My husband had a much-deserved chance to sleep in this morning. When I talked to him later on the phone, I said I'd been rushed getting ready this morning, and he said, "You must not have been too rushed, I thought I heard you making a bento."
Now, my question is: what does bentoing sound like? How could he tell I was cute-ing up my lunch and not just grabbing stuff from the fridge?
In any case, this is what he heard me make:
Contents of "hot" tier (the one I microwave before eating):
Contents of cold tier:
I love how the rice balls turned out to have so much personality.
Happy Bento (and happy Friday)!Here is the little bento I made for today:
I just went to the grocery store yesterday, so I have lots of fresh foods to cram into my little box...
I love this little guy. He looks like he's hiding, doesn't he?
The kitty cat onigiri was super easy to put together this morning, because I had pre-made the onigiri, and pre-cut the nori.
Happy Bento!Today I slept in till the absolute last moment, and when it came time to throw together my lunch, I still didn't have any cute ideas. So, I started pulling my left-overs out of the fridge and heating them up. Oven-roasted potatoes? Check. Left-over rice? Check. Sausage... well, you get the idea. That pretty much took care of my top tier.
Oh, and I'm so loving my new little veggie cutters. I wanted it to be a little more interesting, so I threw a couple carrot flowers in there. Why flowers? Because that was the only cutter that wasn't in the dishwasher. ("You wash your cutters in the dishwasher?" Yeah, I'm just that lazy.)
For my bottom tier, I microwaved a heart shaped onigiri that I had previously made and frozen, surrounded it with pineapple and sprinkled sesame seeds on top. Then I made a foil box to keep my brownie safe, and filled in the gaps with raisins. And, wa-la! Bento #89:
Happy Bento!
This bento was what I took to work on Tuesday, actually. Yesterday I took potato soup (delish!) and today I am taking spaghetti.
Bento #48:
Today's lunch is full of comfort food. Take a look:
Bento #41 contains:
"What is that?" one of the boys from the table next to me in the cafeteria asked, watching, with furrowed brows as I raised the chopsticks to my mouth.
"What?" I glanced up to see a handful of pre-teen boys looking at me.
"That purple stuff... what is it?"
"Garlic mashed potatoes." I answered, as if it was the most normal thing in the world to be eating potatoes the hue of my utensils in the center of a middle school cafeteria.
I'm beginning to think that I may be developing an unhealthy bento obsession. I was almost late today because I felt I should add whiskers to my lunch bunny. I literally looked at the clock and thought, "It would be okay to be a little late... Wait, what am I thinking? I can make another bunny (with whiskers) some other day; I better get going!"
Contents of bento #38:
My lunch today included a stuffed onigiri with a nori face, some steamed broccoli, salted almonds, ham rolls, tortilla chips, and brownies topped with powdered sugar.
Bento #20 features a jack-o-lantern onigiri coated in soy sauce with a nori grin. It is surrounded by fried rice and tomatoes. Simple but delicious, here it is:
I can't quite put my fin on it, but there is something fishy about bento #18. Here is the lunch I will be taking with me on our feild trip to the swimming pool today:
Up top we have a fish shaped onigiri with a nori smile. It is filled with a bit of tuna fish. And I can't remember if this is the spicy kind, or the kind with relish, so I will just have to wait and see. (Since I froze them earlier and thought I'd be able to remember and...um...no, I don't.) It is swiming through a sea of spanish rice-a-roni near a school of carrot fish.
Below is a tuna fish sandwich (are you sensing a theme?) topped with little nori fish. Next to the sandwich are grapes and almonds, respectively.
And that's lunch!
Quick bento (#17) thrown together this morning with left-overs from last night's dinner:
In the smaller container are grapes and tortilla wraps with refried beans, olives and taco meat. The larger container is stuffed full of spanish rice, with accents of a plain onigiri in the shape of a star sprinkled with "chili con limon" seasoning, and a tomato with parsley.
My "sweet sixteen" bento is the first that I have gotten to use nori to make faces with. I put them on the carrots from my garden, as well as the onigiri. But I found the seaweed very difficult to cut into nice shapes. It will take practice, I'm sure.
Here are the carrots, picked from my garden the morning of:
And here is the lunch itself:
On the left is the onigiri, steamed broccoli and some of the last cherry tomatoes from my garden (oh, wait, one of those is a roma). On the left are the two carrot characters, some raisins, little tortilla wraps with ham and dijion mustard in them, a few almonds, a couple crackers, and a chocolate chip cookie.
Yesterday's lunch, bento #13, was put together in about 30 minutes the morning of. I was just going to throw a sandwich in a baggie or something... but I couldn't help myself. I took one of my newly frozen onigiri out and made up a bento instead.
The bananas are the main event, with big goofy grins on their faces. I got the idea from a pic I saw on Flickr. They are surrounded by almonds and grapes. Below is a flower-shaped onigiri filled with a little bit of tuna and some relish. It is topped with carrots punched into flower shapes. Cherry tomatoes and steamed broccoli finish off this simple bento.
Here are some pics of the process of making onigiri the other night:
I had purchased what I felt was a very small portion of "pearl rice" to see if it was a good kind to get for making onigiri. I figure I had about 1 1/4 cups of unprepared rice. Then I put it in my steamer, with twice as much water and turned it on for about half an hour, while I did other things.
Above is a picture of me making onigiri according to Biggie's tutorial, which suggests using regular cookie cutters and plastic wrap in the place of an onigiri mold. I put some tuna and relish in the center.
Later, I decided I wanted to make some in the more basic shape - a triangle formed by hand. So I got out a teacup and used the method described on Just Hungry. These I filled with tuna and some spicy seasoning.
I am very pleased to learn that I like the taste of these onigiri, since I still have about six of them in the freezer - in various shapes. And tonight when we were at the grocery store we picked up some nori, so now I can make cute little faces with more flexibility than I had when using black olives.
Bento #12 features my first attempt at making onigiri (basically, a Japanese rice ball). I made this man using Saran Wrap and a cookie cutter, as described in Biggie's tutorial. I used a bit of cut up (left-over) Shake & Bake chicken for the filling, and used olive peices for the face (as I have yet to purchase any nori).
Though the onigiri was the main accomplishment, let me describe the rest of the meal:
Beside my little man are green apple slices, and gap fillers include cashews, an almond, grapes and dried appricot. In the smaller container below are little wraps made of tosted torilla spread with hummus, mujaddara, and carrot (for color). I stuffed them in there a little too tightly, though, I think, because you can't really tell where one leaves off and the other ones begin. I tried to fix this by putting a bit of parsley in the gaps (such as they were) with limited success.
