Desert Camel and Palm Bento Lunch!

I attempted a Japanese-style bento today with rice, scrambled egg with mirin, miso-seasoned ground pork, spinach and steamed carrots. Not shown is a tiny bottle of soy for extra seasoning. It could be eaten at room temperature, but it's probably better warm. Since I am paranoid about using plastic in the microwave, I used a flat rectangular glass Pyrex dish we had as the bento box.

Also, as long as you use wheat-free soy, this is a gluten free meal!

I think it came out pretty cute! I made the rice this morning and put a layer of it on the bottom. It's pretty thin, so there should be enough toppings to mix in. The camel was made by using a camel cookie cutter. I put it down on the rice and filled it with the cooked miso ground pork, and just tapped it down with a fork. When I pulled up the cookie cutter, it surprisingly stayed in perfect shape. The palm tree is made from a slice of steamed carrot, which I sliced up so Mike can mix it in later. The leaves are boiled spinach leaves, and the sand is scrambled eggs with a little mirin added for seasoning. Mirin is a seasoned Japanese cooking wine that is just a bit sweet. It's delicious!

I hope he likes it!

CuteOBento Website Review

A lot of my bento inspiration comes from the internet. Whatever did we do in the days before internet? Today, you don't even have to have an "ah-ha!" moment, because someone out there has already had that moment and is kind enough to share it with you!

Today I'm reviewing this adorable bento site: www.cuteobento.com. Maki Ogawa is the mother of two who creates these delicious looking bentos, and she also has a book out called "Yum-Yum Bento Box." She is very talented and her bentos are just beautiful. A lot of them are Japanese style bentos with rice, but you can totally adapt her ideas to American lunches and sandwiches, salads, etc.  A few things I just love about her bentos - one, she colors everything with natural spices (like tumeric) or uses natural foods that are vibrantly colored, like radishes, beets, and heirloom potatoes. Two, she really doesn't use any fancy cutters or anything to make her creations. She uses simple tools like straws, knives, or works with the shape of the food itself. 

Some samples of her work:

In this rice bowl bento, some little fried chicken pieces are artfully arranged with lettuce, a cherry tomato, etc. The purple toadstools are made from purple potatoes. I'm not sure what the dots are made from, but you could totally use cheese or egg whites. The Japanese have a ton of different pickled radishes that are bright yellow and red and other colors, which she may have used for the cute flowers. For American tastes, you could use cheddar cheese, bell peppers, carrots (boiled, to soften them a bit and make them easier to cut, or use stainless steel cutters), or even mustard to draw a flower.

The colors and arrangement of this bento are just gorgeous!

In this bento, she used fish cake (which is white and can be cut into flat pieces) for her elephants. For American tastes, you could easily use any white cheese (like provolone), egg whites, cooked lasagna noodles, or turkey cold cuts. Ears could be made from carrots, sliced almonds, etc. 

The beautiful purple stars are purple potatoes or yams. The orange stars are carrots  (which have been pre-cooked). Again, her colors are just stunning. 

Oh, but I forgot to mention the most clever part - the little cut outs for the elephants were made using one of those large straws that they have for boba drinks; she just squeezes it a bit to get it to be the right size to cut out in between the trunk and front leg, and in between the front and back legs. So creative! 

It just goes to show you, you just need to think outside the box and add a little detail to the most basic shape to turn it into something else. I hope my brain will catch on so I can think of these more quickly in the mornings. In the meantime, I have the CuteOBento blog for inspiration. 

Caterpillar Bento Box Lunch

I've been thinking about doing a caterpillar for awhile; I love the way cucumbers look when they're cut and layered, and I figured a caterpillar would be perfect and easy! I will say I am desperate for my new kitchen tweezers to arrive; it is so hard to position little nori pieces and to make faces without something small to help you! Today I used cucumber pieces to make the antenna and mouth of the caterpillar, and black sesame seeds for the eyes. I think he came out pretty cute!

Here's our caterpillar with the whole bento box:

In the panda we have ranch dressing for all those crisp, fresh veggies; an orange half from our friend's orange tree, and on the right, Japanese potato salad, and Korean melon with blackberries. Japanese potato salad is traditionally mashed, with mayo and little pieces of carrot and cucumber (I remove all the seeds). Sometimes it has a little bit of sugar or seasoning in it, but I just added a teaspoon of Mirin (Japanese seasoning) instead.  

Close up of the potato salad and blackberries:

The red bell pepper "star flower" was an afterthought; the box just needed a little something extra for color. My triangles aren't all even but it still came out pretty cute!

Late Friday Review: Bento Websites

I use Pinterest to keep track of things I find interesting, but I also browse a few different websites/blogs of bento professionals and experts, who have been doing this much longer than me. Two of these bento blogs offer a lot of information on prepping and how to create variety, and they are Just Bento and Organized Bites. 

The author of Just Bento has a cookbook out! She is Japanese and showcases a lot of Japanese type bentos, which I hope to do more of in the future. She only makes the occasional charaben (cute character lunch), which I am all about, but I use her website mostly for things like linking to good resources, supplies, etc.

This website is a good starting off point to introduce the novice to the world of bento, and how to maintain portion control, use bento to lose weight, and incorporate bento into your daily life. This link goes to her "Bento Basics" page. 

