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!

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.

Curry with Chickens

Wow, it's already Friday!  I can't believe that the first week of school is over already.  Here are some cute chicks to usher in the weekend with my fav recipe - Curry rice.  It no longer phases A-chan when I add things to the basic curry recipe.  This time I went back to spinach, chopping it very fine in an attempt to get it past the 7 year old radar.  When we ate the first meal of the batch (one batch will usually make 3-4 meals for us) she took a few bites before challenging me on the green stuff.  "It's spinach," I said.  She proceeded to eat the rest with no comments.  Can I consider that a spinach victory?

In the bento: Vegetarian curry with two onigiri on top, egg sheet chicks, grapes, plum, steamed green beans and a carrot butterfly.

The egg sheet ovals for the chicks were cut with scissors and placed onto the onigiri with a little bit of curry gravy to hold them in place.  Their beaks were cut from carrots and the cheeks were sriracha dabbed on with the end of a toothpick.  The little flowers are egg sheet with red sugar dots in the center and they have leaves of fresh parsley.

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.

A Butterfly Day

Happy Friday! There are butterflies on my brain today.  The weather is so beautiful and there are tons of butterflies around the yard.  And I needed another excuse to use this fabulous butterfly cutter.  I am right now thinking of other reasons to get myself to Michael's so that I can drool over other cutters.  It's possible that I might have an obsession.  Yep.

In the bento: Pasta, eggsheet, frozen strawberries, cucumber slices, orange wedges, plum, and veggie hotdogs.  Not shown: a container of grated parmesan cheese for the pasta and a container of ketchup for the hotdog.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

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.

Sumatran Tiger

A-chan and I love the zoo.  We could both sit around and watch the animals for hours.  A lot of our favorites are the big cats.  Sometimes we watch them with fascination and compare their actions to those of our house cats whose antics are an endless source of entertainment.  The Sumatran Tigers are high on my list of personal favorites and when I decided to challenge myself to a complicated bento, it was with the tigers in mind.

This is my first attempt at an 'art' bento and although there are several flaws, I'm very happy with the results! At two hours, this is the most time consuming bento I've made.  And I learned a lot doing it - things that will make it faster next time and a huge amount about the tigers themselves.  Despite my admiration for the big cuties, I couldn't say that I appreciated their stripes and facial designs the way I do now.

In the bento:  Rice, egg sheets, radish sprouts, a halved strawberry, steamed edamame, fried tofu, baby corn and black plum slices.

The tiger's face was made with layers of orange egg sheet, white egg sheet, soy bologna and nori.  His eyes are one layer of white egg sheet, a second layer of nori, a layer of bologna, a green iris cut from edamame, nori pupils and white egg sheet highlights.  I stuck short pieces of uncooked somen noodles into the egg sheets for the whiskers.  Originally I had planned to put lovely green grass around and behind the tiger but I got lazy and stuck a few radish sprout tops on instead.

We were staying home today with no need for a bento.  After it was finished came the inevitable question, "Who gets to eat that bento, mommy?"  Before we came to blows over it, I bribed her with a pbj and claimed the bento for myself.  I promised to make her one with whichever animal she chooses after our next visit to Zoo Atlanta.

A Study in Color

Here are two bento pictures that have bad background color choices.  The yellow is overpowering in the top one, and the red overpowers the bottom.  Even though these are not great pictures, I still like the bentos!  The top bento was one of mine while the other shows a bento for myself and one for A-chan that we recently took for lunch on a long trip.

In the top bento: Half a golden plum, sugar snap peas wrapped in soy turkey, carrot flowers, colossal black olives, Korean sweet potato slices and two curry filled onigiri.

The curry filled onigiri were an experiment.  I wasn't sure whether they would be too messy, but they turned out quite perfect!  A tiny taste of curry and vegetables in the center.  You can see the curry gravy barely peeking through the rice on the sides.

In the bottom bentos: Rice mixed with tofu soboro, apple slices, grapes, carrot flowers, raspberries , black olives.  My bento has a wonderful ribbon of sriracha hot sauce.

Normally the tofu soboro would be layered on top of the rice.  But since there was a good likelihood of eating in the car I wanted to try and prevent as much mess as possible.  

