Scotland!

As one might surmise from the picture above, my girl and I are very enthusiastic about our Scottish roots and Scottish culture.  This was her lunch yesterday as we watched the vote for independence unfold.  I bet you can't tell which side we were cheering for, eh?  Hehe.  Anyway, it was a fun lunch to make!  And I have to admit that sheep faces are not as easy as I had thought.  It took me three tries to make one that I was happy with.

In the bento:  Underneath the Saltire flag is a PB and sugar sprinkle sandwich, there are three small Forfar bridies (two are hidden behind the sheep), a couple of Tofurky and cream cheese rolls, a checkered apple, steamed broccoli and cauliflower, a tiny cherry tomato and some mandarin orange slices.

The flag was made from blue egg sheet and provolone cheese.  It was probably the easiest thing I've ever made with egg sheet!  The sheep and his opinion were also cut from provolone, but his face was hand cut with scissors from a sheet of nori.  Lots of lettuce cushions everything and makes sure that the flavors don't mix.

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!

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.

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.

What do you mean it's Monday?

I love how expressive faces can be on bento characters.  This rabbit's face expresses exactly how I feel.  How can it be Monday again already?  I will conquer the Monday, mwahahaha!  A-chan made sure to notify me that the ears would get squished when I put on the lid, but I laid them flat on top of the veggies and fruit to fix that problem.

In the bento:  Cheese sandwich, strawberries, kiwi, blackberries, corn on the cob, steamed broccoli steamed cauliflower and carrot bunnies.

The bunny's ears were cut from the heel of the bread and provolone cheese.  His mouth is another piece of bread cut in a circle with an x of nori on top.  It is held to the sandwich underneath with a pink pick. The white parts of the eyes were cut from (you guessed it) provolone cheese.  The green parts are zucchini peel and of course the black is nori!  The little carrot bunnies have mouths cut from tiny slivers of zucchini peel.

I'm experimenting with using more veggies to decorate with instead of nori.  It helps to use up some of the scraps that are created from making the charaben, so it feels better to me.  Plus it adds more color which is always a good thing!  The zucchini bits used in this bento were saved from the scraps that I cut out from another bento.  They were saved in an airtight container in the fridge.

Stamped Sammie Rolls

Hello Wednesday!  I'm glad to finally have time to post this week.  How does school become so utterly time-consuming?  Yesterday I was a volunteer model for the ultrasound students at my college.  They told me that I had a beautiful Aorta, how cool is that!

In the bento:  Two peanut butter roll sammies, Morningstar Farms sausage links, baby corn, steamed broccoli, a cherry, strawberry halves, three baby carrot flowers, some edamame pods and lemon wedges.

The sandwich rolls are fairly dense.  I took slices of bread and cut off the crusts before flattening them with a rolling pen.  Then added the peanut butter and sugar sprinkles before rolling them.  Each one has two slices of bread rolled up in order to make them substantial enough for the Hello Kitty stamp.  They were then wrapped in saran wrap and tied at the ends with large ribbons.  Getting the ribbon ends to fit into the bento enough to get the lid closed was quite the challenge!

I hope that everyone is having a great week!

Hot Dog Lions

I remember when A-chan was about three years old and I was delighted with the use of hot dogs that could be cut up in clever ways for bentos.  They looked so appetizing and fun that I couldn't wait until she was old enough that it was safe to give her hot dogs that weren't cut into minuscule pieces.  This style of hot dog use was one of my favorites to look at.  I was in a big hurry so my cuts are very messy and not nearly as pretty as I would have liked, but I'm still happy with the hot dog love!

In the bento: Two tiny peanut butter circle lion sammies surrounded by hot dog manes.  Boiled edamame, baby carrots, baby corn, grapes and a large cherry tomato cut in half.

The lion faces were punched from nori and secured to the bread with a tiny dab of peanut butter on the back which was applied with the tip of a toothpick.  The hot dogs were cooked then sliced almost all the way through, then secured in a circle with small pieces of uncooked soba noodle.  In the background is the container that I filled with ketchup for dipping hot dogs in.

After DragonCon Bento

It was the morning after DragonCon and few groceries were in the house.  The worst bento transgression was about to occur for we had no fruit!  It pained me greatly but still I labored to put one together, swearing to shop just as soon as I could.   Instead of lettuce to line and to cushion I cut apart muffin cups and used them where needed.  What a wonderful time we had at that pinnacle of Conventions, meeting lots of great people hither and yon.  Much thanks to all those who attended my classes, I had a fantastic time and I hope that you did as well!

