Japanese Rock Garden Toast

 

TinySprite gets a peaceful toast today: hopefully it helps her wind down after a long hard week at school. I was inspired by the food artist Manami Sasaki. She's so creative. We love toast over here so it seems like fun to use the bread as a canvas for imagination and beauty. And I always love a miniature! 

Happy Friday friends!

Chicken Salad Onigirazu Bento

TinySprite is in high school now, can you believe it? Time flies; seems like only yesterday she was in preschool and enjoying her little snack bento at home.

After school these days she has only a short break before extracurricular activities so I decided to make her a little snack bento to tide her over. This one is onigirazu, which is a handheld rice ball filled with various proteins and veggies. Today I made a filling with the ingredients of our chicken salad from yesterday. First thing I did is lay out all tools and foods I'll be using.

I scoop the rice into a small ramekin for two reasons: it helps measure the portion size and it makes a nice compact round flattened rice ball in the center of the nori, placed shiny side down. My rice is a mixture of red, white and brown.

Next, pile on the ingredients you've chosen. Try to stay neatly on the rice patty. I used shredded romaine lettuce, shredded carrots, sliced purple radish, shredded chicken, some dressing, then more lettuce. Be creative and use whatever you like!

Sorry I didn't take process photos of the folding but I folded the bottom right corner in first, then the top left over that, then the two other sides. I used parchment paper but you can also use plastic wrap.

You're left with a nice neat package that you can then slice in half for visual appeal. Or you could keep it a surprise! 

I sliced mine because I'm excited to see how it looks. Try to remember which way the lengths of lettuce and chicken go so you can make a crosswise cut.

Pick a box that's small enough to keep the onigirazu from moving around. A clear lid lets her see what she's getting, and it looks so pretty and colorful. Snap the lid closed and you're ready to go. Hope she likes it!

Update: I think she liked it👍🏼

Happy Girls' Day Bento!

Happy Girls' Day and wishing all our little girls the happiness, strength, and good health to achieve their goals and make all their dreams come true!

We love you! 🥰

😊❤🍱

Chicken Teri Onigirazu Snack Bento

Today's snack makes use of last night's dinner along with some fillers that I usually have lying around the fridge. Onigirazu is like a musubi but rectangular in shape like a sandwich. It's like a rice sandwich. If you do a search you'll see lots of  beautiful examples bursting with all kinds of colorful and delicious ingredients.

There are molds you can purchase to help you make the onigirazu shape but I find that it's easy enough to shape it yourself, and then you can size it to your specific bento box.

Feel free to pack whatever favorite foods you choose!

😊❤🍱

Chicken and Broccoli Lunchbots Bento

The comfort food of my childhood shows up often in my bentomaking as an adult. How coincidental that chicken and rice is a prime combo for bento. It's delicious hot, cold, or room temp😊❣

Today's Lunchbots Clicks contain: shoyu chicken, broccoli, mushrooms, furikake rice, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, tomatoes.

Chicken Rice Salad Bowl

Welcome to my current favorite kind of lunch: the protein bowl! I like it because it's very simple to make and the only rules are that you should use as many different varieties and colors of fresh and minimally processed foods as you can. I like to use a whole grain carb base like rice or pasta, salad greens, cruciferous vegetables, fruit, and protein.
There are tons of cookbooks offering great ideas for protein bowls, and I got the idea for this bento from Bowls of Plenty by Carolynn Carreno.
:

Vietnamese Bowl with Sweet and Tangy Vinaigrette

Marinade:
1/4 C rice vinegar
1/4 C sesame oil
2 T soy sauce
2 T honey
1 lb. skinless chicken breasts, thin

Marinate chicken for 2 hours, then cook chicken until caramelized, 3 minutes, then turn and cook 5 minutes more or until juices run clear. Rest for 5 minutes before slicing. Lay over rice, add shredded cabbage, carrots, and other vegetables of choice (I used brussels sprouts and grapefruit segments). Serve with vinaigrette.

