Minecraft Christmas

I'm going to be honest with you.  It's a difficult proposition to take a pretty picture of a pig.  Especially a Minecraft pig which is blocky and awkward and has eyes pointing in opposite directions.  But the strawberries in this picture are beautiful which totally makes up for the pig.  As you might be guessing, my daughter is in love with Minecraft.  One might even say that she is obsessed.  So I'm trying to accommodate this new found love with some charabens to match, which ought to be fairly easy considering that they are all square shapes.  I'm finding it to not be quite as easy as I'd thought!

In the bento:  Sushi rice, strawberries, asian pear, carrot flowers, soy-turkey flower, and cucumber slices.

The pig was made of pink colored egg sheet, soy turkey, nori and raw turnip slices.  His santa hat was made from half of a strawberry and a raw turnip.

It's Holiday Time!

The holidays are here again!  We are a little slower getting into the holiday spirit this year than usual.  Slow and steady wins the race, right?  Bento-wise we've been going strong.  This time of year is so much fun for character bentos with a virtual plethora of Santa-related food stuffs.  I love having an excuse to buy lots of red bell peppers.  

In the bento:  Lots of rice, red pepper, blackberries, kiwi slices, clementine slices, and some fried tofu nuggets.

Santa is made from rice, egg sheet face with nori and sugar dot details, red pepper for his hat with cucumber leaves and orange peel holly berries.  The little snowflakes are nori on top of provolone cheese circles.

Santa!

OMG, it's only a week away! How many bento items are on your list to Santa?  I've asked the big guy for quite a lot of bento gear.   Christmas is very different for us this year and A-chan is having a rough time.  We're trying to do our best to be jolly and enjoy the season and that includes making Holiday bentos.  I love using red bell pepper in holiday bentos.  It's the only time of year that A-chan will accept them in her lunches.  Note that she doesn't actually eat them - she just allows me to put them in to make Santa hats.  And in the background is part of the Advent Calendar that I made for her this year:  cupcakes!

In the bento: Lots of rice, eggsheet, veggie hot dog, red bell pepper, lemon, black olives, steamed broccoli and raspberries.

Santa's face is made with pink eggsheet with nori for the eyes and nose.  There are hotdog slices for his cute cheeks and a huge piece of bell pepper for his hat with some lemon peel and nori for the bells. I am delighted to have found some liquid food coloring recently.  It gives a much more even color to eggsheets than the gel food coloring.  The pink turned out very nicely!  I wish now that I there was more definition between Santa's hat and his hair.

The amazing Karaimame of Acquiring Taste inspired me to start doing creative advent calendars a couple of years ago.  (Hers are incredible!)  This year I decided on a cupcake theme.  There just happened to be a mini cupcake stand in my cabinet that had never been used.   I wanted to do something with it.  Getting tiny gifts that would fit inside the miniature cupcakes was an extra challenge.  Making it was so much fun and it's very cute sitting on our kitchen counter.  The cats thought it was a great game to knock the cupcakes off the stand so in the end I taped them all on.

X-mas Presents

Are you ready for Christmas?  We're 75% there.  I'm pleased to report that our three kittens (five months old) have been ignoring the Christmas tree completely.  We were convinced that it was going to be climbed/knocked over/otherwise devastated within minutes of putting it up.  But with that worry out of the way I can concentrate on Finals (ugh) and Holiday bentos, yay!

In the bento: Peanut butter and jelly sandwich balls, frozen raspberries, a checkered apple, carrot stars, steamed edamame, half of a steamed Japanese sweet potato, cucumber holly leaves and pomegranate seeds.

The sammies were created using Lia Chen's technique which she posted a tutorial about and for which I am very thankful!  Each present has three eggsheet strips: two wrapped around and one for the bows.  I pinned them onto the sammies with small pieces of uncooked somen noodle, one piece in the back for the wraps and one for the bows in the front.  The cucumber holly leaves were cut with my exacto knife.

I hope that you guys are having a great December!  Good luck to everyone struggling with Finals like me :D

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!)

Ornamental Fruit

Wow.  The last few days have been crazy busy!  Here is A-chan's Pizza friday bento.  The bento only has fruit to eat alongside the pizza.  Are you ready for the holidays?  We are having so much fun with parties and decorating and cookies and craziness!

In the bento: A clementine ornament, an apple ornament, some blackberry ornaments, pomegranate seeds, pink egg sheet flower and some steamed zucchini slices.

