Another Angry Birds Pig Sandwich, a Bearwich, and the Isabella “How To”!

Hi everyone!  Here’s another way to make the pig from Angry Birds.  You can use a bear head shaped cutter to cut out your bread like I did.  The pigs are peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with sugar eyes, and in the the blue silicone cupcake cup are the cheddar cheese “eggs”  that the pigs took from the birds.  :)

The folks at All Things for Sale sent me a few of their items to review.   I used the bear shaped cutter (pictured above) for the pigs in my Angry Birds bento today.  It comes along with different cutters, tweezers to pick up the little cut outs, and a plastic wand to push out the smaller shapes from the cutters.  The cutters are plastic but very sturdy.  You can use the example in the picture to make a bento using ham, cheese, and veggies.  I love how they include and  ”I <3 U” cutter.

Bear Sandwich using the same cutter set.  This one was super easy and fast to put together.  I also decorated it with some daisy and clover picks.

Here are some more new bento accessories available at All Things For Sale.  Panda sauce bottles, super cute food picks, and sausage stamps!  I’ll be reviewing the sauce bottles and sausage stamps in my next post.

These sausage stamps are too cute!

Finally, the Isabella “How To”

Sorry for the long wait!  But here she is.

Cut out your bread with a large circle cutter and assemble you sandwich.

To make Isabella, use the same cutter or a slightly smaller cutter and cut out a piece of tortilla.

Cut the crust off of a piece of dark bread (I used rye) and flatten using a rolling pin.  Using the same large round cutter, cut out a piece for her hair.

Use the leftover piece of bread, cut out her bangs.

Trim the top of the tortilla  and place on the dark bread circle.

Trim the top of the dark bread off and add the bangs.

Cut out her eyes using an oval cutter.

Trim a little off the top of the oval with using the same cutter.

Place everything on your sandwich and add on her features.

From the dark bread, cut two eyes, a nose, mouth, and a few lashes.  Attach everything using a little bit of honey, jelly or peanut butter.  Don’t forget to cut out a little bow for Isabella from cheese.

Fill in the rest of your box and you are done!

First Bento of the Christmas Season

Now that Thanksgiving has come and gone, Christmas is right around the corner!  Here is my first Christmassy sandwich bento.  To make it simple, I used a gingerbread man shaped cookie cutter for the turkey and cheese sandwich and added in a pretty snowflake pick.

I made this “Lunchables” style Fall bento a while back but never got around to posting it.

Iron Maiden Bento for Mark #93

Sorry for the creepy bento post, but here is my latest entry to Kawaii Bento Club’s “Rock My Bento” contest!!!  Today’s bento is inspired by Mark (my hubby) who is a huge metal fan.  He grew up listening to what’s now referred to as “Classic Rock” (LOL) and still loves it to this day.  Mark owns a massive CD collection of rock music from the late 70′s and 80′s, and though he’ll never admit it, he plays a pretty wicked electric guitar!

Anyway on to the bento, it is supposed to be Eddie- the mascot of Iron Maiden.  At the very bottom is a picture of Eddie on Iron Maiden’s first album.  I couldn’t figure out how to do the hair and then I saw this package of iriko- small dried anchovies!   Eddie is made out of rice, iriko for his hair, nori for the eyes and nose, kamaboko for the teeth and eyes, and black sesame seeds for the inside of his mouth.  The bento also includes shrimp shumai, carrots, grapes, oranges, and a cherry tomato.

Don’t forget to enter your Rock bento in Kawaii Bento Club’s “Rock My Bento” contest for some awesome prizes!

Steamed Buns with Char Siu #69

Sean and I had steamed buns filled with char siu  for lunch today!  We had some extra dough from Saturday’s bento class, so I made more steamed buns and filled them with sliced char siu, cucumbers, green onions and hoisin sauce.  I added in a few steamed beets and broccoli, carrots, a cherry tomato, and a strawberry.  To make it pretty, I decorated it with a sprig of lavender and mini purple basil from our garden.  Hope you all are having a great week!

Octopus Games Bento #58

Today’s bento is my entry to the Japan Society’s virtual bento battle contest.  My bento is based upon on a Japanese print by Utagawa Kuniyoshi called Octopus Games.  You can see more of his work at the Japan Society’s website.  I found these little seasoned octopus, or chuka idako at Don Quijote this morning and then dressed them up with kamaboko eyes and mouths.  I also made a headband for one of them using kampyo.

Check out the entry by Bento Zen who also entered a bento into the contest.  Gamene’s “Woman in a Hilltop Teahouse”  bento is absolutely amazing!  There’s still some time left for you to enter the contest too!

