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!

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!

Sweet Kitten

I love how this bento turned out!  So kawaii that I can't stand it.  One thing that I want everyone to know - practice is the key to cuteness.  After years of making onigiri kitties, I think I might have hit on the penultimate cute one.  Or ... maybe I'm biased.  Either way, the more you make bentos the more awesome they will get, I promise.  My girl's birthday is coming up soon and I'm already beginning to dread the day when she grows up so much that she doesn't want cute things in her lunches.  What will I do?  I'll have to start making them for me.

In the bento: Two onigiri with a bed of rice and black sesame seeds underneath, blackberries, steamed broccoli, cherry tomato, checkered apple, teriyaki tofu, lemon slice and carrot hearts.

The kitty's eyes and nose were uncooked black soy beans and his tail and other details were made with provolone cheese.  His whiskers were cut from nori.

Scotland!

As one might surmise from the picture above, my girl and I are very enthusiastic about our Scottish roots and Scottish culture.  This was her lunch yesterday as we watched the vote for independence unfold.  I bet you can't tell which side we were cheering for, eh?  Hehe.  Anyway, it was a fun lunch to make!  And I have to admit that sheep faces are not as easy as I had thought.  It took me three tries to make one that I was happy with.

In the bento:  Underneath the Saltire flag is a PB and sugar sprinkle sandwich, there are three small Forfar bridies (two are hidden behind the sheep), a couple of Tofurky and cream cheese rolls, a checkered apple, steamed broccoli and cauliflower, a tiny cherry tomato and some mandarin orange slices.

The flag was made from blue egg sheet and provolone cheese.  It was probably the easiest thing I've ever made with egg sheet!  The sheep and his opinion were also cut from provolone, but his face was hand cut with scissors from a sheet of nori.  Lots of lettuce cushions everything and makes sure that the flavors don't mix.

Ever After High Bento

I'm sure that if you have a daughter then I'm sure Ever After High has made an impact on your life just as it has on mine.  Books, episodes, shirts, skirts, dolls - you name it and A-chan is head over heels in love with it.  Since there is an emphasis on mega-detail within the series I decided to keep things simple for my first try at a EAH themed bento and just do the black and white logo.  I love how it turned out!

In the bento: Jasmine rice with homemade furikake (tarragon, roasted sesame seeds, salt and garlic), carrot hearts and key, blackberries, steamed broccoli, fried tofu, an apple bunny and some radish slices.

The logo was cut from provolone cheese and nori using an exacto knife.  Nori and my exacto knife don't get along as well as I'd like so there are some rough edges.  Since this wasn't going to be a large and complex character I did not flatten down the rice but left it fluffy instead.

One of the things that I don't talk about much in terms of bento-making is that I use a lot of what I term 'booster seats'.  These are never seen because they are hidden underneath the food and lifts bits up so that they are able to be seen on the same level as everything else.  For example in this bento there are extra apple pieces underneath the apple bunny and another blackberry hidden beneath the two that you can see.

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!

Playtime?

I've been playing around with filled onigiri lately.  What I have been told about rice balls is that if they are plain they are technically called musubi and if they have flavorings or fillings they are onigiri.  (If this is not correct, please let me know!)  I tend to use onigiri to describe rice balls all the time.  Filling rice balls is fun!  It can sometimes be a messy game, but practice is your friend.  So is cling wrap.  When A-chan was much smaller I rarely used fillings in onigiri because it was harder for her to eat and she abhorred getting messy at school.  Now that she is older it happens much more often which makes me very happy.

In the bento:  Kitty onigiri with teriyaki tofu filling, lemon slice, sesame carrots in a toasted bread bowl, steamed broccoli, blackberries and a checkered apple slice.

The kitty is composed of two large onigiri for head and body and two small onigiri for the paws.  The smaller rice balls are plain and have black sesame seeds for claws.  The larger onigiri both have filling.  Her face is decorated with black sesame seeds, nori, white egg sheet and pink egg sheet.

Little Bunnies

We are getting back into the swing of things!  Bento prep is vastly less complicated when I plan the night before.  I review what I want to make - both recipes and characters - and check to make sure I have the ingredients.  Being surprised in the morning by not having any egg sheets made is less fun than one might expect.  While I can make emergency egg sheets in the morning, I really prefer not to!

In the bento: Two cute rolled sandwiches, raspberries, blackberries, tiny carrot strips, sweet corn on the cob, potato salad and steamed broccoli.

