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.

Asparagus Bouquet Bento

This is a very simple bento that was a lot of fun to make. I don't like asparagus, but my husband does so this was all about an excuse to cook him some. The mamenori bow is the best part I think! Here is the video of the making of the bento, pretty much step by step. I skipped all the actual cooking parts because I'm never sure if people want to see those steps or just how things go into the box.

Fanime part 2

Here are pictures of me talking away at the panel and some of my little girl having a blast at the convention. The videos that I used at the presentation will be going up very soon!

While I was in town for Fanime I couldn't help myself and had to go shopping for bento boxes. It's an addiction, I swear! I didn't have a chance to shop very much, but I did find a few shops with boxes and accessories in Japantown, San Jose.

First we stopped at Nikkei Traditions (219 Jackson St.). We had a good time browsing and my daughter loved the dolls on display. I bought a one-tier flower shaped box, some fish soy sauce bottles and beautiful chopsticks.

Next A-chan practically dragged me into the Shuei-Do Manju Shop because I'd been promising her some mochi. She got mochi, I got mokona and we bought my husband a treat too!

Nichi Bei Bussan (140 Jackson St.) was a lot of fun to browse! They had tons of stuff from furniture to cosplay. They had larger, picnic sized bentos and lovely furoshiki.

Nijiya Market (240 Jackson St.) had some contemporary bento boxes and a few accessories like containers and such. More importantly, though, they had Japanese carrots and even better they had konpeito!! We bought two bags of konpeito and they were gone by the end of the weekend.

Hoping with all my might that we wouldn't get a parking ticket, I decided that we had to go into just one more store before going back to the car. Nikaku Japanese Arts (615 N. 6th st) is upstairs and jam packed with all kinds of things from pottery to anime and manga. They have a good deal on large square bento boxes with furoshiki and chopsticks as a set. Even though we spent a lot of time there we didn't get a ticket :D

Fanime was Fantastic!

Last week was a huge chaotic visit to California and Fanime, which was just plain awesome. My little girl travels like a trooper which is great since our layover flight was delayed by about 4 hours and we ended up landing in San Francisco around 1 am or so. The list of touristy things we did completely centers around Japan, lol. Japantown San Jose, Japantown San Francisco, Fanime, The Japanese Tea Garden at the Golden Gate Park, the carousel at GGP, etc.

Fanime was soooo much fun! The cosplay was incredible - especially the huge cosplay groups. Thank you to all the wonderful people who came to hear me ramble on about bentos!! I love sharing my obsession with others and I hope that it was somewhat informative :) Please give me any comments - I would really like to have some feedback about it so that I can do a better job in the future.

Soon I will have the information on the stores that I prowled in San Jose that have bento related items for sale with addresses and everything. I will probably get to that sunday. (One of our cats was discovered to be very ill when I got home from the trip and taking him back and forth to the vet, worrying, etc. is making me slower posting things than I had intended. ) I'll also start posting the other videos of bentos, yay!!

Monster!

I'm not sure who is more scared here, the oni meatballs or the soy bologna monster. I love doing the monster bentos! The nori outlines are challenging but the overall fun is fantastic. Originally this guy was a doodle that I drew to entertain several 4 and 5 year old girls.

This bento has more of the feel of a traditional bento: one tier has mostly rice and the other tier has a variety of ingredients. I failed on the five colors though, since the only green in this bento is the lettuce used for a separator. Oooohhh, maybe that's why they look so scared - there's no broccoli!

Left: 2 veggie triangle gyoza separated by steamed squash and cucumber slices. Baby tomatoes, carrot star, 2 vegetarian greek meatball oni with mozzarella and nori eyes, corn in the cow container.

Right: Jasmine rice with soy bologna and nori monster with mozzarella eyes, tooth and toenails. Sweet gherkin, baby tomato, carrot star and more steamed squash.

Monkey Face

A very simple bento in one of our smallest boxes. This is actually the very first bento box that I purchased way, way, way back when. It's still one of my favorites.

For this bento A-chan had requested fried tofu. I knew that I wasn't going to have much time that morning so I decided on a design the night before and had all the ingredients grouped together in the fridge.

Top to bottom: Clear piggy soy sauce bottle, flower onigiri with a sugar dot center, baby tomatoes, heart shaped container filled with corn, steamed broccoli, a black olive, mini tater tots (one of which has a monkey pick in it), fried tofu with monkey face made from soy bologna, mozzarella, nori and sugar dots for cheeks. There is a 'banana' cut from a babybel cheese round.

Ni Hao! This Kai Lan bento was a crazy thing for me to make. It was for a family picnic at my daughter's school Earth Day festival. I thought about making something more earthy. But I had been wanting to do a Kai Lan bento for a long time and decided to go for it as a surprise for A-chan! the steps to making the face go like this:

Step 1: Trace the bento box on a piece of paper. This makes sure that your design isn't larger than the space you have available to put it in.

Step 2: Draw the character/picture inside the tracing of the bento box.

Step 3: Cut out along the entire outer edge of the drawing.

Step 4: Put the paper on the food that you are going to use, in this case a slice of mozzarella cheese. Holding the paper and the cheese in one hand, cut around the design with scissors.

Step 5: Take the drawing and cut out the next large feature - in this case it was the hair. Trim around the outside edge to make it a little smaller than the original cut.

Step 6: Holding the paper hair design and a large sheet of nori together, cut out a square block of nori around the entire design. Then proceed to trim and cut around the paper.

Step 7: Put them together and see if they fit, trim as needed.

Special tips:

Do not use lined paper!! The blue lines will transfer onto cheese or meat slices.

Cut the nori absolutely last thing if you live in a humid area. Humidity in the air will make the nori curl up and you'll have to cut another section out. (Trust me, I've had to do that and it was frustrating!)
Top tier: Morning star farms chik nuggets sliced diagonally to provide an interesting corner piece. Large cherry tomato, steamed broccoli,1 waffle fry, an orange slice, black olives on animal picks, Ni Hao in carrots, flower bread. (Flower bread: steamed buns that are rolled up like cinnamon buns. They are very yummy!)

Bottom tier: Japanese curry (potatoes, carrots, onion, peas, tofu, sultanas) in a bed of jasmine rice. Carrot and snap pea hearts. Kai Lan is made from mozzarella cheese, nori, and soy ham.