Year of the Tiger Sammy Bento #31

This year, Chinese New Year falls on Valentine’s Day, February 14th.   It is the year of the tiger and, in honor of that, I decided to do a Tiger sandwich bento for Sean!  The sandwich is made of whole wheat bread and turkey, as well as cheddar and provolone cheese on top for the tiger’s head.  I used fish sausage for the nose and nori for the tiger’s stripes, eyes, and ears.  As for myself, I was born in the year of the boar or pig, and I am technically what you would call a metal pig.  Only a half of things that describe my zodiac ring true, but the other half just makes me giggle.  I know for sure that I am not extroverted or ambitious.  They are kind of fun to read and if you are curious about yours just click on the link and type in your birthdate.

Paige wanted to take leftovers from last night’s dinner of beef stew.  So I thoroughly heated everything up this morning and packed it in this thermal container that I got from my sister over the winter break. It’s such a cute and roomy container, that is ideal to pack stews and chili in with hot veggies at the top.  It doesn’t keep the food hot like a thermos but it’s effective enough to keep it warm until lunch.  :D

Super (Bento) Bowl, Go Colts!!! #30

Okay football fans, here is my Super (Bento) Bowl tribute to the Indianapolis Colts!  If you use your imagination and maybe squint just a little, you will see the mascot for the Colts with his mane made of parsley flowing in the wind.  The two football spam musubis also double as the bottom of the colt’s hooves as he’s galloping towards his game day victory.  I also gave him a shiny red apple to eat, just in case he gets hungry.  The bento also contains buffalo chicken bites with extra buffalo sauce, made with Frank’s Red Hot sauce, stored in the side container.

In truth, I am not a huge football fan but was inspired to make this bento for two reasons.  First of all, Mark is cheering for the Saints.  So in order to make things interesting and fun we usually pick opposite teams, with the exception of UH games in which we always cheer for our home team!  Secondly and actually the main reason for the bento is that our friend, Clayton from KITV , suggested to Pikko (Adventures in Bento Making) and me that people might be interested in seeing a Colts or Saints bento.  Pikko was brave and took on what I couldn’t do.  I opted for the Colts thinking it would be pretty simple to make a horse, but alas it was not as easy as I had hoped.  Don’t forget to check out Pikko’s bento!  In any case who are you all rooting for?

 

Shrimp Shumai Saimin Bento #29

Paige took saimin with shrimp  shumai, char siu, uzumaki, and a few veggies for lunch today.  I stored the broth separately from the noodles in a thermos to keep it hot, which in turn prevents the noodles from absorbing all of the liquid.  At lunch time,  all that she’ll have to do is pour the broth over the noodles to enjoy a nice warm meal.   I added in these awesome chopsticks that I got from my wonderful bento friend! :0)  Paige thought they were actual pencils and was tickled to find out that they were actually chopsticks!

Bacon and Kamaboko Fried Rice Bento #28

This morning I made bacon and kamaboko fried rice for Paige’s lunch since we had a ton of rice left over from the weekend.  Besides bacon and kamaboko, the fried rice also has a scrambled egg, green onions, peas, and carrots to make it a complete meal.   I also added in a few mini chive dumplings and an egg that I cooked with the help of a star silicone pancake mold.

I’ve been meaning to post about this for a while but I just never got around to it.  So this is what I do with my furikake bottles!  I always buy this brand because the bottle is great for storing things like seasonings, dried herbs, spices, and even sesame seeds.  The bottles are airtight so the moisture won’t get in and they also won’t leak if you want to store dressings or sauces too.  The cover just screws off for easy cleaning and refilling.

Clockwise from top- red pepper flakes, dried oregano, sea salt, Hibiscus salt, kosher salt, black sesame seeds, Hawaiian seasoned garlic salt, Matcha tea salt.

PBJ Musubi Bento #27

It’s those nesting onigiri boxes again!  Today I packed peanut butter and jelly musubi sandwiches in the boxes, along with mandarin oranges and blueberries.  I used grape fruit roll ups for the nori and eyes, and used the strawberry one for the ume nose.  The fruit roll ups are pretty sticky so they stay put fairly well on the bread.  The only problem I encountered was trying to keep the bread crumbs off of the top of the fruit roll ups.

Pikko of Adventures in Bentomaking will soon be announcing the winners of the Haiti Fundraiser drawing on her blog!  Don’t forget to check it out and see how much money we managed to raise with all of your help!  Thanks to all that participated as well as those who helped to spread the word about the fundraiser.

Lion Cub Egg Salad Sandwich Bento #26

Using the nesting onigiri boxes I posted about yesterday, I made Sean an egg salad sandwich and fruit bento.  The lion cub is made from cheddar cheese and I used fish sausage for the nose.  To get the triangular shape, I used the smaller nesting boxes as cutters for both bread and the cheese.

