A New Obsession

So here's the new obsession in our house!  Of course, A-chan loves video games.  I suck at them.  No, really.  I'm terrible.  Most of our game play consists of my daughter asking if I want her to get me through this part.  Or with me screaming as my poor character dies.  Anyway...there's nothing better than making bentos that are as much fun as the other things we enjoy.

In the bento:  Fried rice with lots of veggies, stirfried broccoli and baby corn, soy turkey flower, lemon slice, checkered apple, blackberries, radish, cheddar cheese, and tomato.

Mario's hat was fun to make with a tomato, provolone cheese and a carrot 'm'.  The stars are made from cheddar cheese with nori eyes.  The little radish's eyes are black sesame seeds.  All in all it was a simple bento to make, but the reaction that it got was huge!

Minecraft Christmas

I'm going to be honest with you.  It's a difficult proposition to take a pretty picture of a pig.  Especially a Minecraft pig which is blocky and awkward and has eyes pointing in opposite directions.  But the strawberries in this picture are beautiful which totally makes up for the pig.  As you might be guessing, my daughter is in love with Minecraft.  One might even say that she is obsessed.  So I'm trying to accommodate this new found love with some charabens to match, which ought to be fairly easy considering that they are all square shapes.  I'm finding it to not be quite as easy as I'd thought!

In the bento:  Sushi rice, strawberries, asian pear, carrot flowers, soy-turkey flower, and cucumber slices.

The pig was made of pink colored egg sheet, soy turkey, nori and raw turnip slices.  His santa hat was made from half of a strawberry and a raw turnip.

Sweet Kitten

I love how this bento turned out!  So kawaii that I can't stand it.  One thing that I want everyone to know - practice is the key to cuteness.  After years of making onigiri kitties, I think I might have hit on the penultimate cute one.  Or ... maybe I'm biased.  Either way, the more you make bentos the more awesome they will get, I promise.  My girl's birthday is coming up soon and I'm already beginning to dread the day when she grows up so much that she doesn't want cute things in her lunches.  What will I do?  I'll have to start making them for me.

In the bento: Two onigiri with a bed of rice and black sesame seeds underneath, blackberries, steamed broccoli, cherry tomato, checkered apple, teriyaki tofu, lemon slice and carrot hearts.

The kitty's eyes and nose were uncooked black soy beans and his tail and other details were made with provolone cheese.  His whiskers were cut from nori.

Because it's time for Fall

There is a definite chill in the air which means that it's time for Pumpkin flavored everything, warm socks and the 'poing' sound of acorns pelting the car roof.  After so many years of making bento lunches some trends have shown up.  Fall = Totoro.  It has now become an official household tradition that the first fall bento includes Totoro.

In the bento: Totoro onigiri with black sesame seeds, black olives, strawberries, corn on the cob, clementine slices, a huge carrot leaf, steamed edamame and vegetarian hotdogs.

Totoro has black sesame seeds mixed in with the rice for a grayish color.  His belly and eyes are of provolone cheese and nori, but his nose was cut from a black olive.  The ears were made separately and are affixed to his head with uncooked udon noodles.  A-chan said that she though he looked more like a bunny than Totoro, but he was still cute so it's okay.

There was a lot of hidden food in this bento.  To get the corn perfect looking I cut off a ragged end but put it underneath Totoro to angle him up a little.  Another strawberry and clementine slice were underneath the fruit and more steamed edamame were crammed around under the black olive soot sprites.

Ever After High Bento

I'm sure that if you have a daughter then I'm sure Ever After High has made an impact on your life just as it has on mine.  Books, episodes, shirts, skirts, dolls - you name it and A-chan is head over heels in love with it.  Since there is an emphasis on mega-detail within the series I decided to keep things simple for my first try at a EAH themed bento and just do the black and white logo.  I love how it turned out!

In the bento: Jasmine rice with homemade furikake (tarragon, roasted sesame seeds, salt and garlic), carrot hearts and key, blackberries, steamed broccoli, fried tofu, an apple bunny and some radish slices.

The logo was cut from provolone cheese and nori using an exacto knife.  Nori and my exacto knife don't get along as well as I'd like so there are some rough edges.  Since this wasn't going to be a large and complex character I did not flatten down the rice but left it fluffy instead.

