Pikachu Bento!

Totoro got me thinking about Pokemon, and especially Pikachu. I don't think I've made one in a long time, so here's a snack bento with a Pikachu cut from a turmeric hard-boiled egg. I sliced the egg in half lengthwise so I could use the other half for ears, tail, hands and feet. I used nori for detail, and apple peel for his cheeks. Also in our Lunchbot Clicks: black rice, carrots, lettuce, and plum.

There he goes. Can you catch him? ^_^ 

Salmon and Pickles Onigirazu Bento

On a roll with the black rice over here. Why not salmon and pickles onigirazu? First thing I learned from this one is to use more filling next time. D'oh! Besides more salmon I might also add more pickled red onion and pickled cucumber filling (can barely see it here), and maybe add daikon, some kind of sprouts and avocado too. Although you can simply make it freehand, I used a "mold" for this one, which was basically just a box that you fill, then invert onto a sheet of nori before folding. I found it to be awkward and unwieldy to use. I would prefer an open-ended mold that you place directly on the nori, like the ones you see for spam musubi and maki rolls. Also, this one I had to cut into three pieces to fit in the box, so the middle piece might fall apart while eating if it's not wrapped tightly enough. MisterMan ate this one and he gave it a thumbs-up, but stay tuned for my next attempt! I hope to improve my technique😊

Bat in the Curry Halloween LunchBot Thermal Bento

Bat in the Curry Halloween LunchBot Thermal Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

I made keema curry (see the recipe and method I used here). I tried to make a black rice spider, but the thought of forming eight rice legs just didn't thrill me. So a bat it is! I put the usual stuff in the curry (potatoes, onions, carrots, celery) and I also added cubed red kuri squash, packing it all into the Lunchbots Thermal Jar. I think it goes well nicely with the flavors. The side box holds sliced sugar plums, grapes and a strawberry.

Spider Egg Halloween LunchBots Clicks Bento

Spider Egg Halloween LunchBots Clicks Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

No-cook bento alert! Actually, this bento contains leftover soy chicken (stripped off the drumsticks), black rice, and steamed broccoli from a couple days ago. I added a hard-boiled egg for extra protein, and little rice sticks make a white spider. What do you mean you don't see a spider? Trust me! A happy face means: non-spooky! The smaller LunchBots Clicks box holds sliced nectarines, grapes, strawberries, and steamed purple sweet potato. We're still keeping up the spidery Halloween theme. How much longer can I go? Let's see...

Herby Chicken Lunchbots Bento

Herby Chicken Lunchbots Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Here's the last bento for the week: and it's good old chicken and rice. I loved this combo when I was a kid, and my kids kind of do too, minus the rice. Sigh. But I find that they will grudgingly eat rice with furikake (and also in hot dog maki, fried rice, sticky rice, or jook), so I put a cup of it in here. This rice is black rice and pearl barley. I disguised it as a cupcake with a tomato "cherry". The chicken is just garlicky herbes de provence olive oil chicken, oven baked. I made more kale chips tonight, which didn't survive for bento extras. The rest of the LunchBot Trio holds a variety of pickled stuff, carrots, cherries, strawberry and baby peach. Oh, and a broccoli tree. Have a great day!

Black Rice Jook Thermal Bento

Black Rice Jook Thermal Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Have you eaten black rice? Also known as Forbidden Rice, it's received press lately for its high levels of antioxidants, on a par with blueberries. It has a nice, mild flavor, and a pleasing (to me) purplish color that is retained after cooking. I've used it to make jook before (see my method here), and this time I added sliced lup cheong (Chinese sausage), celery and broccoli stalks. You can also add chicken, mushrooms, fish, or whatever else you'd like. It's an easy meal to make: I used a ratio of 1 cup of rice to 8 cups of water (or broth). Simmer about an hour to 90 minutes, adding the rest of the ingredients for the last 30 minutes or so. I scattered chopping green onion on this serving packed in my Stanley thermal food jar, but you can also add cilantro, ginger, pepper, chili oil, even shoyu as your taste dictates. It's another kind of comfort food that's especially satisfying on these cold wintry days. I sent along a side box containing a satsuma mandarin, some grape tomatoes, and the ever-present mini-cups of home-pickled cucumbers and fermented sauerkraut. Simple and fast, yet hearty. I had some for lunch myself, too. ^_^

Added to What's For Lunch.

