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!

Stripey Heart bento bag

It's been a while since I did a post with a bento craft. This one is a matching set with a bento bag and band. I was getting fed up with the bento bags that we had for while they were nice and easy to use, they were for adult sized bento boxes. They left enough room for my daughter's small toddler boxes to slip and slide instead of being carried securely. So we went to the fabric store and she picked out the fabric that she wanted which got transformed into the bag and band!

For the drawstring I took some extra cotton yarn that I had left over from her baby sweater (I finished the sweater a few months after she was born and I was so glad to finally have found a use for the yarn!) that is braided and then just knotted on the ends. The hearts are felt and hand sewn onto the bag and band. Inside the cute stripey band is strong elastic.

It was such a hit that she has already asked to purchase more fabric and requested a kitty face on the next one! The bag fits her smaller bentos very securely and I'm very pleased with how well it works.

Tae Kwon Do Bento

As I am sitting at the Dojang and watching my girl do her second Taekwondo class of the day (woohooo!) I am delighted to be putting up this bento that she had for school lunch recently. She is so enamored of TKD and wants to start entering tournaments. She recently got her third green stripe on her yellow belt and will soon be testing for green belt. I love watching her practice, it's funny sometimes and just plain awesome other times.

Left side: Sauteed tofu heart, cheddar cheese blocks, purple grapes, cherry tomato, sweet gherkins, baby corn and carrot letters.

Right side: Jasmine rice covered by sesame carrots, green peas and corn. Mozzarella cheese dobok (uniform) with cheddar cheese belt, parsley sprig green stripes.

I got the appellation of "good, good, good mommy" for this bento, lol. Warms my heart so, it does. I'm going to have to start thinking up extra excuses for making bentos this summer. I've gotten spoiled by schooldays!

MomoCon Bentos

It's that time again! Yes, Spring is here and we celebrated mightily by our annual attendance at MomoCon. We had a fabulous time with 6, 998 good buddies :) A-chan and I made our first origami turtles together in a workshop. I learned how to do kanzashi flowers in wonderful class. We both indulged our love of shopping for cute things. And I had a reason to put together some bentos, yay!!!Since A-chan was going to be wearing her Mokona backpack all day I was inspired to try a Mokona bento. My main problem was that I made Mokona waaaaay too large. I had originally intended to have Mokona take up only one half of a tier, haha :) There was no way that A-chan could eat the huge rice ball but she enjoyed the other smaller parts (ears and feet).

Top tier: Tofu heart sauteed with soy sauce, Lemon bowl with chickpeas, huge strawberry, curry rice, carrot flowers. Before putting in the curry I made a barrier with rice - building it up high on one side to keep the curry in place.

Bottom tier: 5 rice balls, one huge, 2 medium long ones, 2 smaller round ones. Huge lettuce leaf underneath, halved baby tomato for the forehead jewel, soy bologna inner ears and mouth, nori eyes and smile, pickled ginger cheeks and carrot flower.

My bento was a bit more sober and not as fun. It was yummy though! More fun with my letter cutters which I love soooo much.

Top tier: Curry rice with all the rice hidden under the curry. Carrot letters, yay!

Bottom tier: Tofu heart sauteed in soy sauce, slice of lemon, two huge strawberries, baby corn on picks, carrot flowers and heart, veggie gyoza.

The large carrot flowers in both bentos were cut from the humongous asian carrots from Super H Mart. The bits of tofu that were left over from cutting out the hearts were also sauteed and are hidden underneath the hearts. Not as lovely so they were hidden, but still tasty!

Peace and Peas Bento

This bento was all about the babybel cheese in the center. Yep, the cheese :) I wanted to do something striking with the round of cheese that A-chan wanted in her bento so I started thinking about round symbols. Then I narrowed it down to round symbols that I could make out of nori. And even further to round symbols that I could cut out of nori with my kitchen scissors...so it wasn't intended to be a meaningful bento, exactly. But then I wondered if the word peace would fit in the top of the box with the letter cutters that I have. It did! I was happy :)

The top portion contains: couscous with carrot letters and pea accents.
The bottom portion contains: One babybel cheese with peace symbol, one miniature corn croquette, one baby tomato cut in halves, one heart container filled with tiny peach squares, one tiny sweet gherkin, three picks with sauteed tofu and green peas.

The little heart container just refused to cooperate. It was determined to go all squished no matter what I did, so I finally admitted defeat and just let it be. A-chan mentioned that the peas got moved around while she was carrying the bento. Next time I will press them down into the couscous a bit more.