Happy Girls' Day Hinamatsuri Bento

Happy Girls' Day Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Here is my Hinamatsuri bento for my TinySprite. Girls' Day is on March 3rd so we'll show this bento today, even though I made it earlier this week when I was strapped on a no-cook bento day. Here are a couple other Girls' Day bento I've made (here and here). I used spinach-ricotta ravioli and arranged cut halves as a kimono with a sweet red pepper fan. The girl's face is a hard-boiled quail's egg decorated with nori and sriracha. She has a crown and some flower picks to make her pretty. The rest of the bento contains steamed broccoli, a clementine, strawberries and blueberries. I am using this two tiered Hello Kitty square bento box for the first time and I love it! I didn't realize one of the tiers comes with compartments, which I love, and there's a white cover for the bottom tier so that the top tier can sit upon it without smushing the food. After the two are stacked, there's a strap that clips through both boxes and doubles as a handle/carrier. Can you say a-d-o-r-a-b-l-e?? Perfect for this day's celebration, I think. Happy Girls' Day!

Hello Kitty Chinese New Year Dragon Bento

Hello Kitty Dragon Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Since this was a no-cook bento I took advantage of the extra time to use a Chinese New Year theme. Since 2012 is a Year of the Dragon, today's ravioli are shaped into this mythical creature -- or rather, Hello Kitty dressed in a dragon costume. She's wearing a spinach-ricotta ravioli mask, her face made of cheese, nori and yellow pepper. Her whiskers are ume somen. I used picks liberally to achieve my charaben objective, showing that you can use ready-made items (and a bit of imagination) to reach your desired decorative goal. This bento was for MisterMan, and I realized that it was probably more appropriate for TinySprite, but he didn't mind. The girls teased, "You're eating Hello Kitty!" The rest of the bento includes: baby tangerine, cucumbers, carrot, peapod, strawberry and blueberries. Chinese New Year falls on January 23rd this year. Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Panda Ravioli Bento

Panda Ravioli Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

It's a panda panda bento! These are organic spinach and feta ravioli that I lay atop some lettuce and added a nori face to. I had to hand-cut everything since I don't have the right size punches for any of these features. In fact, I don't have a panda face punch at all. Can you believe it? This bento is for TinySprite. She gets a partial corn on the cob (mainly because the whole piece wouldn't fit), Okinawan sweet potatoes, carrots, and some fruit in the top tier (dinosaur plum, cherries, grapes, raspberries and blackberry. I barely got this one to close, but it was secured with an elastic belt. She loved it. It came home empty, for the first time in a while. Yay!

Meowth Pokemon Bento

Meowth Pokemon Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Okay, not an Easter bento but MisterMan requested a Pokemon bento so here it is. I had to scan the Pokemon directory (yes, such a book exists, luckily in his library) to find one with "a round face with bumpy edges" to match the ravioli I had. Have you heard of Meowth? Well, I hadn't -- but apparently he is a talking Scratch Cat Pokemon member of Team Rocket, who does much of the brain work behind their criminal schemes. I decorated the spinach and three cheese ravioli with carrot, radish and nori details for his face, and used somen for his whiskers. He is accompanied by peapods, tomatoes, grapes, and a strawberry. Hurry and eat this one before the Pokemon get it... they look hungry...

Bento4Japan Ravioli Bento

Bento4Japan Ravioli Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Today I made bento for both kids, but I'm only showing one (hers looked basically the same minus the painstaking lettering). They got cool striped ravioli filled with mushroom, spinach and ricotta; mandarin, strawberry, yogurt with black- and raspberries, and some broccoli. At first I was going to decorate the ravioli like a shipping box, since I took my two #Bento4Japan auction items in to the post office today to be shipped to my generous buyers/donors. I even went so far as to cut a stamp and address label out of cheese (and even wrote some words on them) -- but then I remembered my tiny pasta letters and thought that would be cuter. When I opened the bag I saw there were numbers in there too, so that's when I decided to make a tribute to the grass-roots fundraising effort that began as an idea between a few bentomaking buddies about a week ago and has since expanded to include participants all over the world. It took me a lot longer to find all the letters I needed than I thought it would, and I never found a "J" at all so I used a "U" and altered it. It also took me forever to find a "4" because I didn't even realize that was a "4" until I had passed it over about 20 times! Sheesh. Since the ravioli is green I didn't dye the letters. I also added twin watermelon radish hearts for contrast.

