Teddy Bear Celery Cuts

Today I washed and cut up all of my produce for the upcoming week, and stumbled upon something really cute. If you cut celery just right, you can make adorable bear shapes! These will make a great decoration for my bento lunches, and any other cute food dress up. These bears are really easy to make, but you can only make a few of them because you have to cut them out of the branch part near the top of each celery rib. If you pick a celery stalk with several ribs, you can make more bear cutouts than if you use a sparse celery stalk. Here's how to cut them out:

Place knife about 1/8" above the indented part of the celery and cut.

It should look like this. Or close to it.

Cut on the indentation.

Teddy bears!

Quick Macaroni and Cheese Bento

I found the cutest pasta at the local market on Friday. It's teddy bear shaped! Since it was time for lunch, and I had just done a ton of dishes, I didn't feel the need to dirty up much more with cooking lunch. So, I made a tiny batch of macaroni and cheese with 1 cup of the bear pasta. I boiled up some water, added a pinch of salt, and then filled the box with pre-cut cucumbers and pre-peeled carrots. I then got out a slice of cheddar cheese, and cut out a bear shape using my rice mold. With the leftover bits of cheese, a teaspoon of butter, and 2 tablespoons of milk, I made some simple macaroni and cheese using the hot, drained pasta. Then I filled the rest of the bento with half of the pasta and my daughter set to work eating it. To save time tomorrow, I took the other half of the pasta and made another bento for the fridge. This time I used a leaf of lettuce to separate the pasta, and added some grapes and cut cucumbers to switch things up a bit.

This is the coolest carrot I've ever seen! It grew wrapped around another carrot!

The first bento, with the cheese cut-out.

See? Teddy bear pasta!

Mmmm, pasta and some fruit and veggies.

Here you can see how it all fits with the lid on.