Hello my bentolings!

Time for the mid week bento box. This week is going unusually fast for me. Probably all the working and bentoing. I could really use more time to sleep. Ah well, no rest for the crazy folk!

With the sun making an appearance lately, it's put me in the summer kind of mood. When I think summer, I think picnics outside and more importantly my Mom's awesome salads! I decided to make a USA style bento with summery picnic food. There is her tuna pasta salad that's so delicious. Mine never tastes quite as good as hers for some reason, but it's pretty close. Nice salad greens, yellow peppers and bits with some blanched broccoli and peas. The other side has strawberries that are so good, it's surprising there are even any left in the fridge. The little happy chick is made out of a mini corn muffin (another USA favorite food of mine) with a carrot beak, black sesame seed eyes and carrot feet.

I ordered some different shaped boxes today since they really are starting to look so similar to me. I may or may not have ordered 10+ other things while I was there *whistles innocently* I hope they arrive soon!

Next picnic salad on my hankering list is my Mom's potato salad. I don't like potato salad but I love hers. I can get it almost exactly like hers now that I've been making it every summer for years. It's one of those dishes that every time you bring it to a party, everyone then expects you to bring it to EVERY party you attend for the rest of your life. It's not too hard to make and I'll post the recipe when I get around to making it. The only trouble is cutting everything up and having your house smell like eggs for two days afterward. I then burn all sorts of candles to try and get rid of the eggie smell and then the house smells like spicy apple eggs... which is even more unpleasant. It's worth it though I assure you.

Time for jammies and kitten snuggles. Peas out!

Hola Bentolings!

Tonight's bento is just a nicely arranged one... no faces. I found some odd yellow tiny tomatoes and really nice veg at M&S today. Colorful lunches are always more fun! There is a little brioche roll with veggies and cheese hearts, salad with carrot sliver rolls and the other side is rice cubes wrapped in carrot slivers and nori strips with some tasty looking strawberries and almonds.

I think I need to invest in some different shaped boxes. These bentos are all starting to look the same to me. Maybe a nice square shaped one would do the trick. I think I already filled my J-list quota for the month though.

Looking forward to the bank holiday on Monday. Can't beat a three day weekend! Maybe the weather will be nice and we can have a bento picnic out in the park. I haven't seen any baby ducklings yet this year and that must be changed. I will arm myself with seeded bread!

Hope everyone is having a good week so far!

Ahoy Bentolings!

Normally I make nice bento boxes on Sunday afternoon/evening since I have all day and can take my time. This weekend however, we actually did outside things. The sun... it burns. Snow's sis and her husband are visiting so we ended up going walking in my favorite glen on Saturday. It was so green and lush that I felt like a forest nymph and had a strange longing to play a pan flute. Unfortunately I didn't have one in my purse so I just stuck to walking.

Sunday they came around to our town and we walked all over with melting ice cream cones in hand. It generally doesn't get very hot here, but Sunday was muy scorchio. We sat in the park for a while, not realizing my flesh was burning and I'd feel like I'd been dipped in lava all day today. We ended up at the house after I walked bare foot home after an unfortunate flip-flop situation. Great day, but no time for bento'ing.

So, tonight after work I decided to whip up some panda boxes for lunch tomorrow. These are dead simple ones, salad and onigiri with nori panda faces. I was out of carrots and other nicely colored items so it's not the most glamorous bento in the universe. It will be healthy and tasty though and that's what really counts.

Not too shabby for a work night box.

Here is a shot of a lovely waterfall in Glen Maye from Saturday:

Now I'm going to go attempt to take a shower even though my seared skin will cause me agony. It takes me back to when I was little and we'd go to the ocean to visit my Nana. I would get so sun burned that I looked like a little lobster with a bowl cut. Nana would end up coating me in vinegar mixed with ice water. I'm half tempted to do this on my back, but I'm pretty sure smelling like the local chippy is way worse than burned skin.

Ahoy bentolings!

Tonight I'm going to discuss the pitfalls of a bento hobby. All over the internet you will see sites praising the magical bento and all it's many pleasures and surprises. I'm here to talk about the dark side of bento making. This is the side I'm just now starting to see through the cute nori faces and endless bowls of steamed rice.

It started as I drove home from a very long, exhausting day of work. I usually try and plan out what I want to do in my precious evening hours on the way back. My soul spent, all I could really process was how cute all the little lambs are in the fields across the mountain road. I did come to one conclusion though... I wasn't going to bento tonight. Too tired, really can't be bothered.