One of the things that I don't talk about much in terms of bento-making is that I use a lot of what I term 'booster seats'.  These are never seen because they are hidden underneath the food and lifts bits up so that they are able to be seen on the same level as everything else.  For example in this bento there are extra apple pieces underneath the apple bunny and another blackberry hidden beneath the two that you can see.

Natsu!

I was asked for a Natsu bento which continues A-chan's Fairytail theme.  I chose to do a silly version of Natsu just before he goes off to destroy a town.  The one thing that was absolutely necessary according to the request was that his scarf is part of the bento.  His hair turned out a little darker than I'd intended, oops!

In the bento: Cheese sandwich with Natsu on top, baby corn, black pluot slices, pomegranate seeds, steamed broccoli, roasted cauliflower, black eyed peas, carrot and egg sheet stars and a cherry tomato.

Natsu is made completely out of egg sheet and nori.  His huge grin was fun to make!

Tonkatsu kitties

How do I describe tonkatsu?  Crispy deep fried bundles of joy.  Tonkatsu is wonderful by itself but pair it up with the gastronomic delight that is tonkatsu sauce and you have one of my ultimate top comfort foods.  Normally tonkatsu would be pork cutlets breaded with panko crumbs and deep fried.  My vegetarian version of this is extra firm tofu that has been frozen, thawed and breaded in panko before being deep fried to a crunchy golden brown.  The process of freezing the tofu gives it a much different texture that is perfect for this kind of dish.

This tonkatsu bento is also an example of my stunningly brilliant freezer stash plan.  Over the weekend we had tonkatsu for dinner and the leftovers promptly went back into the freezer for easy reheating bento-style.  I popped them straight from the freezer into the oven for about 12 minutes before cutting into slices for the bento.   Reheating in the oven thaws out the tofu and dries it a little bit (freezing tofu always creates extra water that needs to be either squeezed or baked out) and makes the panko nice and crisp at the same time.  

The only problem with our love of tonkatsu is that A-chan is now old enough to eat way more of my tonkatsu sauce than I would like.  But that's okay because I taught her how to make it this morning.  She can now make more whenever she runs out.  Or I run out, whichever...

In the bento: Basmati rice, tofu tonkatsu, pomegranate seeds, baby corn, checkered cucumber slices, black pluot chunks and a carrot flower.

The little kitties were made from provolone cheese and yellow egg sheet.  Their faces were punched out of nori and glued on with a tiny bit of mayo.

Not shown: the huge container of tonkatsu sauce that A-chan took with her this morning.

Sad Soba Puppy

Sometimes sad can be cute.   This puppy certainly qualifies according to A-chan.  She liked it and enjoyed eating it but to me this bento is not colorful enough!  That happens sometimes, especially when one is getting ready to go to the grocery store and is running out of ingredients and leftovers.   In fact, I was out of eggs to make egg sheets and I had no provolone cheese.  His eyes and muzzle were cut from slices of uncooked zucchini which was the only thing I had that was white.

In the bento: Soba noodles, Morningstar farms chik'n patties, zucchini, carrot butterflies, steamed green beans, a strawberry and some nectarine slices.

Puppy's ears were cut from a chik'n patty, his eyes and nose are carrot and some tiny nori circles were stuck on with some mayo for decoration.

Playtime?

I've been playing around with filled onigiri lately.  What I have been told about rice balls is that if they are plain they are technically called musubi and if they have flavorings or fillings they are onigiri.  (If this is not correct, please let me know!)  I tend to use onigiri to describe rice balls all the time.  Filling rice balls is fun!  It can sometimes be a messy game, but practice is your friend.  So is cling wrap.  When A-chan was much smaller I rarely used fillings in onigiri because it was harder for her to eat and she abhorred getting messy at school.  Now that she is older it happens much more often which makes me very happy.

In the bento:  Kitty onigiri with teriyaki tofu filling, lemon slice, sesame carrots in a toasted bread bowl, steamed broccoli, blackberries and a checkered apple slice.

The kitty is composed of two large onigiri for head and body and two small onigiri for the paws.  The smaller rice balls are plain and have black sesame seeds for claws.  The larger onigiri both have filling.  Her face is decorated with black sesame seeds, nori, white egg sheet and pink egg sheet.