Quail Egg Santa Bento

Quail Egg Santa Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Tomorrow is the first of December! Are you ready? I guess we'd better start with the Christmas themed bentos now. Only 2 and a half weeks of school to go! Did I already mention that yesterday? Yes, we're pretty excited here. For this bento: along with some shoyu chicken, I decided to put a layer of black rice (over more chicken) in one section of the round three-section bento so that I could have a canvas to put my santa. It's a hard-boiled quail egg with a radish hat, nose and beard. I cut the beard with a standard flower cutter and used several "petals" for an extra fluffy beard. I don't have any cute Christmas mini cutters, so most of my decorations have to be hand-cut. I'm not one to spend a lot of time doing them, so you know that whatever I make has to be quick and pretty easy. In the last section I've added another cute crabapple, some grapes and a few carrots. My girl loved her crabapple so much she saved the seeds, brought them home carefully wrapped in a napkin, and told me she wants to plant them in the yard and grow an "apple bush." Well all right then! ^_^

Skull Quail Egg Bento

Skull Quail Egg Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Continuing on with the skull theme, today I made a quail egg skull on black rice to accompany some shallow-fried panko chicken, broccoli and roasted kabocha. There are also carrot flowers, corn, strawberries, grapes and honeydew melon. All packed up in my supercool slim double decker Zen box from Bento & Co. I love this box so much it was hard to entrust my boy to take it to school with him, but it's proven quite sturdy and impervious to normal 8-year-old boy wear and tear. So far. You all ready for Halloween? One more day...

Jack-O-Lantern Sushi Bento

Jack-O-Lantern Sushi Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Today's TinySprite bento is no-cook: turkey dog "sushi" with black Forbidden (mixed with white) rice. I made the little jack-o-lantern faces from nori, and the most time-consuming part was cutting the smiles. I first cut a regular smile shape, then cut the three teeth afterwards. The stems are bits of peapods. There are also carrots, strawberries, Okinawan sweet potato, blackberries, raspberries and grapes. Are you getting tired of the jacks yet? Or are you asking yourself whether I can possibly keep it up for another 3 and a half weeks? Good question. I'm betting I will have to start recycling ideas pretty soon. ^_^

Mochiko Chick'n Chicken Bento

Mochiko Chick'n Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

I made oven-roasted mochiko chicken today (see recipe and method here) and tossed some sliced kabocha wedges in there as well. There's also something in this bento that I don't usually pack. Do you see it? That's right: rice! I got the idea for satsumaimo rice from Hapa bento's Okinawan sweet potato gohan post. I cooked a mix of black and brown rice, then tossed with diced satsumaimo (Japanese sweet potato) which I had tossed in the rice cooker whole midway through the cycle. I cut the imo after cooking, then gently folded into the rice. After packing the peapods, red plum, corn on the cob and Okinawan sweet potato stars, I had a little spot for a tiny hard-boiled quail egg chick. I cut the "eggshell" white with my small paring knife tip, and added nori eyes and carrot beak to the yolk "chick". I have a container of precut nori eyes and such, so that I can just use what I need right away. Too late, I just noticed that the two dots are different sizes. Oops. Still cute though, right?

Star Wars Bento #4

Star Wars Bento #4, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

It's Star Wars Day: May the 4th Be With You! In celebration, I had to make a Star Wars bento for my youngling. I made some fried rice with black rice / black quinoa, ham and spinach, scooped it into a lettuce leaf, and halved 2 quail eggs to decorate with nori. I hand cut most of the details except for the circles, for which I used my hole punch. It was tedious, but actually kind of fun. It helps that the quail eggs are so tiny that it doesn't take much to finish them. I did want to make Princess Leia with her side buns, and it would have been cool to make a Yoda, but I'll have to save those for next time. Can you identify the characters I chose? (I hope so!) Darth Vader, Boba Fett, Storm Trooper and R2D2. I asked MisterMan, and he named them all immediately. Yay, success! The rest of the bento contains the first steamed white corn of the season, broccoli, cara cara oranges, strawberry and grapes. Happy Star Wars Day! ^_^

Meatballs and Bunnies Bento

Meatballs and Bunnies Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Chicken meatballs today, in tomato-cider vinegar sauce. This batch is made with ground chicken, oats, shredded zucchini, wheat germ, onion and my experiment: quinoa! I cooked the quinoa separately and added it into the meat mixture before simmering in the tomato sauce. Very tasty! There's also curried lentils with spinach and grape tomatoes in another section, black rice topped with two tofu bunnies and a radish "Easter egg", and the usual fruit portion with strawberry, grapes and kiwi. This 4- sectioned bento box comes in handy for meals like this one, with different flavors I'd like to keep separate. Festive, isn't it?

Bento4Japan is still going strong. Remember, 100% of your donation goes to Japan Disaster Relief. There've been some bids on the origami crane earrings I made (yay!) -- these are lightweight, delicate and feminine. Would you like a chance to win them? A lovely gift for your favorite girl, perhaps? Or yourself ^_^

Salmon and Rice Bento

Salmon and Rice Bento a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Simple pan-fried butteryaki salmon and black/white rice onigiri make up this bento for my second-grader. He also gets a few steamed satsumaimo in the lettuce cup. On the side I've added kabocha, broccoli and asparagus, and in the fruit section he's got grapes and a beautiful strawberry. A really quick one today, which is usually how Mondays go around here.

