The Ghost Army Wants You

The ghost army wants you!  The ghost army says Boo!  The ghost army knows Kung Fu!  The ghost army will tickle you :)

A-chan has no school today so we have the whole day together!  We are going to make candy corn onigiri, halloween cookies and maybe even do some chocolate painting.

In the bento:  Four cheese sandwich ghosts, black olives and carrot stars in the blue tier.  The yellow tier holds black plums, steamed broccoli, veggie hot dogs and nectarine chunks.

The faces on the sammies are made from nori and 'glued' onto the bread with mayo.  The Boo! was cut from carrots with my handy dandy letter cutters.

Tiny Bunny Faces

Taking a short vacation from Halloween, today we have tiny bitty bunnies!  There are two things wrong with this picture - any guesses?  Yep, that's right.  No fruit.  Ack, how did that happen?  Well, it is all because of the trip we took this past weekend where I thought it would be easy to stop for some groceries on the way home from Alabama.  Raise your hand if you know what didn't happen : D   So we totally ran out of fruit.  It's a horrible tragedy that I have cleverly hidden by my use of the red plaid food pick.  Stare at the red plaid circle.  It will fool your brain into believing that there is fruit in this bento.  Stare, I say!

In the bento: Rice with vegetarian Japanese curry on top, a container of corn kernals, tater tots, steamed broccoli and invisible grapes on the red plaid food pick.

The cute bunny faces were made from provolone cheese with nori, soy turkey and sriracha details.  The little flowers are provolone cheese with sugar dot centers and tiny bits of broccoli for leaves.  In the side container was ketchup for the tater tots.

I do really try to keep fresh fruit on hand at all times.  We may not eat it for every meal, but we sure try!  The ability to easily pack all kinds of fruit and not have it get all squished is one my favorite reasons for using bento boxes!

Halloween Kitten Luvs You!

Halloween kitten luvs you!  Yes she does.  She just wants to sit on your lap and get petted.  Maybe bite you but only a little.  And because she loves you she is going to destroy things that she thinks are a danger to you and maybe things that just look like they need to be torn to shreds just because, yes she is! It's all okay, right?  Cause Halloween kitten is so cute!

So yesterday I said you'd all have to wait for a Halloween bento...but I lied.  I was going to wait a few more days.  And then I caved - I just couldn't stand to wait any longer.  So here it is, yay!

In the bento: Rice with homemade furikake, huge Halloween kitten with a carrot Jack o lantern collar, a cherry tomato wedge, nectarine slices, black plum pieces, carrot flowers and tofu/veg stirfry.

I used a piece of bread with the edges cut off to make a nice absorbent container for the tofu stirfry.  Halloween kitten was cut from provolone cheese and nori.  Her collar was cut from tomato peel and the jack o lantern was cut from a carrot slice.  Her ears and cheeks were cut from gari (pickled ginger).

The stirfry was very simple: I cooked the tofu cubes in sesame oil first then added small pieces of frozen broccoli and cooked them together for about 2-3 mins.  Next I added a small handful of frozen corn kernals, soy sauce, a smidge of garlic powder and a bit of dried basil.  Then I continued to cook it all together for about 2 more mins.

Onigiri Friends

It's raining, it's raining!  Our area desperately needed the rain so we're rejoicing.   It's been raining for two straight days now.  The bleary foggy day outside makes me want to sit with a huge mug of coffee and read books all day.  Poor A-chan had her school fieldtrip cancelled because of the rain though.  She was so disappointed and freaked out when she thought I had forgotten to leave her car seat - totally not getting the connection that no fieldtrip meant no need for the car seat to stay at school.

Today's bento has just a tiny hint of fall.  I'm gearing up towards making Halloween bentos but you're just going to have to wait, nya!

In the bento: Raspberries, steamed broccoli, two large onigiri, carrot maple leaves, a corn croquette and some flash fried korean purple potato sticks.

The onigiri faces were punched out of nori as usual.  But I decided to do something different for the cheeks and put raspberry pips instead of my normal sriracha/ketchup cheeks.  It gives kind of a neat 3d effect :)

A Hetalia Bento

Hetalia.  Weird, wacky and totally wonderful.  An anime series with pizzazz and currently one of our favorites.  Italy is A-chan's favorite character so it's no wonder that he's shown up in her bento, waving his customary white flag.   There is no pasta for Italy however, I had some leftover fried rice that I needed to use up before we left on more travels.  In the background is the Hetalia movie poster that we picked up at AWA.  We didn't get to see all of the movie and I was so bummed :(  My favorite character is Japan but I admit to feeling a lot of sympathy for Germany in terms of cat-herding.  Who's your favorite?

In the bento: Veggie fried rice with peas, carrots and scrambled tofu, steamed broccoli, veggie hot dog flowers, corn kernals on picks, a container of feta, raspberries, provolone flowers and Italy!

Italy's body was cut from provolone cheese.  His hair was cut from soy turkey.  The mouth was cut from veggie hot dog and his other facial features were nori.  I tried a lot of different things to get the right look for his cheeks but nothing would cooperate with me.  The last thing I did was a bit of Korean BBQ sauce.  It still didn't look right but I ran out of time.  Oh well, I'll just have to try again!

Fall is here!

  The leaves on the Japanese maple tree outside A-chan's window started to turn colors this week so it is officially fall! I love fall.  It is absolutely my favorite time of year. Yesterday I got to wear my candycorn earrings and bought my first bag of candycorn for the fall season.  That made me so happy!  It's really hard to find vegetarian candycorn around here so when I do find it I buy lots!  Soon it will be time for pumpkins and costumes and sweaters.  Here are two fall inspired bentos.  The top one is from last week and the bottom is from this week.

In the top bento: A small bowl of chickpeas, baby tomatoes and feta, steamed broccoli, grapes on heart picks, apple slices, two carrot maple leaves and two potato and onion pierogies.  In the background is a candle that A-chan made at school.  I just love her school - they do such neat creative projects!  I want to join in :)

In the bento: Two inari zushi with homemade furikake sprinkled on top, steamed broccoli, baby tomatoes, tiny clementine slices and a momiji cake with sweet red bean paste inside.  Two pokemon picks help to liven it up a little.

The momiji cake was left over from our trip to AWA and it looked so pretty that I just had to use it in her bento!  The furikake is a mixture of dried and crushed tarragon leaves, toasted sesame seeds and sea salt.

Happy Fall Everyone!

Sleepy Girl

Once again I got caught up in crazy scheduling and have neglected to post for a while.  That's because this past weekend was the magnificent Anime Weekend Atlanta Convention that we go to every year.  The week before it is always about getting the costumes and artwork ready.  It only takes me a couple of days to recover afterward and set to rights all the damage the cats inflict on the house in our absence.  (And wow were they unhappy this time)  This year was A-chan's 7th AWA!

Thank you so much to everyone who came to the Bento and cooking panels.  I had a great time and I hope that you did too! It was a pleasure to meet so many wonderful people and great gobs of kudos to everyone who came to the 10 am panel.  Those of you who are waiting for emails from me, I will be getting right to them today and tomorrow :)

The above bento was actually from last week but I liked it so much that I am letting it supersede today's bento.

In the bento: A sleepy girl in an Inari zushi bed with nori designs on her blanket, apple stars, a star onigiri with apple peel decoration, baby tomatoes, sesame carrots and steamed broccoli.

The little girl's face was cut from provolone cheese with nori details and sriracha cheeks.  Her hair was cut from carrot slices using different parts of my UFO shaped cutter.