The sammies have shredded cheese and mayo inside and are held together with toothpicks.  Even though the toothpicks were pretty obvious, A-chan was warned about them as we drove on the way to school.  The ears and mouths were cut from egg sheets and the other details from nori.

A-chan is enjoying her new dessert-themed picks that we purchased in San Francisco this summer.  They are cute and handy so I'm loving them too.

Lucy!

It's time to go back to school again.  And that means bentos every day!  We had a lovely summer with lots of travel but not many chances to play with food.   I'm very excited about all the bentos that will be created this school year.  A-chan requested a complicated charaben for the first day of school.  Surprise, surprise - it's another Fairytail bento.  It took six different egg sheets to make Lucy.  My bento skills got a little rusty over the summer so there isn't as much detail as I would prefer.

In the bento: Sushi rice with egg sheet and nori character, carrot flowers, corn on the cob, a cherry tomato, steamed broccoli, fried tofu, raspberries and blackberries.

Pandas in Hoodies

Brrrrr!  It was 27 degrees last night.  That's cold, y'all!  A-chan was desperately hoping for snow but the powdery white stuff did not make an appearance in our area.  Still - really cold.  And I thought these cute pandas could use some snuggly hoodies to keep warm in.

In the bento:  Panda inari zushi, an apple bunny, steamed broccoli, a carrot musical note, tofurky slices and cream cheese rolls,  and lovely chunks of plum.

The panda's faces were punched from nori and provolone cheese.  I used a tiny bit of ketchup for their cheeks, but not enough to affect the flavor.  The plum bits were arranged in a silicon container so that the juice didn't mix with everything else.  One of A-chan's new fav snacks is soy-turkey and cream cheese rolls.  They look so pretty in a bento!

I can't believe it's so cold already.  Stay warm out there!

Lovely Little Mushrooms

We all get stuck in a rut sometimes and feel like we don't have any creativity to pull out of our hats, right?  When that happens I ask A-chan what she would like in her bento for the next day.  Rarely has this backfired but in this case...yeah.  She asked for mushrooms, one boy and one girl.  What the heck?!  That was really no help, but thanks.  So now I needed to come up with an idea for 'shrooms and I had nothing.  Really.  Zip.  Ah, but I have books.   Inspiration found, I thought, and pulled out all of my charaben books.  They are all in Japanese which I can't read to save my life but hey, I can still look at the pictures and get ideas!  But...no mushrooms.  Gah.  In desperation I turned to Pinterest.  And there a beam of light came down from on high to illuminate one of AkinoIchigo's bentos with some cute mushrooms.  I loved it and had a great time coming up with this bento which is totally inspired by hers. Crisis averted.

In the bento:  Rice with homemade furikake, blackberries, carrot leaves, tofu and broccoli stirfry, feta chunks and an apple bunny.

The mushrooms were made from provolone cheese and a pink egg sheet that I distressed a bit with a toothpick to look more 'shroomish.  They have nori faces, more pink egg sheet for cheeks and the girly mushroom has a bow cut from carrot.  I think they came out really well.  More importantly A-chan loved them!

We are having a blast at the NanoWriMo challenge.  A-chan has around 450 words out of the 900 word goal that she set for herself.  I can't believe she's already half way there!  My word count is around 17,000 out of a total 50,000 to meet the challenge.  The biggest surprise so far has been the fact that my grammar and punctuation skills are not as good as I'd thought they were!

Tofu Totoro Musubi

A few weeks ago I ran across this fabulous YouTube video on how to make Spam Musubi Totoros.  It inspired me to try making them with slabs of extra firm tofu instead and this was the result!  Except...I didn't have enough nori left to make the bands of the musubi.  But I loved how the Totoros turned out.  I made four of them and since only two would fit into A-chan's bento I got to eat the leftovers for lunch.  Yummy!

In the bento:  Tofu totoros, rectangular onigiri (hidden under the totoros completely), raspberries, steamed broccoli, pineapple, carrot acorns and some frozen blueberries.

