The Lemonista: Simple Bento & Old Fashioned Lemon Meringue Pie

I'll do the drawing for the Lemons tomorrow morning after I drop my son off at preschool, so probably around 10am MST. Wink. There is still time to enter, so please throw your hat in the ring if you haven't already done so. As a follower of my blog just leave a comment on this thread:
http://thelemonista.blogspot.com/2011/01/whos-up-for-another-lemon-giveaway.html

This morning I have some simple Bento for you.
The sandwich is just a peanut butter and jelly sandwich cut with a SweetBytes sandwich cutter that I got on the bread isle at the grocery store.

Evriholder Crust Cutter - Sweetbyte Heart Shaped Cutting Tool

http://www.amazon.com/SweetBytes-Sandwich-Crust-Cutter-Heart/dp/B00167TA48

This cutter would make a really cute sandwich for Valentine's Day. Grin.

For Elyse's fruit and Veggie, I did red grapes (the fave at our house) and these new organic yellow carrots I found at Fry's (Kroger). If you see these carrots--buy them. They are really tasty and an instant hit with my kids!

I made the faces on the carrots with a nori punch and then added my new favorite Bento hat food picks. I picked these up on ebay. Just search "Bento food pick hats."

I don't do Bento every day, probably more like one or two days a week, and sometimes I only add a food pick or cut a sandwich in a cute shape--Really any little detail to give my kids lunch a little something special is enough. So have fun with it. It doesn't have to be anything more than a post-it note with a cute face drawn on it to make your kids smile.

Using a tried-and-try recipe in an old Betty Crocker Pie cookbook, I made my first lemon meringue pie this season.

I promise a pie crust tutorial in a future post, but for now if you have a favorite recipe, then use that. If not, them I think the best store bought pie crust is the Marie Callender's brand in the frozen food section.

Betty Crocker Lemon Meringue Pie

9-inch pie shell, Baked
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon cornstarch
3 egg yolks, slightly beaten
1 1/2 cup water
3 tablespoons butter
2 tsp. grated lemon peel
1/2 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice

Pie Meringue

3 egg whites
1/4 tsp. cream of tartar
6 tablespoons sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Beat egg whites and cream of tartar until frothy. Beat in sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time; continue beating until stiff and glossy. Do not under beat. Beat in vanilla.

Bake pie shell. heat oven to 400 degrees. In saucepan blend sugar and cornstarch. Combine egg yolks and water; stir gradually into sugar mixture. Cook, stirring constantly over medium heat until mixture thickens and boils. Boil and stir 1 minute. Remove from heat; stir in butter, lemon peel and juice. Immediately pour into baked pie shell. Heap meringue on hot pie filling; spread over filling, carefully sealing the meringue onto edge of crust to prevent shrinking or weeping. Bake about 10 minutes or until delicately browned. Cool Pie away from draft.

*important tip* Separate eggs carefully; even the smallest amount of egg yolk can prevent the whites from whipping.
*To get the cute peeks on my meringue, I gently slapped the top with a spatula once I was done spreading the meringue.