A New Obsession

So here's the new obsession in our house!  Of course, A-chan loves video games.  I suck at them.  No, really.  I'm terrible.  Most of our game play consists of my daughter asking if I want her to get me through this part.  Or with me screaming as my poor character dies.  Anyway...there's nothing better than making bentos that are as much fun as the other things we enjoy.

In the bento:  Fried rice with lots of veggies, stirfried broccoli and baby corn, soy turkey flower, lemon slice, checkered apple, blackberries, radish, cheddar cheese, and tomato.

Mario's hat was fun to make with a tomato, provolone cheese and a carrot 'm'.  The stars are made from cheddar cheese with nori eyes.  The little radish's eyes are black sesame seeds.  All in all it was a simple bento to make, but the reaction that it got was huge!

Natsu!

I was asked for a Natsu bento which continues A-chan's Fairytail theme.  I chose to do a silly version of Natsu just before he goes off to destroy a town.  The one thing that was absolutely necessary according to the request was that his scarf is part of the bento.  His hair turned out a little darker than I'd intended, oops!

In the bento: Cheese sandwich with Natsu on top, baby corn, black pluot slices, pomegranate seeds, steamed broccoli, roasted cauliflower, black eyed peas, carrot and egg sheet stars and a cherry tomato.

Natsu is made completely out of egg sheet and nori.  His huge grin was fun to make!

Tonkatsu kitties

How do I describe tonkatsu?  Crispy deep fried bundles of joy.  Tonkatsu is wonderful by itself but pair it up with the gastronomic delight that is tonkatsu sauce and you have one of my ultimate top comfort foods.  Normally tonkatsu would be pork cutlets breaded with panko crumbs and deep fried.  My vegetarian version of this is extra firm tofu that has been frozen, thawed and breaded in panko before being deep fried to a crunchy golden brown.  The process of freezing the tofu gives it a much different texture that is perfect for this kind of dish.

This tonkatsu bento is also an example of my stunningly brilliant freezer stash plan.  Over the weekend we had tonkatsu for dinner and the leftovers promptly went back into the freezer for easy reheating bento-style.  I popped them straight from the freezer into the oven for about 12 minutes before cutting into slices for the bento.   Reheating in the oven thaws out the tofu and dries it a little bit (freezing tofu always creates extra water that needs to be either squeezed or baked out) and makes the panko nice and crisp at the same time.  

The only problem with our love of tonkatsu is that A-chan is now old enough to eat way more of my tonkatsu sauce than I would like.  But that's okay because I taught her how to make it this morning.  She can now make more whenever she runs out.  Or I run out, whichever...

In the bento: Basmati rice, tofu tonkatsu, pomegranate seeds, baby corn, checkered cucumber slices, black pluot chunks and a carrot flower.

The little kitties were made from provolone cheese and yellow egg sheet.  Their faces were punched out of nori and glued on with a tiny bit of mayo.

Not shown: the huge container of tonkatsu sauce that A-chan took with her this morning.

Monster High Bento

A-chan's 9th birthday was this past weekend.  I can't believe she's 9!  How did she suddenly become so grown up?  Her birthday party theme was Monster High which she loves.  She's also dressing up as a Monster High character for Halloween.  So we went all out with Monster High everything, including a bento.  My girl even made her own birthday cake this year (with a little help from a great friend) which was, of course, a Monster High cake.  I am so proud of her.

In the bento: Rice, veggie hotdogs, steamed broccoli, baby corn, grapes and a strawberry.

The Skullette was cut from nori, provolone cheese and pink egg sheet.  The letters were cut from American cheese.  I wanted to do a more complicated birthday bento, but kept it simple so that I could also work on making her school birthday treat.

For her school party this year she decided on a healthier approach to treats instead of cupcakes.  I absolutely loved doing the rainbow fruit skewers!  Not only was it fun but man was it easier than making 32 cupcakes.

She did a great job with her cake!

