Bento #35

Curry Rice
Deviled Egg
Hot Dog jumping fish
Carrots
Snap Peas
Snow Peas (hidden under sauce container)
Apricot
Black Grapes

Presentation isn't great on this one - I was a bit rushed and I'm sleepy.

You will notice a logo painted on the egg - I was originally going to try and do egg sheets to put over the rice, but it didn't come out properly, so I did the next best thing. Tomorrow night is Game 7 for the Stanley Cup - so I thought I should give The Mister a break on the cute stuff and give him the (old) Vancouver Canucks logo.
I'm not a sports fan in general, but it's hard not to get into the excitement.



I'm down to the bare bones in my kitchen and I have to finish packing, so I won't have time to make bento lunches for the next few days. Moving on Saturday, so life should be back to normal shortly after that.

Curry fried Rice Recipe:

Brown rice cooked in chicken stock
Imitation Crab
Scrambled egg
Corn
Green Beans
Yellow Curry Paste
olive oil

stir fry away!
I just kind of threw this together with whatever I have on hand - it's not bad.

Bento #33 & #34

Bottom tier:
Egg noodles with sesame oil, soy sauce, black sesame seeds and chili flakes
Meatballs with teriyaki sauce and carrot hearts

Top tier:
Frozen corn (thaws by lunch!)
Snap peas
Strawberry
Apricot slices
Black Grapes

And the centerpiece is slightly different - we each get a hard boiled egg ...

The Mister gets a chick (the egg broke around the middle, otherwise it would have been a deviled egg):



Mine is Totoro! - cut a 'V' out of the top of the egg to make the ears, painted the egg with food colouring, used the leftover egg to make the eyes, black sesame seeds for the pupils and nose:



Here's a closeup of Totoro:

Bento #21

Chickeens!

The onigiri are filled with teriyaki salmon (I know chicken would have been more appropriate, but I used it all for dinner) - turned them into chickens with corn, corned beef and nori. I made 3 - one got eaten right away, because it fell apart. The one in the bottom of the photo is starting to fall apart ... I guess it's okay for a first try.

The egg is a deviled egg, the yolk was mixed with mayo and finely diced olives - turned it into a chicken using carrots and black sesame seeds.

The cup has leftovers from dinner - I made a chicken mushroom noodle casserole (diced chicken breast, diced brown and white mushrooms, low fat cream of mushroom soup with a bit of skim milk mixed in, 1/2 a small tub of low fat sour cream, and about a cup of shredded cheese, mix it all together, bake @ 350 until bubbly. I topped it with some dried chives)

used 1/2 a clementine, 2 asparagus stalks, 3 grape tomatoes, the last of my baby carrots, 1/2 a mini cucumber and 2 snow peas to fill up the rest of the box.

The Mister got a plain riceball with a strip of the wasabi nori wrapped around it.
I did give him a chicken deviled egg - his is mixed with chive.
He came into the kitchen, saw it and told me he thought it was awesome. I'm so happy that he likes the odd cute food now and then.
He got more of the casserole (filled the bottom tier of his red bento box), the other half of the clementine, some carrots and some snow peas.

Bento #16

I got a couple of single-tier bento boxes today. They're just the "Lovely" brand from Daiso - a blue 850ml one for the Mister and a pink 550ml one for me.
According to charts I've seen, they're each 50ml too small for our age (the height is quite far off), but that's okay, because we're both trying to lose weight.
Mine was a little harder to pack, because it is smaller (it's only 30ml smaller than my URARA dragonfly 2-tier box, but I'm not used to the single space).

Inside each box is a vegetable stir fry (not vegetarian, but it could be if you replace the chicken stock with vegetable stock):
1tsp olive oil fragranced with a piece of ginger (heat oil, lightly sautee ginger, remove - The Mister is not a big fan of ginger, so I didn't want to leave pieces in)
1/2 tsp minced garlic (I'm lazy and have the pre-minced stuff in a jar)
handfull each of snow peas, green pepper, yellow pepper cut into bite-sized pieces
handfull of carrot, thinly sliced
Sauce:
1/4 c chicken stock
splash each of mirin, rice vinegar and soya sauce
cornstarch (about 1tsp) to thicken

Tamagoyaki with herbs (we each get half):
2 eggs, a generous pinch each of parsley, basil and oregano, and about a teaspoon of finely chopped green onion.

I also made hot dog "jumping fish" - cute! (he gets 1 whole hot dog cut into 4 fish, I could only fit 3 fish into my box, so I ate one right away!). Put in a small container of honey dijon to dip the hot dogs in.

I get 1 cup of rice, he gets 1-1/2 cups - topped with carrot and snow pea flowers to make it pretty.

These ones look a lot more "traditional" than my other bento boxes - I actually really like it.

I'm really looking forward to getting the JustBento cookbook.
I've started a notebook specifically for bento friendly recipes - though I'm thinking of getting index cards and a plastic box so I can organize them, instead of just writing it all down and then having to flip through it all to find what I want.

***

In addition to the above bento boxes, I also bought a Makiyakinabe pan today. It's a small rectangular pan specifically for making tamagoyaki. It was only $2, and I make tamagoyaki often enough that I wanted to get a pan, so I could make them a nice uniform shape for the bento boxes.
People often say it's a single-purpose item, but as soon as I was done the omelette, threw in the hot dog "fish" to cook - they all fit perfectly in a single layer. I'm sure I can make use of it a lot with making various small portioned fried items for the bento boxes. And because it's a nonstick pan, I don't have to use much, if any oil.
Not something totally necessary or for everyone, but I'm glad I bought it.

Bento #13

Tried to make a Sanrio Kyaraben - first attempt ever at something like this.
Hello Kitty worked ok - I formed the ears separately, which was a mistake, because they aren't sticking well. I'll have to form it all at once next time.
Badtz-Maru looks good, but doesn't really work at all. I used black Thai rice, which is sticky, but it's a wet sticky, so it doesn't hold together well when moved. I might add a few grains of the black rice to regular rice while it's cooking, and just do a lighter coloured Badtz-Maru (it dyes the white rice a purple colour) if ever I decide to do this again.
They're both filled with tuna - Badtz has pickles inside too.
The rest of it was just thrown together, because it was getting late.