Shumai Bear Saimin with Shoyu Pork

 Last night I made my take on Okinawan style shoyu pork which is usually made with pork belly.  Since pork belly is really fatty, I decided to use pork shoulder instead.  This morning I sliced up the leftover shoyu pork and put it in Paige’s saimin bento which she took to school today.  I kept the noodles separate from the broth so that it won’t get soft and mushy.  When Paige is ready to eat, she can pour the broth over the saimin herself and have a nice and warm lunch.  I also put in kamaboko (Japanese fish cake), green onions, and I made two little bears out of the shumai.

Bird Family Bento

Over the last couple of years, I have amassed a drawer full of musubi molds- some that I have purchased and others that were given to me.  Mark shakes his head at me whenever he sees me rummaging through it, although he has said before that he’s glad that I’m into collecting cooking gadgets instead of jewelry.  I’ll have to take a picture of my musubi molds and post it one day.  I found two different sized bird molds and decided to do a family of them- Papa, Mama, and Baby bird.  The pink flower and beaks are from the pink part of the kamaboko (Japanese fish cake), and the wings are cut from bologna and secured with angel hair pasta to the musubi.  Paige’s lunch included teriyaki steak, a SPAM flower, grapes, and veggies. 

Fire Truck Sandwiches

For those who inquired about my cookbook, it’s available locally at all of the Borders and Barnes and Noble locations on Oahu.  I guess it takes some time to be in stock online. I did however see that someone’s selling it on Amazon for $154.47…uh yeah, that’s pretty ridiculous.  It should never be more than $14.95.

Anyway back to my post.  This is Sean’s fire truck snack bento.  I used white cheese and cut it out with the fire truck cutter (pictured below).  Then “painted” it red with a little bit of red food coloring, and cut out nori for the details- the windows, ladders, and wheels.    

Here’s a picture of Sean motioning to me if he could eat it.  Sean loves cars and trucks (especially fire trucks) so he was very happy to see his snack!

Bunny Bento Two Ways

I bought a set of cutters off of eBay and this bunny cutter is one of the cutters that you get along with a bear, elephant, and a few other small cutters.  My sister, Amy, made the first bento for my niece which contains SPAM cut with the bunny cutters, musubis, edamame, and hotdogs.  

I made this turkey and cheddar sandwich bento awhile back using the same cutter.  As you can see, the cutters are very versatile. 

I also wanted to say Happy Birthday to Mark!  I asked him to choose a picture for me to post and this is the picture that he decided upon.  The funny things you can do on a Mac.

Food Paint

Recently, I’ve seen a lot of people use food markers on their bentos and I wanted to try it out as well.  After looking all over here locally and not finding anything, I decided to try my hand at  ”painting” with food coloring.  I have been using food coloring (pictured above) and food safe paint brushes by Wilton, made for cake decorating.  I am still experimenting with the colors but all in all the colors are very vibrant on white cheese.  A few examples are the Blue Bird Bento (blue birds) posted today and the Paige Bento with Tonkatsu and Curry (red flowers with the yellow centers).  I literally only just started “painting” with the food coloring this week, so I’m still very new at it.  The blue and red food coloring I used straight, but for the yellow I had to dilute it with a very tiny amount of water because it looked orange.  I’ll post more about other colors as I test them out too.  Hope this helps to those who inquired about how I colored the blue birds.

  

Homer Simpson Breakfast Bento

This morning, I made Mark a Homer Simpson breakfast bento to take to work.  Crispy bacon, scrambled eggs, cheese, on buttered and toasted bread with strawberries and grapes.  Mark kind of reminds me of Homer- he’s rough around the edges and but funny with his over the top antics.  Mark makes life exciting for us all, that’s for sure.  :)        

Paige Bento With Tonkatsu and Curry

Mark and I both love to eat curry but the kids don’t particularly enjoy the strong flavors of it.  I finally found a brand that tastes great to us and that the kids will eat too- it’s Vermont curry!  In fact, Paige enjoyed it so much that she asked me if she could take it to school for lunch today.  I made tonkatsu (Japanese fried pork cutlet) for Paige’s lunch with hot curry in a thermos so that she could spoon it onto her bento when she’s ready to eat it.  I made a little cheese Paige decorated with nori and cheese flowers colored with food coloring.   

This is a link to a local curry house that we have here- Curry House Coco Ichibanya
so that you can get an idea of how versatile curry is and the many ways that they serve it. 

The Clone Wars Bento

As a child, I remember how amazed I was with the whole Star Wars saga- the story line and how everything in the movies seemed so real that I fully bought into the special effects.  Now when I watch the earlier movies I still love the story but the special effects seem pretty funny and unrealistic.  The more recent Star Wars films have both the great story line and amazing special effects, but I think I miss the old characters and actors (Princess Leia was of course my favorite).  The last movie, The Clone Wars, is an animated film which I have yet to see.  Paige has told me bits and pieces of the movie from what she has heard about it through the boys in school, so I thought it would be fun to do a Star Wars bento. I decided on doing the Clone simply because, of all the characters, it seemed the easiest to do.  I have found that it is not at all difficult to cut the nori for the characters that I have been doing, but what makes it difficult is my lack patience.  So try not to look too closely, you’ll see all of my mistakes!  Anyway, the bento included the cheese and nori Clone, kalbi,  veggies, and grapes.     

*When I showed Mark my Clone bento he told me that I made a storm trooper and not a Clone.  So I had to google it and show him what a storm trooper looked like.   

Waikiki Aquarium Bento

This past Friday evening we had the opportunity (with Paige’s class) to go to the Waikiki Aquarium’s after-dark flashlight walk, which takes you through the aquarium’s exhibits at night.  Normally, the Waikiki Aquarium is open only during the day, but they occasionally do night-time events like the one that we went to.  It was a learning experience even for us adults.  We saw aquatic animals that you don’t normally see during the day, the different ways that they “sleep”, and how some of the animals actually change their colors at night.  I wasn’t able to take any pictures inside the exhibits but we were able to take a few outside. 

This was a very friendly, football-sized pufferfish that hung around the side of the tank where we all were standing.  I think he wanted his picture taken!

Paige’s bento today, included an aquarium of star fish and jelly fish made of kamaboko (Japanese fish cake), a SPAM reef fish, kalbi, veggies, and grapes.

Bunny Bento and a Few Fun Pics

I made this bunny bento last week and didn’t have the opportunity to post it until now.  It was a really simple bento of leftover pot roast with rice, grapes and veggies packed in the Zojirushi mini thermal lunch box, and a small bunny SPAM musubi for Paige’s midmorning snack.  Since I didn’t have much to post about, I thought I would put in a few fun pictures of the kids from the past few weeks.

Here’s Paige with a gigantic order of tennis ball sized meatballs from Buca Di Beppo.  We love the restaurant with it’s wacky decor and family style food service.  The portions are huge, so be prepared to go with a huge appetite or to take home a lot of food.

Because Sean is such an animal lover, we often visit the Hawaiian Humane Society .  Sean loves dogs but since you can’t really play or pet them he settles for playing with the cats and kittens in the cat house.  So last week when we came home from the Humane Society, Sean pretended that he was a kitty.  We even made him foam cat ears and a tail to complete his performance. 

This is a picture of Sean reading to his baby.  Paige often reads to him so he likes to pretend that he’s reading to someone too.

Lastly, here’s a picture of Sean and Paige with my entry to Javapot’s contest.  She recently posted all of the entries so if you have a chance, check out all of the beautiful and fun entries!