Soul Eater Bento

My husband has been watching the Soul Eater anime for a while and I keep meaning to watch it too. But...it's not something I can watch with a five year old, so I've started picking up the Soul Eater manga instead. It's extremely wacky and bizarre and I really, really like it! Yesterday I absorbed the second volume, getting inspired to do a bento in the process.

It also is the first Halloween bento of the year. Normally I would wait until our traditional Halloween decorating day (Oct. 1st) before starting to make Halloween bentos. I have this thing about holidays - I don't like decorating or celebrating them too early. So Halloween (normally) doesn't start until Oct. 1st, Christmas and Pancha Ganapati don't start until Dec. 1st, etc. I'm breaking my own rule this year, though and bentoing before the start date! If you've ever seen the Soul Eater manga you'll instantly understand why - it's over the top Halloween style in a book.

For this bento the main thing I had to make was the Shinagami-sama onigiri. I just had to! We had pink rice already made in the fridge so I just warmed up a bit, made the rice ball and wrapped the nori around it. The mask is made from mozzarella cheese. There are two whole spears of baby corn, two soy bologna swirls, a pick with dill pickle stars, a large yummy strawberry, a steamed veggie bao, a small container of vegetarian Hamburger helper cheesy mac, a carrot Soul Eater icon with mozzarella details.

It was not only a blast to make, it was yummy!

A Rebel Bento

This one was for my husband. It was totally not me dying to do a Star Wars themed bento, no way. Really. I swear.

Top tier: Morningstar farms chik nuggets, steamed broccoli, waffle fry, black olives on an elegantly adult pick, orange slices, cherry tomato, snap peas, soy bologna rolls, chinese flower bread.

Bottom tier: Jasmine rice with one green pea and two tiny carrot hearts, Japanese curry vegetarian style, mozzarella cheese and nori rebel symbol.

My husband really hates nori and generally doesn't want to eat anything that nori has touched. The mozzarella backdrop for the rebel symbol made a big difference - it totally kept the nori off the curry. He was able to just lift off the whole thing and eat the curry underneath. Win-win for me!

Bunnies n' Balloons!

A bento from the summer that I just found in my huge picture file that was somehow mysteriously hidden on my computer.

The top tier holds a sweet potato bun, some sweet gherkins, mozzarella cheese hearts and skewered tofu cubes.

The bottom tier had a layer of jasmine rice with one section of sesame carrots on top and a section of corn. The bunnies are made from soy bologna, mozzarella and nori. The balloons are grapes with fresh parsley stems.

Get ready for an infusion of summertime bentos as I finally go through all these picture files that I thought I had lost! And once I get through all of those it will be time to go through the backlog of school bentos from this year. I can't believe how behind I am already.

Shokado Box Picnic bentos

I was recently asked how I use the huge Shokado bento box that I haul around with me to display when talking about bento history. So this post features two picnics using that box. It is a really large bento box and lots of fun to pack! I love the four squares though it can be a challenge to get food to fit perfectly.

From the information that I have been able to piece together this kind of box is traditionally filled with small dishes in each of the four compartments. The small dishes have elegant food placed in the center.

My favorite way to use this bento box is for family picnics. It is large enough to pack food for myself, my husband and my little girl. I also use it for taking snacks and munchies to parties.

The top bento is obviously a holiday theme :) One compartment has vegetarian sausage rolls, one was filled with veggie gyoza, a piece of decorated apple and tiny onigiri. A third compartment had a tin of cucumber dip with a cucumber xmas tree, some fresh veggies and bagel crisps. The last contained apple slices, cheese cubes, mixed nuts and three tiny sugar cookies with icing and sprinkles on top.

The second bento was for an evening at a friend's house. We ate it in the middle of the living room floor so in my book it still counts as a picnic bento. The top compartment had a fan shaped onigiri with black sesame seeds and pickled ginger with some rice crackers and carrots in the back. The left was filled with veggie gyoza and pork shumai (my friends were meatatarians). On the right was a large nest of yakiudon, some steamed broccoli, a couple of gyoza and lots of black olives. Last was the compartment of sweets with a tin of lychee, sweet rice crackers and 3 jellies.