Princess Merida

For the last bento before our trip A-chan requested Merida.  Though she loves all the Disney Princesses, Merida is currently her favorite.  She has been learning Scottish Highland Dance since January and mentioned yesterday that she wanted to do some dancing for Merida at Disney!  There is a new fruit in this bento - dinosaur egg pluot.  I couldn't pass up the chance to eat a fruit with a name like that.  And I love it!  It's a very nice pluot with a mostly sweet taste and luckily A-chan loves it.

With complicated character bentos I sketch out the designs the night before and often do most of the prep work then as well.  In this case, the sketches, multiple egg sheets and the little bear onigiri were made the night before.  I neglected to check the sizing of the bears, leaving them much too big to fit into the actual bento.  A-chan claimed that she didn't mind if one got squished a little.

In the bento: Merida figure on top of a lovely block of rice, checkered apple, three bear onigiri, steamed broccoli, a cherry tomato (completely hidden under/behind the bears), garlic and basil encrusted tofu, baby corn spears and slices of dinosaur egg pluot.

Merida was made from (can you guess?) many layer of egg sheet and provolone.  I'm sure that no one is surprised by that since those are my standard ingredients for charaben.  I was excited about making the arrow and bow string, though.  The arrow is an uncooked udon noodle and the bow string is the edging cut from a slice of soy turkey.

The three bears are onigiri made from fried rice with lots of extra soy sauce to get them a deep brown color.  Soy turkey and nori were used for their faces.  I should have made their faces a little differently, but I was too concerned with trying to make them all fit into the box!

The target that proclaims our count down to vacation was cut from provolone cheese, cucumber peel and carrot.

Sketch of the Merida bento.

Doo Bee Doo Bee Doo Bah

As Agent P's shield says, it's only two days til vacation!  One of the things A-chan is very excited about it the Agent P adventure at Epcot.  That will probably be the very first thing we do.  When I'd planned out this bento in my head a whole lot more letters fit on the banner,  but reality left me with only a small part of the theme song.  A-chan started singing it as soon as she saw her bento and we both sang Perry's theme song in the car on the way to school this morning.

In the bento: Rice, baby corn, frozen blueberries, a cherry tomato, steamed broccoli and Japanese curry.
Agent P was constructed from blue, white and orange egg sheets with some soy turkey for his hat and eyes.  His shield and theme song banner were cut from provolone cheese and carrots.

To make the character I first traced the outside of the bento box, then traced the size of the inside container.  Then I drew Agent P on the inside of the box.  Next I cut him out as one large shape, traced him on another piece in order to have two copies to work with.  The first Agent P was then cut into his various parts: Hat, eyes, bill, shield.  One large Agent P was cut out of egg sheet and then all the other bits were cut and assembled with some mayo on the backs to help keep the pieces glued in place.

Agent P is copyrighted to the Disney co.  (Is copyrighted a word?  It doesn't sound right...)

Yakisoba is Yummy!

Once again I deceived myself into believing that I would have a smidgen of free time during the Thanksgiving break.  Wrong!  On the plus side it was a fabulously fun week.  These bentos were eaten at Zoo Atlanta while we sat and watched the Gorillas have a snack.  I kept them plain and without characters since I would be carrying them through the zoo for a few hours before lunchtime.  This turned out to be a great plan since I got very excited about the Red Panda who was incredibly adorable.  There apparently was some jumping and squeeeing that could potentially have destroyed any characters.

After lunch I was excited to talk about bentos to the Japan Society of Georgia Perimeter College, woot! I really, really love to talk about bentos.  This was the second time that I had trouble remembering the name of a Japanese recipe, though.  It was Tsukune!  Next time I'm going to have it tattooed on my hand, I swear.  Thank you guys so much, I loved it and enjoyed meeting you all!

In the bentos:  Yaki soba noodles with sauteed tofu, cauliflower, broccoli and carrots was the main part for both of us.  A-chan had an apple bunny, baby corn and some black olives on picks.  I had the apple pieces that were cut off to make the bunny and some cucumber slices.