In the bento:  Peanut butter and sugar sprinkle sandwiches, steamed broccoli, baby tomatoes on Kappa picks, baby carrots, cheddar cheese chunks and the tiny chick container of frozen blueberries which was all the fruit I could find.

It was a fantastic convention and we loved every minute and we can't wait for next year!  We dressed up in several different costumes.  Here are a couple of pics of our matching Victorian outfits.

 It's always a difficult transition to come home after an amazing event and I made the mistake of forgetting to stop for groceries.  Luckily we had enough food on hand to make a bento but I was a little nervous for a while this morning.  In the background is A-chan's snack container filled with the last few Cheetos that we had left over from our junk food stash in the hotel room.

Snail!

The Snail of Destiny!  Not really, it just sounded good.  I promised A-chan a snail bento after our last trip to the Botanical Gardens where she picked up a leaf to find two tiny snails attached to the underside.  We were both delighted and fascinated with them and watched them for a long time.

In the bento: A cheese sandwich, baby corn, carrot flowers, a cherry, an apple bunny and steamed broccoli.

The Snail was made from three egg sheets:  one white, one grey and one brown.  The grey color was achieved with the addition of cherry juice to the egg mixture before cooking.  I was trying to get a nice light pink color and was greatly disappointed that it turned grey instead.  The brown egg sheet turned out fabulous with the addition of cocoa powder to the egg mix.  I must admit that I have not actually tasted the chocolate egg sheet yet.  Eventually I will wrap my brain around the concept and try it but for now I'm just using it for decorative purposes.

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!

Dressed Up Sammies

One of the most fun ways to eat carrots is slurping up carrot ribbons.  They are still a bit crisp but also long and curly.  I use the carrot peeler that my Mom had in her kitchen when I was growing up.  Every time I do, I give a little sigh of thanks that she gave it to me.  It's one of my all time favorite kitchen tools and if it were ever lost I would be desolate.

In the bento: Carrot ribbons in a silicone container, steamed broccoli, half a cherry tomato, corn on the cob, grapes and pear slices are in one tier. The top tier has two soy turkey and cheese sammies and the other half of the cherry tomato.

The sammies are pretty basic but a provolone cheese flower and green onion wrapping makes them dressy and elegant.  The green onions were plopped into boiling water for 3 minutes, drained and dried before being cut in two lengthwise and knotted around the sandwiches.  The boiling made them pliable and shiny at the same time!

Two Toads Came to Dinner

This week I am exploring the decorative uses of daikon radish.  These fabulous stand-up eyes are thick slices of radish, aren't they cool?  So far A-chan isn't convinced that radishes are food, but one day I will get her to concede.  In the meantime we are both loving the new uses I'm finding for them and I'm enjoying A-chan's leftover radish pickles!

In the bento: A Morningstar Farms Chik Patty sandwich with mayo, cheese, curly lettuce and radish eyes.  There is also half of a cherry tomato, two orange slices and two small pieces of baby corn.

The toad's noses are black sesame seeds.  The mouth and pupils are nori, affixed by small amounts of mayo.  I sacrificed the other half of the tomato to cut peel for the toad's cheeks.  This was one of our rare dinner bentos, meant to be eaten in the car on the way to dance class.  Yum!

Just a Little Mouse

This little mouse is full of curry.  Even healthier than normal vegetarian Japanese curry to be precise.  I'm very proud of this particular curry because I managed to sneak baby spinach into it by cutting the spinach into fine strips.  I don't think A-chan noticed.  She certainly ate every bite last night so I'm considering this another triumph for nutritious eating!  So far I've managed to sneak kabocha, cauliflower, zucchini and spinach into our curry.  Only one at a time, though.  The next challenge is to add two or more and see if she balks, hehe.  I have been enjoying these small changes to our regular recipes.  Even though they are not large portions of extra vegetables, my philosophy is better some than none.  We are eating a little healthier every day!

In the bento:  Bread and curry rolls, carrot flowers, black olives, corn on the cob, a huge strawberry and steamed broccoli.

My favorite parts of the mouse are the corn kernel earrings.  Her face was made with provolone cheese, nori, ketchup cheeks and a pick for the nose.  The large carrot flowers were decorated with black sesame seeds, the small flowers have either a sugar dot or a tiny provolone cheese circle.

The filled bread rolls are inspired by Bentolicious.  Lia has a fantastic tutorial on these cute bento sandwiches!

Butterfly Fans

Ahhh, the glories of Spring!  Everywhere we look there are butterflies and flowers.  And the fruit, don't forget all the delicious incredible spring fruit.  There is a farm nearby that allows people to come and pick huge buckets of strawberries.  Soon, very soon, we will be in strawberry ecstasy.  But until then I decided to stick with butterflies, flowers and an apple bunny.

