Chinese New Year 2014 Bento: Year of the Horse!

Chinese New Year 2014 Bento: Year of the Horse!, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Happy New Year! And Happy Chinese New Year too! This year the Chinese (Lunar) New Year falls on the 31st of January, and will be represented by the Horse. To celebrate, I've made a brand new bento with a horse theme! This one is for me. I used my super kawaii red goldfish nesting bento box because when you turn it on end, it has a horse shape. Can you see it? I made kabocha curry yesterday, so I packed some curry and rice in the big box with a cucumber separator. I decorated the rice with broccoli and cucumber to create a horse face, and added grape tomatoes for nostrils. The baby fish box holds Greek yogurt with raisins, a tiny satsuma mandarin, some carrots and a cheese nori face. This one is a pony. Awww! I hope this upcoming year brings you and your loved ones much happiness and good health. Kung Hay Fat Choy!
Added to What's For Lunch.

Purple Goldfish Bento

Purple Goldfish Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

The theme of today's bento is ... fish! To go with the miso butterfish that I made (method and recipe here), I cut some big-eyed goldfish from Okinawan sweet potato using my very cool goldfish vegetable cutter. I've cut carrots (in this bento) and regular sweet potato (in this bento) before, but this is a first for purple goldfish. I think they look rather vibrant, if not very realistic; do you agree? The mottled color looks kind of cool. It's a bit tricky to get the fish out without damage, and there were a few casualties. A stiffer vegetable would cut more easily. The rest of my LunchBots Trio contains: grape tomatoes, corn on the cob, green cauliflower, carrots, plum, cherries and raspberry.

Goldfish Bento

Goldfish Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

I stir-fried spinach yakisoba with shiitake mushrooms, bean sprouts, garlic and green onion; no meat because I didn't have any. Topped with carrot goldfish. These goldfish cutters are handmade with built-in eye cutouts; very intricate and precise. I have found that carrots are the optimal substrate for this cutter: they are the desired color, and they are stiff enough to hold up well to display the lovely curved shape. If you cooked sweet potato only until firm, you might get a nice result (but I like sweet potato much softer).
I also quick-sauteed horenso (spinach) in garlic and shoyu and topped with sesame seeds. Satsumaimo / Okinawan sweet potato flowers (I could have used my double flower cutter for this one, but instead I used a simple cutter for the flower, and cut out the center circle using a bit of straw -- easy and convenient!), purple cauliflower and tricolor tomato skewer. Fruit side has strawberries, raspberry, blueberries and plum.
This is quite a bright and colorful one! I think it might be the ultra-violet purple background ;)

Goldfish Handmade Vegetable Cutter

This is what my goldfish cutter looks like. Similar to the double flower one, it is mounted on a "handle" for easier manipulation, and also to provide stability to the design while pressing.

This one has lots more detail, including rounded eyes and a cool fantail. The eye circles are soldered to the handle to stay in place. These pictures all show the bottom of the cutter; the part which actually cuts the vegetable. The metal is very thin and gives a nice sharp edge. The eyes are so tiny, though, that the carrot gets stuck...and must be removed with a straight pin :)