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.