seaweed” parsley.

Her next food art project happened when Paige had to stay home from school because she was sick.  After a day of being at home, she was pretty bored and needed a project.  Paige decided that she wanted to make her own bento and used a small kit of cutters that I had picked up from the Marukai 99cent store at Ward.  It only cost $1.99! 

 

Paige used bologna and some cheese to make her rabbit and bear. Then she carefully arranged her cutouts on the rice, used furikake to make grass, and arranged the rest of her food in the bottom portion of the bento container.  She also decorated the food with a few decorative picks.  I only helped her put on the nori eyes and mouths.  She did a really great job!

Bento for Sean: Curious George

Whenever Sean (my two year old) sees Paige with her bento lunch for school, he always yells “Mine, mine, mine!” and the poor boy never gets one.  So today I decided to make Sean a Curious George sandwich bento.  

 

Curious George is made from bologna, American cheese, nori for the face, and fish sausage for  his ear.  I just placed him right on the top of the bread and wrapped the ham sandwich with plastic wrap so that he would stay in place.

Sean was so excited to have his own bento!  Doesn’t he look happy?

Of course, the first thing Sean ate was Curious George and then he decided to show me what he was eating when I took this picture.  Funny boy!

Scaredy Squirrel

Paige’s lunch today is based on one of the books, which she just read, called Scaredy Squirrel at the Beach by Melanie Watt.  The story is about a squirrel who is afraid of everything but wants to go to the beach where he fears are scary pirates, vicious sea birds, angry crabs, and sea monsters.  Scaredy  decides to build his own beach in his backyard but realizes that his homemade beach is not complete without a special shell.  Thus he must make the hazardous trip to the beach anyway to get his precious shell.  In the end, Scaredy realizes that the beach is not so scary after all and actually had a lot of fun despite all of his fears.  It was a very cute and funny book, Paige even gave it two thumbs up!

Scaredy Squirrel is made of bologna, American cheese, and nori for the eyes and mouth.  Her lunch included mini ham sandwiches, pretzels, carrots, and grapes.  I also packed her a thermos of chicken noodle soup since it’s been so cold lately.     

Puppies: Troy and Gabriella

The other week we found a lost dog wandering the streets in our neighborhood.  We decided to take him home, give him some water, and then try to find his owner.  He was a small, mixed breed dog with the sweetest temperament to match his warm, chocolate brown eyes.  Paige, who is normally terrified of dogs, fell in love with Troy.  Yes, she and her friends who were over at the time named the dog Troy (as in High School Musical).  After giving him water, we put Troy on a leash and walked around the neighborhood.  We didn’t get far when Troy sat down in the yard directly in front of a house that we soon found out to be his own.  Sure enough  Troy’s owner came outside and was very grateful that we had taken care of his Nalu. Paige was very sad to see Nalu (aka Troy) go, so this bento is a tribute to him.  

Kitties

The kitties were Paige’s Valentine’s Day bento.  I’ve been trying to use my Hello Kitty rice mold (as well as other molds) to make different things or characters.  I used nori to make the faces and fish sausage for the ears, noses, and flowers.  I also cut out a little SPAM cat with a small cookie cutter.  The rest of the bento included sesame chicken (which Paige has declared to be her favorite) grapes, carrots, and cucumbers. 

Mr. and Mrs. Musubi

This is one of Paige’s bentos from last week.  Mr. and Mrs. Musubi were really easy to make.  I just used nori for the hair on the Mrs. and nori for both of their eyes and mouths.  For her hair , Mrs. has a flower cut out of fish sausage and Mr. has a top hat cut out of the fish sausage as well.  Both are secured with picks.  The rest of the bento consists of chicken cutlet, carrot, and grapes.