Egg Burger Egg

 

I saw this idea on the internets and it was so cute I thought I'd give it a try. I used a regular hen egg sliced crosswise to make the bun, and just cut smaller portions of the fillings (cheese, ham, lettuce, onions, avocado, pickles, tomato and ketchup. The "fries" are carrot sticks.

You could make a super cute miniature version with a quail egg.

Have a great Thursday!

Rilakkuma Bear Burger Bento

Bear Burger Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

I should have shown you the turkey burgers I made! They're in there, I promise. I mixed in shredded zucchini and carrot along with ground turkey, onion, garlic, pepper, and... Worcestershire sauce! And ketchup. It came out pretty good, I think. I melted cheddar on them and then laid them on whole wheat sandwich thins with garden lettuce. Of course I had to make Rilakkuma's face on there. His ears are roasted sweet potato (I also made sweet potato fries along with dinner), and his face is made of white cheddar and nori. On the side, MisterMan has sliced pluots, garden orange sunsugar tomatoes, and grapes. And a little Rilakkuma fork. Awwws!
Added to What's For Lunch.

I Love Watermelon (Radish)! Bento

I Love Watermelon (Radish)! Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

You can't see the burger in the photo, but I tried a new meatless recipe. It consists of about a cup of roasted sweet potato, a cup of brown rice / barley, and a cup or two of black beans, processed along with sauteed onions, garlic, cumin, and Worchestershire sauce to taste. The patties stuck together pretty well, which often is not the case (in my experience) with bean burgers. I melted cheese and served with tomato slices next to a side of cabbage / onion / carrot slaw tossed with vinegar, shoyu and a bit of superfine sugar. The last section of the LunchBots Trio contains the miniature spring selection of fruit at my farmers market: strawberries, apricot and nectarine. We have watermelon too, but the cheddar bear is actually enjoying a slice of watermelon radish. Those are good too, even if they're not quite as sweet!

Bearwich Bento

Bearwich Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

It's Monday and MisterMan is back from his camping trip to Gold Country! He had a fantastic time, as I expected, and he learned a lot. The kids panned for gold, baked their own cornbread in the coals, and negotiated their own solo hike (part of a 3 mile, 800 ft elevation gain trek!). I was surprised that 4th-graders were able to handle themselves responsibly and effectively (within small parentally chaperoned groups), with limited to no adult help. So proud of my young man. We spent the weekend together enjoying our reunited family, and that means the Monday bento is a quickie sandwich one. This one is a salmon burger with lettuce on a whole wheat sandwich thin, with strategically positioned steamed Okinawan sweet potatoes to depict a bear face. That's all I could manage today, along with tomatoes, blackberries and house-pickled cucumbers and carrot-daikon sticks. Hope you all had a great weekend and are ready to tackle a new week ahead!

Salmon Burger Pita EcoLunchbox Bento

Salmon Burger Pocket EcoLunchbox Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Here's another wheat-filled bento; it's almost as though we're celebrating the consumption of wheat after going wheatless for many months. Actually, I prefer burgers protein-style myself, but the kids especially like burger buns. I compromised by sending bugers in a pocket pita, which has the advantage of keeping the burger and associated fixings neatly in hand. For these burgers I used wild pink Alaskan canned salmon mixed with barley, onions, celery, some Old Bay, garlic, and pepper. I mixed until I got a consistency which would sustain a patty shape and could be flipped in the pan. I tucked a couple patties into the pita with some lettuce leaves, and sent along a container of yogurt mixed with sweet relish to go with it. The half pita fit inside my new favorite EcoLunchbox Solo Cube, and I also packed a couple of grape tomatoes and a mozzarella cheese star. The EcoDipper held a delicious satsuma mandarin (partially peeled), blackberries, and plum slices. Doesn't it look oh-so-delightful? I love this set so much! And let's hear it for satsuma season!! I think this will be the final bento for the week, since the kids have Thursday and Friday off. Have a happy Thanksgiving!

Rilakkuma Bear Burger Bento

Rilakkuma Bear Burger Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Bear burger! This one has turkey and bison (combined because I wasn't sure how well the bison taste would go over), decorated with cheese and nori to make his face upon a spinach bed. There's homemade barbeque sauce in the little container, alongside carrots, strawberry and cinnamon sprinkled apple chunks. Easy peasy, and a hit with my meat-loving girl ^_^

Lamburger Froggie Bento

Lamburger Froggie Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

While MisterMan had his burger in the traditional way on a bun (or a whole wheat sandwich thin, anyway) my TinySprite had hers on a fluffy bed of hapa rice. Fluffy rice reminded me of a sheep, so I added some broccoli, steamed Okinawan sweet potato (for ears), and baby brown sweet peppers (for horns). I cut some red bell peppers for its nose and champagne grapes for eyes. The upper tier of the cute froggie bento contains sliced peaches, blueberries, strawberry, more champagne grapes, corn, carrots and a teeny little gala apple. I hope she didn't miss the bun and instead enjoyed her gluten-free version of lamburger/ramburger/hamburgerrrrr! ^_^