We're really pleased with the success of #Bento4Japan, which has so far raised $2000 in the 9 days it's been operating. I attribute its effectiveness to the power of social media, driving people to learn about the situation in Japan and realize the dire nature of the living conditions in the hardest hit areas. It can be hard to separate the facts from the hype, and much of the information I've been getting has been from Maki of JustBento, who has dedicated the past week and a half to culling the news from Japan and numerous other sources via her twitter account @makiwi. Along the way she's encountered a great deal of hysteria and misinformation, so she's posted a message on her site detailing what she feels is important for caring members of the world community right now: in short, to interpret the news thoughtfully and respond rationally. Yep, always a good idea.

Anyway, #Bento4Japan is still going strong. These auctions are all by donation, and 100% of sales goes to disaster relief. We've had several corporate donors join us, which makes for exciting new merchandise. For example, this LunchBots Uno I used today. You may have noticed I use it quite frequently; at least once a week. There's a reason for that-- it's a fantastic box! All stainless steel, sturdy and practical. And, it's up for auction right now. Want to skip over there and take a look? Go ahead. I don't mind. ^_^

Turkey Bento

Turkey Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

Well, Thanksgiving is nearly upon us, and I just realized I never made a single Thanksgiving bento. Hmm. I'll bet there'll be lots of turkey bentos AFTER Thanksgiving, though! So here's a "turkey" bento to celebrate the upcoming holiday and get us in the mood. Spinach ricotta ravioli decorated as turkeys with purple, yellow, pink and orange carrots. There are grapes, mandarins and watermelon radish shapes as well. The tiny yellow pear tomatoes are stragglers from my home garden. Can't believe they're still producing fruit, but I actually even have flowers still blooming on my slowly withering bush. Gobble gobble, and Happy Thanksgiving bento friends!

San Francisco Giants Bento

San Francisco Giants Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

Today in downtown San Francisco there was a big parade in celebration of the San Francisco Giants winning the 2010 World Series. I didn't really follow the team, but it was hard not to get caught up in the excitement. And since they hadn't won the World Series in over 50 years, it was a really big deal. So here is my SF Giants commemorative bento. It contains spinach ravioli, one of which is meant to suggest a baseball glove, and is holding a spherical "baseball" made of a hand-molded quail egg and purple carrot strips. I also made a cap from a halved hen's egg and cheddar cheese, covered in nori. The rest of the bento contains steamed broccoli, purple cauliflower, carrots, tomato, grapes and sliced persimmon. The orange flag picks are a gift from a bento pal and fellow SF Giants fan. I don't know if they were meant to be Giants pennants, but they did come in handy today!

Two Lions Ravioli Bento

Two Lions Ravioli Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

This bento is basically no-cook. The red pepper-cheese whole wheat ravioli just got boiled along with the corn, and the broccoli and peapods got steamed with the same pot. Woo! Big lion has a nori face, and little lion has a sweet potato face on a corncob with nori details. I cut some pink flowers with a metal cutter and poked holes with a coffee straw. Fruit section has sliced plum, grapes (on bottom) and sweet strawberries. Three purple carrot discs round out the color scheme.

I'll admit I made this bento with recent bento articles in mind. Perhaps you've seen them: Here, here and here. Basically they all address the back-to-school task of preparing lunches for kids, and show pictures of cute bento examples. The responses to these articles have been mixed, with several commenters suggesting that making such a bento takes way too long for a typical busy parent to manage, and that cute lunches "cater" to spoiled kids. Well! I'm not going to argue the bento point here but I want to emphasize that what constitutes a cute detail is up to you. I can tell you that I did not take more than 15 minutes (not counting cooking time) to put this bento together. The only skill I used was the ability to punch out vegetables with a cutter and nori with a craft punch. And if I didn't have a craft punch, I would have used pieces of carrots or peas to suggest eyes and a smile (I have certainly done that before). As for spoiling kids, on the contrary: You don't spoil kids by lovingly preparing them a nutritious, fun lunch. I'd rather have them at least try the food before outright refusing it, which is what you're allowing them to do if you don't even try. I think they learn to appreciate food more when they see the care their parents put into it for them, and they'll learn to love food because it's delicious and full of positive memories. Parents can encourage this process by offering their kids' meal in an appealing way they can appreciate. I really believe this. How about you?
This bento was added at What's For Lunch. Feel free to add yours too!

