Jurassic Park, The Bento!

The quick update. I exercised yesterday. I'll do it again today. If I do eat out, It has to be a salad. And the reward is that I don't feel ill after eating a load of fried food.

And I've decided that every time I make a bento and actually eat it instead of going out, I'll be putting aside $5 for a bento purchase of my choice. Which means I need six more bentos before I can buy the newest box I have my eye on. Motivation is a wonderful thing.

Ok. A cute bento.

No really. I did something besides shove food into a box. And I'm quite proud of myself. I did, however, learn the value of planning these things out. Mostly I got up this morning and was watching tv when I glanced over at my videos and saw the Jurassic Park logo. Click! Bento. Two hours later. I was going to run errands this morning. That didn't happen.



I made the logo out of nori and a slice of provolone. The red bit was colored using a food marker. It took me a while to figure out how best to transfer the image to the nori. And then I realized I had a roll of tracing paper in my art bag. So I traced the dinosaur and cut it out. I cut the nori using a really sharp steak knife like it was an exacto. It was not comfortable. I think I'll be buying a real exacto knife before I do something like this again.

A closeup. I realized just now that I didn't put the logo on there straight. The bushes should be at the bottom.



The logo is sitting atop a bed of brown rice surrounded by mixed veggies. I was going to put the hard-boiled eggs up there with it, but then realized that I'd be microwaving the rice. And microwaving the eggs would be a bad idea. Sure. I could have taken them out before microwaving. But I like having my layers separate. Cold food and hot food. It makes my life easier.

Those cute dinosaur eggs were colored with food markers as well. I tried to do them like my mom used to... crack them all over and put them in egg dye. But it didn't work out. You need to get through that little membrane that covers the egg so it will actually color. And I didn't. But the food marker worked.

The eggs are being propped up with a couple of sliced mini sweet peppers. And the orange one you see is stuffed with cream cheese. Then there are the always familiar carrots and clementine orange, with all the little spaces filled with macadamia nuts. And a mint. Because no one likes egg breath.