Little Bunnies

We are getting back into the swing of things!  Bento prep is vastly less complicated when I plan the night before.  I review what I want to make - both recipes and characters - and check to make sure I have the ingredients.  Being surprised in the morning by not having any egg sheets made is less fun than one might expect.  While I can make emergency egg sheets in the morning, I really prefer not to!

In the bento: Two cute rolled sandwiches, raspberries, blackberries, tiny carrot strips, sweet corn on the cob, potato salad and steamed broccoli.

The sammies have shredded cheese and mayo inside and are held together with toothpicks.  Even though the toothpicks were pretty obvious, A-chan was warned about them as we drove on the way to school.  The ears and mouths were cut from egg sheets and the other details from nori.

A-chan is enjoying her new dessert-themed picks that we purchased in San Francisco this summer.  They are cute and handy so I'm loving them too.

Lucy!

It's time to go back to school again.  And that means bentos every day!  We had a lovely summer with lots of travel but not many chances to play with food.   I'm very excited about all the bentos that will be created this school year.  A-chan requested a complicated charaben for the first day of school.  Surprise, surprise - it's another Fairytail bento.  It took six different egg sheets to make Lucy.  My bento skills got a little rusty over the summer so there isn't as much detail as I would prefer.

In the bento: Sushi rice with egg sheet and nori character, carrot flowers, corn on the cob, a cherry tomato, steamed broccoli, fried tofu, raspberries and blackberries.

Fairytail Bento

Two bento posts in two weeks?  Yes, it's true!  This bento is a rendition of the main symbol from one of our new favorite animes, Fairytail.  It's a lot of fun to watch with outrageous characters and tons of destruction.   I had originally tried to make the Fairytail symbol with nori but my dull exacto knife was not very cooperative.  Switching to provolone cheese on top of a piece of nori was the only way that I could get the symbol to work and I'm happy that it finally coalesced.  (Egg sheets would have been better, but I was totally out of eggs.)  A-chan was delighted.

In the bento:  A cheese sandwich with nori and provolone cheese symbol on top and carrot letters, Morningstar Farms chik nuggets, strawberries, checkered cucumber and carrot stars.

Pandas in Hoodies

Brrrrr!  It was 27 degrees last night.  That's cold, y'all!  A-chan was desperately hoping for snow but the powdery white stuff did not make an appearance in our area.  Still - really cold.  And I thought these cute pandas could use some snuggly hoodies to keep warm in.

In the bento:  Panda inari zushi, an apple bunny, steamed broccoli, a carrot musical note, tofurky slices and cream cheese rolls,  and lovely chunks of plum.

The panda's faces were punched from nori and provolone cheese.  I used a tiny bit of ketchup for their cheeks, but not enough to affect the flavor.  The plum bits were arranged in a silicon container so that the juice didn't mix with everything else.  One of A-chan's new fav snacks is soy-turkey and cream cheese rolls.  They look so pretty in a bento!

I can't believe it's so cold already.  Stay warm out there!

Lovely Little Mushrooms

We all get stuck in a rut sometimes and feel like we don't have any creativity to pull out of our hats, right?  When that happens I ask A-chan what she would like in her bento for the next day.  Rarely has this backfired but in this case...yeah.  She asked for mushrooms, one boy and one girl.  What the heck?!  That was really no help, but thanks.  So now I needed to come up with an idea for 'shrooms and I had nothing.  Really.  Zip.  Ah, but I have books.   Inspiration found, I thought, and pulled out all of my charaben books.  They are all in Japanese which I can't read to save my life but hey, I can still look at the pictures and get ideas!  But...no mushrooms.  Gah.  In desperation I turned to Pinterest.  And there a beam of light came down from on high to illuminate one of AkinoIchigo's bentos with some cute mushrooms.  I loved it and had a great time coming up with this bento which is totally inspired by hers. Crisis averted.

In the bento:  Rice with homemade furikake, blackberries, carrot leaves, tofu and broccoli stirfry, feta chunks and an apple bunny.

The mushrooms were made from provolone cheese and a pink egg sheet that I distressed a bit with a toothpick to look more 'shroomish.  They have nori faces, more pink egg sheet for cheeks and the girly mushroom has a bow cut from carrot.  I think they came out really well.  More importantly A-chan loved them!