She also has a link called "The Guy Does Bento" in which her significant other makes bentos! Now if I can inspire Mike to follow suit...


Organized Bites is a vegetarian and vegan bento blog. The mom uses a lot of Trader Joe's and Whole Foods products, and her child eats better than most people! I love how beautiful her lunches are. She also is not totally into charaben, and her bentos are super Americanized, but I really appreciate how healthy they are. Plus she is totally into the environment and conserving resources, etc.

I use the Organized Bites website to remind me of things I may have forgotten, like heirloom carrots in the above lunch (see the cute flowers with hot pink/purple edges?). Or using green beans, which would be delicious in salads or to dip into hummus, etc. Her child eats a much better variety of vegetables than my Mike would, but I can always hope.

There is a whole world of bento inspiration out there, so start with these websites and get browsing! :)

Frushi! Otherwise known as Fruit Sushi, with a Bunny Sandwich

We were out of town this past weekend so I apologize for the haphazard postings and missing Friday Review. I will post a review soon on another awesome (or un-awesome) bento product! In the meantime, I have figured out how to get posts to self-publish, so in the future we will have full bento coverage when we're on vacations. Yay!

On Sunday I played around with fru-shi, which is sushi composed entirely of fruit! It is super cute and fun. I made the rice with coconut milk (just substitute the exact same amount of light coconut milk for water in the recipe) and a little bit of sugar (about 2 tablespoons per cup of dry rice). Be sure to use light coconut milk, otherwise your rice will come out way too creamy and it won't stick together properly. You need to make it sticky Asian rice style, not Latin rice style (use a pot, not a pan, and don't use oil).

Next, you just cut up any type of fruit you want, into sticks (to put inside rolls) or into "sashimi" to lay on top of rice, like nigiri. Fruit roll ups make the perfect "nori!" Other helpful tips: use the sharpest knife possible, and wipe it with a damp towel after every cut. Dampen your hands before handling the rice, so that it won't stick (but don't dampen too much because you'll get your fruit roll ups all soggy). Also refrigerate your rice; it's easier to mold when it's cool (opposite of regular rice), due to the creamy texture of the coconut milk.

Frushi would be adorable for an afternoon tea, or as appetizers/desserts. It is also gluten free! My Sunday efforts included pineapple "rolls" and Caracara orange "nigiri":

For this morning's bento I didn't make nigiri, I just did pineapple and orange "sashimi" and mango-coconut rice "rolls." I love that I have silicone grass dividers for the frushi! I'm also trying to do an Easter theme for this week, hence the PB&J cut-out bunny sandwich. 

REVIEW: Everything got eaten, which is always a good thing. I've noticed the times that things don't get eaten is when it's a repeat, or there's not enough variety. So no fruit for tomorrow since there was an overload of fruit today!

Getting Crazy With The Bento

I received some feedback from Mike about my past two lunches, so I'll post those as "reviews" to each post going forward, so we can keep a log of what works and what doesn't! :) I imagine this will be an ongoing learning process.

I made today's bento for Mike in a simplified way, just making the cute part the top! Here I've decorated chicken salad (with celery and carrots) with black sesame seeds (which add calcium, always a good thing) and red pepper letters. I kept it separated from the rest of the bento with carrot cut-outs that are pressed into the side (you can just barely see them). My chicken salad is not runny or drippy, so it should be fine. 

Just in case, though, I put the fruit (blueberries and pineapple) into little silicon cups, with animal picks for easy eating. There's clementine segments at the back and sugar snap peas flanking the cups (it's important to make sure everything is pretty tightly packed so it travels well). I also made him a Greek yogurt/brown sugar fruit dip, which is in the dip cup in the back. This bento box is from the website Fab, which we love. It comes with two insertable containers that both have lids (only using one today), and the top, which locks down, also has a spot to store a fork. Perfect for today's lunch (which is gluten-free)!

I also made a lunch for my coworker, whose birthday is this week and I am missing her birthday dinner celebration. She loves Asian food so I made her a soba noodle nest (soba noodles are Japanese buckwheat noodles that can be eaten cold or hot) with quail eggs, and those are shitake mushroom slices I tucked into the corners, for added sustenance. On the side is a salad with tomato hearts, star carrots, and little red bell pepper pieces for color.

The other little box has flower toasts with cream cheese sprinkled with chives, and a smoked salmon flower. They came out pretty cute and I would totally make these for an afternoon tea! Close up:

My own lunch was a pocket sandwich with turkey, smoked gouda and cucumbers. I learned you should not overstuff pocket sandwiches...and maybe just put the cheese on top as a decoration. It's much better that way. My pocket sandwich wouldn't stay sealed. I also made myself a fruit salad with yogurt dip - yum. Very colorful and cute even without fun shapes:

Whew! That's it for today. It did take me awhile to prep stuff last night because I made three  different bento lunches with completely different items. That will be the last time I do that! From now on Mike and I will eat similar or the same food each lunch, which will make the lunches quicker and easier. 

REVIEW: Mike ate everything in his lunch except one cup of blueberries (there were two). So it was a success! My coworker loved her lunch, too, but wasn't able to finish all the noodles - too many. I used one serving size (they come packaged that way) of noodles, which I usually eat for lunch alone, so with all the sides I think it would be best to cut down the amount of noodles and maybe add more condiments, like nori seaweed or an extra egg.