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.

 

If you enjoy this post and my previous posts, don't forget to like my Facebook page and share it with other bento lovers :).

Today's bento: 2 rice balls seasoned with Nori Fumi furikake (seaweed/ sesame seeds sprinkles) and topped with umeboshi (pickled plum), a halved soy-sauce marinated egg, a small portion of garlic/soy sauce chicken, blanched broccolini, half of a cherry tomato, a pickled lotus root slice and two carrot flowers.

I also had a few pieces of seedless grapes and another piece of cherry tomato which I cut into halves.

 

 

Recently I received a couple of things from CasaBento, including a set of Rilakkuma bento boxes and a matching pair of Rilakkuma sauce containers. I call this a simple Rilakkuma bento, because I relied on leftovers and I didn't make any special characters for this bento lunch. But it still turned out pretty damn cute, thanks to the adorable mini Rilakkuma sauce containers :).

These three Rilakkuma-themed bento boxes only cost €13.99. You can also use them for storing foods, which I find very convenient.

I filled these sauce containers with mayo and tonkatsu sauce. If you love Rilakkuma, I think these are a must have!

Today's bento included steamed rice topped with cherry tomato, pan-fried prawn fritters, a few slices of green onion tamagoyaki, two slices of pink-dyed lotus root, a small portion of teriyaki-glazed spam, macaroni salad and a piece of taro mochi. Cut out a few carrot flowers to make your bento more decorative, if you like.

 

This is the first bento I made after I returned to Australia a few months ago. Very simple, nothing cutesy except the two pretty carrot butterflies. In fact I also sent this picture to Bento&Co Competition, with the hope that I would get a few bento materials, since I didn't really have any over here. I managed to be in the top 20 and got a few things from Bento&Co.

Anyway, this bento contains mushroom spaghetti cooked a la Aglio Olio, four pieces of pan-fried chicken nuggets, four pieces of cherry tomatoes, braised asparagus, boiled egg, two carrot butterflies and parsley to add some greens to the bento.

Another chick-themed bento - I guess that little chicks are simply one of the easiest characters to make out there and at the moment I am more into making easy and uncomplicated bento.

The food inside the bento box is pretty simple too: mini ham and tomato sandwiches, a small portion of spaghetti Napolitan, cherry tomatoes, three chick onigiris and a few slices of mandarin.

Okay, now I need to get back to doing my assignments again. I quit my job and now I am doing another Master's degree. I am crazy, ain't I? I am now based in Australia and still adapting to the life here, even though I used to live here as well years ago.

Till next time!

Hi again everyone! This is a long overdue post. Life has been crazy and I didn't feel like making any bentos the last couple of months, heck, the last time I made bento was actually half a year ago! But anyway, after some time you have to pull yourself together and I don't want to give up this hobby - making bento is after all a quite nice and creative activity I think.

I got this lovely bento box from CasaBento six months ago, beautiful isn't it? It's so cute, it's currently out of stock, but there are many other beautiful choices in CasaBento, so don't forget to check them out!

 

 If you are still curious to find out more about this red "Paris Boutique" bento box, click this link.

Sorry for the rather blurry photos. I took the pictures yesterday afternoon and it was quite foggy outside. Since my photoshop skills are very limited, there was nothing much I could do to save the pictures but increasing the brightness.

Anyway, my comeback bento is nothing out of ordinary, it's in fact so simple you could do it within 15-20 minutes. I made three rice onigiri topped with three little chicks made out of Kraft cheese slices. The side dishes include cherry tomatoes, pan-fried chicken nuggets, boiled egg and a few pieces of grapes.

That's it for today. I promise there will be more regular bento posts coming up in the near future :).

I have always enjoyed to look at BentoZen's bento creations because I think that her bentos always look so pretty and elegant. My bento today is inspired by her "Poodles in Love Bento". I wanted to make my rice pink as well, but then I realised too late that I didn't have any beet juice left. So well, I used tomato sauce instead to colour the rice, but I don't think that orange looks so good as the background. This bento would look much lovelier with a pretty pink...!

The two poodles and the three flowers are made out of different types of cheese and nori and the sides include some cherry tomatoes, cucumber/carrot salad, two fried shrimps, one carved radish and three slices of tangerine.

Christmas is again on its way and since the CasaBento team really enjoyed to see the wonderful Halloween bentos created by many talented bento makers all over the world from the previous Halloween contest, they decided to organise another bento contest and this time, Xmas-themed :D)!

PRIZES

 

1ST PRIZE - A Fukuro Round Bento Box, a Traditional Fukuro insulated bottle,  a pair of Fukuro chopsticks and a matching Fukuro Bento Bag

 2ND PRIZE - A Red Lego Bento Box and a Concorde XL Black Thermal Bag

 

 3RD PRIZE - A Green Concorde Mini Box and a pair of Green Concorde Chopsticks

4TH PRIZE - A Red Marche Thermal Bag, a Red Tokyo Mini Box and a Green Tokyo Mini Box

 

 

5TH PRIZE - A Green Marche Thermal Bag, a Red Tokyo Mini Box and a Green Tokyo Mini Box

HOW TO ENTER

Each participant should submit two photos with the following details: last name, first name, postal address, date of birth together with a description of the bento in the photo (ingredients, name of the bento box used, etc) to the following address: contest@casabento.com


CONTEST PERIOD
The contest ends on December 20th, 2012 at 11:59:59 P.M. Paris Time. All dates are subject to change. 