Notice how I snuck some veggies in there?  Yeah, I'm sneaky like that.  The ornament designs on the clementine were cut with an exacto knife while the apple stripes and zucchini stripes were cut with a paring knife.  I was delighted to find a way to use all of these picks!  For some reason I have a difficult time figuring out uses for them.

I hope that you are all having a wonderful time!

Snowman Sammies

What do you do with leftover Japanese curry when you've run out of rice?  Make curry sammies!  One of the most intriguing food items that I've seen in Anime is 'curry bread' or 'curry pan'.  Now, I have no idea if this is anything like real curry bread, but I decided to make my own version.  I spooned some curry sauce onto a slice of bread,  making sure that at least one piece of each type of veggie was included.  After placing a second slice on top, I used a plastic cup to cut out the sammie and seal the edges at the same time.  All the leftover bread pieces got saved into an airtight container to be used in the fake greek meatballs I'm making for dinner tonight.  I love it when things work out that way!

It was extremely difficult to get the smaller snowman to look jolly instead of sinister.  I'm not sure why.  Maybe because he is peeking over the tomato?  He still has a crazed look about him, but I think the pink cheeks helped.

In the bento: Two curry sammies, a huge cherry tomato, carrot sticks, steamed broccoli, blackberries and pomegranate seeds.

The snowmen faces were made from nori and provolone cheese.   I cut small slits into the bread  to stick in the cute carrot triangles noses.  The psychopath snowman has pink cheeks cut from leftover pink egg sheet. All of the facial features were 'glued' onto the bread by small amounts of mayo.

I love their hats!  They were cut from large pieces of zucchini, with thin slices of zucchini flesh for the dapper bands.  To make them more festive I added tiny pieces of steamed broccoli and a pomegranate seed to each.  I used a dried spaghetti noodle stuck through the bottom to attach them by then sticking the other end of the noodle into the sandwich.

A small confession - I got into trouble with this bento.  The hats were huge!  There was absolutely no way that the lid could fit onto the box.  I had to take the hats off and stick them inside the bento in another location.  A-chan was very understanding and said that she was fine sticking them back onto the snowmen herself at lunchtime.  Whew!

Christmas Stamps

Cheese ravioli is one of the most versatile pastas.  It can transform into so many things or look elegant without any interference.  Most people, myself included, prefer to eat them with a sauce.  Luckily my daughter is happy to eat them plain or with a little Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top which makes them perfect for decorating her bentos.  With so many Christmas letters, cards and packages going everywhere, I thought some Christmassy stamps would be fun to make and eat!

In the bento: Cheese ravioli, rice with black sesame seeds, fried tofu, carrot and nori stars, blackberries, and a huge cherry tomato.

The Christmas tree is zucchini with tiny strips of zucchini flesh for the garland.  Pink egg sheet left over from yesterday was used for a couple of ornaments and carrot for the others.  I cut the star from a slice of American cheese.  I used zucchini again for the holly leaves and cut berries out of tomato peel.

In the background is one of the cloth napkins that A-chan takes to school with her bento every day.  This one she decorated for Thanksgiving.  It was an easy and very economical way to get her (and me) excited about the holiday.  Please see my new blog for pretty pictures!

Mittens

Oh baby it's cold outside! Our glove box is in full working mode with the frigid temperatures that have come to our area.  Since mittens are weighing heavily in A-chan's mind these days I thought I'd include an edible pair in a bento.

  I was feeling a bit better this morning so it seemed like a great time to try to perfect the art of corn cutting.  Perhaps I have been intimidated by my failures in the past, but the thought of trying to cut corn on the cob into smaller sizes to fit in a bento seems an impossible task.  Today there was a revelation.  I forgot to cook the corn the night before and ended up in a tight spot this morning.  Instead of giving up I tried microwaving.  Ta Dah!  It was so easy to cut right through. It didn't squish, deform or break the knife.   Wow, I wish I'd tried that a long time ago!

In the bento: Couscous with mittens, tofu and zucchini stirfry on top of a bread container, microwaved corn on the cob slice (yahoo!), cherry tomato and blackberries.

The mittens were cut from a pink egg sheet and provolone cheese with nori hearts and ties.  I cut them free form with scissors which explains why they are a little bit different from one another.

Here is A-chan working on the batch of snowman cookies that we made last night.  She is getting the hang of the piping bag!

Rudolph's Getting Ready!

Rudolph is primping for his big day, putting on his new collar with the huge bow.  He's counting down the days until Christmas and so are we.  A-chan was so inspired by our Advent Calendar this year that she asked Santa to bring her some mittens.  I managed to talk her out of the automatic snowball throwing machine she also wanted, whew!

