Peacock Bento
Peacock Bento
We had a fantastic day out at “Wildtierpark Poing” in Munich (a wild animal park) on Wednesday! 
We were able to stroke some rabbits and guinea pigs, and feed antelope, goats, ponies and donkeys! We also saw some huge bears. There were random peacocks wandering around the picnic area as well as chickens and ducks.
Here is a bento that I made inspired by the beauty of the magnificent bird, the peacock! I also wanted to try out the sealed sandwich idea that Lia from Bentolicious blogged about.
I don’t have a bread mold / sandwich shaper (apart from the toastie maker) but after rummaging through my plastics box which is mostly full of old baby bottles and lids, I thought I would try using a large teat ring and a smaller one, that seemed to nest inside each other quite well. I made some chocolate spread sandwiches from brown bread and pressed the larger ring onto it to get my first circle, then I turned it over and used the smaller ring to seal the sandwich. I was pretty impressed because they came out quite neat and tidy considering the improvised tools for the job!
These are the teat rings from the old baby bottles that I used to make the pressed sandwich with sealed edges.
And then I put coloured cheese peacock decorations on and carved the same design into a red apple. You don’t get a zoomed out photo today seeing as this was only a snack experiment bento and there isn’t really much else in it apart from some cucumber slices, but someone has been messing about with my fridge settings and the cucumber was frozen solid so it does not look how it is meant to, and I don’t have any other salad or fruits to do much bentoing with. But I’m a big believer in making do with what you have got, so here it is!
The rest of the bread offcuts went into a bread and butter pudding, which I am told was delicious, but I didn’t try it seeing as I am trying not to have any empty calories. 
I have lost 4lbs so far since I started doing my daily exercise and watching my portion sizes, using the weight loss tips on this blog post and I have proudly marked it on my progress chart on my wall! only 22lbs more to go!
I recently placed a couple of orders with Cake Balls UK to have a box of Gluten Free coffee and walnut cake balls and a bag of chocolate and orange cake balls sent to my relatives in the UK as birthday gifts. As agreed the balls were sent out for delivery before the recipient’s birthday and I’m told they are really delicious and came packaged really neatly too. PippaD from A Mother’s Ramblings recommended Cake Balls on her blog and that’s where I got the idea, so thanks Pippa, and thanks Anna from Cake Balls UK for delivering the fantastic birthday gifts! You have my recommendation too!
You can follow Anna from Cake Balls Uk, Pippa from A Mother’s Ramblings and Lia from Bentolicious on Twitter and their Blogs.
I have never placed a bento items order before, I still consider myself a beginner seeing as I only started making bento in January 2010, and I have never bought any “proper” bento tools, preferring to try to make the best use of what I already have such as cookie cutters for shaping rice or cutting cheese or vegetables, craft punches for the nori seaweed and my craft needle pen for cutting the cheese. There are definitely some basic items that I would suggest could be bought as a bento starter bundle if you don’t already have any tools for making your bento. And I am very tempted to order them myself very soon too! The items I think would be the most useful are the nori face punches, the egg moulds, the onigiri presses, the flower shaped vegetable cutters and the the decorative food picks.
Have fun and happy bento-ing!
Pergamano Perforating Tool – Single Needle – PG10241
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Featured Product: Niko Niko Nori Face Punch (recently re-stocked!)
This amazing new nori punch cuts standard sheet seaweed into unbearably cute faces that you can use to make incredible bento and onigiri art, making you the cutest bento maker in town! Koala bear faces, panda, or generic happy faces can be cut from the 3 seaweed cutters and you can even mix and match to make new expressions.
So cute and very creative by using the teat rings. We have a peacock that roams around our local zoo, the girls just love to watch him
I am so impressed! My girl loves peacocks so I am inspired by your pictures. My problem is that we aren’t doing any artificial colors in her diet, so I have to think about foods that would have pretty colors. I love how you use whatever you can find to make your visions come true, I find that to be fun as well. Although, I too dream of having proper bento tools!
thanks Mommyof2girlz
Hi Fluteloop, Maybe you could do the brown part of the peacock feather from sandwich meat and use lettuce leaf for the green bit. Not sure how to suggest getting the blue colour naturally, (unless squeezing blueberry juice on would work – could get messy! ) but you could go with purple if you can get some purple vegetables? And you can use beetroot to get pink. I know peacocks aren’t pink but a pink peacock sounds like quite a cool idea and I bet your daughter would love it. It could be a Princess peacock
Lovely! I may have to steal this idea soon
asfora this is beautiful! i love the colors and the carving, and that was so innovative to use the teat rings – good thinking!
Thanks Megan and Tammy for your compliments! – it was fun trying it out!
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I love this splendid, colorful peacock and how its inspiration came from your real life encounter with one of these magnificent birds, Asfora!
Congrats on your order–it sounds very fun–yet I am so impressed by the creativity with which you’ve crafted such wonderful and UNIQUE bento visions!
Your peacocks are beautiful Asfora
Wow, such a nice peacock bento! Love the shape you crafted on the apple very much!
Of all the cities I’ve visited in Germany, I think I like Munich the most.
Nice job with the sealed sandwiches! I often dig out other items that hiding in every other corners of the house to make bento too…
OMG, your peacock bento is awesome!!! The peacock is my favorite bird
I love how you came up with a way to make the sandwiches with things you already had, very ingenious.
so cool!! I love to try!!