We are having a blast at the NanoWriMo challenge.  A-chan has around 450 words out of the 900 word goal that she set for herself.  I can't believe she's already half way there!  My word count is around 17,000 out of a total 50,000 to meet the challenge.  The biggest surprise so far has been the fact that my grammar and punctuation skills are not as good as I'd thought they were!

Tofu Totoro Musubi

A few weeks ago I ran across this fabulous YouTube video on how to make Spam Musubi Totoros.  It inspired me to try making them with slabs of extra firm tofu instead and this was the result!  Except...I didn't have enough nori left to make the bands of the musubi.  But I loved how the Totoros turned out.  I made four of them and since only two would fit into A-chan's bento I got to eat the leftovers for lunch.  Yummy!

In the bento:  Tofu totoros, rectangular onigiri (hidden under the totoros completely), raspberries, steamed broccoli, pineapple, carrot acorns and some frozen blueberries.

To make the totoro shapes I traced the bento box on a piece of paper, then divided it into two rectangles.  I drew a rough totoro shape in each rectangle.  With a piece of saran wrap between the drained slices of tofu and the paper template I used my handy dandy exacto knife to cut out the totoros. They were then cooked in a skillet with a mixture of sesame oil, soy sauce and mirin as I tried to get a spam-ish color from them.  The white parts were all white egg sheet, the black details were nori (of course) and the whiskers were uncooked soba noodles.  Getting the soba noodles to stick up at the correct angles was actually the most difficult part.  Tiny egg sheet flowers were stuck to the steamed broccoli with more uncooked soba.

Fall is here!

Apparently Halloween ushered in the proper fall weather and now it's time for us to pull out all our sweaters and gloves.  There are at least seven different colors of leaves in the trees around our house.  It's the perfect weather to sip coffee and ruminate.  I decided to post a bento of mine today, clearing the bento palate from the glut of Halloween cuteness.  My absolute favorite part of this bento was the tiny purple flowers!

In the bento:  Rice (haha, like you didn't already know that), tonkatsu-ish tofu slices, broccoli sprouts, tiny purple potato flowers, apple, potato salad, checkered cucumber slices, snap peas, a veggie gyoza and carrot leaves.

In other news, A-chan and I have joined the ranks of crazy people participating in NaNoWriMo!  If you haven't been clued in to what that is:  National Novel Writing Month.  Yes, that's right.  We're attempting to write a novel in a month.  Two of my very best friends have been participating for years and this November I decided to throw myself into the frenzy.  A-chan got all excited about it and wanted to sign up too.  It's been three days and so far we're both keeping up our daily word goal.  For me it's just a fun challenge.  I'm hoping that for A-chan it will be a great time-management learning experience as well as fun.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!  Samhain Sona!  Today started out with a beautiful sunrise and warm temperatures. I've got my fingers crossed that it will be a temperate night for Trick or Treating.  This is my first time trying to make a witch onigiri.  I think she is cute.  The hat was more difficult than expected and I ended up rushing through bits so that we could leave early for school.  Part of the difficulty was the bandaged finger that I was using very gingerly this morning.  As we started carving Jack'o'lanterns last night I made a long speech about knife safety to A-chan and then immediately stabbed myself in the finger while cutting my pumpkin.  After my impromptu demonstration of what not to do A-chan was very careful indeed!

In the bento: Onigiri witch and hat, grapes, a few blueberries, carrot stars and turnip stars, steamed broccoli, fried tofu, a checkered apple, sauteed squash and a carrot jack'o'lantern.

The Witch has a very thick egg sheet for hair.  It is pinned in place around the backside of the onigiri with uncooked soba noodles.  The main part of the hat was an onigiri wrapped in nori.  The hat brim was a large sheet of provolone cheese that was covered in nori and pinned in place with more soba noodles.  I used blue egg sheet for the hat's decoration along with some little stars.

I can't wait to steal some of A-chan's candy tonight once she's asleep.  I wish everyone a safe and fun Halloween night!

