Lunar New Year Dragon Bento

I know it's not the Year of the Dragon, but I'm making a dragon bento because 1) it represents the dragon dance that is typically performed in the Lunar New Year parade, and 2) I wanted an excuse to use my very cool dragon cutter. I've shown it to you before (see it here) -- it is very intricately designed and of very good quality. I've used it on tofu (see that here) and even dragonfruit (look here!). It's a little tricky to get the cheese out of the small crevices, but it can be done using a toothpick or small tweezers.

I used cheese for the dragon in this bento, and I dyed it red with beet juice. He is chasing a baby orange tomato "ball." This tomato is from my garden -- my plant from last summer is still producing fruit. I know, I know... weird. But we've had a very mild winter here in California and everything is out of whack. Underneath is lucky sticky rice, made in my rice cooker (see my method here). Those baby yellow chard are also homegrown from my garden; I have several chard plants and they are all producing leaves, but they don't get much bigger than this. Just right size for bento, I guess! There's also a lucky mandarin, some blueberries, and a grape tomato. I hope you enjoyed the first day of the Year of the Sheep, and that it portends a grand year ahead. ^__^

Year Of The Sheep Bento!

Gung Hee Fat Choy! The Lunar New Year begins tomorrow, and it will be the Year of the Sheep. To celebrate, I made a sheep riceball with rolled ham horns to accompany the gyoza (see my gyoza method here) for TinySprite. She also gets Okinawan sweet potato, grape tomatoes, edamame skewers, and a carrot. She'll also take an orange, which signifies good luck. The firecracker craft is one she made in school. Happy Chinese (Lunar) New Year!

Added to What's For Lunch.

Year Of The Horse Chinese New Year Bento 2014~!

Year Of The Horse Chinese New Year Bento 2014~!, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Tomorrow is Chinese (Lunar) New Year! So today TinySprite brought a horse bun to celebrate the Year of the Horse. I didn't bake it (only decorated with cheese and nori for the face), but she was pretty excited. There's a hot dog in there, and it fits diagonally perfectly inside the EcoLunchBox Solo Cube. I packed some satsuma, tomatoes, and pickled veggies, plus a little cup of sunflower seeds in case the horse gets hungry. Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Chinese New Year 2014 Bento: Year of the Horse!

Chinese New Year 2014 Bento: Year of the Horse!, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Happy New Year! And Happy Chinese New Year too! This year the Chinese (Lunar) New Year falls on the 31st of January, and will be represented by the Horse. To celebrate, I've made a brand new bento with a horse theme! This one is for me. I used my super kawaii red goldfish nesting bento box because when you turn it on end, it has a horse shape. Can you see it? I made kabocha curry yesterday, so I packed some curry and rice in the big box with a cucumber separator. I decorated the rice with broccoli and cucumber to create a horse face, and added grape tomatoes for nostrils. The baby fish box holds Greek yogurt with raisins, a tiny satsuma mandarin, some carrots and a cheese nori face. This one is a pony. Awww! I hope this upcoming year brings you and your loved ones much happiness and good health. Kung Hay Fat Choy!
Added to What's For Lunch.

Chinese New Year Dragon Bento 3

Chinese New Year Dragon Bento 3, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

One more Chinese New Year of the Dragon bento and that's it; I promise! I made eggplant okra curry, which I think is a misnomer because there isn't any actual curry in here. Perhaps it should be eggplant okra stew. Anyway, it's completely vegetarian, which rounds out our second meat-free bento week. Wow! We haven't become vegetarians, and have no plans to completely quit meat, but I thought it would be a fun challenge to see how long our family could go without eating meat, voluntarily. Now that week #2 has come to a close, I can say that all of them took it like real troupers. No complaints from anyone. Pretty pleased about that! I even got them to all participate in my daily green drink resolution. They don't all love it equally, but they'll all drink it. Heh.
The thermal jar contains the eggplant stew, and the side box contains a selection of colorful fruit: grapes, strawberry, cara cara orange, and Okinawan sweet potato stars. I topped them off with a cheese dragon cutout, using my ultimate elaborate dragon cutter.

 I used it last year to cut a dragon from dragonfruit; you can see that one here. The dragon is playing with a red ball on a stick. I think it represents the sun. Welcome Year of the Dragon; I hope it's an auspicious one for all!

Eggplant Okra Curry Stew

Ingredients

2 large eggplants
1 bunch scallions, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1/2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1/4 tsp turmeric
1 tsp salt
14 oz can chopped tomatoes (if you like it extra tomato-ey, you can add another can)
water or broth as desired
1/2 bunch kale, torn into pieces.
1/2 pound okra, trimmed and cut into 1/2 inch slices, angled
1 Tbs chopped cilantro (or more, if you like it, like me)

Preheat oven to 400F, wrap the eggplants in foil and bake for 1 hour, until soft.
Cut each eggplant in half and scoop out the soft flesh into a bowl. Mash.
Heat 2 Tbs oil in a wok and saute the scallions and garlic for a few minutes.
Add the chili powder, cumin, coriander, turmeric and salt and cook 3-4 minutes.
Add tomatoes and simmer 5 minutes.
Add the mashed eggplant, kale and cilantro. At this point you may need to add water or broth to make it saucier. I think I added about a 1/2 cup. If you like it soupier you can add more.
Bring to a boil and simmer until sauce thickens, about 5 minutes.
Add okra, stir well to mix, reduce heat, cover and simmer for another 5 minutes.
Remove cover, turn up the heat and cook another 5-10 minutes, until the okra is tender but not too soft.