Last weekend we got wild weather: thunder and lightning storms, and even a freak hailstorm that scared TinySprite at first. Excuse the lousy pictures, but we were caught totally unprepared, and since we never see hail like this (and it was almost snow-like) we got all excited and stuff. Hehe. Too bad we totally missed the supermoon, but it was clearly visible the days before and after. Looked just about how it always looks. Happy Monday!

Oh, and Bento4Japan is getting updated with fresh new auction items every single day; so if you haven't checked it out recently, you may want to take a look. Remember, all proceeds go to Japan Disaster Relief. Thanks ^_^

Sweet Pepper Egg Bento

Sweet Pepper Egg Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

I was running dry on ideas for bento by the end of the week. Looking back, they all looked similar to me: same style, veggies and fruits.. blah blah... but then I was making egg-in-the-hole for TinySprite and me for lunch today, and we had extra egg so I asked her if she wanted a pepper egg flower. She said sure! I made one for MisterMan too. The yellow capsicum I had just happened to be shaped like a mushroom, so I went with it. After I poured the egg into the ring I placed some red capsicum circles into the just-setting surface to make a spotted mushroom. Aww! Underneath is a black riceball, sliced teriyaki chicken, peapods and carrot. There's also steamed broccoli, a strawberry, some blueberries and sliced blood oranges.
TinySprite got a flower with a heart center, and some broccoli sprig accents. Plus, the same chicken and fruits. She's been having an eating strike lately, so I packed less than usual. Here's a close-up of the little pepper:

Butteryaki Salmon Bento

Butteryaki Salmon Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

I'm pretty happy with this omega-3-packed bento for MisterMan: it includes butteryaki salmon, mini red kabocha and little Okinawan purple potatoes lightly steamed and then fried in the same pan.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To make my butteryaki salmon:

Heat oiled pan, sear salmon on both sides. 
Add a T butter and melt, turn off heat, drizzle shoyu over salmon and into hot pan briefly. 
Remove salmon and serve. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yummy! There's also mixed rice (black, white, black quinoa, cracked wheat and bulgur) onigiri with cherry tomato, steamed broccoli, romanesco and yellow cauliflower, and tiny purple carrot flower shapes. Fruit section has alternating blood and cara cara orange wedges, along with two cherries in the last corner. I'm so happy to have more colors and fresh produce for bento now that spring is coming / here. Do you feel the same way?

In case you were wondering what my mini red kabocha squashes look like, here's a photo. There's a Cutie next to it for scale. Isn't it cute? ^_^

Bento Side With Black Rice Jook

Bento Side To Go With Jook, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

I'm only showing part of MisterMan's bento today. It includes pomelo (or jabong), cherries and carrots. The rest of it will be packed in the thermal jar you see in the background, right before he gets in the car to go to school. It's not the greatest container for keeping food warm, but I tested it with boiling water and it stayed pretty hot after 3 hours. Today I made jook, but this time I used black (Forbidden) rice to see if it was possible, and if so, how it would turn out. Perhaps you've read recently about the health benefits being attributed to black rice (high in iron and fiber, rich in antioxidants, cancer-fighting, improves memory, etc). Well, I've seen people make black rice pudding, and I thought it would be cool to make black rice jook. I actually made two different batches; one with black and white mixed in a 3:1 ratio, and one with black rice alone. I discovered that the white rice is necessary to provide the glutinous thickness we love about congee. The batch with black rice only kind of turned out like thin rice gruel, as you can see from the picture.

I wish I had taken a picture of the other batch to compare, but that got eaten up quick. I even cooked it longer than usual (about 2 hours), to see if it would eventually become thick and creamy. Nope. Anyway, it's still good -- I added roast duck, baby bok choy and green onions to give it flavor. It's cool how it came out very black. Even after rinsing the rice thoroughly, the black color is released when the rice breaks apart, and you can see it's a regular white color inside the grain. If you try it, don't forget to add some white rice. The resulting jook looks more purplish too; very cool-looking! In case you are interested, my basic jook recipe is here.

Basic Jook Recipe
1C rice
6C water (or more -- up to 8C, depending on how thin you like it)
2C broth (chicken or vegetable -- you can also increase the broth instead if you like)
Diced kabocha (as much as you like)

Bring rice and liquids to a bubbling simmer, and maintain, stirring occasionally, until soup is of desired consistency. About an hour. Add the diced kabocha near the end of cooking, to soften in the soup about 20 minutes or so (or less, if you like it firmer). Add salt to taste. Other things to add: chicken / turkey / duck bones with meat (remove bones after cooking), shiitake mushrooms, salted pork, salted salmon, green onions.

