Valentine's Card

Yesterday was another sick day for A-chan. Whew. I keep thinking her asthma is all better and sending her to school and then the next day she's coughing like crazy again. She didn't cough at all last night so here's hoping her day goes well at school! On the bright side, I did a lot of food experiments yesterday with A-chan and we found several new things that she likes!

In the bento: 3 pieces of fried tofu, Valentine's card of provolone, egg sheets and nori, halved baby tomatoes, 2 onigiri with homemade furikake and nori hearts, 3 slices of plum, 2 blackberries, a carrot heart and a pink egg sheet heart. There are more pieces of carrot hidden underneath the card :)

In the background is a little bowl with my new homemade furikake experiment from yesterday. I've tried some different types of store bought furikake and not been happy with them, so I thought I would try making my own. I am starting out very simply with toasted sesame seeds, dried and crushed tarragon and a little bit of sea salt. I loved it! Plus, A-chan loved it too. She insisted that I put some in her bento today. Who knew?

My first try at making egg sheets was a resounding success. (Where resounding success = not burning anything, lol) I followed the tutorial here at Bentolicious. It was a surprise to me that they weren't as intimidating to make as I'd always thought! I made yellow, orange and pink! It's hard to tell that it's pink in the picture, though. I learned that gel food coloring doesn't mix well with the egg, but I really was pleased with how they turned out.

Diamond Pattern of Love

I am so horribly bad at making up titles for my bento posts. Le sigh. Today's bento once again saved me from having a cranky child, once she saw the bento she was all smiles. I love that! And it was surprising too, because this bento isn't very cute. I wasn't expecting much out of her reaction this morning. This design has been in my head since the end of last week. The only thing is that in the picture in my head the hearts were much smaller, lol. But this was the smallest heart cutter that I have! Does anybody have recommendations for a tiny heart cutter?

In the bento: Jasmine rice with nori diamond pattern, green peas and carrot hearts on one side. The other side holds 3 humongous blackberries, steamed broccoli, golden tofu, lemon wedges, a baby tomato with a purple jewel pick and a couple of snow peas.

Golden tofu is just tofu pieces that have been cooked with a little bit of sesame oil. That's it. And that makes them all nice and golden and just a tiny bit crisp, perfect for any kind of sauce!

Pink Flower Onigiri

Another rush bento this morning! A-chan was sick yesterday and didn't go to school. I wasn't sure that she would be going today until she got up this morning and then it was rush, rush, rush. So here is a ten minute, freezer stash stuffed bento. I'm almost out of freezer stash, it's worrying me. I'd planned on doing some cooking this past weekend to fill it out, but I spent the entire weekend sewing instead. The sewing was good and it had to be done this weekend, but still - I need time to cook!!! And looking at my calendar this morning I am not filled with hope, for I have no free weekends until April. Gah, how do I do this to myself?

In the bento: Pink rice flower onigiri with sesame seed decoration, a bowl of leftover mac'n'cheese, frozen blueberries, two veggie hot dog flowers with green peas, steamed broccoli and half of a cherry tomato.

The onigiri is colored with red food coloring gel that was added to the water in the rice cooker before I turned it on. The onigiri was frozen, I just sprinkled a little water on it, nuked it for a minute this morning and it was ready to go!

There are more veggie hot dog pieces hidden beside the blue bowl and underneath the cherry tomato - the rabbit pick is the only part you can see. On the side was a container of ketchup and a soy sauce piggie. A-chan asked for a red piggie this morning.

I absolutely love the blue bowl! It's part of a set that I found at Hobby Lobby last week. There were 6 bowls in all different colors and I'm just tickled pink that they fit in the bentos :)

Elephant pancake

It's the last day of the zoo themed week of bentos. I had no idea how much I was going to enjoy having a theme to work with. It felt like my creativity skyrocketed! Not only was it fun, but it provided a great chance for A-chan and I to talk more about the animals in each of her lunches.

I wanted to do an elephant for today's bento. Since elephants are often portrayed in henna designs, it seemed like a fine idea to do one on a pancake with icing. For some reason elephants and mice are incredibly difficult to get proportionally correct in henna! I had intended to do more detail but got nervous and decided that I would mess it up if I kept going :) Elephants have a nostalgic feeling to me. My mother collects elephants and has them in every room of her house. I have lovely memories of elephants from our trips to Thailand and India. A-chan was too young during those trips to truly remember any details, but I'm hoping that they will have ingrained a deep love and respect for elephants somewhere inside her.

In the bento: Main tier: Miniature pancakes, Morningstar Farms bacon, carrot and raspberry flowers with cucumber leaves and a solitary elephant shaped rice pasta. Second tier: Lots of raspberries, black olives on elephant picks, carrot slices and heart shaped pan-fried potatoes.