Mummies and Spiders

Oh my goodness, tomorrow is Halloween!  What is your favorite candy?  Skittles are my guilty pleasure.  A-chan is totally ready to go trick or treating.  She wants me to join her in the candy gathering extravaganza and so far doesn't believe that I'm too old to trick or treat.  Since I haven't had a chance to post a lot of Halloween bentos, I'm putting up two at once today.

In the Mummy bento: Rice, a cherry tomato, grapes, sauteed squash, checkered apple, carrot hearts, teriyaki tofu and vegetables.

The Mummies were so much fun to make.  Wrapping and layering the provolone cheese over the nori was pretty cool.  The hearts were cut from apple peel and the line of black sesame seeds were placed meticulously with out kitty cat thief looking on in fascination.  Luckily I have learned some tricks to keep Stripey the kitty thief from stealing broccoli out of the bentos in the morning!

One of the challenges of the new school year is that one of A-chan's schoolmates has a very bad peanut allergy and no peanuts are allowed in their lunches.  Being a mom whose child has food allergies, I am happy to see the school enforcing this.  It does make for some changes in my routine.  I had gotten used to having a peanut butter and jelly sammie as a backup for busy days or morning when I wasn't feeling good.   Different sandwich choices are fun and strange all at once.  Inside these spider sammies is a lovely chopped cheese and mayo mixture.  Unfortunately A-chan doesn't appreciate pimento cheese sandwiches yet, to my chagrin.

In the Spider bento:  Two cheese and mayo sandwich balls, cucumber spider webs, orange slices, strawberries and steamed broccoli.

A-chan's favorite thing about this bento were the spider's huge eyes.  They were cut from provolone cheese and nori.  The spiders' legs were fried spaghetti noodles.

Kitty and Jack'o'lantern

A-chan loves cute kitties in her lunches.  And I love making them!  It's a perfect combination.   I tried to do something new with the Jack'o'lantern in this bento.  I have now learned to try new things at times that are not busy mornings!  Ahem.

In the bento: Rice underlaying the Jack'o'lantern and kitty, green onions, apple star, carrot star, miso crusted tofu, steamed broccoli, pineapple chunks and a cheese ghost.

The Jack'o'lantern was cut from three layers of orange eggsheet.  The new thing is that they were cut all at the same time in an attempt to make the 3d layering a little easier.  I'm sure it will get easier with practice.  The kitty has two layers - one of cheese and one of nori.  The kitty is sandwiched between the lowest pumpkin layer and the top two pumpkin layers.  My favorite parts of the Jack'o'lantern are the teeth (they are so adorable) and the kitty's hat.  I used a leftover piece of broccoli stem for the pumpkin stem.  The apple star was an ambitious project as well and though it looks great - it didn't fit once I put on the lid.  Not so much a big surprise, lol.  I ended up rearranging a few things to get the star laying down, whew!

In other news, we had a fabulous time at the Stone Mountain Highland Games this past weekend!  Doesn't A-chan look cute in her Highland dance outfit?  At 8 am it was pretty darn cold out there so she didn't want to take off her gloves for the picture and who can blame her.

Dango? Why yes, thanks!

Do you have a favorite food that  you don't get to eat often?  Mine is dango!  It is definitely a special treat and only happens about twice a year.  Whenever I'm in San Francisco I stop by the Japanese Tea Gardens and grab some tea and dango.  I suppose that I could learn to make it at home, but I love having dango as a rare thing.  That way it's something to look forward to for a month or so before a trip.

This dango bento just tickles me.  One of my favorites paired with one of A-chan's.  She adores soba.  I like soba noodles, too.  Just not as much as she does.  Anyway, it was a lot of fun to make and a lot of fun for her to eat!

In the bento:  Rice ball dango, soba noodles, carrot stars, steamed broccoli, crisp fried tofu and plum slices.

The dango rice balls were made by cooking three pots of rice - one plain, one with red food coloring and another with green.  You might think making three colored batches of rice is crazy, but it actually is a greatly efficient way of filling up my freezer.  It usually happens over a weekend and when each batch is done they are immediately made into onigiri and frozen to make morning bentos so much easier.  But back to the bento deets...the faces were made from nori using two different punches, with sesame seeds added to the eyes and sriracha sauce for the cheeks.  A piece of fried soba noodle makes the stick of the dango.