Day in Africa Bento

I suddenly realized for no reason at all that I hadn't made any Greek food in a long, long time. Then I couldn't get it out of my head! So I had to make a Greek food filled bento. I love how the lion turned out, I just think he's way cute :)

Top tier: Vegetable pie with cheese & soy turkey giraffe, tomato flower with cucumber leaf, greek baked potato and blueberries.

Bottom tier: Lion body is of couscous, mane of soy turkey and face of cheese with nori and carrot detail, carrot ears and paws. Hiding behind the lion's head are some garlic bagel chips. Steamed broccoli, greek meatballs (in this case the recipe is altered to be vegetarian) and a blueberry with an elephant pick.

School Bentos in 4 days...

My daughter is going to Pre-K this year. It's her first year of school ever and it's only a half day, I pick her up at noon. So I've never actually had a chance to send a bento to school with her. But on Monday that is changing! She will start going to Lunch Bunch at School on Mondays while I teach my dance class and that means I get to do school bento!!!

I'm really excited about it. In fact, I dreamt about bentos last night! My girl has a list of kyaraben that she wants me to make her for school. She and I looked at Jbox.com yesterday to see if they had "special school bento stuff" that I could get for her to make it a little more well, special for her since she's already used to having bentos. This is the first time she has actually shopped for bento stuff and picked out things for herself, it's soooo cool! (The items that were necessities: the soy sauce bottles shaped like pigs and a pikachu bento box)

To be absolutely sure that everything is perfect for the first school bento, I'm planning ahead. I already know exactly what I'm going to make and have pre-thought all the ingredients and steps. We'll see how it goes. So excited!!!

The Pikachu Bento Walkthrough

The Pikachu Bento

Gaara Bento!

Here is the Gaara bento that I mentioned at AWA! It didn't turn out as well as I had envisioned so I will try again sometime to do a better job.

I used a gourd shaped rice mould to make the fried rice onigiri and cut strips of nori for the designs. There are fried tofu sticks on the left side with a small container of korean bbq sauce to dip them in. Steamed broccoli, cheese sticks and soy turkey fill in the gaps. Gaara's clothes are nori and soy turkey, his face was the white part of morningstar farms soy bacon, His hair was the red part of the soy bacon. Eyes from nori and white soy bacon part.

I skipped the symbol on his forehead this time - one of the things I want to fix next time :) He has a fantastic glare I think, though!

The small bottle was originally from a set of sugar sprinkles for cookie decorating. As soon as it was empty I snatched it straight into my bento tool set.

Pink Rice Bentos

Pink rice flower-shaped rice ball (made using a flower shaped rice mould) with an apple center, steamed broccoli, one tiny carrot flower, 3 mini potato pierogies (steamed and then shallow-fried in butter), a lovely strawberry and 3 spears of baby corn.

The adult version with pink rice triangle onigiri (again with rice mould) wrapped in mamenori, carrot and apple hearts, steamed broccoli, 3 mini potato pierogies (steamed and then shallow fried in butter).

AWA update

Hi!

This is just a quick note to everyone who attended the bento panels at AWA this year - thank you soooooo much for coming, I enjoy doing the panels immensely! I'm sorry that my friend Dee wasn't able to join me for them this year, and hope that she can next year. (You're awesome, Dee - I missed you this year!!)

I'm working on uploading the step by step presentations, but have run into the snag of not knowing how to do that. So I'm learning and should be able to have them up soon! Please be patient with me :)

Thanks!

Heavy on the peas Bentos

Green peas, carrot circles, mac'n'cheese with apple eyebrows, soy hot dog rounds with black olives and 1/2 mochi for each ear.

Jasmine rice covered with stripes of sesame carrots, green peas and sweet yellow corn. On the side are cherry tomato halves, black olives and cheese cubes with a koala pick.