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.

 

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.