Salmon Bento and LunchBots Trio Review

Salmon Trio Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

Since we have been on a kabocha kick, as well as a cooking-everything-in-the-same-manner kick, why stop now? Today I decided to grill! I had some nice pieces of fresh salmon so I used half to make shiozake (salted salmon -- more on that next time) and the other half to grill with just a bit of salt and pepper.

Today I'm introducing my new LunchBots Trio stainless steel box. It's a slightly different shape than the Uno and Duo, but like the Duo it has permanently mounted dividers attached to the box interior. [I've already reviewed the LunchBots Uno and Duo here, and if you missed it, well -- I love 'em.] This one, the Trio, is billed as a snack container, but as you can see from the photo, it seems actually bigger than the Uno and the sides are taller. You can fit quite a bit of food in here. I'm a fan of the divided box, so I knew I was going to like this one. It's not divided in half and fourths, like many other boxes. I think they are actually equal thirds. The lid fits snugly (though not leakproof), just as with the other LunchBots. For its inaugural use I lay some salmon pieces and a tiny mixed rice onigiri on a lettuce leaf in one section, and added a half radish carved into a mushroom shape. The next section had kabocha, which I briefly steamed and grilled along with the cherry tomatoes right next to the salmon. I also added a few cucumbers to fill in the gap. The last section holds sliced plum, grapes and raspberries. It's a nice arrangement style, and I give it two thumbs up!

My preschooler gets basically the same stuff. Last time I picked her up from school she hadn't finished, and the teacher said all the kids seemed distracted that day. Well, I was disappointed but we packed up her bento and when we got home she surprised me by asking to finish it before her nap. She devoured every piece of garnish and decorative lettuce as well. So when you see me line her box with lettuce, it's not just for effect! I really think she is more willing to eat (vegetables) when it's presented in her bento box. She also got a new cutlery set which helps too. Interestingly, when we go out to restaurants or eat at home on an ordinary plate, this leafy greens rule doesn't apply. Too bad!

Double Skull Bento

Double Skull Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

Back to Halloween bento today: it's finally just about the end of the roast pork. I layered it under the black rice on a bed of green leaf lettuce. I halved a boiled quail egg and added nori facial details to the skulls, and added carrot strips for the crossbones. Is it scary? I think my boy may be getting toward the age where he thinks scary and gross is cool, so maybe I'll have to switch out of the cute mode pretty soon. I won't be too sad, since I'll still have my sweet girl to make cute bento for! I tucked two golden cherry tomatoes in the corners, and packed some nectarines, strawberry and grapes in the fruit section. Everything seems right at home in the Pokemon box with the monsters on the lid. Two more weeks to go. Can we keep up with the Halloween theme? We'll see...
This lunch was added to What's For Lunch. Lots of other cute ones there too; take a look!

Pink Ribbon Bento

Pink Ribbon Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, and here is my contribution to ProjectPink, which Bento Blog (@bentoblog on twitter) is hosting at http://bentoblog.fr.nf/. To find out more about this, search twitter for #ThinkPink and #ProjectPink, and see other pink ribbon bento. Tomorrow there will be a posting of all the pink bento that were submitted from all over the world, to draw attention to the disease and the need for research to develop a cure. Do check it out!

This one was made for my toddler girl. Under the black rice is shredded roast pork, which provides a nice backdrop for a pink ham ribbon. I added some carrot and cilantro flowers as well. The rest of the bento includes steamed broccoli, cheese stars, more carrots, peapods, strawberry, cherry tomatoes and the cutest little crabapple. She loved that little apple, and ate around the core in a very ladylike fashion. Hehe. Think PINK!

Pork Roast and Jack Bento

Pork Roast and Jack Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

Continuing on with the jack o'lantern theme... Today's jack is cut simply from a regular orange carrot cross-section. I hand-cut the facial details with my tiny paring knife. Placing it on a black rice ball makes for a nice contrast. I made roast pork over the weekend and since it was so big it may make several appearances in bento in the near future. I used my mom's recipe; called Ono Pork Roast, which says it all.

Mom's Ono Pork Roast
Rub a 3-4 lb pork shoulder with the following mixture: 1-2 minced garlic cloves, salt & pepper, and 2tsp Worchestershire sauce. If using stovetop, brown on all sides in a large pot. I just put mine in my crock-pot. Add 1 cup water and 1/4 cup shoyu, and cook on high for 3-4 hours, turning occasionally.

Delicious over hot rice. This is one dish that the kids will be tricked, er, tempted to eat lots of veggies to sop up the sauce. Really! Broccoli goes well on the side. For this bento, I lay the rice and meat inside a green lettuce leaf and stuck some peapods around it. In the other cups I added broccoli, yellow carrots and yellow tomatoes, some black grapes and some red plum.