Bento is Fun!

Bubba has become a bit of a picky eater surviving mostly on chicken nuggets, spaghetti-o's, cheese, and fruit. Not the worst diet I guess, but we're trying to get him to branch out. My plan is make food cute. Who doesn't want to eat cute food? In that vein, I'm attempting Bento and here's my very first bento box.

Chicken and Cheese Stars (because I know he'll at least eat some lunch then. These I made with a little aluminum food cutter. Super easy to use and really cute in the end.

Next, I molded him a hard boiled egg shaped like a bunny and painted it with food coloring. To make the egg you need an egg mold, then you put the warm egg in the mold and chill. This is a previously rejected food, so I'm hoping the cute factor gets his attention. I put the egg into a cupcake paper left over from Easter that had eggs and bunnies on it. Then surrounded it with apples and grapes.

Here was the completed Bento. Unfortunately, chicken requires ketchup so I need to find some cute little cups to put condiments in.

And here's the box. Frogs are a favorite right now.


What do I think of Bento? That I'm an addict, and probably a complete nut. Honestly, do kids need cute food? Probably not, but what fun!

I made my own Yogurt ---- And it was Good!

So readers, I officially made Yogurt in my Crockpot. It took me two attempts and was a real science project, but this morning when I woke up, I had a warm and yummy Crockpot full of homemade yogurt. I was directed to the recipe here: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/10/you-can-make-yogurt-in-your-crockpot.html and on first attempt what I made more closely resembled cottage cheese and lacked the tang of yogurt, so I researched how to make yogurt and tried to figure out where I went wrong. A lot of effort you might think for something like yogurt, but we eat a lot of it and now I can control exactly what goes in it.

My first attempt followed the times on the recipe, and the result was less than appealing. It was lumpy and there was more whey than lumps. It tasted like sour milk, but not tangy like yogurt. I figured that my milk was too hot when I added my starter yogurt, but because I didn’t temp anything I had no idea by how much. So I tried again.

Take 2 was infinitely more successful. I used Whole Organic milk, pasteurized but not ultra-pasteurized. Apparently, from my research, ultra-pasteurized does not have enough bacteria to culture. I also used Stoneyfield Farms 2% plain yogurt, I would have used Whole here too but the store I went to didn’t carry it. I used the temperature probe on my Crockpot to heat my milk to 180 degrees. Then I turned it off. My Crockpot took a full hour longer to cool to anywhere close to 110 degrees, and I lost patience at 113 degrees and without measuring anything whisked together some of my milk and starter yogurt. Then I put it all back in my Crockpot and wrapped it in a down blanket overnight.

This morning I was pleasantly surprised to open my Crockpot to a beautiful sort of pudding like substance with a slight sheen of green whey on top. I used a few paper towels to soak up the whey and then tasted my masterpiece – I was surprised by how mild it was and how tasty warm yogurt is! I scooped out my yogurt into Tupperware and its chilling in my fridge now. I honestly felt like an idiot when the first batch didn’t turn out. Nomads made yogurt over a fire, so why couldn’t I in my kitchen. I’m very glad I persisted and yogurt making may become part of my weekend routine! The best part is I didn't even need a yogurt maker.