I’ve written a new article over on CheapCooking, offering up some lunch box ideas for packing creative school lunches.

I’m fascinated by the bento box blogs and have several favorites I’ve been following including:

• Just Bento
• Adventures in Bento Making
• All My Bento are Belong to Me
• Lunch in a Box

If you’re looking for fun lunchbox items, go check out these Amazon lunchbox containers.

Youngest is starting a new smaller private high school so bringing lunch to school is once again a necessity. I thought she might enjoy the bento lunch idea, since I’ve been reading a few blogs that make it all look delicious. As soon as I showed her a hello kitty bento lunch she was sold!

Just to play a bit tonight I thought I’d cook something I might pack up the leftovers for in a bento lunch. I’m thinking we’ll both pack lunches because even though I work from home I hate break away from work and then “fixing” lunch. So I ‘m thinking we’ll each pack our lunches in the morning so I don’t have to think about mine either.

heart and snowflake shaped onigiri rice balls

So first I played with some onigiri (rice balls), using some cookie cutters I had around. I froze the extras, figuring we could pull them out later.

I made the rice in my new rice cooker. When it was done, I mixed in just a tad of rice vinegar, then shaped them, wetting my hands first in cold water and then pressing them into the cookie cutters.

I also used some tiny heart cookie cutters I had with some sliced cucumbers. I sliced up some red bell peppers just in slices.

The chicken was this fantastic sesame chicken from this blog I found.  The only change I made was to use sherry instead of raspberry wine recommended. Yum!

Just for fun I served it in these Rubbermaid divided containers since we don’t have “real” bento box containers.