Sho Totoro

Fall makes me think of Totoro, mainly because of the association with acorns.  It is definitely acorn season right now and A-chan enjoyed picking up a lot of them on our walk in the Botanical Gardens yesterday.   The river that the trail runs beside is extremely low and showed us how much we needed the rain that has been falling the past few days.  We could see all the trash on the riverbed that is normally hidden by the rushing water.  It made us both very sad.

In the bento: Pink rice with black sesame seeds, stirfry with tofu, baby corn, broccoli, zucchini and orange bell pepper, grapes, apples, baby tomatoes and a carrot acorn.

Sho Totoro and the soot sprites are made from provolone cheese and nori.  I did a really quick version of the little Totoro so he's looking a little bit strange but A-chan loved him all the same :)

One of the yo-yo balloons that A-chan won at the JapanFest game is barely visible in the background.  She won four of them and unbelievably they are all still in existence!

Huge flower onigiri

Good morning!  It's still raining today, how awesome is that?  The rain has been absent from our lives for quite some time so it's a relief to get two days worth.  Except that all I want to do is curl up with a book and some coffee and forget about working :)

This huge flower onigiri is the reason behind the pink rice that A-chan requested.  She wanted a pink flower onigiri bento!  Our new rice cooker's first job was a huge batch of pink rice.  And do I mean huge!  We're probably still going to be eating pink rice next week.

In the bento:  Pink rice onigiri with provolone cheese petals and carrot center, baby corn spears, apple bunny, a small bunch of grapes, fried tofu, steamed green beans and a pick of baby tomatoes.

The humongous flower onigiri mold is in the background.  It's all sleek and shiny and I love it!  However, the metal tends to get a bit hot when it's full of freshly cooked rice.  I ended up having to get out my oven mitt to finish the onigiri.  

The size of the onigiri also means that there is no way for A-chan to eat it by hand so she uses a fork.

A Quick Dinner

Today the wonders of time-lapse photography will show the making of my quick and simple Curry Rice dinner bento from yesterday.  You are seeing pink rice because that is what A-chan requested, please do not adjust your screen.

Rice 

Lettuce as a divider

Curry plopped on top of the rice

Eggroll angled in the back of the bento

Next a small bunch of grapes

Hiding edamame and baby tomatoes underneath

Edamame pick and halved baby tomato are pretty!

The final bento with a simple flower put in last.

In the bento:  Pink rice, vegetarian Japanese curry with tofu, carrots, onion and potatoes, a small bunch of grapes, edamame on a pick,baby tomato and a Japchae and chili pepper eggroll.

There are more edamame and baby tomatoes hidden underneath the eggroll and grapes.  The flower was cut from jalapeno cheese and I used a halved edamame for leaves and black sesame seeds for some contrast.

It's a lightsaber!

There are only a few phrases that a bento-making mom dreads to hear.  Among them are, "I dropped my bento", "What is the cat doing on the counter?" and the most horrible of all, "What is that supposed to be?"  Guess which one was said this morning?  Sigh.  Yes, it was the last one.  Once I explained that it was a boy with a lightsaber A-chan could suddenly see it.  "Oh, now I see.  It's Anakin!" She exclaimed.  What is the most dreaded phrase that you guys fear?

In the bento: Frozen blueberries in a container, soy sauce tofu chunks, a baby corn spear, baby tomatoes, dill pickle slices, miniature pancakes (there are three more under the boy's face) and a carrot lightsaber.

A Bridie Day

 Today's bento is extremely simple, but still cute and fun.  There are a few things missing in the color department due to the fact that I never made it to the grocery store this weekend.  However, we went to JapanFest instead - so much better than the store!  In the background is the lovely bento loot that I bought:  The green crab furoshiki, the pink flower furoshiki and those elegant flower picks!

In the bento: A bunch of Mac n cheese, a bunch of grapes, some steamed broccoli, 3 vegetarian Forfar Bridies (the shy one is hiding behind the smiling ones).  Because of my allergy to bananas I'm afraid that bananas in our house tend to be rather boring.  This one is outside the box :)

JapanFest was a wonderful experience that we can't wait to repeat next year.  We arrived at 10 am to watch the Sumo wrestling which A-chan still claims was her favorite part of the day.  The traditional Japanese dancing was a pleasure to watch and also gave me a few pointers to work on in my own dance.