Quick and Easy Roasted Chicken Bento #50

Paige was sick this weekend so she stayed home from school today.  I wasn’t planning on making any bentos today since Paige is at home, but Sean asked if he could have one.  I put together a quick one for him of “smoked” roasted chicken, an ume and shiso musubi, and a few veggies.  The rice is mixed with an ume and shiso mix that I picked up from Marukai and it is really delicious!  As for the chicken, I used a large half chicken breast with the bone and skin on, then seasoned it with smoked salt, garlic, pepper, and olive oil.  I oven roasted it in a pre-heated oven at 425 degrees for about 30-45 minutes (450 degrees for smaller breasts for about 25 minutes) until cooked just through.  Cooking the chicken breast with the bone and skin-on helps the breast to retain a lot of it’s natural juices, making it deliciously moist.  Regarding the smoked salt, I never knew that they existed until I read about it on Hapabento’s blog which immediately prompted me to give smoked salts a try after reading her post.

Roasted chicken seasoned with smoked salt, pepper, garlic, and olive oil

Alderwood smoked salt

I also made a roasted chicken breast seasoned with Hibiscus salt, onion, pepper, and olive oil.

Hibiscus salt

Kari-kari Ume Shiso Musubi mix

Hinamatsuri Bento #47

I got the official word that my second cookbook will be out next month in April!  So for Paige’s bento today, I made a variation of one that will be in the new book.  The bento includes two little girl musubis, chicken katsu bites, and a few veggies.

Paige got this bento box and Precious Moments doll from Grandma Geri.  Thanks Grandma!

Her name is Mayumi- which means truth, reason, and beauty.

Due out in April 2010!

Twin Girl’s Day Bento #46

Yesterday I met with Sachiko Uchida who hosts the popular Japanese radio show on J-wave called the Colors of Hawai`i, as well as OC 16′s Doko Ga TV.  We recorded a short interview for her Colors of Hawai`i show talking about how popular charaben bento has become in Hawai`i, as well as in the US and abroad.  Even Paige got to answer a few questions and was thrilled to be on the radio.  Thanks so much to Sachi and Chiho for letting us be a part of your show.

Girl’s Day  is tomorrow!  We picked up a few boxes of baked rice crackers from Marukai for Paige to share at school for Girl’s Day.  The boxes are really cute and if you pull on the tab their eyes change.

Girl’s Day Sammy Bento #44

Last night we had heard about the massive earthquake that shook Chile and knew that there was a potential for a tsunami.  Then at 6 am this morning we were awoken by the sounds of the Civil Defense warning siren blaring.  That loud wailing siren immediately jolted me out of bed and sure got my heart racing!  Mark on the other hand was still asleep and I had to wake him up.  We could see the ocean from my in-laws house and there were hundreds and hundreds of ships dotting the ocean trying to get out to sea to avoid the tsunami.  The pictures I took below don’t do it justice, it really was an amazing sight.  Thankfully it turned out to be an uneventful day and everything is slowly getting back to normal. Thanks to everyone for their well wishes and concern this morning, I really appreciate your thoughtfulness.

Because all of our plans got cancelled for today, I got to fool around a little and made this Girl’s Day sandwich for Paige’s lunch today.  I used vegan bologna (made of soy) for the first time and I thought that it was pretty good.  The vegan bologna is from Whole Foods and they the have tons of vegan alternatives which I thought was pretty neat.  Obviously we are not vegetarians or vegans, but I like to try out new foods in the event that someone asks me for other alternatives to the food or ingredients that I normally use.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Bear with Garlic Beef Rice Bento and Some Miscellaneous Happenings #40

Today in the Taste section of the Honolulu Advertiser, there was an article titled “Bento!”. Wanda Adams wrote up a great informational piece on decorative bentos and I was lucky and thankful to be a part of that.  Thanks Wanda!!!  She also featured Pikko of Adventures in Bento Making who shared her astoundingly massive collection of cool bento boxes and bento gear!

For today’s bento I made another simple one pot (rice cooker) meal similar to the Chicken and Shiitake Mushroom Rice one that I posted about earlier.  This time I used very thinly sliced beef, shiitake mushrooms, thinly sliced aburage, asparagus, garlic, shoyu, sake, and oyster sauce.  I made the bear using an egg sheet, kamaboko, and fish sausage.

On another note, this morning I went to the Kahala Times and bought this massive bento for $6.99.  It wasn’t the best bento that I have had but it was good enough for me and Sean to share and such a stellar deal at that!  I particularly liked the salmon and unagi with rice.

Finally, remember the pledge that I made back in December to donate $1 for each post that I make? Well I made two donations today! I kept good on my promise and with 40 posts to date, I have donated $20 to the Hawai`i Food Bank and $20 to the World Food Programme!