Sweet and Tangy Vinaigrette:
1/2 C canola oil (or other neutral flavored oil)
1/2 C rice vinegar (I also added ume vinegar)
3 inch fresh ginger, grated
3 T lime juice
1 T honey
2 garlic cloves, minced


For this Ecolunchbox Solo Cube I used chicken marinated in this vinegar shoyu sauce and then pan fried in a skillet. You can use other kinds of protein too, such as shrimp, beef, or even tofu. I made a mixed rice composed of brown rice, red rice, barley, black rice, and quinoa. I also added a tossed salad of shredded cabbage, grated carrot, and grapefruit segments. You can pack along this fresh citrusy gingery vinaigrette in a separate container to drizzle at lunchtime. Pan roasted brussels sprouts and halved grape tomatoes round out this square bento. So good, and good for you too! 

Ghost Buddies Egg Bento

Happy Halloween!

Two halves of a single hard-boiled egg become a pair of ghost buddies in TinySprite's Halloween bento today. She also gets furikake shoyu chicken (surprise!) and furikake rice. Broccoli, cucumbers, tomatoes, steamed Okinawan sweet potatoes, and a miniature mandarin round out the rest of the square Ecolunchbox Solo Cube.

Hello Kitty Egg Bento

Just a little one for the TinySprite. Shoyu chicken furikake, hapa rice, hard boiled egg, tomatoes, carrot, corn, honeydew melon and grapes. Happy Wednesday!

Pineapple Chicken Teriyaki Bento

I used a different recipe for teriyaki chicken - this one uses crushed pineapple, honey, shoyu, garlic, and ginger, and involved marinating the chicken pieces before oven baking. I'm not a fan of cooked pineapple in sauces but the kids liked it a lot. I guess because of the added sweetness in the flavor. Also packed in our LunchBots Quad: sweet cantaloupe, steamed Okinawan Sweet Potato, fresh corn, grape tomatoes, rice with furikake.

Pineapple Chicken Teriyaki Recipe 

(from Weelicious Cookbook adapted by Steamy Kitchen)

Ingredients:

1 (8-ounce) can crushed pineapple
3 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
2 tablespoon honey or agave nectar
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
1 small garlic clove, finely minced
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 2 pounds)

Directions:

1. To make the teriyaki sauce, place the crushed pineapple, soy sauce, honey, ginger and garlic a bowl, whisk to combine. Pour half of the teriyaki sauce in a resealable plastic bag and reserve the other half. Place the chicken breasts in the resealable bag, close and give it a good massage to coat with the marinade. Refrigerate for 30 minutes or up to overnight.

2. When ready to cook, turn on the broiler and place the rack in the middle position. Place the marinated chicken breasts on a foil-lined baking sheet and spoon some of the chunky pineapple/ginger from the marinade on top of the breast. It will help keep the chicken moist. Broil for 8 to 10 minutes on each side, for a total of 16-20 minutes. Discard any remaining marinade in the bag.

3. While the chicken is broiling, heat the reserved teriyaki sauce (that you had previously set aside in step 1) in a saucepan. Bring to a simmer and cook for 3 minutes or until thickened slightly.

4. When chicken is done, Slice the chicken, pour the teriyaki sauce over top and serve immediately.

Chicken Katsu Onigirazu Bento

Working on improving my onigirazu technique; today I made oven-baked chicken katsu. There are lots of recipes out there describing this method - basically instead of deep-frying the panko-breaded chicken cutlets, you bake them in a 400F oven for 30 minutes or so. The key is to toast the panko on a frying pan first so that it turns a nice brown color, like how it would look if you had actually deep-fried the chicken. You really can't compare oven baked chicken katsu with real deep-fried chicken katsu, but I thought it came out okay. It will never be as crispy as deep-fried, but it definitely is less oily. And there is very little cleanup involved. I like that!

For this onigirazu I didn't use a mold; I simply placed some rice in the middle of a sheet of nori, then layered with shredded cabbage, a few slices of chicken katsu, a squirt of tonkatsu sauce, more rice, then folded up the four corners and cut in half. I like how it looks, but I can still add more filling. Next time that's what I'll do. Also, I'll fold a little more tightly. The learning experience continues. Also inside our LunchBot Clicks: strawberries, orange cherry tomato, steamed broccoli.

Chicken Teriyaki Onigirazu and Makizushi Bento

Hi friends! This is my first attempt at onigirazu. Onigirazu is like a rice ball (onigiri) except it is square in shape and flatter, like a sandwich. In this way, you can have more fillings than inside a round or triangular ball. Onigirazu molds exist, just as they do for regular onigiri, but I didn't have a mold so I freehanded it - placing rice, chicken teriyaki, lightly sauteed asparagus, then more rice on a nori sheet. Then I folded it, wrapped in wax paper, and cut in half so it would fit nicely inside the Eshly Deli Box. I filled out the rest of the box with purple carrot flowers, tomato, broccoli, and a melon sampler. Have you been eating as much melon as we have? It has been a great summer for sweet watermelon, honeydew, and cantaloupe!