JapanFest Day One

JapanFest was incredible.  A-chan and I had a great time!  I am extremely grateful to my two helpers, Andy and Lucci, without whom I would have been lost.  To everyone who came to the presentation or stopped by the booth, thank you.  It was lovely to meet all of you and get to spend time chatting with so many wonderfully nice people!  I'm going to break up my post about JapanFest into two parts because otherwise it would be way too long.  At the bottom of the post are a few pics from the first day.

On Saturday I had made A-chan a bento but her allergies had aggravated her asthma and she had to stay home with her grandma.  She didn't get to eat the bento but  I got to display her lunch at the booth instead which was very cool.  Since I had made a white bear during the week I decided to make a brown bear for her to eat at the event.

In the bento: Fried rice onigiri bear, baby tomato on a panda pick, steamed cauliflower and broccoli, veggie hot dogs, baby corn spear, a strawberry, a carrot flower and some blackberries in a silicon container with a tiger pick.

To make the teddy bear I took a small portion of fried rice without veggies and made lots of little onigiri.  Since the fried rice is a little oily I used saran wrap to form the onigiri and keep the oil from getting on my hands.  His features were cut from provolone cheese and nori, stuck to his body with a tiny bit of mayo.  The nose was a pick stuck through the cheese and into the rice ball.  The vegetarian hot dogs were cooked before cutting the heart shapes with a tiny heart cutter.

The white teddy bear was awfully cute but I think that I prefer this one.  Which one do you like better?

Part of the ginza.  This booth sold yummy adzuki ice cream , dango and mochi!

I'm not sure what this structure is called.  Our booth was right across from it 

Japanese Archery!  So awesome. I got to handle a bow and practice drawing it. How I wish that I lived in Atlanta so that I could take lessons!

Sweet Teddy Bear

We are in full swing getting ready for JapanFest tomorrow!  It is going to be so much fun and I am so excited.  And I even managed to fit the table in the car all by myself.  Go me!  To celebrate the upcoming fun  I made this cute onigiri teddy bear.  Nothing says happy like a smiling teddy bear, right?
Both of us are hoping to purchase some of our favorite Japanese sweets tomorrow: Mochi for A-chan and Dango for me.  I'm particularly looking forward to the Archery demonstrations as well.

In the bento: Lots of onigiri, carrot flowers, steamed broccoli, chickpeas, nectarine slices, frozen blueberries, strawberries and baby corn.

To make the body of the teddy I mixed scrambled tofu into the rice before making the onigiri.  Then I added two whole cloves for the buttons, making sure that A-chan knew to remove them before eating the onigiri.  The head and paws are just plain rice.  The facial features were cut from soy turkey slices, provolone cheese and nori with a few black sesame seeds for cute eyelashes.  Her cheeks were painted on with strawberry jam.  The jam might be a little weird but it seemed like a good idea at 6 am, as though jam is somehow cuter than sriracha!

Sleeping Pandas

A-chan had asked for panda onigiri.  I had inari that I needed to use before they went bad.  We compromised and gave each little panda onigiri their own inari bed.  I wasn't sure how they would turn out, but I think that they are absolutely adorable!  This bento has way too much orange in it - I didn't notice how many carrots were there until looking at the pictures.  That's okay, A-chan loves carrots!

In the bento: Panda inari zushi/onigiri, steamed broccoli, carrot flowers, an apple bunny, baby corn, a pick of edamame,  a container of sesame carrots and two nectarine slices.

The inari skins were lightly boiled in a mixture of water, soy sauce, mirin and brown sugar for several minutes and then dried. I folded the tops of the opening inside and pushed the onigiri halfway into the inari pockets.  Then I added the nori, sesame seed and sugar dot details.

I use mustard seeds in cooking quite a bit, particularly Indian food.  It just occurred to me recently that they would make fantastic bento decorative touches!  I like how they look on these carrot flowers and loved the fact that they were easy to put in place and didn't require as much fiddling as sesame seeds.

