Ghost in the Pumpkin Patch Bento

Can you believe there's only 10 more days until Halloween?

I haven't really done much with all my cute Halloween cutters and picks so far, and I only have 10 days left to use them until next year! So that's why I decided to have a countdown to Halloween - with bentos!

The lunch above is what my husband is taking to work today. We had black beans and rice for dinner yesterday, so that is the main dish in today's lunch. Along with that are sweet potatoes and broccoli for the pumpkin patch, and a satsuma orange cut as a jack-o-lantern. It was really easy to cut the face - I have a craft knife that I use just for food, and it made quick work of cutting out a jack-o-lantern grin. If only real pumpkins were that easy to carve!

The stars and ghost were cut from cheese. The ghost comes from that very versatile Linzer cookie cutter set that I've been using since September, and his face is cut using a tiny coffee stirrer straw.

The next lunch is one I packed for my son :

He is my gluten-free buddy, so he gets some Glutino chocolate covered pretzels, and a GF sandwich on homemade bread. Gluten-free bread is really tricky to cut into shapes or put in a sandwich press       ( like this one), but I learned a great trick: Heat the bread in the microwave until it's soft, and then on a piece of waxed paper roll it out with a rolling pin. It seems to press together all the loose bits of the bread, and that makes it hold together in a sandwich press nicely! On top of his ham and cheese sandwich he has a cheddar cheese maple leaf, with some fruit leather leaves on the side. He also gets a satsuma jack-o-lantern, and some raw veggies with a laughing cow cheese to dip them in.

Here are some things I used to make today's lunches, and some great places to buy them ( click on the pictures for more info) :