Chinese New Year Dragon Bento 2

Chinese New Year Dragon Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Aaaand, it's another Chinese New Year bento! It's the Year of the Dragon - in case you forgot. Today I used my super cool slim stainless steel double box bento set (called "Zen" from Bento & Co) because I wanted to have a place for my dragon to rest until lunchtime. Each of these boxes is identical, and each has its own lid with gasket. When the two tiers are stacked and bound together with elastic, they are perfectly sealed. The left box contains salt grilled salmon with some lime wedges, roasted potatoes and kabocha strips (both sprinkled with garlic powder), and a bunch of grapes with a beautiful strawberry. The right box is layered with slices of cara cara oranges. I am super excited to see these fruit too! Now I am stocked up on blood and cara cara. They complement each other well -- the dark red blood oranges are tart and the pretty pink cara cara are sweeter. On top of those I lay my dragon made from cucumber, with quail egg and tomato eyes, tomato nostrils, and wispy green fire. I also cut some fierce fangs from the cucumber. His body is represented by the cucumber scales behind his head. Do you see him? I am trusting MisterMan with both tiers of this bento set for the first time, and I'm a little nervous! I hope he doesn't fling his bag around too much. RAWR!

Added to Allergy-Friendly Lunchbox Love.

Happy Chinese New Year Bento!

Happy Chinese New Year Bento!, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

Tomorrow is the Lunar New Year, when we celebrate the Year of the Rabbit. And since the dragon is a part of the celebration, I've included a dragon cut from dragonfruit in TinySprite's snack bento today. It's playing with a blackberry ball atop a bed of sweet and juicy Cara cara oranges. We didn't have a lunch bento today since we went out for lunch and a window-shopping stroll on this beautiful sunny day. It was a wonderful way to send out the last day of the year. Along with the red and gold decorations I added some garden roses. Four of my roses bushes happened to have a perfectly fragrant bloom open today, so I cut them for display in the picture, and now they are in a glass vase on our table. Strangely enough, even my (normally Fall-blooming) dahlia also had a blossom on it. I think this unseasonably warm stretch of weather we've been having is confusing the plants. I hope Spring weather and temperatures will arrive in the rest of the snow-bound country very soon. In the meantime, Happy Chinese New Year!

Double Tigers Valentine Bento

This is my final Happy Valentines Day / Chinese New Year dual bento!

I made two sweet potato tigers with nori and sesame seed detail, with a red pepper heart to show their love. Also in the box, which is a tiny bamboo steamer, broccoli, maroon carrots, yellow carrots, strawberry and red grapes. My boy brought a bunch of lay see and candies home from his class party, so I used some of them for the photo.

Hope all my bento friends enjoy a weekend of love and best wishes for an auspicious new year's beginning :D

Tiger Cub Egg Snack Bento

Tiger Egg Snack Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

I did this tiger snack bento for my toddler girl because I really love the little quail egg animals and wanted to see if I could dye this one yellow using golden beets. I tossed a beet in with the water while I was boiling the eggs, and then after the eggs were cooked I peeled them and soaked them in a small container of beet juice overnight. I guess if I boiled them they may have come out darker, but it did turn a light yellow! I decorated his face with nori details and made yellow carrot ears. Also in his box are nice ripe strawberries, broccoli, baby carrots and red grapes (underneath).

Mew!

Oh, and Happy Chinese New Year!

Hearts, Flowers & Tiger Bento

Hearts, Flowers & Tiger Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

I decided to make a double celebration bento: Chinese New Year and Valentines Day, so here's my effort.

Along with shoyu chicken in lettuce, this bento has roasted broccoli and sweet tricolor peppers. For detail interest I cut some sweet potato and pink carrot flowers. The fruit section contains the mini mandarin tiger decorated with pieces of red grape for Chinese New Year, and strawberry hearts. More red grapes underneath. The facial details took the LONGest! But it turns out that grape skin is pretty good for this purpose. You just have to cut it away from the flesh so that it lays flat enough to stay on the surface. I was happy to keep it all in the fruit family for the decoration, for taste's sake :)

This festive paper and heart doily are a gift from a bento friend, and I found this sweet dessert mini fork just for this occasion. It's kinda frilly and flowery, but my 6 year old boy won't mind! He still loves the lovey-doveyness of Valentines Day :D

Tiger Sandwich Bento

Tiger Sandwich Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

My Year of the Tiger bento!

Yes, he's a pointy-headed tiger. I'm pretty fixed on the pointy headed animals; don't know why. Maybe I should have made the ears bigger to compensate. Anyway, it's a sardine sandwich, made with tomato, basil, and celery, and I actually fit two sandwiches in this box. The lid is raised pretty high, so you can cram a lot of food in these little boxes.

In the mama box I put some kale I baked with olive oil, a la Steamy Kitchen, and it was crispy and awesome when fresh, but it probably won't be by MisterMan's lunchtime. It's okay. I'm betting he'll still inhale it :)

Finally, in the baby box I managed to squeeze in some blood orange slices, a strawberry and a tiny kumquat.

The photo is a bit busy, but I really wanted to use this bamboo forest fabric for my tiger bento, so that's how it goes. Here's how they look all closed up. It's a hippo family set!

Happy Chinese New Year, friends!