A-chan concentrating at the Children's Calligraphy Workshop

 I was impressed with the detail and preparation that went into the Children's Calligraphy Workshop.  The kids learned not only the way to draw the modern Kanji for 'friends' but also the history of the kanji.

A-chan and Ichigo 

 We couldn't resist taking a picture in front of the huge lucky kitty!  The pink osanpo, instantly named 'Ichigo' was A-chan's happiest purchase of the day and continues to be well-loved even at home.

Our lunch: Udon noodles, dango and dorayaki

 Finding Vegetarian food for lunch was a bit of a challenge.  I had planned to make bentos but my rice cooker chose that morning to die leaving me devastated and bento-less.  We enjoyed our noodles and desserts very much, though!  Another aspect that we thoroughly enjoyed were the festival games.  A-chan and I both went Yo-yo balloon fishing and she was rather delighted that she was very good at it while I...frankly stunk at it.  She also got a huge kick out of the fact that even though she lost the ring toss game they still gave her some cotton candy.  As we watched the anime 'KamiChu' last night, A-chan exclaimed with great pleasure over the scene where kids were given cotton candy at a temple festival.

Playing ring toss 

We also learned about flower arranging, listened to a rock concert, watched a kendo match, enjoyed the large scale calligraphy demonstration, learned about the history of mecha anime and fell in love with the koi at the koi show.  It was so much fun that we didn't leave until it ended at 6!

A Fruit Bento and a Thank you Bento

 These fruit bentos are starting to grow on me.  Last Friday I was worried that I had given A-chan too much fruit for Pizza day but she ate every bit of it.  So today I filled up the box worry-free!  Unfortunately I didn't have much variety of color in fruit so it's a little heavy on the red.  The little watermelon divider I stuck in just for fun.

In the bento: Strawberry slices, apple plum pieces, orange slices and provolone cheese flowers.

Sasha has been sick all week.  Not only is she our smallest kitty, she is also quite feisty.   So much so, in fact that even with her wrapped up in a towel and scruffed I wasn't able to give her the medicine.  There was medicine on me, on A-chan, the chair, the table, the towel, the floor and even the ceiling - but none inside the cat.  A friend of mine who happens to work at our vet office took pity on me and has gone above and beyond the call of duty to come over every day and give Sasha her meds.  It's amazing to watch - it takes her 5 seconds and it goes where it's supposed to!  To thank her for using her lunch hour to make up for my cat medicine ineptitude, I made her a bento yesterday.

For the box I used a brilliant idea from Sherimiya of Happy Little Bento and recycled a fruit container!  I lined the bottom with two layers of basket wrap and then topped that off with a layer of lettuce leaves before packing in the food.  That was mainly to prevent anything from dripping through the holes in the bottom.

In the bento:  A huge slice of orange, edamame on a bamboo pick, two onigiri with beni shuga on top, persian cucumber slices, carrot flowers, beef gyoza, baby corn spears, a container of edamame and a bamboo pick of black olives.

Flower Garden

 I wanted to make a flower garden bento using some of my Japanese vegetable cutters this morning.  Some of them are huge and don't get used very often because it is difficult to find veggies that are large enough.  Luckily we picked up some Japanese carrots and purple yams at Super H Mart over the weekend.

In the bento: The fruit section contains apple plum slices, orange slices, strawberry slices and lots of pieces of baby corn including some on a leaf pick.  The other side has a fake-tsukune patty with a circle of bread behind, steamed broccoli, carrot flowers, cheese flowers, a purple yam flower and hiding between the broccoli and carrots is a Mac and Cheese ball.

The Tsukune patty is decorated with mayo in a traditional henna flower pattern.  Sesame seeds decorate the carrot and purple yam flowers and to make my pink-obsessed girl happy there is a pink flower divider.  Not shown are a soy sauce bottle and a ketchup container.

Below was my lunch bento yesterday.  I promised myself Indian food after going to a Bollywood dance class the night before.  I love Indian food, the spicier the better!  Since I knew that this feast wasn't going to be shared with A-chan I spiked up the heat to a level 20.  So yummy :)

In my bento:  Naan (frozen, from Trader Joe's), a miniature orange pepper with raita inside, persian cucumber spears, chana masala in the blue cup, veggie biryani and tofu musallam.

I adapted the tofu musallam from a recipe for Murgh Musallam which is 'Whole chicken baked in Aluminum Foil' from a cookbook by Madhur Jaffrey.