A very familiar Bento

Today I got the official email notification that our Bento workshop at the AnimeNext convention has been accepted - woohoo! It's a lot of work and $$, but we enjoy it :) We charge a $5 fee, but they get a little bento starter kit to keep and to fill it at the workshop :)

Last year we did the 2-tier bento boxes, but this year I decided to save the extra $1 per person and go with the single tiers. They also get the bento bag, an egg mold and a mini onigiri mold to keep and a sauce bottle or two and a pretty pick or two :) I still need to pull out the box of what I already ordered for it and figure out what we still need. I really can't remember if I already ordered the picks and sauce bottles :o I think we'll do that when Kat gets home from school today :)

So far my plan is to boil the eggs ahead of time and place them in the egg molds in the fridge so when they get their egg molds, they get the egg for their bento at the same time :) Last year I purchased an egg cooker to do it on the spot, but it was a bit too messy with the egg peeling etc.
We did the octodogs and crabs ahead of time last year and will again this year. I will also slice carrots and then they can use our cutters on them for flowers etc :) I am hoping to borrow my sister's rice steamer so we can do two batches at once - That combined with the smaller onigiri molds this year will hopefully solve that problem from last year (the rice cooker didn't like doing a new batch immediateky after the first).

I'm still thinking through the rest, and trying to remember what else we did last year. I'm open to suggestions! :D

Now on to today's bento!

Yesterday I started walking with my neighbor when she walks her dog. I had to quickly finish this when after I got back as she arrived right after I began packing it :)



May 27 --

Top Tier: Mixed Spring Greens w/ sliced grilled southwestern chicken breast (still leftovers :), carrot flowers and a few grape tomatoes

Bottom Tier: Raspberries, bold chex mix, macaroni salad w/ cheese flowers and an out of place star, edamame and snow pea stems :)


Kat's Bento:



May 27 --

Top Tier: Mixed spring greens, baby carrots, macaroni salad w/ cheese star and corned beef

Bottom Tier: Raspberries, dried kiwi and edamame

The butterfly bento box was ordered from happymall.com but I have also seen it on ebay often :)

The leaf box, I believe, came from ebay also.

The star cutter came in a set of cutters from pampered chef and the flower cutters were from AC Moore and are by Wilton :)