I thought it came out pretty well, and MisterMan seemed to like it. There are lots of possibilities for fillings, and it is a good way to use up refrigerator leftovers easily (ham and egg, tuna salad, tomato bacon lettuce, smoked salmon cream cheese, steak, hamburger, whatever!).

I decided to make TinySprite's chicken and asparagus inside a makisushi roll. I thought it might be easier (and more fun) for her to eat this way. And they fit nicely inside the LunchBots Clicks box, alongside some Dapple Dandy pluots and a sweet strawberry. This stainless steel box comes in a couple sizes and is great because not only does it have a leakproof lid but the lid is translucent so you can see what's for lunch! I love that effect a lot. So there we have a couple of nice cool bento for a warm summer day! Hope you are all enjoying your last bit of summer!

Oyakodon Ecolunchboxes Tri Bento

Oyako donburi is one of my favorite comfort meals. It consists of chicken and egg simmered together in a shoyu-mirin-sugar sauce with onions before adding to a bowl of rice with scallions. I added mushrooms and sliced red bell pepper to mine. Also, I cooked the egg completely instead of leaving it slightly runny since it will be packed into bento and stored at room temperature before eating. It may not be very photogenic, but trust me - it's delicious! I like this one-bowl type of meal because it's quick and easy, and it's a hit with the kids too. I put shichimi togarashi on mine, but they like furikake on theirs. Packed on the bottom layer of this Ecolunchboxes Tri Bento, I put some hapa rice (half white half brown) and scooped some chicken egg mixture over, topping with cilantro and chopped green onion, I put a romaine lettuce pickled baby cucumber fresh corn tomato salad in the middle with vinegar dressing and cracked black pepper, and super sweet fresh cut cantaloupe on the top. I asked MisterMan what he thought of this bento and he said "very good because there's lots of food inside!" Okay then. ^_^

Cookbook Review: A Cook's Journey to Japan

This is the second cookbook I'm choosing to review at the request of Tuttle Publishing: A Cook's Journey to Japan - 100 Homestyle Recipes from Japanese Kitchens, by Sarah Marx Feldner. It's a large paperback volume filled with clearly written recipes and prose accompanied by vibrant full-color photos on every high-quality glossy page.

The author is an American woman who wanted to develop a cookbook based upon recipes which she obtained by traveling on her own through small towns and talking with the people she met along the way.

I found this to be a good reference for people wanting to learn the basics of Japanese cooking along with a selection of specific dishes which she introduces with short anecdotes.

I made two recipes from this cookbook. The first was Hiyashi Chuka, or Cold Sesame Noodle Salad. I found the instructions to be straightforward and easy to follow. I substituted cherry tomatoes (since that's what I had), and used furikake (because we like it). The salad was delicious, and perfect on this hot summer day. The two photos below are mine, which I point out because I neglected to watermark them with my blog url and name.

It was a hit with the family too. I also made Soy-Glazed Chicken Wings. This was very good as well, and I should have made much more. The skin browned nicely, and the flavor was excellent.

Beautiful, aren't they? There are a number of other recipes I am definitely going to try from this book, and I recommend it even as an interesting read with interesting tidbits about Japanese culture and cuisine. Enjoy!

Herby Chicken Lunchbot Cinco Bento

This is my first time using the large Cinco box from Lunchbots, and I was very excited to see what my middle-schooler thought of it! We are heavy users of the company's other boxes (Duo, Trio and Quad, as well as the Clicks series) and I heartily endorse the quality of those containers. I've been packing home lunch in these boxes their whole school lives, and they are all still in use after 6-7 years, none the worse for wear. I thought this larger size would be just right for my boy, who has a pretty big appetite. I took the opportunity to pack a whole chicken thigh and a serving of spinach pasta with potatoes and asparagus in the two biggest sections. That left me still with three more, smaller, sections which I filled with pickled carrots and daikon, sliced kiwi, and grapes, strawberry and tomato. He loved  it; had no problem finishing all the food. While the box is a bit larger in size than our other Lunchbots, it still fit nicely inside his insulated tote bag. I have a feeling this new box will be getting a lot of use in the coming years. Thumbs up!