In the bento: Cheese sandwich with rudolph on top, steamed broccoli, soy sauce tofu, a huge strawberry, two picks with carrot flowers and black olives, a couple of tiny slivers of mango.

Rudolph was cut from soy turkey with my food scissors.  The soy turkey that I like to use for sandwiches comes in very thin slices so I used three layers to make him more substantial.  His eye and antlers were cut from provolone cheese and his beautiful red nose was the end of a strawberry.  The handsome collar was cut from nori and has a pasta bow with a strawberry slice, provolone circle and a nori heart for festive decoration.

Cooking all took place in one pot - first boiling the pasta.  I cooked three pieces of bowtie pasta just in case something untoward happened and I needed backups.  Once the pasta was done I removed them with chopsticks and then cooked the broccoli with the still hot water.  After the broccoli was ready I poured out the water and replaced it with sesame oil to cook the tofu.  It took about 15 minutes total cooking time, during which I was making the sammie and reindeer.  I could have cut down on the cooking time and used two pots (one for veggies, one for tofu) but I was focusing on tidier cooking this morning.

What do you think of the labels, etc. that I've been putting on some bento pictures?  Other bento makers have caught my eye with labels and decor on their bento pictures, like Lia Chen at Bentolicious whose are always gorgeous.  I wanted to give it a try.  It's fun and I've enjoyed doing it but I'm not sure if I should keep it up. I need opinions from you guys!  Is it okay or ickle?

This post is linked up at Today's Creative Blog.

Snow Lady

Rush here, rush there, rush everywhere!  It seems like there isn't enough time to get everything done today.  We have three sick cats so I'm spending a good bit of today at the Vet's office.  Luckily this bento was really fast and easy to make, not requiring much brain power.  Which was good because I forgot to turn on the coffee maker this morning.  A snowman is always a must for winter bentos.  I realized after I had gotten the body into the box that there wasn't enough room for a hat.  So it became a snowlady instead.

In the bento: Three onigiri for the snowlady, veggie hotdogs, mango chunks, carrot flowers, steamed broccoli and a strawberry.

The Snowlady's buttons are pomegranate seeds.  Her eyes and mouth are nori but her nose is carrot and her cheeks were cut from veggie hotdog.  She has a bit of nori hair and a carrot bow.  The scarf was cut from spring onion which made a wonderfully frayed end when cut lengthwise with kitchen scissors.

A few tiny snowflakes were punched from a mamenori sheet.  I didn't have any natural color mamenori left so I had to use the orange.

Here is A-chan holding her kitten and a sneak peek of the Christmas tree.  The kitten is already getting big. I love this pic with her tongue sticking out!  We're still working on Holiday decorating.  I don't think we'll have any time for it today but hopefully tomorrow will see all the boxes emptied and Christmas cheer spread around the house.

Beary Christmas

This bear is ready for Christmas with his festive hat and bowtie.  We've just begun to get ready.  It's only the first of December but I already feel like we're behind.  I'm not worried, we'll start catching up quickly this weekend.  I had to finish this year's advent calendar on time for today before any other decorating could occur!

In the bento: Vegetarian spaghetti, black olives, steamed broccoli, a miniature corn croquette, carrot and provolone hearts, grapes, apple slices and a cute bear.

The bear was made in two layers: a provolone cheese layer topped by a soy turkey layer.  I used a Hello Kitty bow cutter to make the ear shape in the turkey layer so that the cheese could show from beneath.  His muzzle is provolone cheese, facial features are nori and his bowtie was cut from apple peel.  To make his cheeks I dipped the end of a toothpick into sriracha sauce and dotted it onto the soy turkey.  The festive hat was cut from tomato peel and provolone cheese.  There is a second layer of provolone behind the hat to help it stay in place.

I love this spaghetti recipe!  It's so good that A-chan didn't bat an eye at having it for lunch today even though we'd eaten it for dinner last night.  And I would love to share the recipe with you guys.  But I feel strange posting recipes on a bento blog, even though they can be used in a bento.  I'm a habitual compartmentalizer.  Everything must go in it's own box.  A-chan's toybox with everything all jumbled in drives me nuts.  So...I created another blog where I can do all the posts that I want to do that aren't necessarily bento related.  Recipes can have their own box now!  And I can post them all, mwahahaha!  With maybe some crafts and other miscellaneous stuff as well.  Starting it off with a bang - this year's Advent Calendar.

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.