Bento Boxes for Kiddie Parties

What's the usual food parents serve at kiddie parties in school? I bet 5 out of 10 would say Jollibee and the other 5 would announce McDonalds'. Fast and easy food that are popular among kids, right?

We, too, have served the same food over and over for each of my kids' birthday held in school. It's easy but then it's already predictable.

Then one day, I came across a post from an acquaintance who served bento boxes for her son's party. I thought it's a really good idea especially that the boxes are colorful and the food looks enticing for the kids. But a bento box costs an average of Php250 each (pasta, chicken, dessert and a drink) and requires at least 2 weeks lead time for orders.

photo grabbed from Alphamom.com

So the budget-conscious but adventurous me decided to try my hand on making a bento box for my son's birthday. I didn't have any "drawing board" on what to put together or to design. My mind was simply focused on what kids normally want to eat and then make the bento box as colorful as possible.

Here's what I managed to put together...

I bought a microwaveable lunch box with partition (lucky to have found one!) and cupcake liners to separate the dessert and meat I planned to serve.

My mom-in-law is great in the kitchen so I was very confident about cooking our own spaghetti. Then I just bought Purefoods chicken nuggets because they come in various shapes as meat to accompany the pasta. I threw in an Oreo cookie and grapes and mallows skewer as dessert to finish off the bento. 

It's simple and easy to consume. Normally, we would serve chicken and spaghetti from either Jollibee or McDonalds so our bento is just similar.

Tips:

1. Given more time to prepare, I would have bought a cookie cutter so the cheese toppings could be in fun shapes too, like stars perhaps, instead of just grated cheese.

2. Microwaveable lunch containers with partitions are not easy to find in supermarkets. Best to hunt for them in dry markets (I got mine at Cainta market) from stall that sell packaging materials. They are cheaper there too!

3. There are many colorful paper cups and cupcake liners in various sizes. Party suppliers and baking/confectionery shops sell them in abundance!