The elephant design was done with vanilla icing. I drew the design out by hand the night before so that I could practice. I like it so much that I probably will keep it and use it as a henna design!

To get the veggie bacon into twists I cut the strips in half lengthwise as soon as they were out of the oven. Then I immediately wrapped them around chopsticks and let them cool. In a few minutes they were cool enough to slide the chopsticks out and voila!

Panda Baby!

This is the first full-body onigiri that I have done. I was so excited - I've been waiting for this all week!! It's definitely not perfect, but I'm very happy with it. Plus it was fun! I've been drooling over bentos with onigiri sculptures for a long time, thinking that one day I would have a reason to try it. The zoo doesn't have any rabbits so...I thought a panda would be perfect for a Chinese New Year bento.

The Atlanta Zoo has a new baby panda. It's teeny tiny and not ready for a public debut yet, but when it is we'll go see it. This will be the second baby panda that we've gotten to see which makes me so happy :D The pandas are just so cute, I can't help it!

In the bento: Rice ball panda with lots of nori, cucumber bamboo, carrot and provolone 'ball', steamed broccoli, two picks of corn kernels, raspberries, hot dog flowers (you can't see them because they are behind the panda's head), shredded carrots, tiny carrot and provolone flowers.

The second tier holds: More rice with black sesame seed garnish, a bit of cucumber, some frozen peaches, frozen blueberries, more raspberries and more tiny provolone flowers.

The panda's facial features were punched from nori. The eye detail is provolone and the cute cheeks are gari (pickled ginger). He's resting on a huge bed of red leaf lettuce and there is a large piece of veggie hotdog underneath the head, holding it up at the proper angle.

Normally I wouldn't have packed the second tier for A-chan, it's just way too much food for her. However, I'm not actually sure that she will eat onigiri with so much nori on them. I don't usually put that much nori, so I packed some extra plain rice and fruit as insurance.

I'm already planning for next year's CNY bento - A chinese sleeve dance! I've got a whole year to practice and plan so I might just be able to pull it off, lol. I had so much fun mixing in some Chinese dance with my dance class last night, it made for great inspiration.

Lion-ish bento

Don't you hate the times when your lovingly crafted bento just doesn't quite hit the mark? This morning A-chan took one look and asked, "What is it?" With a second look I got a, "Is it a seal?" My response, naming the animal in question as a lion, was met with one of those looks that should be reserved for sixteen year olds. It clearly said, "Oh sure, mom. Whatever you say." Sigh. She did think it was cute and said that she would enjoy eating it, but I still feel somehow unfulfilled. I really did think it looked like a cute lion and was perfect for the zoo theme, lol.

This past Saturday was the very first time we'd ever gotten to see the lioness at the zoo. We'd seen the lion several times but she was always hiding. But it's easier to make a lion than a lioness!

In the bento: Lion-ish shaped cheese sandwich, veggie hot dogs with corn, steamed broccoli, a huge wedge of blood orange, a heart shaped container of black eyed peas, a lion shaped rice pasta, some black olives. On the side is a muffin cup of raspberries which eventually got wrapped up in cling wrap to make the journey to school.

The lion's mane was cut out of bread using a cutter and the center circle for the face was cut with an upside down flower cutter. The facial details are nori. The center part of the bread was then cut in half and stuffed at the bottom of the muffin cup to make paws. A long thin cut of bread made a tail with a 'fluff' of cheddar cheese at the end.

2 Giraffes

Today's zoo animal: Giraffes! Only day 2 of the zoo theme and A-chan's already twigged onto it :D I love giraffes! They seem very graceful to me. Isn't it amazing how versatile provolone and soy turkey can be? A monkey, giraffes...who knows what it will make tomorrow?

In the bento: The two giraffes are on top of a layer of jasmine rice. At the top of the right side is a bunch of soy sauce sauteed tofu and carrots, a couple of rice pasta giraffes, a heart shaped container with raspberries and quick cucumber pickles are squished in beside the berries.

The giraffes are made from provolone and soy turkey, cut out with scissors. The bottom part of their faces is cut out of cheddar. The eyes and nose are nori. The antennae are green peas with dry somen noodles. At the bottom are bits of red leaf lettuce that I cut into grass with scissors. I really like the way the lettuce kind of curled up and gave a good 3D look to the grass!

I'm so glad that I finally got a chance to use the rice pasta giraffes!! I've had the bag of pasta for a while but haven't had a good excuse to use any. When I saw it in the grocery store I convinced myself I bought it for our friends who are gluten intolerant, but I have to be honest - it was for bentos!