Sound the Octo Alert!

Tiny loves a computer animated show on Disney Jr. called Octonauts.  It's a show that Ted and I don't mind Tiny watching because each episode features a real ocean creature and its adventures or dilemmas.  Ted and I are as fascinated as Tiny is when we watch it with her. 

The main characters in the Octonauts are Captain Barnacles Bear, Kwazii Kitten, and Peso Penguin.  The Captain is the leader of the Octopod, which travels around the world's oceans.  Kwazii is Captain Barnacles' first mate.  A one-eyed pirate cat, Kwazii Kitten is the group's most adventurous member and the first to jump to the conclusion that something unknown is a mythical sea creature.  Peso is the timid penguin medic who reluctantly accompanies Captain Barnacles and Kwazii when they're in the Gup-A, B, C, D or E (Get it?  Gupp-E - guppy) exploring the ocean floor.  There are other characters, but the story usually revolves around the three aforementioned amigos.

I had been trying to incorporate a history, spelling or math lesson into Tiny's bentos, but I realized that 1) it's damned hard to do, and 2) Tiny isn't incredibly interested in the history bentos.  The whole point of my bento adventures is to get the kid to eat, so popular television and book characters it will be.

The Octonauts and the Montessori School Adventure!

I had the darndest time getting a good shot of any of the lunch, so I posted my best.  Captain Barnacles is made of a boiled egg placed in my bear mold.  I sliced the egg in half after it set in the mold for about 10 minutes.  I did this so that I could remove the yolk, which Tiny hates.  I then painted Barnacles' features on one half of the egg using my cake decorating paints.  I placed Barnacles' head on a bed of couscous with chickpeas and peas in hopes that it would look as if he's buried in sand.  <cough>  Then I chopped up the other half of the egg, and made it "snow" on which Peso and his little cousin Pinto lie. 

Delicious, nutritious and adorable.

I got the idea for the penguins from foodgawker, which included ingredients, but no instructions.  None were needed - they were super easy to make. The ingredients are: two black olives, two slices of carrot, and cream cheese.  That's it!

Next came Kwazii Kitten.

I could not get the camera to focus on Kwazii, but, hey, look at those sharp Goldfish crackers!

I carved Kwazii's features into a Clementine, and then used my cake decorating paint to fill in the eye and eye patch.  I reversed the mouth cutout and placed it back into the area from which I'd carved it to make the mouth more distinct.  The nose, barely visible above, is a tiny pink sprinkle.

Finally, I assembled what was kind of sort of meant to look like Professor Inkling Octopus. The first photo above shows it in the bottom left corner.  To make it, I attempted to carve spirals into the bottom half of an apple using a potato swirler I got when I bought a set of Ginsu knives at a supermarket demonstration.  (Hey, don't laugh - the knives are pretty awesome.)  The swirler didn't work with the apple as expected, so I kind of just posed the swirls I was able to salvage into one of the containers, and then placed the other half of the apple on top of that.  I threw in some sliced peaches and grapes for good measure. 

This Octonauts bento was actually funner to make than the others I've attempted.  Perhaps a little popular culture won't hurt.  :)