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!

Hot Dog Lions

I remember when A-chan was about three years old and I was delighted with the use of hot dogs that could be cut up in clever ways for bentos.  They looked so appetizing and fun that I couldn't wait until she was old enough that it was safe to give her hot dogs that weren't cut into minuscule pieces.  This style of hot dog use was one of my favorites to look at.  I was in a big hurry so my cuts are very messy and not nearly as pretty as I would have liked, but I'm still happy with the hot dog love!

In the bento: Two tiny peanut butter circle lion sammies surrounded by hot dog manes.  Boiled edamame, baby carrots, baby corn, grapes and a large cherry tomato cut in half.

The lion faces were punched from nori and secured to the bread with a tiny dab of peanut butter on the back which was applied with the tip of a toothpick.  The hot dogs were cooked then sliced almost all the way through, then secured in a circle with small pieces of uncooked soba noodle.  In the background is the container that I filled with ketchup for dipping hot dogs in.

Little Kittens

Today's bento is in honor of the three little kittens that are currently running our household.  They will be five weeks old tomorrow and have started learning how to cause mayhem and chaos this week.  Of course, they are the cutest things EVER!  Somehow it has been impossible for me to get a good picture of them, so here they are in inari zushi form.

In the bento: Three inari kittens, baby corn, carrot star, lemon slice, steamed broccoli (hidden behind the carrot star), a cherry, a checkered apple, half of a cherry tomato and a few green beans.

The kitten faces are made with white egg sheet and nori.  The whites of the eyes were 'glued' onto the inari skins with a tiny bit of mayo which was applied with a toothpick.  I squeezed the corners of the rectangular inari skins to make them resemble kitty ears.

Here is a picture of the kittens nursing on a very frazzled mama cat, lol.  A-chan and I have a difference of opinion in names.  She had already given them names five minutes after they were born.  The one on the left is Stripey according to the 7 year old, while I prefer Jewel.  The middle kitten is Cloudy or Quartz.  The black one is either called Brownie by A-chan or Onyx by me.

Quick Noodle Bento

This bento represents a victory for edamame consumption!  A-chan will eat edamame as long as I leave them in the pods so that she can pull them out herself.  If I remove them from the pods or, heaven forbid, purchase them already shelled she will turn up her nose in scorn.  I have finally realized this and voila - she's eating them like candy.

Using dividers and containers add cuteness to a bento with lightning fast timing.  This is a wonderful thing on those crazy busy mornings when everything needs to happen at once and kittens are scrambling underfoot to add some adventure.  I love the pig container, it's just so cute!  You can close it for holding things that are a little juicy but I prefer to have it open so it's possible to see what's inside.

In the bento:  Plain macaroni noodles, a parsley leaf, baby carrots, boiled edamame, baby corn in the piggy container, strawberries and a slice of lemon.  On the side is a container of grated parmesan cheese to sprinkle over the noodles.

The container for the parmesan is a re-purposed sugar sprinkle container.  They come in packs of 6 at the grocery store with different colored sugar inside for making cookies and topping cupcakes.  Once they are empty I wash them and fill them with salt or parmesan or furikake for use with bentos.  The parmesan container is topped off regularly and stored in the fridge so that it is ready at a moment's notice.

Snail!

The Snail of Destiny!  Not really, it just sounded good.  I promised A-chan a snail bento after our last trip to the Botanical Gardens where she picked up a leaf to find two tiny snails attached to the underside.  We were both delighted and fascinated with them and watched them for a long time.

In the bento: A cheese sandwich, baby corn, carrot flowers, a cherry, an apple bunny and steamed broccoli.

The Snail was made from three egg sheets:  one white, one grey and one brown.  The grey color was achieved with the addition of cherry juice to the egg mixture before cooking.  I was trying to get a nice light pink color and was greatly disappointed that it turned grey instead.  The brown egg sheet turned out fabulous with the addition of cocoa powder to the egg mix.  I must admit that I have not actually tasted the chocolate egg sheet yet.  Eventually I will wrap my brain around the concept and try it but for now I'm just using it for decorative purposes.