In the bento: Two peanut butter and sugar sprinkle sandwiches with fan decorations, sesame carrots, corn on the cob, steamed broccoli, carrot flower petals, steamed sugar snap peas, an apple bunny and mango chunks that are hiding behind the apple.  (You can see a hint of the hiding mango because it has the circular pick stuck into it.)

The fan shapes were cut from provolone cheese, the butterflies were cut from nori, the tiny flowers are carrots with snap pea leaves and sugar dots to add some color.  I would love to be able to say that I had cut the butterflies by hand, but alas I cannot make that claim.  The source of their magnificence is a scrapbook cutter that I purchased at Michael's the other day.  Though I attempted to refrain from the purchase, my bento greed won out!

A-chan never gets peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for school.  Not only is there too much sugar in jelly but it has a potential for incredible messes.  Instead I use sugar sprinkles (normally used on cookies, cupcakes, etc.) because they give the hint of sweetness that she loves without the mess or the sugar crash.

The Magic of Love

Hello Kitty wishes for everyone to have a Happy Valentine's Day!  She is using her magic wand to create love wherever she goes.  A-chan thought that it was a pretty bento but she couldn't tell what was going on without a little narration.  I was so excited to use my lovely gold sugar again that I sprinkled it quite liberally.

In the bento:  Peanut butter and sugar sprinkle sandwich with Hello Kitty on top, carrot flowers, tofu heart, black olive, apple with hearts cutout and a huge chocolate heart.

Off to the side is a glimpse of our Valentine's project yesterday.  A-chan cut paper, stamped stamps, punched heart shaped holes, cut ribbons, made chocolates and tied them all up together.  She was so excited about giving them to her schoolmates today.  They are not as fancy as she wanted them to be, but we managed to get them all made in one afternoon!

Hello Kitty's dress and the magic hearts were all cut from a new product that I found at Hobby Lobby, called Sugar Sheets.  It was very stiff and wouldn't work with cookie cutters but the exacto knife did a great job.  I love the color, especially since my pink egg sheets don't seem to stay pink in the pictures that I take!  The rest of Hello Kitty was cut from Provolone cheese, as were the letters.  Her face was punched from nori and her bow cut from carrot.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Kero-chan!

Over the school break for MLK Day I decided to do some egg sheet practice.  I wasn't sure what I was going to use all of the egg sheets that I made for exactly, so I wrapped them up in cling wrap and stored them in the fridge until inspiration struck.  I think I'm getting better at making them!  Although I'm still not sure why my egg sheets are always so shiny in pictures, lol.

One of A-chan's favorite manga is Card Captor Sakura so I decided to make Kero-chan for her.

In the bento: Cheese and soy turkey sandwich, egg sheet kero-chan, steamed broccoli, baby carrots, baby corn, grapes and plum slices.

I used scissors to cut the crust off the bread slices.  Most of the time when I try to cut bread with a knife I end up with a much smaller piece of bread and a lot of crumbs.  Instead of using scissors to cut the egg sheets, this time I utilized my handy dandy exacto knife which was way more fun.

Panda Sammie Cuteness

Today is going to be a blast from the past!  I'm going to resurrect some ancient primitive technology skills to demo for A-chan's class. We're talking way back. Only a few of the artifacts that were created in our days of primitive skills glory will get to shine today.  The ones I'm most proud of were the bone needle, awl and pins that I carved with flint tools that I knapped myself - it was so cool.  The part that A-chan is looking forward to the most is the atlatl demonstration.  That's the one I'm nervous about.  While my husband is a spear throwing genius, my skills in that area generally lead to embarrassment.  But the kids will still enjoy it and get to learn about ancient techniques to go along with their early human class arc.  What does this have to do with a panda sandwich in a bento?  Um...nothing...I'm just totally excited!

In the bento: Panda sandwich filled with cheese and mayo, nectarine slices, steamed broccoli, baby tomatoes with musical picks, lemon slices, a flowery container of tofu, baby corn and carrot stirfry, cheese stars.

The panda's features were cut with a nori punch and glued to the bread with tiny amounts of mayo that I applied with a toothpick.  The same technique was used to place the sesame seeds for the eyes.  The veggies and tofu were quick stir fried with with ginger, garlic and soy sauce.