To make the totoro shapes I traced the bento box on a piece of paper, then divided it into two rectangles.  I drew a rough totoro shape in each rectangle.  With a piece of saran wrap between the drained slices of tofu and the paper template I used my handy dandy exacto knife to cut out the totoros. They were then cooked in a skillet with a mixture of sesame oil, soy sauce and mirin as I tried to get a spam-ish color from them.  The white parts were all white egg sheet, the black details were nori (of course) and the whiskers were uncooked soba noodles.  Getting the soba noodles to stick up at the correct angles was actually the most difficult part.  Tiny egg sheet flowers were stuck to the steamed broccoli with more uncooked soba.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!  Samhain Sona!  Today started out with a beautiful sunrise and warm temperatures. I've got my fingers crossed that it will be a temperate night for Trick or Treating.  This is my first time trying to make a witch onigiri.  I think she is cute.  The hat was more difficult than expected and I ended up rushing through bits so that we could leave early for school.  Part of the difficulty was the bandaged finger that I was using very gingerly this morning.  As we started carving Jack'o'lanterns last night I made a long speech about knife safety to A-chan and then immediately stabbed myself in the finger while cutting my pumpkin.  After my impromptu demonstration of what not to do A-chan was very careful indeed!

In the bento: Onigiri witch and hat, grapes, a few blueberries, carrot stars and turnip stars, steamed broccoli, fried tofu, a checkered apple, sauteed squash and a carrot jack'o'lantern.

The Witch has a very thick egg sheet for hair.  It is pinned in place around the backside of the onigiri with uncooked soba noodles.  The main part of the hat was an onigiri wrapped in nori.  The hat brim was a large sheet of provolone cheese that was covered in nori and pinned in place with more soba noodles.  I used blue egg sheet for the hat's decoration along with some little stars.

I can't wait to steal some of A-chan's candy tonight once she's asleep.  I wish everyone a safe and fun Halloween night!

Mummies and Spiders

Oh my goodness, tomorrow is Halloween!  What is your favorite candy?  Skittles are my guilty pleasure.  A-chan is totally ready to go trick or treating.  She wants me to join her in the candy gathering extravaganza and so far doesn't believe that I'm too old to trick or treat.  Since I haven't had a chance to post a lot of Halloween bentos, I'm putting up two at once today.

In the Mummy bento: Rice, a cherry tomato, grapes, sauteed squash, checkered apple, carrot hearts, teriyaki tofu and vegetables.

The Mummies were so much fun to make.  Wrapping and layering the provolone cheese over the nori was pretty cool.  The hearts were cut from apple peel and the line of black sesame seeds were placed meticulously with out kitty cat thief looking on in fascination.  Luckily I have learned some tricks to keep Stripey the kitty thief from stealing broccoli out of the bentos in the morning!

One of the challenges of the new school year is that one of A-chan's schoolmates has a very bad peanut allergy and no peanuts are allowed in their lunches.  Being a mom whose child has food allergies, I am happy to see the school enforcing this.  It does make for some changes in my routine.  I had gotten used to having a peanut butter and jelly sammie as a backup for busy days or morning when I wasn't feeling good.   Different sandwich choices are fun and strange all at once.  Inside these spider sammies is a lovely chopped cheese and mayo mixture.  Unfortunately A-chan doesn't appreciate pimento cheese sandwiches yet, to my chagrin.

In the Spider bento:  Two cheese and mayo sandwich balls, cucumber spider webs, orange slices, strawberries and steamed broccoli.

A-chan's favorite thing about this bento were the spider's huge eyes.  They were cut from provolone cheese and nori.  The spiders' legs were fried spaghetti noodles.

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!

Kitty and Jack'o'lantern

A-chan loves cute kitties in her lunches.  And I love making them!  It's a perfect combination.   I tried to do something new with the Jack'o'lantern in this bento.  I have now learned to try new things at times that are not busy mornings!  Ahem.

In the bento: Rice underlaying the Jack'o'lantern and kitty, green onions, apple star, carrot star, miso crusted tofu, steamed broccoli, pineapple chunks and a cheese ghost.

The Jack'o'lantern was cut from three layers of orange eggsheet.  The new thing is that they were cut all at the same time in an attempt to make the 3d layering a little easier.  I'm sure it will get easier with practice.  The kitty has two layers - one of cheese and one of nori.  The kitty is sandwiched between the lowest pumpkin layer and the top two pumpkin layers.  My favorite parts of the Jack'o'lantern are the teeth (they are so adorable) and the kitty's hat.  I used a leftover piece of broccoli stem for the pumpkin stem.  The apple star was an ambitious project as well and though it looks great - it didn't fit once I put on the lid.  Not so much a big surprise, lol.  I ended up rearranging a few things to get the star laying down, whew!

In other news, we had a fabulous time at the Stone Mountain Highland Games this past weekend!  Doesn't A-chan look cute in her Highland dance outfit?  At 8 am it was pretty darn cold out there so she didn't want to take off her gloves for the picture and who can blame her.