Elephant Twins

This bento started off with the bowl of aluminum foil.  I used a large sheet doubled over and crumpled on the top edge to give it a lot of support.  The tiny cheese ravioli were boiled, drained and added into the foil bowl with layers of garlic tomato sauce and grated parmesan cheese. Then the bowl was put into the oven for 8 minutes as a finishing touch.  The coolest part was not having to get a pan dirty - the foil bowl was the pan!

In the bento: Tiny cheese ravioli bake, steamed broccoli, baby corn, orange slices and chunks of black plum.

The cute little elephants were cut from soy turkey slices using a Wilton cookie cutter.  The blankets on their back were cut from pear peel and tiny bits of baby corn.  Also they have nori eyes and more of the garlic tomato sauce for cheeks.

My cooking motto is: Use what's at hand.  After finding out that the can of tomato puree I thought I had was either a myth or invisible, I grabbed a can of tomato soup to use instead.  With a little cornstarch to thicken it and tons of garlic and basil to make it yummy, I ended up being proud of my unexpected cooking experiment.

Caterpillar

Have you ever typed or written a word and had it look completely wrong even though you're sure you know how to spell it?  That happened with 'Caterpillar' today.  This cute guy was inspired by a caterpillar in the Yum-Yum Bento Box book.  It was just so cute!  Plus, A-chan is obsessed with caterpillars right now.  She has to stop and pet them and save them if they are in danger of being trod upon.

In the bento: Four plain rice balls, fried tofu, grapes, a cherry tomato, checkerboard cucumber slices, a tiny lemon wedge, an orange slice, and baby corn flowers.

For the caterpillar's face I used nori for the eyes and mouth, lemon peel for the nose and gari (pickled ginger) for the cheeks.  White sesame seeds help decorate the eyes and black sesame seeds decorate the body.  The baby corn flowers have cucumber peel leaves and orange peel centers.

I should have remembered to cut the cherry tomato in two in order to avoid potential eye injuries, but I totally forgot!  I'll just have to keep my fingers crossed.

It's Monday

Today is another case of the Monday blahs.  Although I think it was because of the lack of groceries than the Monday.  Whatever the reason, I had no theme and no charaben in mind this morning.  It still has all the important ingredients, like food.  Food is important.  It has carbs and protein, veggies and fruit.  It also has my favorite homemade furikake sprinkled over the rice!  In fact, I'm very tempted to make a clone of this bento for my lunch today.

In the bento:  Rice with tarragon, salt and toasted sesame seed furikake, a silicone container of shredded cheese, halved cherry tomato, baby corn spears, grapes, tiny orange wedges, steamed broccoli and three pieces of soy sauce tofu.

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!

South Korean Flag

Today we are getting ready to travel!  Our first weekend adventure this month will be in Charlotte, NC for a Tae Kwon Do tournament!  In honor of all the practice and hard work that A-chan has been doing I made a South Korean flag bento for her.  The South Korean flag is synonymous with Tae Kwon do in the US, showing up everywhere in the sport.  Many people, including myself until recently, don't realize the significance and meaning behind the symbolism.  It's fascinating - check it out on Wikipedia!

My flag is a pastel version.  I'm having trouble getting true reds and blues in my egg sheets.  But since A-chan still recognized it, I'm okay with the pretty pastel colors.

In the bento: Japanese curry and rice, raspberries, steamed broccoli, baby corn, grapes and a daikon radish flower with a cucumber leaf.

The flag is made from egg sheets and nori.  The background was cut with scissors while the center symbol was cut with a circular shaped cutter and an exacto knife.  The egg sheets made the nori start to curl up so the trigrams aren't even.  I also used the exacto knife to do a bit of radish carving to make the inner part of the flower before embellishing it with sugar sprinkles.