Right now Sean is going through this phase where he runs a mile a minute even though his body can’t coordinate and keep up with him.  Last night for instance, Sean ran into his room to get something and (wham!) he ran right into the desk, ricocheted off of it into the corner of the doorway, and then fell to the ground at which point he hit his head on the floor.  Then today, he went into the bathroom to wash his hands, flung the door open which hit the wall, and caused it to slam right back into him.  Oh and it gets better.  At lunch today, when he bent over and sipped his drink from the straw, he missed his mouth and rammed the straw into his upper lip causing it to bleed.  Poor guy, I’ll be glad when he stops hurting himself.  Or does it ever stop with boys?

Obviously Sean’s not too pleased that I am documenting this.

I got this from Jenn of Bento For Kidlet !  Jenn is amazing artist and I’m very thankful for this award!  I am supposed to list 10 things that make me happy, so here goes…

1. God!
2. Spending time with my family.
3. Being blessed with caring and thoughtful friends.
4. Being able to be a SAHM for now.
5. Good food.
6. Cooking and feeding people.
7. Bentoing.
8. Blogging about bentoing.
9. Gardening.
10. Reading.

Thank you to Tata Bonita of Bonito’s Cooking Wonderland, Lia of Bentolicious, and Gamene of Bento Zen for this award.  It goes without saying how much I love all of your blogs too!   You all are such talented ladies!

Sesame Chicken and Chive Dumpling Bento #25

All of a sudden, Paige’s eating habit have been changing.  Her favorites have been replaced by other things and she’s being a little more adventurous in trying new foods.  For instance some of the things she would never eat and now love are raw broccoli, salmon, hard boiled eggs, and egg salad sandwiches.  I was cooking a few hard boiled eggs last night and Paige just so happened to ask me what my favorite sandwich was when I was a kid.  I told her that I loved egg salad sandwiches when I was her age and so did her Dad.  She was curious enough to try it and so I made her one for dinner.  Lo and behold she loved it and declared it to be her second favorite sandwich ever!   Yay, I love it when Paige tries new things!

Paige’s bento today has sesame chicken, mini chive dumplings, veggies (including raw broccoli!), and a musubi stored in an onigiri box.   I got these nesting boxes at the Ward Marukai Zakka Avenue store because I thought they were too cute to pass up!

Thank you! #24

Many thanks to all of you who have donated so far to the fundraiser for Haiti!  Pikko and I want to thank  Diane Ako for mentioning the fundraiser on her Honolulu Advertiser Blog- Small Talk, as well as send out a big thank you to Clayton and Jill at KITV for having us on the morning news  today.  We are very grateful to everyone who has donated or helped us promote the fundraiser.

KITV asked us to bring a few bentos each to display and these are the two that I brought this morning.  The top is a mouse made of fish cake, with rice, and sesame chicken.  The second bento contains pumpkin sandwiches made with cheddar cheese and bologna cutouts that I placed on top of the sandwiches.

Bentos and More! #23

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, Pikko of Adventures in Bento Making and I are hosting a fundraiser for Haiti.  Please visit her site to read more about the fundraiser and about the prizes that can be won!  All of the proceeds go to the American Red Cross for their relief efforts in Haiti.

On to today’s bento!   Paige’s bento today was super simple and consisted of whole grain Mickey Mouse chicken nuggets that I baked in the toaster oven, hot rice in the thermal container, a cutie, and a few veggies.  To make it “cute”, I just added in a few picks and some fun dividers.

This is a bento I made for myself a few days ago from leftover mapo tofu that I had at my favorite Chinese restaurant, Little Village in China Town.  The food is so delicious and I could eat there everyday, no kidding!   My favorite dish is the steamed dumplings (pictured below) served with a spicy peanut sauce.  I never do this, but once I tried to finagle the recipe for the peanut sauce from the waiter but he wouldn’t tell me.    Yes, it is that good.

Lastly, I just got the advertisement paper from Marukai and I wanted to share a few things that caught my eye.  First of all this sale doesn’t take place until January 18.  I wouldn’t want anyone going there this weekend and not finding these products.  Anyway, the first pic is of these really cute nesting pig family musubi container set.  So cute!  And for those of you who can’t decide whether or not to use a chopstick, fork, or spoon here is the ultimate solution- the three way chopstick!  LOL.

This next item is for my husband who eats bread with peanut butter and jelly practically every morning.  One of his favorite things to eat is melon pan and now they have melon pan spread in a tube!  Mark loves to eat sweet stuff in the morning and I remember that when we first got married he always ate frosted pop tarts and had a glass of  Ovaltine everyday.

Finally, if you have have mochi left over from New Years or if you just love mochi period, here are some inventive ways to eat it!  I am intrigued by the  spam mochibi.  Hope you all have a good weekend!

Haiti Fundraiser

Pikko of Adventures in Bento Making and I have put together a fundraiser to help the people of Haiti affected by the devastating earthquake that hit them earlier this week.  All of the proceeds from this fundraiser will go to the American Red Cross to help those in Haiti.  Please visit Adventures in Bento Making to see more details on how to donate.  May God bless you always.

With my deepest gratitude,

Susan