Mustachioed Bento

It seems like a lot of the kids at my daughter's school are obsessed with mustaches.  They must be cool. That means A-chan loves mustaches too, of course.  Therefore I present the mustachioed bento!  I really love how it turned out.  Cutting the mustaches out of nori was a lot of fun.

In the bento:  Corn on the cob, blackberries, steamed broccoli, black beans, a Morning Star Farms Chik patty, veggie hot dog flowers, half of a cherry tomato and some pan fried potato slices.

I used scissors to cut the mustaches from a sheet of nori.  The eyes were cut from provolone cheese and nori.  It was very simple to do but it made a huge hit!

Sad Soba Puppy

Sometimes sad can be cute.   This puppy certainly qualifies according to A-chan.  She liked it and enjoyed eating it but to me this bento is not colorful enough!  That happens sometimes, especially when one is getting ready to go to the grocery store and is running out of ingredients and leftovers.   In fact, I was out of eggs to make egg sheets and I had no provolone cheese.  His eyes and muzzle were cut from slices of uncooked zucchini which was the only thing I had that was white.

In the bento: Soba noodles, Morningstar farms chik'n patties, zucchini, carrot butterflies, steamed green beans, a strawberry and some nectarine slices.

Puppy's ears were cut from a chik'n patty, his eyes and nose are carrot and some tiny nori circles were stuck on with some mayo for decoration.

Fairytail Bento

Two bento posts in two weeks?  Yes, it's true!  This bento is a rendition of the main symbol from one of our new favorite animes, Fairytail.  It's a lot of fun to watch with outrageous characters and tons of destruction.   I had originally tried to make the Fairytail symbol with nori but my dull exacto knife was not very cooperative.  Switching to provolone cheese on top of a piece of nori was the only way that I could get the symbol to work and I'm happy that it finally coalesced.  (Egg sheets would have been better, but I was totally out of eggs.)  A-chan was delighted.

In the bento:  A cheese sandwich with nori and provolone cheese symbol on top and carrot letters, Morningstar Farms chik nuggets, strawberries, checkered cucumber and carrot stars.

Frozen T-day Leftovers Bento

Getting into the swing of Christmas with Thanksgiving leftovers.  Cinnamoroll is made from a veggie sausage roll that was leftover on T-day and frozen for use in bentos.  There is also sweet potato casserole and corn on the cob that were frozen.  I love using pomegranate for holly berries.  It's one of my favorite things about Pomegranate besides the yum factor.

In the bento: Veggie sausage roll, carrot slices, cucumber slices and holly leaves, pomegranate seeds, sweet potato casserole, a checkered apple, carrot flowers and corn on the cob.

Cinnamoroll's ears were cut from Provolone cheese.  Her eyes and mouth were nori and her checks were cut from pieces of gari.

Underneath the bento is one of the cloth napkins that we tie dyed for Thanksgiving dinner.  (It's a tradition to make cloth napkins for T-day every year!)  There are also some chestnuts on the side.  I haven't been brave enough to try and cook them yet, so for now they are just being decorative.  The lady at the grocery store was scandalized that I only bought 3 of them.  She gave me a good ten minute lecture on how to cook them and made me promise to buy more next time.  (Apparently they take a loooong time to cook and it's a waste of effort to only cook 3.  Now I know!)

Time just keeps slipping away

I have way too much fun with miniature pancakes.  You can do so much with them!  I'm way behind in my posts so I think this bento was from two weeks ago.  It is a good example of a Speedy Gonzales bento - under ten minutes not including the preheating of the oven.  While I wish that I had a small toaster oven for mornings like this one, I have no idea where it would fit in my kitchen.  Oh well, it's a dream for the future.

In the bento: Miniature pancakes, Morningstar Farms soy sausage links, edamame on a pick, carrot flowers and strawberry halves.  Hidden behind/underneath the bunny pancakes are more pancakes and more edamame.

The Bunny faces were made with nori and sesame seeds for the eyes (secured to the pancakes with a tiny bit of icing), pink icing and half of an edamame for the noses.  Small bits of uncooked somen noodles help secure the ears to the rest of the pancake.  The carrot flowers were decorated with mustard seeds.

I can hardly believe it's only been a week since Anime Weekend Atlanta!  It was a wonderful weekend and I'm so grateful that we got to go.  A-chan's favorite part was getting to cosplay.  Most of my favorite parts were the panels, although the Trigun manga that I found at the Super Happy Fun Sell was  probably the highlight.  (Huge Trigun fan, yep!  I have a crush on Vash.)

A-chan and I at AWA.  She was so cute with her angel wings! I wasn't very cute but I was wearing my favorite Purple Butterfly covered michiyuki with a matching butterfly hair stick.  I'm addicted to hair jewelry.

Stamped Sammie Rolls

Hello Wednesday!  I'm glad to finally have time to post this week.  How does school become so utterly time-consuming?  Yesterday I was a volunteer model for the ultrasound students at my college.  They told me that I had a beautiful Aorta, how cool is that!

