I spend a lot of time on Pinterest, so it's only natural that I see a ton of food creations. Really ornate, time-consuming edible works of art that I save for later and never revisit because I have work to do and kids to feed and messes to clean up. This easy bento face is my busy mom response to all those intricate bentos of the internet!
The whole point of food art, for me, is to keep my kids excited and interested in their meals. If I can incorporate new flavors into a wacky design or cute animal, it's at least a little bit more likely that they'll give it a try.
Make a Bento Face with Whatever's in the Fridge
For this quick lunchtime plate, I scrounged through our refrigerator and used what we had on-hand. We always have olives, since they're one of Nate's favorite healthy snack options. Also on-hand were some hard-boiled eggs, figs from our tree, carrot slices, red bell pepper pieces, bread and bologna. I'm really not sure why bologna was in our refrigerator. What's that stuff even made of? Ham? Turkey? Plastic? Nobody knows!
Nate's been doing most of the grocery shopping lately as my pregnant belly is slowing me down more and more, so it's always an interesting adventure going through our kitchen supplies nowadays.
Black olives offer a nice pop of color and texture to our mealtime creations, and we're especially partial to California brands here in San Diego (other foods that we tend to grow especially well include almonds, avocados, artichokes, mandarins and strawberries).
Have you ever made a face bento? What did you use for your ingredients?