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.

Fairy bento bag and band

Ta-da! Finally got pictures of another bento bag. I made it especially to fit my smaller one-tier bento boxes. The fabric was chosen by my daughter. She wanted a "frilly" band to go around the box and I sewed together a small flower out of felt to decorate it. It is very simple but sturdy and much safer to use with the tiny boxes that need more support.

Totoro with leaf

This bento was both a big hit and a huge mistake. A-chan loved the totoro (who wouldn't love a totoro in their lunch, right?) but because of the sprouts she absolutely refused to touch any of the food on that side of the bento. Another bizarre preschooler roadblock that I should have anticipated but didn't have a clue. She ate everything on the other side. And once she got home and I picked off each and every tiny sprout for her, she duly inspected the totoro and curry before commencing to eat every bite. Ultimately I guess I can count this one as a win :)

On the left: Jasmine rice that is completely hidden by Japanese curry. Over the curry is a soy bologna totoro with mozzarella belly and eyes, nori accents. Spicy sprouts and a small leaf cut from a larger leaf of lettuce complete the design.

On the right: One Mantou bun (a plain steamed chinese bun, very yummy!), chickpeas on animal picks, babybel cheese, steamed broccoli and a huge strawberry.

In Other News

Hi everyone! Some fun things that I want to share that are bento related:

First - Asfora at Bento Box invited me to do a guest post on her blog a week or so ago. (Thank you, thank you Asfora, that was soooo sweet!! ) Here is the link, please go have a look and see her lovely site! http://blog.bento-box.org.uk/538/guest-post-from-bento-anarchy/

Second - I entered a bento in the Japan Society's awesome Virtual Bento Battle recently. Wait til you see the incredible bentos that were entered!!!! Here is the link to their flickr page, you absolutely have to go and see! http://www.flickr.com/photos/japansocietynyc/sets/72157623727695610/

Third - At the end of May I will be attending Fanime Con in San Jose, CA!

I had intended to get all of this information up a while ago, but I just didn't have the time. My schedule right now is crazy busy and I'm so completely backlogged on everything (except the laundry -that actually got done, lol) . Summer should slow things down a bit and allow me to do more bento stuff and I hopefully will have time to even post things on all the wonderful blogs that I follow and even on Flickr.

Thank you so much to everyone who comments on my blog posts, I apologize for taking so long to reply! But I appreciate your comments so much, they uplift my spirit and make me very happy :)

Batman!

My little girl is crazy about Batman. She'd never seen any videos of Batman before this Christmas. But some of her best friends in the world were huge batman fans. So the hero of Gotham has been slowly but surely making more and more of an appearance in our humble home. Santa brought her the video and the game that she wanted. (she only gets to play Lego Batman with her dad because I simply cannot figure the derned thing out!) And now he's sneaking into her bentos :)

This bento features miniature frozen pancakes with a chocolate icing batman shape on the top one. Inside the little monkey face container is more icing for the other pancakes. There is one soy-sausage link cut interestingly. Two 'bombs' made from tater tots, pretzel sticks and nori are snuggled up to the bat symbol. The two colored mochi slice looks really pretty! Also some steamed broccoli, cheese blocks and a baby tomato.

To make the batman symbol I used a technique that I usually use with henna. I took a triangle of cellophane paper and rolled it into a small tube shape that would fit into the palm of my hand, then I taped the outside edge. Next I filled it up with icing, rolled over the wide end to close it off with more tape. Then I snipped off the pointy end a tiny bit and started squeezing the icing out. first the outline and then filling in the center. It's the same technique as cake icing (so my friend, Jen, who makes cakes tells me) just on a much smaller scale.

The slice of mochi was apparently suspicious and she wouldn't eat it to save the world. It was sooo funny. Normally she gobbles mochi up but because this wasn't a whole one, she wouldn't touch it. That's okay, I got to eat it when she brought it home!