Anpanman Burger Bento

Anpanman Burger Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Today's bento features meeeeeeat! I made beef/turkey burgers for the kiddos. This one is MisterMan's, since it's packed between two whole grain sandwich thins. He can put the frisee inside the burger along with a squirt of ketchup inside the pig bottle. Every time I see a round bun I see Anpanman now. If you go back in the archives you'll see it's true. I made one ages ago here, and a more recent one (that I think looks much better) here, and then a naked burger here. The tomatoes are from my home garden, and the orange sunsugars and yellow pear varieties are doing really well right now. I had to barricade them to keep the dog away, since he loves fruit. I used red pepper for the mouth, and blueberries for eyes. I know, I forgot the eyebrows. Darn! He fit perfectly inside the EcoLunchBox, with the upper tier holding a selection of: carrots, pluots, strawberry, golden raspberries, lychee, purple cauliflower, and corn. I had to slice the tomatoes in half to fit, but the nice thing is that the top pushed everything down so it didn't move around too much, but not so much that it smushed. That's what I call a perfectly packed bento.

And by the way, it was our end-of-summer twitter food party today, and the star item was ... yogurt! I made cannoli ice cream. It was really an excuse to put pistachios and dark chocolate together in a creamy, divine way. And also to eat ice cream. ^_^

Panda Egg Salmon Patty Bear Onigiri Lunchbots Bento

Panda Egg Salmon Patty Bear Onigiri Lunchbots Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Today I packed a couple of salmon patties for TinySprite in the Lunchbots Trio box. Like with the bean burgers, I bulked them up with extras; this time I used brown/white rice and quinoa. I also added shredded carrot, and minced onion and celery. It's good with Dijon mustard and a little yogurt or sour cream, and a squirt of lemon juice. Just mix until the consistency holds together, then flatten some balls and pan-fry. You can serve with mustard Old Bay aioli on a bun, but I've just placed her patties in some lettuce leaves. There's a little bear onigiri, some carrots sticks, corn off the cob, a panda egg (I cut the ears, eyes and mouth from grapes by hand), and assorted fruit (strawberry, pluot and blueberries. The kids are really digging the burger variations. What else can I make a burger out of? Hmmm.

Twin Bunnies Bean Burger Bento

Twin Bunnies Bean Burger Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Today's bento is one for my wheat-free daughter. I made black bean burgers using the basic recipe I used here, but substituting garbanzo beans with black beans. I also used black rice to keep the color scheme. She's used to eating burgers "protein-style" (wrapped in lettuce leaves instead of on a bun), so I could've served it that way in her bento with no problem. You could layer a slice of homegrown tomato and grilled onions on top as well, but I chose to pack a double patty in here instead, in lettuce, alongside a silicone cup of homemade peach salsa. Peach salsa: have you had this? I've never tried making a salsa with peach and was dubious, but it is delicious. I diced some ripe peaches, tomatoes, sweet peppers and tossed with sweet corn. Refreshing, and it just screams "Summer!" I topped the burgers with cheese bunnies with nori faces, and the other side of the LunchBot Duo contains grapes, pluots and baby sweet strawberries. ^_^

Rilakkuma and Kiiroitori Beet Burger Sandwich Bento

Rilakkuma and Kiiroitori Beet Burger Sandwich Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Recently I've discovered the joy of beets. Beets, beets, beets. The only way I've ever prepared beets before was roasted and tossed in salad. But I love the flavor and figured, why shouldn't we try to fit them into a main dish meal? Today I made beet bean rice burgers which happen to fit perfectly inside these mini whole wheat sandwich rounds. I made these sandwiches with red leaf lettuce, and melted some swiss cheese on top. I got the idea for these burgers from the plethora of online copycat recipes that tried to replicate the famous Northstar Cafe beet burgers. I've never had those Northstar Cafe veggie burgers, but the pictures and the glowing review make me want to. I really wish I had taken a photo of the burger itself so you can see how red it really looks. ETA: I took some photos; see below. It's pretty cool; you can kind of see part of it at the left side of the bun. I layered two mini burgers in this bento box, and decorated the round bread with Rilakkuma's face cut from Okinawan sweet potato. I added carrots and his pal Kiiroitori (a turmeric-dyed quail egg with nori and carrot detail). Other side has blood oranges (sadly not very vividly colored), strawberry, peapods and cherries. Here's my sort-of recipe that I borrowed from here and greatly changed, because I like the flavors of these spices together. P.S. Don't wear white while making this.

Beet, Bean and Rice Burger

1 cup cooked rice
1 large beet, grated (other recipes say to dice, but I thought grated beet would hold together better)
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbs balsamic vinegar
1 squirt Dijon mustard (or to taste)
onion powder, to taste
salt and pepper, to taste

Mix rice and beet well, until uniform color. Fork-mash the black beans, and add. Mix well. Stir in the rest of the ingredients. My mixture was pretty sticky and a bit difficult to mix, but the stickier the mix, the better it stays together as a patty.

