🍀Happy St. Paddy's Day Bento! 🍀

Green green green!

Happy St. Patrick's Day, you guys! ☘☘☘ It's that green time of year; luckily there are lots of green foods to choose from. Too bad the protein has to deviate from the color scheme but maybe it's better that not EVERYthing is green...

Inside this cute green frog bento: stirfried chicken, baby bok choy and peas, tomato, strawberries, kiwi.

I made shamrock egg rings with green bell peppers (I looked for 4-lobed ones and sliced them about a half inch thick). You can fry the egg directly in the pepper ring and then put a lid on the pan to finish steam cooking. The rest of this Sistema bento contains: pesto spinach pasta, turkey bacon green bean rollups, a cucumber pot of pickled wakame (plus the cucumber balls), blueberries, strawberries and kiwi.

Hope you all have a fantastic St. Paddy's Day weekend! 🍀🍀🍀

St. Patrick's Day Pot o' Gold Bento!

Happy St. Paddy's Day!  Today TinySprite gets a rainbow's end pot o' gold made from a piece of green pepper filled with egg salad and cheddar cheese coins. There are stars cut from steamed Okinawan sweet potato, red grapes, tomatoes, and mandarin cuties. Hope it's a lucky day for you!

St. Paddy's Day Green(ish) Bento!

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone! In honor of this holiday, I've made a "green" Lunchbots Quad bento for TinySprite: okay, maybe half green. The right half. The green part: kiwi, pasta with pesto, and green pepper "shamrock." I also nearly every green pick I own, which turns out to be quite a few. Yay! The other half: tomato, mandarin, and sausage/mushroom. Fork/spoon/knife combo utensil by Light My Fire.

Shamrock Pepper Fried Rice St. Patrick's Day Bento

Shamrock Pepper Fried Rice Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Here's my contribution to St. Patty's Day, since it falls on Sunday and this will be our last bento before then. A four-leaf clover! Can we call it a shamrock if it has more than three leaves? My pepper happened to be four-lobed, so this is the shape we're going with. I fried a beaten egg inside the pepper ring, and then sprinkled some chopped spinach on top. It sits atop a bed of fried rice mixed with ham, edamame, egg and shoyu. I make sure to cook the pepper ring egg thoroughly, as it's not safe to pack uncooked egg for extended periods at warm temps. Alongside the lucky rice: cantaloupe chunks, and pickled cucumbers and onions. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Corned Beef and Cabbage Bento

Corned Beef and Cabbage Bento a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Both kids get leftover corned beef and cabbage in their bento today. Great; no need to think too much! I also added potatoes, onion and carrots into the pot toward the end of cooking, so there's lots of goodies in the mix. MisterMan gets a section of grapes, steamed Okinawan sweet purple potato, broccoli and a carrot (because I always have to put a flower carrot in there. Don't know why). The last section has yogurt topped with raspberries, blueberries and wheat germ. If you put enough berries on top, they'll actually serve to keep the yogurt in place. It's a practical trick.

TinySprite gets the same corned beef and cabbage in the bottom tier of her cute pink panda box, and in the top she has a carrot and cara cara orange bear face, with blueberries raspberry face. Aw! Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!
The Bento4Japan auctions are still going on -- check them out if you get a chance!

Green Bento

Green Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

Here's my Green Bento for St. Patty's day!

I made furikake cod, which I wrote about here. I added steamed broccoli and a cup of fruits: strawberry, clementine and cherry tomato.

I also made jade (bamboo) rice, which in the past has always come out very light in hue. This time I steamed some kale and used the steam water for cooking the rice, hoping to improve the color. I think it may have helped a little, but what helped a lot was adding in the minced (in processor) kale after cooking! Before you say "yuck", I have to say that the kale didn't add all that much taste to the rice, and it's such a vitamin-rich vegetable I had to try it. You can just pretend it's furikake! That's what I told the fam, and like magic, they chowed it down! It goes really well with the furikake cod (you can also use salmon). I put the rice in the cup, and decorated with an edamame clover and maroon carrot flowers.

Here's the jade rice before cooking:

Happy St. Patricks Day, bento friends. I'll be drinking green tea to celebrate! *clink* ^_^

Honey Shiso Pork Bento

Honey Shiso Pork Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

MisterMan gets honey shiso pork in this bento. The meat was marinated in cider vinegar, honey and julienned shiso, then grilled. The recipe actually calls for pork chops, but I used pork strips for ease of eating. You could also simply cut the meat off the bone after cooking as well. Next to the pork I packed roasted brussels sprouts and diced purple potatoes. The sprouts and potatoes were roasted side by side, tossed in olive oil and garlic powder, as per my usual custom.

The other sections contain juicy ripe strawberries, blueberries, and a little cuplet of cottage cheese scattered with chopped raspberry jewel plum and wheat germ. On top, I placed a clover of pumpkin seeds -- after all, it's nearly St. Patrick's Day. Happy St. Patty's Day, bento friends!