I made this bento last week as part of a school project, but haven't had the chance to post it until today. Inside the box are mini ham and cheese sandwiches and each sandwich is decorated with a ham piggy and a carrot flower. I will show you what kind of project I did with this bento within the next few weeks, as currently it still needs some kind of refining :).

This week's bento is super easy to make! To recreate the cute little goldfishies, all you need are:

1. 2 cherry tomatoes
2. a slice of white coloured cheese
3. a piece of nori seaweed.  

Take one cherry tomato and cut it into two equal pieces. One is for the head and the other half is for the tail and fins. To make the tail, cut the halved tomato into thin slices. Take one slice and cut out two mini triangles for the fins.

Get a thin drinking straw and punch two circles out of cheese for the white part of the eyes and cut  two small circles out of nori to make the pupils.

Arrange everything together as pictured above and voilà, you get yourself a goldfish :).

See you all next week :)!

Recently I saw a video which shows how to make Totoro spam musubi. I thought it's such a cute idea and very simple to follow as well. I didn't make a Totoro template because I couldn't be bothered to do so, but the Totoro spam musubis still turn out quite alright, don't they :)? Check out this video to make your own Totoro spam musubi, it's pretty cool :). 

I also included four mini Totoros which are made out of quail eggs tinted blue with purple carrots and decorated with nori eyes, nose and fried spaghetti whiskers. 

 That's it for today and see you next week :).  

I made another bento today :). The little teddy bears are made out of deli meat (turkey) and they are sitting on top of mini cheese and nori sandwiches. I used a few bento cutters I got from Daiso to make the bears and I think they turn out pretty cute :).

The other bento box contains two tatami onigiris filled with fried egg and chicken/mushroom bulgogi, lettuce, cherry tomatoes and fried fishcakes, plus a piece of  carved radish.

I'll try to make one bento per week from now on, so stay tuned and see you next week :)!

Ms Baggins commisioned me to do another bento, and this time for her sister's birthday. She didn't really give me a theme this time and just asked me to make something cute and perhaps with some penguins or totoro. This is the bento I came up with and I just hope that her sister would like it...!

I made two penguin onigiris, two quail egg penguins and two quil egg totoros. I also made some tamagoyaki chicks and decorated the box with blanched brocolli florets, fried tom yam flavoured fishcakes, cherry tomatoes, three pieces of carved radishes, blanched carrot cutouts and two pieces of cooked teddy bear shaped pasta.

Hey everyone :)! Recently I got to know purple carrots which have wonderfully deep violet tint. I loved to include purple potatoes in my bento in the past, but I haven't been able to find them so far in Australia, at least around where I live, that's why I was so happy when I found purple carrots in a local supermarket some time ago, as they're such great substitute for purple potatoes. 

This time I used purple water (which I got after boiling a few slices of purple carrots) to colour my quail egg penguins a funky bluish violet. I added nori eyes, cheese beaks, ham cheeks (radish cheeks for the middle penguin) and hat-shaped food picks to make the penguins look somewhat cooler ;).

The sides are very simple: ham and salami flowers, one piece of carved radish, two pieces of cherry tomatoes, two butterfly carrots sitting on top of an eggyolk and a rose shaped takuan (pickled radish) - as you can see, not much cooking involved, as lately I have been too lazy to cook much at all (maybe you have noticed that the size of my bentos is getting smaller and I don't include that much food variety in my bento boxes anymore as in the past).

This bento was requested by a friend of mine, Ms Baggins, for her anniversary with her fiance, who loves Star Wars and Lego. Normally I wouldn't make a Star Wars themed bento myself, since I am not into Star Wars and know almost nothing about it (I am sure you have noticed that most of my bentos are very girly and cute ;)). But since it's a special occasion for both of them, I tried my best in making this bento, even though in my opinion my Yoda resembles Doby the elf from Harry Potter more than Yoda. I slaved away in the kitchen for almost six hours since I made everything from scratch, no store-bought frozen foods or pre-cooked meals this time - so this bento has basically made history in my (well, short) bento making 'career' for being the most elaborate bento ever made, for I had never spent so many hours in the kitchen just for preparing one bento ;). But it was worth the effort and time because the lovely Ms Baggins was very happy with the bento fortunately, and she totally got the Yoda (and the mini nori seaweed cutouts as well, even though they're a bit messy) :).

Anyway, I included quite a variation of food this time:

1. Yoda - made out of rice coloured with nori seaweed sprinkles (furikake) and cheese for the eyes.
2. Lego blocks - ham sandwiches (white) and cheddar cheese blocks (orange)
3. Star Wars mini sandwiches - decorated with Yoda, Darth Vader & droid (forgot his name) nori cutouts
4. Tomato/imitation crab/ green onions rolled omelet (tamagoyaki)
5. Green beans/carrot/shimeji mushroom pork rolls glazed in teriyaki sauce
6. Salami/green bean flowers
7. Scotch eggs
8. Maki sushi filled with pan fried chicken schnitzel, cucumber, lettuce and mayo
9. Cherry tomatoes
10. Fruit: strawberries, tangerines, grapes
11. Carrot butterflies
12. Cherry tomatoes and lettuce

This bento is quite different to the other bentos I've made so far, not really my style actually, but I hope you all still enjoy looking at this Star Wars bento, maybe this is more appealing and interesting for the boys :)? Till next time!