In the bento:  Two peanut butter roll sammies, Morningstar Farms sausage links, baby corn, steamed broccoli, a cherry, strawberry halves, three baby carrot flowers, some edamame pods and lemon wedges.

The sandwich rolls are fairly dense.  I took slices of bread and cut off the crusts before flattening them with a rolling pen.  Then added the peanut butter and sugar sprinkles before rolling them.  Each one has two slices of bread rolled up in order to make them substantial enough for the Hello Kitty stamp.  They were then wrapped in saran wrap and tied at the ends with large ribbons.  Getting the ribbon ends to fit into the bento enough to get the lid closed was quite the challenge!

I hope that everyone is having a great week!

Giraffes are Cool

Hi there, world!  It feels like forever since I last had time to post.  Summer was crazy busy and tons of fun with adventures, lots of travel, lots of camps, kittens and my first semester back in school.  For A-chan's first day as a second grader she requested a Giraffe bento.  (One of her favorite summer memories was getting to feed a giraffe at Zoo Atlanta.)  Since I spent part of the summer practicing to perfect egg sheets, I was delighted to be able to use some in the first bento of the new school year!

In the bento: Two onigiri covered with egg sheet, grapes, cheddar cheese blocks, Morningstar Farms soy sausage links, steamed broccoli, pomegranate seeds and clementine wedges.

Mr. Giraffe has soy turkey for his spots, white eggsheet and nori facial details, black sesame seeds for his nose and soba noodles with corn kernals for antennae.  The large egg sheets for Mr. Giraffe were loosely  wrapped over the onigiri and held in place with the food that was packed around him.  The little hearts are cut from white egg sheet with nori hearts on top.

Though bentos were being made during the summer, most of the pictures have been ruminating on my computer without being posted.  I was extremely lax about anything online while I focused on studying for school. While I enjoyed my classes immensely I was unprepared for the wild amount of work necessary
in a summer session.  I can't wait to get back into the routine of bento making and I'm looking forward to catching up on everything and reconnecting with everyone!

Two Toads Came to Dinner

This week I am exploring the decorative uses of daikon radish.  These fabulous stand-up eyes are thick slices of radish, aren't they cool?  So far A-chan isn't convinced that radishes are food, but one day I will get her to concede.  In the meantime we are both loving the new uses I'm finding for them and I'm enjoying A-chan's leftover radish pickles!

In the bento: A Morningstar Farms Chik Patty sandwich with mayo, cheese, curly lettuce and radish eyes.  There is also half of a cherry tomato, two orange slices and two small pieces of baby corn.

The toad's noses are black sesame seeds.  The mouth and pupils are nori, affixed by small amounts of mayo.  I sacrificed the other half of the tomato to cut peel for the toad's cheeks.  This was one of our rare dinner bentos, meant to be eaten in the car on the way to dance class.  Yum!

Bear with a Bow Tie

Today's bento has several of my favorite Southern staple foods, though not all can make an appearance in a bento.  Gravy, in particular, is not suited for bento lunches.  A-chan's first words upon seeing the bento this morning were, "The bear and the raspberry are going to get squished."  Yes, she has definitely started catching onto my bento packing problems!  Luckily I was able to rearrange things a bit so that neither the bear or the berry got 'squished' when I put the lid on.  It was a near thing, though.

In the bento: A raspberry, a roll, two Morningstar Farms chik nuggets, grapes on a pick, corn on the cob, steamed broccoli, orange slices, a container of black eyed peas and pan-fried potato stars and bear.

Mr. Bear was cut from a slice of raw potato, as were the stars.  They were then pan fried with a tiny bit of olive oil.  Once they cooled I was able to put the nori and cheese facial details, ketchup cheeks and dapper cucumber bow tie on Mr. Bear.  In the background is a container of ketchup to go with the chik nuggets.  Not shown was another container with a little bit of spreadable butter to go on the roll.

Puppy Love

Ahhh, Thursday.  What a perfect day for puppies.  These little guys were so quick and easy to put together.  They also made a morning sensation that created a beautific smile and cheerful squeal!  Cooking the chik nuggets took longer than packing the bento, but it worked out since I was able to sneak in some morning yoga as they cooked.

In the bento: Morningstar Farms chik nuggets, carrot sticks, plum slices, steamed broccoli, a potato and onion pierogie and chunks of mango.

The puppies' ears were cut from another chik nugget and attached with bits of soba noodle.  Their faces are provolone cheese and nori.  The carrot stick flowers were shaped with the use of a handy dandy flower cutter.

Nice and Simple

One of my bentos, woohoo!  It's not nearly as cute as the ones that I make for A-chan, but it's still delicious.  I love that I look forward to eating lunch.  This one is very simple with only 5 ingredients and took about 7 minutes to make.

In the bento: Rice with pickled ginger shreds and radish sprouts on top, a huge cherry tomato, sugar snap peas, orange slices and Morningstar Farms Chik'n Strips.

The rice was already cooked and in the fridge, it just needed a minute in the microwave to warm it up.  The Chik'n strips were lightly sauteed in a little olive oil and garlic.