August 20th Bento Lunch

Ugh. My computer has been on the fritz for the last two days. I didn't think I'd get this entry posted today. I gave up on my computer for now and am using BF's instead.

A couple of critters made it into today's bento...

The onigiris are filled with sweet red bean paste. The fish has a nori face and the other two have sesame seed eyes. The chick's nose is made from carrot and his wing is a small spinach stem.

For protein I made ground chicken dumplings wrapped in nori this morning. BF told me when he got home tonight that he would have liked more meat, so next time I will make a couple more.

Lots of veggies today. I made some sesame and miso steamed spinach as well as steamed broccoli, asparagus, sugar snaps and yellow zucchini with a bit of pepper. I julienned some raw carrot as well to make a little nest for the chick.

For fruit there are a couple of orange wedges, blueberries and strawberry slices.

There were some leftover fruit and veggies that didn't fit in the bento box so I made myself a little snack. I thought the colours were really pretty so I took a picture.

June 3rd Bento

About a month ago, I tried to make a symmetric bento with little success. Today I pulled it off and I didn't even plan to!

Today's theme was Bunnies in Love
We have two bunny onigiri with a ground chicken/hoisin sauce filling and sesame seed eyes. The heart is made of rolled omelette (tamagoyaki) and steamed spinach. There are three pork shu mai (I had to cut one in half and stack it to make it fit) and some silly pasta pieces (tossed in balsamic vinegar and olive oil). The veggies are broccoli, edamame skewers, snow peas and asparagus. The fruit was mostly berries (blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, cherries and can you spot the blackberries?) with a couple slices of kumquat.

For dessert, I tried something new and exciting - dessert sushi! Basically, I made it like regular sushi, but with a lot of substitutions. Instead of normal rice, I used coconut rice. I used lime juice and sugar instead of sushi vinegar and soy paper (mamenori) instead of nori. The filling is peach slices sprinkled with ginger.

I had a hard time getting it to stick together (mamenori is not very sticky to begin with and the coconut rice made it even harder to work with). BF had the brilliant idea to tie it closed with strips peeled from a stalk of rhubarb and it worked perfectly. I tied six strings around it, one to hold together each piece once it was cut.
It held up perfectly in the bento and was absolutely delicious. There were so many different flavours going on in each bite, I will definitely make this again!