Panda Rice and Chicken Bento

Just a little more of that unbeatable (for me) comfort food combo: chicken and rice. I used the Vietnamese Soy Chicken Drumsticks recipe that I've made several times before (you can see my version and the link to the original recipe here). So good. Sometimes I pack the drumsticks whole, but today I pulled the meat off the bones so I could arrange a cute bento in this enameled stainless steel bowl (from Daiso). I can pack a lot of food in here because it's pretty deep, and it has a translucent tupperware-type lid to keep everything secure. The advantage to packing a tight bento like this is that the food doesn't move around like it might in a larger box. Besides the chicken meat, this bento contains a mushroom-cut radish, steamed broccoli, a panda rice ball (with cucumber "bamboo"), carrots, grape tomatoes, and blood orange segments. Aren't those cute pencil chopsticks? I have a pair in 5 other colors. They don't really function as color pencils, by the way. ^__^

Just curious; I notice another bentomaker often photographs her bento on a pure white background, and it seems to make the food stand out. I tried the same, but I'm not convinced I like it better. Maybe I have too many shadows. What do you think?

Tebasaki Chicken Wings Bento

Today's bento features that all-time kid (and adult) favorite: tebasaki (crispy salted chicken wings)! Have you had these before? I've made them for my kids' bento many times. Even though by lunchtime they are cold, the kids devour them. I have to make tons because they are small and addictive. I use LovelyLanvin's recipe and method (you can find it here), which I adapted for mini wings and drummettes, which fit better in the bento box.

Speaking of bento boxes, the long stainless steel box is from Bento and Co, and it comes in a set of two. It is of excellent quality and I love it. I often use one of the boxes (as shown here) along with a smaller side box -- in this case the ECOLunchBox Eco Dipper.

I placed the chicken in a romaine lettuce leaf (for nutrition, looks, and grease absorbancy), and six happen to fit perfectly for MisterMan. The little Dipper holds pickled cucumber, carrot and daikon in mini silicone cups, a half satsuma mandarin, and some grape tomatoes. If he wants to, he may sprinkle shichimi togarashi (7 pepper spice) from the penguin (you can find a similar one here) at lunchtime.

Herby Chicken and Potatoes ECOlunchbox Tri Bento (Giveaway still going on!)

Herby Chicken and Potatoes ECOlunchbox Tri Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Yes, it's the ever-popular herby chicken and potatoes! I think the kids prefer it over the traditional local-style shoyu chicken and rice. Aww. The ECOlunchbox Tri bento serves the purpose well here: I put the chicken pieces in the bottom along with some steamed broccoli, then the potatoes and roasted tomatoes in the next tier, followed by the fruit section containing sliced peach (where did I find a peach? I don't even remember), strawberries and little strawberry guavas given to us by a friend. Are you interested in winning a Tri Bento for your very own self? All you need to do is log an entry into the giveaway, and I'll try to pick your name! U.S only please. Thanks!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Added to What's For Lunch.

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...

Enchilada Soup LunchBot Thermal Bento for Fall!

Enchilada Soup LunchBot Thermal Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Everyone is talking about the upcoming fall weather, and I'm starting to get excited about fall soups. So even though it's not exactly cold yet, we're having chicken enchilada soup (see the recipe and method I used here). As usual, I added a lot of nontraditional extras such as zucchini, carrots, corn, celery, and leeks. It was good (if a tad bit spicy). I served TinySprite's portion over rice, and she ate hers without too much complaint over the heat. I get to use the LunchBots Thermal food jar for this bento, and packed it along with a side container of white peach, grapes and strawberry. Happy Fall!
Added to What's For Lunch.

Herby Chicken LunchBot Bento

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

When I need an easy standby, and we already had shoyu chicken, this one usually fills the bill. TinySprite especially loves this chicken. It's broiled with olive oil and a toss of Provencal herbs, and mixed in the pan with halved baby potatoes. It's a one dish meal, and there's always extra for bento. I steam some broccoli alongside so the kids can wipe the plates with it. There's also steamed corn off the cob, the usual pickled cucumbers, cubed nectarines and grapes. All packed in the LunchBot Trio. Happy Monday!