Highland Dance

This weekend is A-chan's first Scottish Highland Dance competition.  She's both excited and nervous.  I'm totally exuberant!  The Highland Games are always fun.  I mean what's not fun about bagpipes, kilts and lovely, yummy scones?  Plus it's an excuse to make Scottish Forfar Bridies for our bento lunches during the weekend.  Ghillies (Highland dance shoes) are one of the main icons of the Scottish dancer so I decided to make this bento to cheer A-chan on.  I wish that I'd made them a wee bit smaller, but otherwise I love how they turned out!  You can see bits of our clan tartan and badge in the background.  And of course I had to include a couple of plaid picks for the occasion.

In the bento:  Veggie fried rice, raspberries, blueberries, pineapple, steamed broccoli and carrot flowers.

The ghillies were cut from white egg sheets.  Nori designs were cut out with scissors and then were applied directly to the egg sheet.  See all those strangely cut pieces of carrot in the fried rice?  That's what I do with the bits of veggies left over from cutting out flowers, etc.  They get frozen and then used in fried rice and soups.

Dango? Why yes, thanks!

Do you have a favorite food that  you don't get to eat often?  Mine is dango!  It is definitely a special treat and only happens about twice a year.  Whenever I'm in San Francisco I stop by the Japanese Tea Gardens and grab some tea and dango.  I suppose that I could learn to make it at home, but I love having dango as a rare thing.  That way it's something to look forward to for a month or so before a trip.

This dango bento just tickles me.  One of my favorites paired with one of A-chan's.  She adores soba.  I like soba noodles, too.  Just not as much as she does.  Anyway, it was a lot of fun to make and a lot of fun for her to eat!

In the bento:  Rice ball dango, soba noodles, carrot stars, steamed broccoli, crisp fried tofu and plum slices.

The dango rice balls were made by cooking three pots of rice - one plain, one with red food coloring and another with green.  You might think making three colored batches of rice is crazy, but it actually is a greatly efficient way of filling up my freezer.  It usually happens over a weekend and when each batch is done they are immediately made into onigiri and frozen to make morning bentos so much easier.  But back to the bento deets...the faces were made from nori using two different punches, with sesame seeds added to the eyes and sriracha sauce for the cheeks.  A piece of fried soba noodle makes the stick of the dango.

Vash the Stampede

I am a huge fan of anime.  It's never been a secret, though I haven't made much mention of it lately.  Here it is, then.  One of my absolute favorite anime is Trigun.  I have loved it for years and still do.  A-chan is a fan of Vash as well, though she hasn't seen all of Trigun - only the first part which is lighter and silly.  It was so exciting to immortalize one of my fav characters in eggsheet, nori and cheese.  I feel as though this bento took much more prep work than other kyaraben.  Five egg sheets were cooked the night before and stored in the fridge.  And you should have seen the mess I made of my kitchen over this one!  

In the bento:  Jasmine rice as a background, carrot and nori stars, fried tofu, checkered apple, grapes, steamed broccoli and black olives.  

Vash was made on a platform of provolone cheese.  His hair, face and donut were cut from egg sheet while his distinctive red coat was cut from a red pepper.  All the black details were cut from nori.  The letters on the sign for his name were cut from cucumber peel.  Kuroneko-sama is provolone and nori with cucumber eyes.  He's slightly a crazy kitty in the anime so I'm not over worried about how crazy he looks in the bento.

Tomorrow we head up to Anime Weekend Atlanta for a day's immersion in anime, manga and cosplay!

Froggies and Fireflies

JapanFest was the best thing since onigiri molds!  We had a blast watching the sumo wrestling, taiko drumming and Bunraku puppetry, not to mention seeing all the smiling faces throughout the weekend.  Thanks so much to all the people who came to the lectures and stopped by the booth.  It's always a difficult transition back to normality after an exciting event, but we're trying our best.  Silly frog onigiri were a great way to usher in the week.

In the bento:  Frog onigiri, potato salad in a container, strawberries, lemon slices, steamed broccoli, a vegetarian tsukune patty, carrot and turnip flowers and a couple of nori dragonflies on cheese circles.

To get green rice I added a couple drops of food coloring to the water before cooking the rice.  The onigiri shapes were made with an onigiri mold.  Provolone cheese and nori were used for the facial detail.  The frog's tongue was sweet potato peel.  It was pretty simple to cut the dragonflies out of nori using a stencil punch from a local craft store.

I love using black sesame seeds for detail on flowers and things like the dragonflies' flight paths.  Sesame seeds are extremely versatile, not to mention yummy!