First I have to tell on my girls a little. In the mini bear onigiri are little bits of pickled herring. When I brought the jar out, the girls started chanting, "herring, herring, herring!" and came out of the kitchen with forks. How could I say no to a 4 and 9 year old asking for herring? They finished the entire jar! So anyways, the top tier has carrot flowers and salted cucumber leaves surrounding hearted fresh mozzarella balls and cherry tomatoes. The bottom tier has the mini pickled herring bears on a bed of nori with some carrot hearts and organic fresh berry chews. A little hodgepodgey when I usually do the hyper organized Bentos but I still like it.

Tomorrow, Annie is officially a 4th grader! Yikes and yay at the same time. Of course if it's back to school, it's back to Bentos. After she picked out her uniform pairings for tomorrow, she said, "okay, lets make a bento. I'll help by tasting." Three tiers for the first day. Top tier has herbed goat cheese, organic bologna and muenster cheese pinwheels with nori flowers surrounded by sugar snap peas. Middle tier has the hot pink finger staining yummy dragon fruit slices and checkered apple piece. The bottom tier has one of Annie's favorites, caprese salad with basil from the backyard. After tasting pretty much everything, this bento was officially Annie approved.

So Norby has been discussing bentos at work and thought he'd con me in to making one for him. Little does he know, I loved doing it (okay, so maybe now he'll know if he reads this!). The bottom tier has udon noodles tossed with steak strips in a spicy sauce adorned with scallions, sesame seeds and togarashi (Japanese seasoning). The top tier has hot pink dragon fruit (at least that's what the girls call it, Norby thinks it's more of a purple) and checkered apple pieces with a container of sugar snap peas and cherry tomatoes. Here you go papa (I wonder if he's planning this on being a habit now?).