Meatfree Monday Bento babybel cheese

It's Meatfree Monday again: Today's bento consist of mini babybel cheese, brocolli, zuchinni and a yoghurt muesli bar. I had been wanting to make this series of babybel cheese for some time now. A few months ago, I was lucky enough to go to Bangladesh for a friend's wedding. The celebrations were fabulous and I met three lovely young ladies Ishra, Yushra and Tania. Even though they are not more than 11 years old, I felt as though I had learnt a lot from them. Maybe I was too engrossed in all the stress going around in the adult world, juggling so many things at the same time and all. They say the most funny and witty stuffs and we talked about so many things! From cooking, to Roald Dahl, to our likes and dislikes, to our ambitions and even alternative ambitions!

Bento Meatfree Monday Babybel girls

 That said, maybe I should go write the young ladies another email. Hope you like today's Meatfree Monday Bento: Babybel cheese with zucchini and brocolli.

Bento Babybel Bird

Yesterday Mr Bear and I had an oven dish. It consisted of potatoes, mushroom, ham and lots of cheese. There was a handful left over and there was also 1 piece of mini babybel sitting in the fridge, so I decided to use them to make this happy Babybel Bird bento.

Bento Babybel Bird in Ojue lunchbox

Close up of Bento Babybel Happy Bird

I used the deepest compartment of the Ojue lunchbox here because I am intending to use this on its own.

First, I lined the lunchbox with a large piece of lettuce. Next I put in the left over potato dish, taking care to push all of them to one side, so that the food surface is almost in line with the top edge of the bento.

Then I stuff julienne strips of lettuce into the rest of the lunchbox and I top it up with the piece of mini babybel cheese.

Sidenote: the beak I used here is from the wax covering the babybel. If the bento is intended for kids, I would replace it with a piece of carrot or surimi, just to be safe.

Bento Idea: Musical Babybel

It had been a whole week of craziness of hiding in our cave for both Mr Bear and me. We were down with a bad bout of flu and had been hibernating the whole time. Now we are both feeling better and since stuffs had been left un-done for the whole week, it DOES really feel as though I have a lot to do/catch up on...

I don't know if its a world-wide thing or not, but I do notice a lot of my friends being sick as well last week. Its strange because all these friends come from different parts of the world ( Europe, United States, Asia,  Australia etc) and thus they probably didn't get it directly from each other. More like a coincidence I think.

Let's begin with something easy.

Bento idea: Musical babybel

- mini babybel
- nori for the musical notes
- green grapes
- Leftover chicken pesto pasta salad (click here for recipe)

How I did the mini babybel:
First, unwrapped the red cellophane wrapper from the mini babybel. Using a round bottlecap, I make a slight impression on the red wax. This serves as a rough guide for the circle. You can also trace out the circle with a sharp toothpick. Next I cut out the wax, leaving a circle of cheese exposed. If you see this picture carefully, you would have seen that I left the little paper strip intact. All mini babybels have this paper strip to make removing the red wax easier. I left it on, so that its easier for me to remove the rest of the red wax just before I eat it. If you like, you can always cut it through and remove the paper strip completely.

 

PS: Rio, this post is dedicated for you. Thanks for popping by my blog! :D

Bento Idea: Mini babybel belles!

Yesterday there was a sale on mini babybel cheese in one of the neighbourhood supermarkets. I thought that they make a great addition to my bento food stash, since they are:
-small (thus high in "cute factor")
-keep well
-individually packed (means I can portion it to exactly what I need = less food wastage)

I think I came across this sometime back from a taiwanese bento mom Tiffany Yang's blog and thought its pretty cute, so I improvise it a little to make it truly my own. At this point, there's no instructions for this on her site, so I reckon I'll just share with you my methods:

Basically I unwrapped the mini babybel and started cutting the shapes I want with a tiny sharp knife. If you are not comfortable with cutting out the shapes with the knife straightaway, you can lightly sketch the design you want with a sharp toothpick before you really start cutting. This way, its less likely for a mistake to be made.

From the discarded red portions, I carved a little shallow "u" shape to form the mouths. Using a toothpick, I place them at a desired position. *if your bento is intended for small children, use maraschino cherries or surimi stick skins instead of discarded wax!*

Next I used a food writer to dot on the eyes. Not exactly the best option I found out, because they tend to smudge. If black sesame seed is available to you, use them!!! Just 1 tiny black sesame seed for each eye. They work far better than the food writer because they give a "cleaner" look and those ever so cute tear-drop shaped eyes. Else a tiny tiny little round piece of nori will do fine as well. If you happen to have a musical note nori puncher on hand, use them!!! you can simply cut off the round part of the musical note and use them as eyes!

Other ingredients for this bento are:
- mash potato (decorated with leaf picks)(click here for mash potato recipe )
- green grapes (lying right under the mini baby bel belles)
- cut banana (instructions on how to cut them decoratively can be found here.)

In case you know someone who is crazy about mini babybel, you might want to check this out this out. Its fast and convenient and you won't have to rush out to the supermarket and then go to the post office to send it out, just to realise to that the postage for cheeses is already way more expensive than the cheese itself.