Froggies and Fireflies

JapanFest was the best thing since onigiri molds!  We had a blast watching the sumo wrestling, taiko drumming and Bunraku puppetry, not to mention seeing all the smiling faces throughout the weekend.  Thanks so much to all the people who came to the lectures and stopped by the booth.  It's always a difficult transition back to normality after an exciting event, but we're trying our best.  Silly frog onigiri were a great way to usher in the week.

In the bento:  Frog onigiri, potato salad in a container, strawberries, lemon slices, steamed broccoli, a vegetarian tsukune patty, carrot and turnip flowers and a couple of nori dragonflies on cheese circles.

To get green rice I added a couple drops of food coloring to the water before cooking the rice.  The onigiri shapes were made with an onigiri mold.  Provolone cheese and nori were used for the facial detail.  The frog's tongue was sweet potato peel.  It was pretty simple to cut the dragonflies out of nori using a stencil punch from a local craft store.

I love using black sesame seeds for detail on flowers and things like the dragonflies' flight paths.  Sesame seeds are extremely versatile, not to mention yummy!

Froggy Faces

One of my absolute favorite things about bento tools is how a single basic shape can be transformed into so many different things.  Take the frog onigiri above, for example.  They were made with a teddy bear onigiri mold.  I've used the same mold to make bears, pandas, racoons, frogs and a few other things.  The tools certainly aren't necessary for bento making, but they can be so much fun and open up new realms of creative thinking!

In the bento: Two frog onigiri, cherries, fried tofu, carrot flowers, a huge cherry tomato and steamed broccoli.

Green food coloring was added to the water before I cooked the rice which gave a lovely light green hue.  The eyes were cut from white egg sheet and nori.  Their noses were black sesame seeds and the mouths cut from nori with scissors.  The carrot flowers are the best thing about this bento, in my opinion, because I just learned how to do it!  I love them!  Learning how to cut the flowers this way was part of what I did on my birthday.  A-chan gave a gratifying gasp of amazement when she saw them.

Have a Happy Monday, everyone!

Hug Me!

What is your opinion on kissing frogs?  Mine tends to be along the lines of 'Ewwwww'!  But I'm okay with hugging one.  Anyway...

It's Friday!  The happy Friday dance commenced a little later than normal this morning.  Ahhh, lovely Friday.  I am so looking forward to the weekend.  Not only am I planning to put away the Christmas decorations, there is going to be a huge cleaning spree!

In the bento: Vegetarian spaghetti, picks of black olives, a lemon slice, nectarine chunks, baby corn, a strawberry balloon, cucumber froggie and cheese letters.

The tiny letters were made with my brand new letter cutters that I got at IchibanCon.  Aren't they cute?  I'm loving them!  The frog face was cut from cucumber peel using a frog/teddy bear face cutter.  His body was cut with a knife but the arms were left over from the face cutting.  The eyes and mouth were cut from provolone and his nose is sesame seeds.

Here is a link to my vegetarian spaghetti recipe (on my other blog): http://incaseofasparagus.blogspot.com/2012/01/make-spaghetti-vegetarian-style.html