Tomato-chan Bento

Tomato-chan Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

Went out for dinner today, since it was my *birthday* -- so I made a quick batch of balsamic vinegar chicken to pack into the double bentos today. They're both pretty much the same. And are you surprised to see kabocha in another form as well? Since the pan was already coated with balsamic sauce, I decided to quick steam a few Brussels sprouts and kabocha, then fry them all up in the same pan. Super easy, right? And if you have kids that might balk at plain steamed veggies or you can't spare the time to whip up a special veggie side, it's the perfect way to add flavor with minimal labor. If you look at my bento style, you'll see that I often re-use sauces for the protein as well as the veggie. In this case, the sweet balsamic gives a touch of bite to the mild kabocha and my girl almost gobbled them all up before I could save some to pack up. I quartered the Brussels sprouts to speed up the cooking. Some decorative cucumber slices serve as baran, and I included colorful carrot skewers to add focal interest. They both got cinnamon-sprinkled apple slices, and MisterMan had extra room so I added cottage cheese with raspberries, sunflower seeds and wheat germ. The cute touch in both is a tomato character, which was inspired by Tomato-chan, from a clip a twitterpal Alissa passed along. Warning: if you link, you might find the song stuck in your head awhile. It's very cute! Ton-ton-tomato chan!