Pikachu Summer Bento

Pikachu Summer Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

Today's bento contains more ravioli; this time tomato-basil-spinach whole wheat ravioli. Instead of using the ravioli for a face, I added an egg decorated as Pikachu. For some reason my beet didn't stain the hen's egg as well as it did the quail egg from the Kiiroitori bento; not sure why. After dyeing the egg yellow, I cut two ears and added nori detail for ear tips, eyes and nose. His cheeks are imitation crab and his mouth is salami. I poked a few roasted asparagus in the gaps to keep his ears in place as well. The fruit side has lychee, homegrown apricot and dark red super sweet plums. These were so juicy they were practically liquid when I cut them. Of course, I can't remember the variety since I bought a whole bunch of different ones from a bunch of different farmers' markets last week. I packed everything in the cute Pokemon bento box I got at Ichiban Kan. It's kind of small, but the small size means things are packed more closely together and hopefully stay in place somewhat. When MisterMan got home he told me one of the visiting dads, Mr. L, took a picture of this bento to show Mrs. L. Hope she liked it. Hehe! ^_^

Ravioli Buddy Bento

Ravioli Buddy Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

Green striped ravioli? Had to make something out of that, but what? I used a halved quail egg and nori dots for eyes and a red capsicum for tongue, and was hoping it would look like a toothy crocodile. But TinySprite said "Frog!" so... you decide. I squeezed in some carrot flowers and would have added fluffy broccoli on top of his head, but I was out of that veggie. Fruit section has sugar plum quarters, a single strawberry cherry, lychee and black grapes. A quick and easy bento during what is turning out to be a non-cooking summer. ^^

Spinach Ravioli Bento

Spinach Ravioli Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

Spinach and 4-cheese (ricotta, asiago, parmesan and mozzarella) ravioli from Costco for today's quick and easy bento. I added a face with nori and radish detail, sweet potato stars, steamed purple cauliflower and sweet corn. Yes, I often use these heart picks for antenna; they're so cute for that purpose. So maybe we could call the stack of ravioli a little caterpillar? Other stainless steel box has a ripe apricot, cherries, black grapes and a little bunch of my garden-grown mini-strawberries! They all ripened at this very small stage; I don't know why. Some other fruit on the same plants are larger and still green. I guess this group was just meant for bento, so in they go! What a treat for my mini-mania!
We're so happy Friday's here too! It's Memorial Day weekend and we get next Monday off. See you later bento friends!

Lion Ravioli Bento

Lion Ravioli Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

For this bento I used my new two tier panda bento box that I got at Marukai in Little Tokyo, L.A. It's so cute! I used spinach ravioli. These Costco brand ravioli have a curvy edge that always make me think of lions, so of course I had to cut out a nori face to decorate. In addition, I added a piece of steamed broccoli, some roasted asparagus and roasted grape tomatoes. Interestingly, these tomatoes were getting wrinkled in the fridge, which is why I decided to toss them in the pan with the asparagus. When I took them out, they had magically plumped back up. Now they look beautiful! What a trick, eh?

In the other tier I put some carrot flowers, a baby mandarin, some strawberries and blueberries. Doesn't it look nice? I didn't show the lid, but I did put the matching ice pack in the picture to show you. It fits under the lid and on top of the top tier, which comes with a tight-fitting plastic lid. The whole thing stacks together and fastens with a white belt. My boy loved this one, and it got lots of appreciative comments from his lunchtime pals too ^_^

Tiger Bento

Tiger Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

MisterMan gets a tigerrrr, since this pumpkin sage ravioli (from Costco) is ready-made with stripes and everything. Facial details are cut from red lettuce using tiny scissors. He also gets roasted asparagus, sweet potato and new potato sun and clouds, & steamed broccoli and peapods to add to the jungle effect. Fruit side includes green plum, rasp- and blackberries.
Rawr!

Werewolf Toddler Snack Bento

Werewolf Toddler Snack Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

I have lots of Halloween-themed bento this year ~ too many to blog. They were a lot of fun, though, and if you want to see them all in one place, you can glance at the dedicated set I made in flickr. I'm posting this one here just to let you know this one made Front Page on Flickr Explore, which was a first for me and was very exciting! This means the photo was cycled on the front page for some time (about 5 hours) on October 24th. Here's what the screen shot looked like.

I made the chicken and sun-dried tomato ravioli "werewolf" for TinySprite with mozzarella and nori facial details, and cut curved pieces for the paws. My mom thinks the paws are the best part of the bento. There are also peapods, strawberries and blackberries. Her Jack O'Lantern is cut from a mini orange sweet pepper. It's my favorite cutting material and I love that the vegetable is naturally hollow too! Here's how I cut my little pepper jack-o-lantern (a recent post), if you are interested :)

It's only 2 more days until Halloween! Tomorrow my boy has the day off, so he will spend it hanging out with his sister and me. Who knows what will be in store?

Red & Orange Ravioli Bento

Red & Orange Ravioli Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

MisterMan gets vegetable & cheese ravioli, yellow and purple cauliflower, yellow and purple carrot skewers, peapods, sweet potato and satsumaimo flowers, radish, cherry tomatoes and ocean salad. All-red fruit side includes Elephant Heart plums, red grapes, strawberries and organic raspberries.
Hm, looking at it now, it's kind of flowery and "heart-y"... but I don't think he'll mind!
I'll be sure to make him a "boy" one next week for sure, eh?