 
JUDGES
Your photos will judged by:

- Susanne Kaluza (Norway)
- July from des Bento de July (France)
- Shirley from Little Miss Onigiri (Singapore)
- Sarah from Bento und Mehr (Germany)
- CasaBento Girl's Team
- CasaBento Boy's Team 

Each Entry will be evaluated and scored based on the following:

• artistic merit - bento skills and use of colour
• creativity and originality - considering the representation of the Contest theme “Christmas”, as well as the unique and novel approach to use of CasaBento products
• quality of photo submitted
• adherence to the the Contest Rules

For more information about the contest, please visit CasaBento.

A few days ago I made Jägerschnitzel aka Hunter Style Schnitzel. Today I came up with another popular dish from Germany, which is also schnitzel, but it is served with a different type of sauce that is Zigeuner sauce, or gypsy style sauce. As the name suggests, the sauce is slightly more piquant and has appealing, bright, red colour. Very tasty and definitely worth a try!

Zigeunerschnitzel - serves 2

The Cutlets

• 2 chicken/pork/veal cutlets
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 tbs oyster sauce (optional)
• Salt and pepper
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
• Oil for frying

The Gypsy Sauce

• 1 Tbsp oil
• 1 Tbsp minced garlic
• 1 onion, sliced
• 1 bell pepper, sliced
• 2 Tbsp tomato paste
• 2 tsp ground paprika
• 1 tsp cayenne powder (or to taste)
• Beef/Chicken powder to taste
• 1 Tbsp flour
• 250 ml cream
• Sugar, to taste
• Freshly ground pepper

Instructions

The Cutlets

1. Set the eggs, flour and bread crumbs in three different shallow bowls.
2. Add oyster sauce, salt and pepper to the egg bowl and mix well.
3. One at a time, dredge the cutlet in the flour, then dip in the egg mixture and coat with the bread crumbs.
4. Repeat step 3 one more time (optional).
5. Deep-fry the cutlets until golden brown.
6. Serve with gypsy sauce, salad and fries.

The Gypsy Sauce

1. Sauté chopped onion and garlic with 1 Tbsp of oil.
2. Add tomato paste, ground paprika, cayenne powder and beef powder.
3. Pour the cream and mix well.
4. Add bell pepper slices and cook for 1 minute.
5. Dust with flour and season with sugar and pepper. Cook until sauce is thickened.

These two lovely bear onigiris are filled with chicken teriyaki and mayo. I  covered the rice balls with katsuobushi (bonito flakes) which make the bears look pretty fluffy. The nori details were punched out from the pink nori punch below and the white nose is made out of quail egg.

Source: CasaBento

You can easily get these nori punches from CasaBento or other bento suppliers in Amazon or Ebay.

The two little chicks are also quail eggs. They look quite worried as they know that they will be gobbled down by the two little bears quite soon. Fortunately for the bears, they don't know that they'll be gobbled down by me soon after I finish writing down this post, that's why they're still smiling ;).

  Have a great week ahead everyone!

Jägerschnitzel or Hunter Style Schnitzel is one of the most popular schnitzel varieties in Germany. It is breadcrumb-coated veal/pork/chicken which is served with creamy mushroom sauce. Since it's so well-liked over here, you can easily get instant Jägerschnitzel mixes in most German supermarkets, be they big or small.

I love to use panko bread crumbs instead of the usual western-style bread crumbs. Panko bread crumbs are much coarser and as a result, your schnitzel will be crispier and tastier :)!


Jägerschnitzel - serves 2

The Cutlets

• 2 chicken/pork/veal cutlets
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 tbs oyster sauce (optional)
• Salt and pepper
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
• Oil for frying

The Mushroom Sauce

• 1 Tbsp oil
• 1 Tbsp chopped onion
• 8 -10 champignons, sliced
• Beef/Chicken powder to taste
• 1 Tbsp flour
• 2 Tbsp white wine
• 200 ml cream
• Freshly ground pepper

Instructions

The Cutlets

1. Set the eggs, flour and bread crumbs in three different shallow bowls.
2. Add oyster sauce, salt and pepper to the egg bowl and mix well.
3. One at a time, dredge the cutlet in the flour, then dip in the egg mixture and coat with the bread crumbs.
4. Repeat step 3 one more time (optional).
5. Deep-fry the cutlets until golden brown.
6. Serve with mushroom sauce, salad and fries.

The Mushroom Sauce

1.  Sauté the chopped onion with 1 Tbsp of oil.
2. Add mushrooms and cook for 2 - 3 minutes.
3. Season with beef powder and dust with flour.
4. Add white wine, cream and pepper to taste. Cook until sauce is thickened.

I wanted to make charaben today, but in the end I was too lazy and just made a portion of good ol' traditional bento box ;).

The box contains plain fried noodles, pan-fried gyoza, baby carrots, pan-fried garlic chicken, soy sauce egg, a piece of radish and cherry tomato.