Love Bunny

I have decided that the exacto knife is the bento maker's Sonic Screwdriver.  That thing is awesome!  This morning instead of playing it safe and cutting hearts in the apple as usual, I took the adventurous route and used the exacto knife to cut the heart shapes instead. Eureka!  Clean edges and no bruising means that the perfect apple carving tool is finally within my grasp.  *Insert sinister laugh here*

In the bento: Miniature pancakes, a container of feta, carrot hearts, Morningstar Farms sausage links, apple, sugar snap peas, a lemon wedge, and blackberries. The little monkey container has strawberry icing inside.

The bunny face was made with nori, carrot, and provolone cheese with strawberry jelly for the cheeks.  The pancakes are part of my freezer stash - Frozen miniature Eggo pancakes.  They are easy to cook on early mornings but I still wish that I could make homemade pancakes.  One day I will learn, but for now I won't try my hand at burning more.

Pastitsio Bento

Ahhh, Monday.  The sun is shining but it is as cold as all get out!  I've never been exactly sure what that phrase meant.  My grandparents used it a lot as I was growing up and it is now part of my brain function whether I understand it or not.  Might as well use it, right?  Today's bento of leftover vegetarian Pastitsio is perfect for this weather and it's all for me.  Happy Meatless Monday!

The package of sesame leaves that I picked up last night is the excuse for making myself a bento today.  They looked so pretty and it's been a long time since I've done anything experimental food-wise.  These are actually Perilla leaves which are related to Basil and Mint, but are often marketed under the name Sesame leaves.  Since I'm allergic to Mint, today's experiment is very cautious.  If I have no reactions today I will be more adventurous later in the week.  I love how the leaf looks in the bento - can't wait to actually try tasting it!

A-chan chose Starfruit as her food experiment.  So far she hasn't liked it, but I am so proud of her for trying it!  And since she doesn't like it that just means more for me...

In the bento:  Vegetarian Pastitsio, Perilla leaf, an almond, baby carrots, a huge cherry tomato, blackberries, steamed broccoli, a slice of starfruit and an orange slice.

Pastitsio is a Greek meat and pasta casserole.  I adapted a recipe to be made with Morningstar Farms recipe crumbles.  The recipe is posted on my other blog so if you're interested, go check it out.  It makes a huge amount!  (And you can substitute real meat for the fake meat if you happen to be a carnivore.  Just sayin')

Friday Onigiri

After all the hearts yesterday I decided to do a bento classic for today and made happy onigiri because it's Friday!  This weekend is going to be pretty busy with A-chan's Taekwondo sparring camp and me going to dance rehearsals for a show in Feb.  I'm making our plans into excuses to make weekend bentos.

In the bento: Two round and happy onigiri, orange slices, a container of blueberries with a pink hedgehog pick, a baby tomato and a bread 'bowl' filled with tofu, carrot and broccoli stirfry.

The onigiri faces were punched out of nori except for the cheeks which were cut from gari.  The pretty bow was painstakingly cut from lemon peel and orange peel using the exacto knife, which was more difficult than I expected.

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

A Heart-full bento

This bento turned out to have a theme, though I didn't know it until I was taking the picture.  Hmm.  I guess it's almost Valentine's Day!  Oh boy, we get to make chocolates!  A-chan is already gushing about the chocolate making tradition and has started counting down the days.  I was informed this morning at breakfast that there are only 19 days til Valentine's.

In the bento: A heart shaped container filled with chickpeas and feta, steamed broccoli, baby carrots, two bamboo picks with veggie hot dog slices and provolone cheese hearts, a lemon slice, two potato and cheese pierogies, pear slices, blueberries and a tiny tomato on a heart pick.

I find it difficult to make the heart shaped container fit into my bentos so it usually sits unused in my bento gear box.  However, this bento was designed around it!  It was the first thing to go in and I worked everything else around it.

Favorite Things

There are very few bentos where I don't use a container of some kind.  They are so useful! I love them for fruit, stirfry and cheese.  Today I used my absolute favorite container to pack black eyed peas.  The peas are a bit juicy and this container with its lid is perfect for things that might lead to a sloppy messy bento disaster otherwise.

In the bento: The smaller tier holds plain spaghetti noodles, a tomato flower and pear leaf.  The larger tier contains the panda with black eyed peas, Morningstar Farms chik nuggets, carrot flowers, steamed broccoli, orange slices and panda picks with blueberries.

Not shown are a small bottle full of grated Parmesan cheese, a container of ketchup and a soy sauce bottle.

Here is my new fun thing!  I'm calling it the Bento Treasures link-up.  I want to know what container is your favorite.  Link -up to a picture of a bento with your favorite container in use.  It can be one of your bentos, it can be one of my bentos.  It can be someone else's bento (as long as there is proper attribution, of course).  If you don't make bentos or don't own any containers yet, show me a container that you'd like to have.   I'll have a new theme for the next four weeks.  Let's find out more about our bento obsession!  

Where is the Sun?

A children's book inspired today's bento.  'How the Sun was Brought Back to the Sky' by Mirra Ginsburg was published in 1975, the year I was born.  We found our copy at Mr. Reed's Odds and Ends Antique store.  It's pretty much out in the middle of nowhere and filled with all kinds of things.  I like to describe it as a giant treasure trove.  In this sweet book some intrepid chicks decide that the sun has been gone for too long and go on an adventure to find it.  My thoughts on getting out of bed this morning mirrored theirs.  It's been raining for days and days - I need some sunshine!

In the bento: Tofu kaarage, blueberries, a tiny tomato, steamed broccoli, navel orange slices, rice with furikake, eggsheet chicks and flowers.

The tofu kaarage is adapted from a recipe for Chicken Kaarage on Just Hungry. My camera seemed to love the tofu as much as I do - every shot that I took this morning was focused on the tofu instead of the chicks! The furikake is one that I made from toasted sesame seeds, sea salt and tarragon.  And I even managed to have enough space for one of the new soy sauce bottles that I got at Christmas!

This post is my 400th bento post!  That is a lot of bentos :D   A while back I noticed that this big number was coming up and gave a lot of thought to a way to celebrate.  What I want is to start doing a link-up that focuses on our favorite things about bentos.  There are a lot of other bento peeps out there that I would love to know more about - what are your bento treasures?  Unfortunately I'm not feeling very good today so I'm going to start this whole new adventure tomorrow when I'm certain that I can be more coherent.

A Lion of a Pancake

In the jungle even a pancake can roar.  If it were so inclined.  I'm thinking that this cute little guy wouldn't roar, though.  He might just run around saying 'nyan' all day.  Continuing with this week's interesting bento moments - I learned this morning that an upside down heart shape at the end of a tail does not make a shape that is recommended for a child's bento.  Luckily I realized that in time to replace it with a flower shape. I'm sure you guys could work that out for yourselves, but I'm in the sharing mood.

In the bento: Grapes with two cute lion picks, flowered carrot sticks, veggie sausage links, nectarine chunks, and miniature pancakes.

Mr. Lion was made using the two cutting tools at the top left. I cut his mane, muzzle and tail fluff out of provolone cheese.  And of course the other facial features were punched from nori.  Since the pancakes were going to be eaten with icing, I decided to 'glue' on the face without using mayo which I thought might spoil the taste.  Instead I painted each piece of cheese and nori with a tiny bit of strawberry jelly using the sharp end of a toothpick.