Snowman Sammies

What do you do with leftover Japanese curry when you've run out of rice?  Make curry sammies!  One of the most intriguing food items that I've seen in Anime is 'curry bread' or 'curry pan'.  Now, I have no idea if this is anything like real curry bread, but I decided to make my own version.  I spooned some curry sauce onto a slice of bread,  making sure that at least one piece of each type of veggie was included.  After placing a second slice on top, I used a plastic cup to cut out the sammie and seal the edges at the same time.  All the leftover bread pieces got saved into an airtight container to be used in the fake greek meatballs I'm making for dinner tonight.  I love it when things work out that way!

It was extremely difficult to get the smaller snowman to look jolly instead of sinister.  I'm not sure why.  Maybe because he is peeking over the tomato?  He still has a crazed look about him, but I think the pink cheeks helped.

In the bento: Two curry sammies, a huge cherry tomato, carrot sticks, steamed broccoli, blackberries and pomegranate seeds.

The snowmen faces were made from nori and provolone cheese.   I cut small slits into the bread  to stick in the cute carrot triangles noses.  The psychopath snowman has pink cheeks cut from leftover pink egg sheet. All of the facial features were 'glued' onto the bread by small amounts of mayo.

I love their hats!  They were cut from large pieces of zucchini, with thin slices of zucchini flesh for the dapper bands.  To make them more festive I added tiny pieces of steamed broccoli and a pomegranate seed to each.  I used a dried spaghetti noodle stuck through the bottom to attach them by then sticking the other end of the noodle into the sandwich.

A small confession - I got into trouble with this bento.  The hats were huge!  There was absolutely no way that the lid could fit onto the box.  I had to take the hats off and stick them inside the bento in another location.  A-chan was very understanding and said that she was fine sticking them back onto the snowmen herself at lunchtime.  Whew!

Rudolph's Getting Ready!

Rudolph is primping for his big day, putting on his new collar with the huge bow.  He's counting down the days until Christmas and so are we.  A-chan was so inspired by our Advent Calendar this year that she asked Santa to bring her some mittens.  I managed to talk her out of the automatic snowball throwing machine she also wanted, whew!

In the bento: Cheese sandwich with rudolph on top, steamed broccoli, soy sauce tofu, a huge strawberry, two picks with carrot flowers and black olives, a couple of tiny slivers of mango.

Rudolph was cut from soy turkey with my food scissors.  The soy turkey that I like to use for sandwiches comes in very thin slices so I used three layers to make him more substantial.  His eye and antlers were cut from provolone cheese and his beautiful red nose was the end of a strawberry.  The handsome collar was cut from nori and has a pasta bow with a strawberry slice, provolone circle and a nori heart for festive decoration.

Cooking all took place in one pot - first boiling the pasta.  I cooked three pieces of bowtie pasta just in case something untoward happened and I needed backups.  Once the pasta was done I removed them with chopsticks and then cooked the broccoli with the still hot water.  After the broccoli was ready I poured out the water and replaced it with sesame oil to cook the tofu.  It took about 15 minutes total cooking time, during which I was making the sammie and reindeer.  I could have cut down on the cooking time and used two pots (one for veggies, one for tofu) but I was focusing on tidier cooking this morning.

What do you think of the labels, etc. that I've been putting on some bento pictures?  Other bento makers have caught my eye with labels and decor on their bento pictures, like Lia Chen at Bentolicious whose are always gorgeous.  I wanted to give it a try.  It's fun and I've enjoyed doing it but I'm not sure if I should keep it up. I need opinions from you guys!  Is it okay or ickle?

This post is linked up at Today's Creative Blog.

Tofu Aliens!

A-chan requested Tofu Aliens in her bento today.  The Tofu Aliens had originally started as doodles last Christmas during a long drive up to visit family.  They were so fun to draw that I kept doing more and more! We even thought up a few stories to go along with them.  I wish that I had time to share one with you, but today is Advent Calendar day.  That means I need to get to work on wrapping little gifts and hanging them up!

In the bento: The fruit tier holds a container of pomegranate seeds, checkered apple pieces, tangerine slices, a small bunch of grapes and two picks with black olives.  The second tier has three peanut butter and sugar sprinkle sandwiches, carrot flowers, steamed broccoli and two tofu aliens.

The tofu aliens are made from extra firm tofu blocks that were lightly pan seared in sesame oil.  Their eyes are nori and half cooked spaghetti noodles were perfect for the antennae.  The ends of the antennae were cut from apple peel pieces that were removed from the checkerboard apples.  After a failed attempt at making cheeks with pomegranate juice I decided to use soy bologna to hide what turned out looking like bruises as the juice turned purple.

Here is one of my silly but fun Tofu Alien doodles!