Tiger cubs bento - A very fruity bento :)

I had so much fun packing the cute froggie bento for our friend that I really wanted to do another cute onigiri bento.  I've mentioned before that Rob doesn't really want rice for lunch; especially plain rice, so I thought about it and decided a fruit filled onigiri in a rice cooked with coconut milk would probably be a yummy treat - unfortunately, to my surprise, I was out of coconut milk...  But then, I noticed the cans of mango nectar and voila! Mango Rice - that sounded so good to me!  So I put the rice and a can of mango nectar into my rice cooker and added the little bit of water it needed to bring it to the correct amount and got it cooking :)

I was so excited that by using the mango nectar, my rice would be naturally orange :)  That immediately made me think of the cute tiger onigiri I've seen in a number of bento blogs and in the new Yum-Yum Bento Box book - so I grabbed the book and checked out their method and went from there :)

I chopped up a strawberry and the ends of the kiwi that are sometimes too small for the flower cutter I typically use for it, put some rice in the bear onigiri mold, added some of the cut up fruit, then added more rice to fill the mold.  Of course I tasted the mango rice; My disappointment at not having coconut milk quickly dissipated - it was pretty yummy :) 

I made 4 onigiri; Kat ate the other 2 :)

I absolutely love this onigiri box, though I haven't used it as much as I'd like. 

In the top, onigiri tier, we have the adorable tiger cubs, a peanut butter and fig preserve flower shaped sammie (I kinda wish I'd thought of something else here...), Cucumber slices, baby carrot sticks and broccoli and grape tomatoes for filler. 

In the shallow bottom tier we have 2 sliced strawberries, kiwi flowers and blueberries.

 I love when the berries start coming back into season - such a healthy and attractive way to add color to bento :)

Don't you hate when you're lying in bed trying to sleep and you just can't stop thinking about bento to sleep? haha

Between being concerned there wasn't enough protein in his bento and that maybe it wasn't enough for a grown man who goes to the gym in the morning and doesn't eat breakfast; and what if he didn't like the onigiri and didn't eat it? He definitely wouldn't have enough food then... and thinking about what I still need for our bento workshop in a couple weeks, I just couldn't sleep.

So, at about 1:15am, I got up and threw this salad together in about 5 minutes - I had boiled the egg the night before (I always do 2 in case one gets messed up and then I also don't need to do one for the next day)

It's just the usual organic spring greens, a car shaped boiled egg, halved grape tomatoes and ham and swiss pinwheels (I was out of turkey).

In the end he said his lunch was too big - yeah, but better than still hungry, right? :P

It was nice to have a cute bento to post today since I only got a few hours sleep last night (got to sleep around 3:30ish, was awakened at a little before 4:30 by some noise from the girls, woke up again about 7? when Rob came in and dropped off his gym bag and kissed me goodbye and then the alarm went off at 8 - you needed the details, right? lol)

If you stuck with me this far, thanks for reading - lol

and Happy Bento-ing! :)