I take you back to a more idyllic time, the one that existed when the boy was quite wee.  I made a lot of lunches out of whatever was laying around.  We did the ice cube tray grazing, I made omlets and hummus.  Every day the boy got a wonderful prepared meal from me.  When he started school 4 years ago I had somewhat hoped he would buy his lunch at school.  The problem was that frankly, Thomas was a mini food snob.  We had raised him to eat adult food and he grew up eating off our plates.  We were so desperate to eat sushi and shellfish again with him that when he turned three we were focused on both!  So in kindegarten we started a lunch routine that seemed to work ok, but gradually just fell apart.  On Sunday we went shopping and he decided what he wanted, steak kabobs, chicken, roasted chicken, shrimp.  I made big pots of soup and he tried store bought.  We did simple sandwiches.  I made artisan breads and we fancy-shamcied them up.  The problem was whatever we decided on Sunday he had to eat for 5 days in a row.  By Wednesday almost everything was coming home. He ended up starving, ate a very big afternoon snack and then wouldn’t feel hungry for dinner.  Rinse, Repeat, Cry (me, I did the crying for the record.)

Last year it was both a terrible battle to be creative as well as get him to actually eat it.  I started surfing bento blogs, my favorite being Lunch In A Box.  It gave me great ideas.  But I was cautious and did not want to sink to much money into something that failed in a different way.  So instead I spent the spring and summer thinking about how to get a handful of bento supplies for under 10.00 US.  I was really hoping to pick some up in China, but it didn’t happen.  So I got creative.

Today I sent my brand new 4th grader off to school with his very first bento box.  It came home with all the food eaten and a very happy little boy.

1. First I bought an inexpensive pencil case.  75 cents at Target.  It was the right depth and about the right size.

2. I already had the silicone baking cups.  I did not like them for baking, but they work perfect in this situation.

3. Finally I scored a 3.00 US bill box that seperated which is perfect for fairly viscous liquids.

The next hurdle was thinking about dinner in a way that could be sent to school the next week.  Thomas decided on some of the first components.  He had always been expected to have a grain/starch, fruit, veg and protein.  We didn’t nessecarily follow the tradional Japanese division of food types for the bento box to begin with.

Today’s lunch consisted of the following starting from top left:

Pasta salad I made on Saturday.  I knew this would be eaten as I have sent it in disposable containers before.

Globe Grapes, again, he picked out the fruit and it was a nice fit withing the cups and box.

Homemade brownies.  I made these thicker than I normally do so I could cut a nice size one to fit in the cup.

Spicy Italian Sausage cut up that we had for dinner on Saturday.  (I grilled it out on Sat).

Homemade cheese and herb bread cut into chunks.

Sauces in the pill boxes were sweet&spicy mustard for the sausade and chevre cheese for the bread

Gap fillers were baby carrots and tomatoes.  He isn’t a tomato fan apparently, so more carrots and I need to investigate other gap fillers.

He loves almost all of it.  I had precut up a handful of bread chunks last night and put in an airtight container.  Everything else I prepped from leftovers this morning.  It was about 20 minutes total prep.  It went in a Igloo lunch case that would allow it to lay flat with a bottle of water.  I sent a fork and knife because I could not find out food picks.

View of it closed:

And the very cute boy!

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