Giraffes are Cool

Hi there, world!  It feels like forever since I last had time to post.  Summer was crazy busy and tons of fun with adventures, lots of travel, lots of camps, kittens and my first semester back in school.  For A-chan's first day as a second grader she requested a Giraffe bento.  (One of her favorite summer memories was getting to feed a giraffe at Zoo Atlanta.)  Since I spent part of the summer practicing to perfect egg sheets, I was delighted to be able to use some in the first bento of the new school year!

In the bento: Two onigiri covered with egg sheet, grapes, cheddar cheese blocks, Morningstar Farms soy sausage links, steamed broccoli, pomegranate seeds and clementine wedges.

Mr. Giraffe has soy turkey for his spots, white eggsheet and nori facial details, black sesame seeds for his nose and soba noodles with corn kernals for antennae.  The large egg sheets for Mr. Giraffe were loosely  wrapped over the onigiri and held in place with the food that was packed around him.  The little hearts are cut from white egg sheet with nori hearts on top.

Though bentos were being made during the summer, most of the pictures have been ruminating on my computer without being posted.  I was extremely lax about anything online while I focused on studying for school. While I enjoyed my classes immensely I was unprepared for the wild amount of work necessary
in a summer session.  I can't wait to get back into the routine of bento making and I'm looking forward to catching up on everything and reconnecting with everyone!

Polar Bear

What does a Polar Bear do on Summer vacation?  I think he would go to Antarctica for vacation.  Until we got our air conditioner repaired yesterday I was starting to day dream about traveling there myself!  This is another tightly packed summer camp bento, but I wanted it to be a little cuter since it was for the last day of camp.

In the bento: Rice, sesame carrots, grapes, cherry tomato halves, steamed broccoli, soy sauce tofu and peach slices.

The Happy Bear's features were punched from nori.  His snout (or should that be muzzle) is an oval of provolone cheese with nori on top.  He also has tiny circles of gari for cheeks.

Fried Rice for Camp

Have you ever looked at a word, one that is very familiar, and been totally convinced that you'd spelled it incorrectly?  The word 'summer' went all wonky on me this morning.  It just looked wrong!  Ah, well.  I would attribute it to heat stroke except that it hasn't been very hot at all.

In the bento: Veggie fried rice, a huge cherry tomato, peach slices, grapes, pickled cucumber slices and black olives.

This bento is another one from last week's summer camp which A-chan absolutely adored.  Again, I kept it very simple.  The fried rice has green peas, roughly cut carrots, onions and scrambled tofu mixed into it. I put a little too much soy sauce in the rice as I fried it, so it ended up more brown than normal.  It seemed overkill to put in a soy sauce bottle with her bento, lol.

First Day of Summer Camp

Happy Summer!  We had a great time being lazy and catching up with friends for our first week of summer break.  This week is A-chan's first summer camp of the year at a nearby Nature Center.  Since I was pretty sure that lunches would be jumbled around at camp, I packed her bento very tightly with extra lettuce and kept the cuteness to a minimum.

In the bento: Two miniature homemade vegetarian hamburgers, lemon slices, carrot flowers, two onigiri, steamed broccoli, a cherry tomato and two picks of cheddar cheese.  On the side is a container of ketchup for the hamburgers.

This was an extremely quick bento to put together.  I already had rice made and waiting in the fridge to be microwaved and made into onigiri.  The triangular mold made it easy and speedy.  The mix for the hamburgers was also waiting in the fridge - I formed them into patties and cooked them in a small pan with a tiny bit of sesame oil.

Flatpie is Awesome

It's been a while since I've had a chance to post due to sickness, traveling and homework.  The school year is over and it's finally summer.  We're savoring the weather which is cooler than normal.  Now is a good time to rhapsodize over the glory that is flatpie.  A crisp biscuit crust wrapped around garlic and tarragon seasoned potatoes and onion, topped with melted cheese is one of the best foods on the planet.  I often make them the size of a medium pizza and we eat them in slices with cheese dripping off the sides.  The miniature version is perfect to freeze and keep ready for bentos!

In the bento: Miniature flatpie, blueberries, checkered apple, vegetarian hot dog flowers with green peas, steamed broccoli.  On the side is a container of ketchup for the hot dogs.

Acorn Sammies

Whew!  I am so happy to be back to posting.  My sickness is finally over and I am human again with only a little bit of coughing and no fever :)  Last week was rough.  This week is exciting though - today is my first day of school!  And we're going to San Jose, CA later in the week.  I would love suggestions about things to do while we're out that way.

In the bento: Acorn sandwiches filled with peanut butter and sugar sprinkles, blueberries on picks, an apple bunny, corn on the cob, steamed broccoli and a container of carrot hearts.

The acorn sammies were cut with a Wilton cookie cutter.  Their cute caps were cut from the heel of the loaf and I used scissors to shape them to the right size. My carrot peeler was dirty this morning (I have a huge backlog of cleaning to attend to from being sick all last week) so I cut slices without peeling the carrot and then used a tiny heart shaped cutter to cut from the centers.  The rest of the carrot got scooped up to go into the compost, peel and all.

Happy Monday, everyone!

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.