Fall is here!

Apparently Halloween ushered in the proper fall weather and now it's time for us to pull out all our sweaters and gloves.  There are at least seven different colors of leaves in the trees around our house.  It's the perfect weather to sip coffee and ruminate.  I decided to post a bento of mine today, clearing the bento palate from the glut of Halloween cuteness.  My absolute favorite part of this bento was the tiny purple flowers!

In the bento:  Rice (haha, like you didn't already know that), tonkatsu-ish tofu slices, broccoli sprouts, tiny purple potato flowers, apple, potato salad, checkered cucumber slices, snap peas, a veggie gyoza and carrot leaves.

In other news, A-chan and I have joined the ranks of crazy people participating in NaNoWriMo!  If you haven't been clued in to what that is:  National Novel Writing Month.  Yes, that's right.  We're attempting to write a novel in a month.  Two of my very best friends have been participating for years and this November I decided to throw myself into the frenzy.  A-chan got all excited about it and wanted to sign up too.  It's been three days and so far we're both keeping up our daily word goal.  For me it's just a fun challenge.  I'm hoping that for A-chan it will be a great time-management learning experience as well as fun.

Birthday Bento!

Yesterday was my birthday.  I am old.  So old.  Don't get me wrong, though.  I am happy to be the age that I am and enjoying every minute!  A-chan used my new age to help her choose things all day long.  Can't decide which kind of candy to buy?  Just count them until you get to Mommy's age.  This was a great reminder of how much energy I don't have now that I'm so old.  Grocery shopping took way longer using this method, lol.

Even though I didn't have to go anywhere I decided to make myself a bento anyway, just to enjoy it.   I used one of my favorite boxes that I haven't gotten to use much recently.

In the bento: Tier 1 held carrot ribbons, quick cucumber pickles, potato salad, a lemon wedge and strawberries.  Tier 2 had green rice with black sesame seeds.  The largest tier contained strawberries, lemon wedges, soy turkey and cream cheese rolls, more carrot ribbons and three veggie gyoza.

It was a lovely day and I wish that it had lasted a lot longer than 24 hours.

Lila's Gift

Hi Y'all!  Happy New Year!  Long time no see - how ya been?  The holidays were fantastic and fun, but I feel a bit like I've been trampled by an elephant.  Slogging through molasses somewhat towards the direction of the normal groove, I am finally doing the first bento post of the year!  I am so excited, I can't wait to see what bentos everyone comes up with in the new year!

Technically this is a bento from last year.  One of my dance students asked me to buy a bento box and fill it with food as a Christmas gift for her boss.  She wanted to try and inspire her boss to eat healthier lunches in the new year, which I thought was a sweet gift idea.  This cute box with matching fork and case came from Ohayo Bento's store.  It is filled with easy to make things that I consider to be classic bento foods.

In the bento: Sugar snap peas, carrot flowers, cauliflower, vegetable gyoza, clementine pieces, cherries, vegetable fried rice with nori on top and cherry tomato halves.

The three color vegetables is one of the most recognizable bento dishes.  I can't count the number of bento books that I've seen it in, not to mention the tons of bento posts out there on blogs and flickr!  It is usually cauliflower, zucchini and carrots.  I substituted the snap peas for the zucchini because I wanted their texture. The veggie gyoza were store bought and were cooked straight from the freezer.  First they were browned in a bit of olive oil and then I finished them up by steaming with a small amount of water.

It's a Field Trip!

A-chan's class went on a field trip today and I was so excited that I was able to join them!  We went to an old Gold Mine in Dahlonega.  It was much more fascinating than I was expecting.  At first A-chan was nervous about being underground but then the guide pointed out lots of cute brown bats hanging from the ceiling.  She got so interested in finding more bats that she completely forgot to be scared.

In A-chan's bento: Rice with black sesame seeds, carrot butterflies and flower, baby corn spears, steamed broccoli, a lemon wedge, an apple bunny and Tofu Kaarage.

Earlier this week I attempted making a vegetarian version of a well loved and popular Japanese dish, Chicken Kaarage.  I was inspired by this bento at Soul Soup Soap and I knew just where to go to look for a recipe.  Maki's site Just Hungry had not only a recipe, but tons of other info too!  The finished product was delicious and I think that it will become a regular hit around here.

Almost as exciting as the walk deep down into the dripping rock tunnels was the fact that I got to pack a bento for me!  Again I kept it simple in the need for speed this morning.

In my bento: Rice with black sesame seeds, tofu kaarage, lemon slice, carrot maple leaf and flower, baby corn, two veggie gyoza, steamed broccoli and an apple bunny.

While I would normally have steamed the gyoza, the oil was already hot from cooking the tofu and I gave in to the impulse for easier cooking.  There was one less pan to clean up if I fried them which partially makes up for having two fried foods in one bento, right?  (Okay, maybe not a great argument healthwise, but it sure made lots of sense at seven o'clock this morning!)

Gyoza accepted! (LCE #15)

Grapes and blueberries, 2 piles of Maruchan Teriyaki Yakisoba, corn in star container, 2 miniature veggie Gyoza, 2 triangle onigiri with carrot slices on top, 1 star onigiri with Mrs. Dash 'Furikake'.

The results of my first try at making gyoza were yummy! Even A-chan liked them which is about as amazing as it can get. A million thanks to Cookingcute.com where I found the 'making gyoza tutorial' which gave me the courage to try it! It was much easier than I was expecting to do the pleats. I made a batch of regular ones for myself and my husband, then a batch of miniatures for A-chan. They were frozen and then cooked as per Cookingcute's instructions straight from the freezer. I used a few different ingredients than she had in her recipe so I was a bit nervous before the first bite, but we all agreed that they were delish!