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. ^__^