CasaBento sent me these three mini animal sauce containers some time ago. They are pretty damn cute, aren't they :)? My bento today is modeled after these lovely containers. I actually wanted to make a mini quail egg piglet as well, but I wasn't able to fit in the piglet container in my bento box, so I just ended up making two quail egg pandas and one quail egg chick.

As you can see I also used lots of animal food picks in my bento box. They can make a huge difference to your bento, without those picks my bento wouldn't look as festive :).

I had rice sprinkled with seaweed furikake, chicken teriyaki and black beans seasoned with soy sauce, imitation crab wrapped in omelet, blanched broccoli, carrot stars and a small portion of sliced strawberries.

 

Yesterday I made a friend of mine a Matryoshka-themed bento. Unfortunately it was getting dark when I finished making the bento, so I couldn't really take any good pictures of the bento :(. This bento is modeled after the bento I made for her, which I think looks slightly cuter than the one I gave her. But fortunately she still seemed to be happy with her bento!  She wants me to make another bento for her anniversary next week and the theme will be Lego, since her fiance loves lego. I have never made a Lego-themed bento before, so this will be a (good) challenge :). Stay tuned :).

The Lorax 

The Lorax is the main character of the famous children's book "The Lorax" written by Dr. Seuss. To be honest, I have never read the book nor watched the movie, but I have always wanted to recreate the Lorax out of Babybel cheese after I saw Tiffany Yang's post, where she explained how to make the Lorax using babybel cheese.

Tiffany used store-bought candy eyes for her Lorax, which I would recommend as well, since it's going to save you time. But since I don't have any candy eyes, I made the eyes using green-dyed eggwhite and nori seaweed. The eyebrows and moustasche are simply cut out of a slice of cheese using a toothpick.

I included three pieces of pan-fried Korean seafood pancakes, two pieces of tamagoyaki and two pieces of halved cherry tomatoes. Decorate your bento box with some greens (I used mustard leaves) and a few cute foodpicks.

The bento box is one of my treasured bento boxes which I got from Bento&Co last year, it's called kyo bento box, isn't it beautiful? I should use it more often! Till next time :)!

To be honest, I'd never heard of Despicable Me until a few weeks ago when I started seeing lots of Minions (the little, yellow creatures) bentos almost everywhere. I was just wondering what the big fuss was about ;). I have to admit that the characters are pretty cute though, that's the reason why I decided to join in the hype and make a Despicable Me themed bento too :).

The minions are made of tamagoyaki (Japanese-style rolled omelette) and the details are nori and cheese cut-outs. I also included Agnes Gru in the bento box. She is made of soy-sauce flavoured steamed rice, nori and imitation crab. The other side dishes are pan-fried chicken nuggets, a piece of babybell cheese, two pieces of mochi cakes, a small portion of fruit (kiwi & mandarin), two halved grape tomatoes and a few pieces of blanched broccoli florets.

This is the first caterpillar-themed bento I've done. Unfortunately, I photographed the bento in the late afternoon, that's why the pictures didn't turn out so well. Anyway, the bento contains fried rice covered with nori and topped with two quail egg-caterpillars. I also had a small portion of spicy chicken, two calamari rings, five grape tomatoes, one halved egg, a few carrot flowers and lettuce for decoration.

Not related to bento, but let me end this post with a great quote by Albert Einstein:

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” 

Till next time :). 

I've been wanting to make Totoro again for some time. This time I used pan-fried Spam for the Totoros and decorated the faces with nori and cheese. For the sides, I included a halved pan-fried Scotch egg, two cherry tomatoes, a small portion of edamame beans and a small portion of corn kernels, not forgetting some lettuce border to add some greens to the bento boxes.

Don't Forget to check out my previous Totoro posts. Click the pictures to read more about each of them :).

 

A very simple but delicious bento today: spicy shrimp fried rice  served with slices of hard-boiled egg, cherry tomatoes and pickled carrot salad.

Spicy Shrimp Fried Rice

• 1 cup cooked rice
• 10 - 20 pieces of shrimps
• 1 tablespoon cooking oil
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 tablespoon chopped and seeded bird's eye chili
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce
• 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
• Sugar and pepper to taste
• 1 tablespoon chopped green onions

Instructions

• Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a non-stick pan.
• Add minced garlic and stir-fry for 1 minute.
• Toss in the chopped chili and  stir-fry for another minute.
• Add shrimps and fish sauce and keep stirring until the shrimps turn pink.
• Quickly toss in the rice, oyster sauce and sugar. Mix well.
• Add chopped green onions and pepper to taste. Keep stirring for another minute.
• Serve with a few slices of hard boiled egg, cherry tomatoes, pickled carrot salad, lettuce and a  slice of tangerine.

 

 

I made this bento for my little niece two days ago. It was her first time eating a charaben. My sister told me that she polished off the whole thing (except the bento box of course) :). I'd thought she wouldn't, since it's sometimes hard to persuade her to eat. But I am glad she did. Now she wants her mummy to make the same bunny eggs for her ;).

So let's see what's inside the box: I prepared two rice balls wrapped in nori seaweed and topped with a halved quail egg each, which I had soaked in soy sauce beforehand. I transformed the halved quail eggs into two little bunnies with my magic hands ;) - just kidding, I decorated the faces with nori eyes/nose/mouth (I used a quail egg nori punch) and used a toothpick to dab the cheeks with tomato sauce. I also added two slices of green onion tamagoyaki, three pieces of chicken nuggets, blanched broccolini, four carrot flowers and four pieces of halved strawberries. I topped the broccolini with a piece of cooked teddy-bear shaped pasta, to make the bento looks even prettier.

 

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