It's been a while since I've posted and I apologize.  Last week was crazy!  I did pass my huge test and the great news is that I have officially been accepted into college!  I'm both a little scared and a lot excited.  I can't wait to get started, it's going to be a great adventure.  

Kero-chan!

Over the school break for MLK Day I decided to do some egg sheet practice.  I wasn't sure what I was going to use all of the egg sheets that I made for exactly, so I wrapped them up in cling wrap and stored them in the fridge until inspiration struck.  I think I'm getting better at making them!  Although I'm still not sure why my egg sheets are always so shiny in pictures, lol.

One of A-chan's favorite manga is Card Captor Sakura so I decided to make Kero-chan for her.

In the bento: Cheese and soy turkey sandwich, egg sheet kero-chan, steamed broccoli, baby carrots, baby corn, grapes and plum slices.

I used scissors to cut the crust off the bread slices.  Most of the time when I try to cut bread with a knife I end up with a much smaller piece of bread and a lot of crumbs.  Instead of using scissors to cut the egg sheets, this time I utilized my handy dandy exacto knife which was way more fun.

Emergency Hello Kitty

Ugh, I'm so sick!  Luckily A-chan is nice and healthy and has not caught this plague from me.  Bento making seemed almost impossible this morning, but Hello Kitty came through for me again!  It is nice to have a fallback for those times when my brain is fogged by nasty germy things.  Oops.  I just now realized that I forgot to put in the soy sauce bottle.  Yikes, I'm going to hear about that later.

In the bento: Peanut butter and sugar sprinkle sandwich, cherry tomatoes, carrot sticks, provolone cheese flowers, black plum slices, steamed broccoli and a half orange slice.

Hello Kitty was made from provolone cheese, nori and carrot, using an HK onigiri mold to cut the cheese and a special HK nori punch for the face. The HK onigiri decorating set came with a cutter for the bow and the flowers.  I keep it all together in a box for just such emergency occasions so that I don't have to search for any tools.  Her backdrop was cut from a slice of soy bologna with a large cookie cutter.

Here is a link to the deco set that I used :)

Pirates Say Arrrr!

The new kitten certainly helped A-chan to wake up bright and early this morning!  And because she was up before I started decorating her bento she got to choose the theme.  I was all set to make cute little girls with flowery hats out of these onigiri and inari, but she decided on pirates instead.

In the bento:  Two adventurous pirate onigiri with inari hats, steamed broccoli, a lemon slice, a huge carrot flower, chunks of black plum, tomato slices and simmered orange cauliflower.

A-chan tried the orange cauliflower the other day but wasn't impressed.  Today I simmered some along with the inari in water, soy sauce, mirin and brown sugar.  We will see what she thinks!  Behind the huge carrot are more carrot slices nicely hidden because I didn't have time to make them pretty.

The pirate faces are made with provolone cheese, nori and tomato skin for the mouths.  They bear an X on their hats - I wasn't prepared to make skulls this morning with no warning!  Large golden earrings show off their previous plunder.

Our new kitten is installed in our bathroom for the nonce while we work on getting it acclimated to humans.  It is still a bit feral though we did get to pet it once this morning.  We are still not sure if it is a girl or boy.  Discovering that all important fact is my task for today.  Luckily no one lost any blood during the capture of the little one who at the time was intent on stalking a possum in our front yard.  Yikes!

Fruit in a Bear

Isn't it cute?  The box, I mean.  Pizza day was the best excuse to pop out my new bento box and give it a whirl.  It's the Kuma White Donburi from Bento and Co.  Dude, it's a deep bento box!  Those aren't orange wedges they are half slices.  Half a black plum fit alongside the oranges.  Some might call the lemon wedges citrus overload with all the orange slices, but I wanted something to fit perfectly in that tight curve.  The side container holds a ton of blueberries and pomegranate seeds.

In the bento:  (Hmmm, I think I've already told you everything, but oh well!) Lemon wedges, half orange slices, black plum chunks, blueberries and pomegranate seeds.  There are a few provolone cheese stars and a strawberry divider because it went with the fruit theme and made things cuter.

You may have noticed that the blueberry/pomegranate seeds combination has been going on all week.  That is usually part of how I plan my bentos - A-chan chooses two fruits and then I combine them in different ways all week.  Only...there aren't a lot of ways to combine blueberries and pomegranate seeds.  They do look pretty jumbled together in a container, though!

Happy Friday everyone!