Butterfly on a Pancake

I love doing Henna.  And I love that it can translate into decorating food!  When A-chan asked me to combine miniature pancakes with butterflies I was thrilled and jumped on the opportunity to put one of my favorite henna designs in her lunch.

In the bento: The large tier holds a mini muffin cup of tiny grapes, two slices of fuji apple, miniature pancakes , one carrot flower and one cheese flower.  The small tier has three waffle fries, a carrot butterfly, a tomato on a plaid pick, three veggie sausage links, steamed broccoli and more cheese flowers.

To draw the butterfly I made a henna cone which is basically a tiny version of an icing bag.  I filled it with strawberry flavored icing and piped out the design.  In the background is a tiny monkey container that is filled with more icing to be spread on the rest of the pancakes.  It is honestly very small and doesn't have room for much icing, but it makes her happy and is much less messy than syrup or honey!

The sausage links were originally two links that I cut in half.  For some reason I always tend to group things like the sausage links in threes.  I'm not sure why.  But I am always happy to eat the leftover portion for my breakfast.

Curry is Yummy!

Coming home from a trip to find that I had large amounts of Japanese curry already made and waiting in the freezer brought forth feelings akin to winning the lottery.  This stuff is a perfect foil to the rainy, dreary weather that is plaguing us this week.  Add to that the fact that it freezes well and was awesomely easy to reheat and you know why I'm in love with this dish!

In the bento: Japanese curry and rice, chunks of pear in a container, baby corn spears and a cherry tomato.

The curry contains onion, carrot, potato and tofu.  There is a small layer of rice underneath the curry sauce in addition to the sidewall of rice to keep the curry contained.  A carrot flower with black sesame seeds and snap pea leaves gives the curry a little pizzazz.  I am always amazed at what the black sesame seeds do to carrots - the orange color suddenly pops!  The panda pick just adds a tiny bit of cuteness :)

Here is a link to my Japanese Curry recipe.  It's very simple and totally incredible.  (I think everyone should try it!)

Bearly Corndogs

IchibanCon was amazing!  We had a wonderful time meeting new people and enjoying the ...well, everything! Everyone was incredibly friendly.  The hallway decorations were way cool.  I loved the panels that I got to go see and desperately wished that I had been able to get to more of them.  I'm hoping that I get to go back next year :)  And we even got home safely despite getting lost in Greenville, SC in a vain search for a Thai restaurant.  (That was an adventure...)

While I usually try to pack A-chan's bentos with more healthy food than junk food, sometimes I just can't help slipping in some good old fashioned corndogs.  These, however, are better than regular corn dogs.  They are miniature vegetarian corndogs with no sticks!  It can't get better than that!

In the bento: Three miniature corndog bears, a cherry tomato, steamed broccoli, checkerboard apple, two potato and onion pierogies, carrot flowers and two plaid picks for fun.

The corndogs took only 60 secs to microwave to perfection.  The pierogies took longer since they had to be boiled and then pan fried in butter, but they were still under the ten minute mark.

The bear faces and ears were cut from provolone cheese (surprise, surprise, lol) and nori.  Tiny pieces of uncooked somen noodles were stuck halfway through the ears and half into the dogs.  Ketchup was applied with the blunt end of a toothpick to create cheeks.

Simple ravioli bento

There are days when I just can't help but smile.  Today is beautiful!  Bright sunshine, blue skies, temperatures are back to levels that are not crazy cold.  2012 is starting out as a wonderful year.  A-chan and I are heading to IchibanCon in Charlotte, NC tomorrow.  It's our first event of the year and we can't wait!

In the bento: Four cheese ravioli with red peppers and feta, Morningstar Farms veggie link sausages, clementine pieces, steamed broccoli, apple bunny and a tiny wedge of lemon.

This bento is very simple, but very filling!

Lila's Gift

Hi Y'all!  Happy New Year!  Long time no see - how ya been?  The holidays were fantastic and fun, but I feel a bit like I've been trampled by an elephant.  Slogging through molasses somewhat towards the direction of the normal groove, I am finally doing the first bento post of the year!  I am so excited, I can't wait to see what bentos everyone comes up with in the new year!

Technically this is a bento from last year.  One of my dance students asked me to buy a bento box and fill it with food as a Christmas gift for her boss.  She wanted to try and inspire her boss to eat healthier lunches in the new year, which I thought was a sweet gift idea.  This cute box with matching fork and case came from Ohayo Bento's store.  It is filled with easy to make things that I consider to be classic bento foods.

In the bento: Sugar snap peas, carrot flowers, cauliflower, vegetable gyoza, clementine pieces, cherries, vegetable fried rice with nori on top and cherry tomato halves.

The three color vegetables is one of the most recognizable bento dishes.  I can't count the number of bento books that I've seen it in, not to mention the tons of bento posts out there on blogs and flickr!  It is usually cauliflower, zucchini and carrots.  I substituted the snap peas for the zucchini because I wanted their texture. The veggie gyoza were store bought and were cooked straight from the freezer.  First they were browned in a bit of olive oil and then I finished them up by steaming with a small amount of water.

Ornamental Fruit

Wow.  The last few days have been crazy busy!  Here is A-chan's Pizza friday bento.  The bento only has fruit to eat alongside the pizza.  Are you ready for the holidays?  We are having so much fun with parties and decorating and cookies and craziness!

In the bento: A clementine ornament, an apple ornament, some blackberry ornaments, pomegranate seeds, pink egg sheet flower and some steamed zucchini slices.

Notice how I snuck some veggies in there?  Yeah, I'm sneaky like that.  The ornament designs on the clementine were cut with an exacto knife while the apple stripes and zucchini stripes were cut with a paring knife.  I was delighted to find a way to use all of these picks!  For some reason I have a difficult time figuring out uses for them.

I hope that you are all having a wonderful time!

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!