New Hello Kitty bento:  bi-color soboro bento (beef and egg) with edamame spear.  Dee-lish!

After a year of searching for this particular Shinzi Katoh box, I finally found it!!! I love it so much. The print says, "Little by little, we become small." Just a simple lunch inside though, I was running late.

Bento #7

Lower Tier: Beans and Peppers, Carrots, Grape Tomato, Salad (Cabbage, Carrot, Radish, Cucumber, Green Onion, Mayo, Sour Cream, Dill)
Top: Two Carrot Rice Onigiri, Laughing Cow
Snack: Applesauce, Granola Bar


The (almost) closed box. It has a pink belt to go with it.

Here's today's. By the way, these are all for myself since parents don't eat half the stuff I do and vice versa. Now I feel really guilty... Everyone else is making food for their husbands or kids. I need to find a boyfriend so I can make food for him.

Pizza, carrots, edamame, cheese, mini blueberry cobbler. Sidecar with snap pea crisps and freeze-dried rambutan.

( One more bento under here )

This time a bento that was eaten by ME! and therefore I could do the cherry tomatoes/mozzarella skewers that I so love, but which my daughter doesn't like.

I'm so happy that I found those green asparagus frozen. I love asparagus, but they're too expensive to buy fresh because you only use two or three in a bento and most of the bunch would wither or rot before I got it eaten. Frozen veggies are perfect for bento ^_^

Bento # 394 Chicken katsu on top of jasmine rice, drizzled with tonkatsu sauce. Steamed carrot flowers, sautéend green asparagus with lemon-pepper, corn cob in slices and cherry tomatoes skewered with basil-mozzarella.

These photos have been rotting in my art teacher's camera, so here you are-

I know there are a lot of lock & lock fans out there and I just came across this and thought I'd share...

http://www.qvc.com/qic/qvcapp.aspx/view.2/app.detail/params.item.K18213.desc.Lock-Lock-Set-of-4-Lunch-Trays-with-Water-Bottle

Munchkin was sick today, so we got to spend the day together. She wanted a picnic lunch, so I made up bentos for the both of us. It was alot of fun! This was my first attempt at octodogs. They didn't curl up like I thought they would...next time, I'll have to try pan-frying them...this time I just boiled them. She did, however, have a great time pulling the "arms" off and dipping them in ketchup.

 

My bento on the left ~
Top tier: Crab sticks, ramen noodles w/ furikake, and fish bottle of soy sauce
Bottom tier: Baby carrots, baby corn, and fruit chews
Munchkin's bento on the right ~
Octodogs w/ mini-bottles of ketchup and mustard, baby carrots, baby corn, rainbow goldfish crackers, and Princess cookies.
 

Bentos #5 & 6 were the Mighty Amazing Invisible Bentos because I was in a hurry and didn't get pictures made. :P Info on them for any who might be interested is on my blog.

Does anyone know if these are available online for purchase? I've tried our local Asian grocery store and they don't carry them. Amazon.com has them listed, but they're not in stock and it says they don't know if/when they'll be in stock. I'm stumped.

I made this bento from Sunday's leftovers, for my BF to eat on Monday.
Myself I've been eating out all week - we've been delivering some software and it was buggy, meaning lots of overtime trying to get it to run and no time for making bentos!
As you can see by me not even posting this bento until now.

The box contains two different types of kimbap maki rolls - one filled with avocado, cucumber, steamed spinach with sesame, omelette, and carrot, the other with avocado, cucumber, carrot, leek and mayo. I know some people here are of the opinion that mayo in sushi rolls is a sacrilege - but I happen to like it :)
There is also a bentoturf pocket with some wasabi and a fishy of soy sauce in the corner.

Here's to hoping the next week gets better!

;)

More kimbap photos and other food on my bentoblog: http://wererabbits.wordpress.com

I actually had the boca crumples in the shape of a heart in the middle but it all got messed up during travel. :(


( Bento #6 )

My son likes to use my log onigiri mold as a microphone but last night asked me what it was really for, and wanted some rice logs in his lunch.

salmon patties w/panko (nice way to use canned salmon, which I hate - made a batch and froze them with the panko coating so they're ready for a quick fry up in the morning),
1 veggie dumpling,
3 plain onigiri logs wrapped in nori with pink turnip pickle stars (I usually use brown/white mix but the colors are so much nicer with plain white - I'll give him wheat bread at dinner)
carrot stick bundles tied with green onion, salad that he likes to dip in dressing with red pepper flowers
figs
dips of ketchup & balsamic dressing.

I love my tiffin, but I'm not sure it counts as "bento." It's so deep that it's nearly impossible to pack it like a standard bento, with little bits of things. Instead, I use it for one-dish meals, casseroles and salads. It's great for me because it's a big lunch. Today it's beef burgandy over rice, and a salad of iceberg lettuce and cucumber. Not sure iceberg lettuce even counts as a food, but it's all we have in the fridge.

Oh how I miss making bento! I'm posting this not because it's particularly exciting but because I had a chance to make one at all! (My daughter and I went to a concert in the park in our city.)



Clockwise from top left:
Rollups made of whole wheat tortillas, soy salami, cheese, and mustard
Sliced cucumber (I wanted to add a dip, but I couldn't find any of my containers!). There are a few Dove chocolates tucked in above that.
Laughing Cow cheese. Frozen grapes to keep everything cold.
Cheerios for my daughter (I later added some whole wheat pita bread in there for her too).

I also recently bought a set of really cute tiny cookie cutters on Amazon so hopefully sometime in the relatively near future I will have *cute* lunches again!

See you all soon, I hope!

I attempted hand-formed onigiri last night. Only burnt my left palm.

And check out the cool tasting fork!


1) Onigiri w/ teriyaki tofu and scallion filling, tiny slices of garlic beef stick
2) Fruit salad (peaches,kiwi, grapes, frozen blueberriees)
3) Carrot-oat cookies, dried cranberry stack
4) tomatoes and baby carrots