Bento Making with Cheez Whiz and The Bento Mommas

I was really excited last Sunday while our car made its way to the Commerce Center in Alabang. You may ask why. Well, that’s where I attended my first bento workshop. It was conducted by The Bento Mommas in partnership with Cheez Whiz. The Bento Mommas are comprised of five-moms based in the Philippines and abroad who are so passionate about bento-making and they share their passion to other moms out there who would love to learn how to do it.

I remember making my first bento last Halloween, and it was also made easy with the help of a newly found bento-making partner, Cheez Whiz. I’m really glad I was able to join this workshop because I learned a lot and improved my bento-making skills….

So what is Bento really? Bento or Obento is a single-portion take-out or home-packed meal common in Japanese cuisine. A traditional bento holds rice, fish or meat, with pickled or cooked vegetables, usually in a box shaped container. In the Philippines Bento refers to BAON.

Bento Baon makes kids really excited to eat so this is a great way to introduce them to a wider and healthier food choices. It’s also a great way  to encourage picky eaters to eat.

Armed with our creativity, the other mommies and I were given food containers, knives, scissors, food dividers, squeeze bottles, and some food items. These are the tools we used for the workshop. We were also given a few bento tips like:

• Go for go, grow, and glow food when making bentos
• Keep the bento tightly packed.
• Expand  you collection of bento tools slowly but surely.
• Draw inspiration from other bentos but don’t let it limit your creativity.

Our first Bento was a Snowman sandwich made with the new Cheez Whiz Milky Delight. I let Ykaie cut the sliced bread into snowman shape using a round cookie cutter.

Then, she squeezed in some Cheez Whiz Milky Delight for the filling.

Cheez Whiz Milk Delight is the latest product from Cheez Whiz. It is made with sweet milk and tasty cheese. It tastes very mildly of cheese and more of the sweet milk and perfect for kids who prefer a sweeter type of bread-fill. Of course, like the original Cheez Whiz, it’s healthy and contains high amount of calcium.

Here’s our Snowman Bento! The choco chips eyes, raisin buttons, and gummi belt scarf were “glued” using Cheez Whiz Milky Delight. As you can see, our bento is tightly packed. It also has apples, grapes, and cookies.

We used rice in our second bento, The Bento Mommas taught us how to shape our rice without the use of any tools except for a sandwich bag.

Tada! Our Reindeer Bento made with brown rice, roasted chicken, apple, corn, and broccoli.

Ykaie loved both versions of Bentos and she wanted to eat it right there and then.

What do you think of our bentos? I think we’re ready to make Christmas Bentos at home!

Thank you so much Cheez Whiz and The Bento Mommas! I had fun and I definitely learned a lot. I’ll put my newly acquired bento-making skills into action asap..heehee.

If you want some bento ideas that are easy, delicious, and healthy please check out CheeseAnything.com.