Taste the mixture and add more spice if you need to. Use an ice cream scoop to portion out the burger mixture, and shape into a ball. Flatten with a flipper and place into a heated, oiled pan on medium high heat. Cook for 2 minutes, or until you see a crust form on the bottom. Mine kept its integrity pretty well, so it was easy to flip over. Cook the other side another 2 minutes or so. Put some grated cheese on top to melt if you like. Toast some mini buns or sandwich thins, and serve with fresh greens, onions and tomato. Delicious!

Mini Burger and Cheddar Jack Bento

Mini Burger and Cheddar Jack Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

A fun bento that the kids totally loved: burger and fries. Woohoo! Okay, they were turkey oat burgers and oven-roasted fries but still. I also snuck in some roasted kabocha, a couple colorful carrot sticks, broccoli, and a cup of red fruit: pluots, strawberries and raspberries. The burger is topped with none other than our favorite smiling "jack" - I know, I should have used jack cheese! Sheesh. What was I thinking? One more week of jack-o-bento to go... I think I'm gonna be able to pull it off. Hey, maybe next year I should go for a whole month of jacks! Nah only joke..

Bat and Char Siu Bao O'lantern Bento

Bat Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

Today's double bento post is from last Friday. MisterMan got a bacon-wrapped turkey burger and roasted purple potatoes. He got a colorful selection of veggies including broccoli, purple cauliflower, carrots and a tomato, as well as a piece of corn on the cob. I think that's the first time I actually used 5 different color vegetables in a single bento. Yay! Only bummer is that this one is light on the fruit. I used a bunch of black grapes to design a bat on the corn. You might need to use a bit of imagination. My boy called it an octopus until I hinted that it fell into the Halloween category. After awhile he guessed "Uh, a bat?" Um, yee-ssss. Sigh.

TinySprite gets a more finger friendly bento -- a perfectly round char siu bao just called for transformation into a jack-o-lantern. I cut the features with a small paring knife, and rather than punch out the cutouts, I just lightly pushed them in. So much easier, and it looks fine this way. I used a piece of corn on the cob for the stem, and filled in the rest of the gaps with the same veggies as in her brother's bento. Done! Love these quick ones. Just a few more days of Halloween themed bento, but it's been fun! ^_^

Rilakkuma and Kiiroitori Field Trip Bento

Rilakkuma and Kiiroitori Field Trip Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

Can you guess what day it is? That's right: field trip! They're going to visit a working farm with tractors and everything. I packed another recycled strawberry tub for him, with the standard field trip fare -- sandwich, veggies and fruits.

But this burger is even more awesome than yesterday's. I used the same burger mix and stuffed today's burger with cheese and salami, then pan-fried. The cheese oozed out the side and got all crispy and golden around the edge of the burger, and the parts of the salami that stuck out got crispy-fried too. Yum. And remember, he still gets the carrot and broccoli bits in the turkey burger too. Super score. I lay some dandelion greens in the whole wheat bun and placed the patty on top. I found these little buns and thought they would make a cute Rilakkuma. I used Susan's idea for raisin eyes and nose (but I later pb'd them on), and added a radish muzzle and nori mouth. His ears are salami rounds. And Kiiroitori is there too, to make sure he doesn't fall asleep. I dyed a hard-boiled quail egg with golden beet juice, and it turned a super dark shade of yellow. I love it, especially since it's totally natural! Facial details and feet are nori and carrot. I used grass baran to keep the fruit and veggies separate from the bread. Along with carrot sticks and romanesco, I tossed in a bunch of strawberry cherries, a half plum and a homegrown apricot.

Have fun MisterMan!

Mini Super Burgers Bento

Mini Burgers Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

Around here the summerlike weather doesn't kick in until around lunchtime, so by the time dinner comes around we're feeling in the outdoor mode. We made sliders, or rather super turkey mini-burgers that I "improved" with all kinds of secret stuff! You can do the same. Use your favorite burger recipe -- mine uses turkey (or chicken), an egg, a splash of Worchestershire, crushed garlic, minced onion, a half cup of rolled oats -- and I mixed in finely grated carrot and not-so-finely chopped broccoli. Yes, broccoli! You can see the bits in the patties here if you look closely. I like chunky burgers, and the tiny broccoli pieces cook up nicely while the patties are frying or grilling. You can add any kind of veggies you like; whatever you have available in your fridge. If you serve with homemade barbeque sauce (ketchup, maple syrup, mustard powder, celery seeds, lemon juice to taste) your kids won't even notice. So good.

I put the patties on a lettuce leaf so he can tear and eat them in lettuce wraps (Protein Style), and I added a cherry tomato and yellow bell pepper butterfly along with carrot flowers. Fruit side has black grapes, a half plum, a half peach and a couple of lychee. Oh, and a bunch of forest friends, since otherwise it's a pretty dull-looking bento. Yay!