I get home and start tidying and begin to prepare dinner. An hour later, we eat and watch an episode of Smallville (we're watching the entire series start to finish as I've not seen it. On season 5 now). I still am adamant I won't be making bentos tonight. My brain is sore.

I figured however, I could at least put together some sandwiches for snow and myself to have for lunch tomorrow. I'd rather control what I'm eating and not have the need to go to a store and get something icky if I can help it. So, I lope to the kitchen and get out some bread. Next thing I know, I've got the paper grass out and I'm curling carrot slices and goddammit I ended up with this...

This... THIS IS WHAT ME MAKING A SANDWICH LOOKS LIKE NOW! >_<

I wasn't even going to put hearts on or anything and then the bento devil on my shoulder whispers into my ear... "what if snow worries he doesn't have hearts on his lunch? You can't have that now can you? You better fetch the cheese quick, fast, in a hurry if you know what's good for you!"

I couldn't help myself. I think I'm doomed.

*sigh*

Ahoy Bentolings!

****update! snow said comments are fixed! Please comment away and hopefully it doesn't break. Hooray!***

The dust is slowly clearing on my flu-plague. I'm feeling slightly less undead, which is great! I miss the good old days of being sick. When you're a kid and have a sick day, you get to stay home in bed rocking the cozy jammies. No worries about dinner to cook, laundry to do, work to be done. Just game show bliss and canned soup lunch. Those were the days. Now I have to do all these adult wife things and just feel like crap while doing them.

My Nana always said that when she died, she was coming back as a man. Now I kinda understand where she was coming from! I still think coming back as a house cat is a better gig. Less thinking in the pants. Cats don't wear pants.

SO, feeling 75% better. I decided today that I wouldn't focus on the aesthetics of tomorrow's lunch. I'd focus on the taste and experiment with recipes instead. I work full time, so doing both just isn't happening. I have been wanting to try this recipe for sweet potato puff things that I found in a book. I followed the recipe to the letter and something didn't feel right with it. I'm not sure I had the correct type of potatoes? Everything else was spot on, and I know I can follow a recipe, so something wasn't correct. I suspect what wasn't right and will probably try and alter the recipe at a later date.

They don't look as glorious as they should have, but believe it or not, they taste divine! Snow came down to vulture hover over me and saw these tiny cupcake things cooling on the counter. He of course asked to eat one (as it was already halfway in his mouth). He said they were delicious, so I guess that's good? I still want to modify the recipe at a later date.

I'll call this an avant garde bento rather than mad scientist. I had no plan, no idea, just moved things around and thought about what would be tasty. These are lunches and not art projects after all. I'm trying to develop my skill in the flavor department just as much as the visual.

Mini cube onigiri with a side of my Hoi sin noodles and a shaped tomato on top. Sweet potato puffs, salad, cheese crisps and side of fruit on the other side with the token Happy Panda cookie for my tallest (my husband).

On a side note, I've been really dedicated to blogging on a regular basis as of late. I'm trying to fit it into my routine, which is filled with all sorts of other dances. It's funny how your pets adapt themselves to your new routine as well. So far, every bento blog I've written... I have had Yuki sleeping in between my arms as I type. It's her new thing and as soon as I sit down to type, there she is. She plops down on the desk, buries her face in my arm and listens to me type. I have to say, it makes blogging much more enjoyable as she's far more adorable than any bento I could ever hope to produce. It looks something like this:

YES I BLOG IN A PINK FUZZY ROBE! WHAT OF IT? *karate stance*

Thanks for reading ^_^ May kittens rest on your typing arms.

Ahoy Bentolings *cough*

I've managed to come down with a nasty flu/cold/bug/plague thing, possibly all of the above. I'm not bed ridden quite yet, and have shuffled my way to and from work the last two days. Luckily I have a nice boss that let me go home an hour early and nurse my plague. I rested, took some meds and I think I'm starting to feel slightly more human than yesterday.

I didn't bento last evening. I wasn't well and definitely not up for it. I really didn't think much of it until lunch time today. I really wasn't hungry anyway but not having that lovely lunch to look forward to made the day seem sad. I don't think this means I will bento every single work day, because I know I won't. I'm saying that I dusted off my sore, headachey self and made dinner and bento boxes for tomorrow because I knew doing normal things would make me feel better. Mind over matter!

I'll be honest, these look pretty crap. If you ever wanted to see what a bento looks like while feverish and on loopy cold medicine, here you go. I don't even remember what I put in there. There's probably a tin of beans under the lettuce or possibly some shoe polish rolled in dust. I can't be sure. Alas, I am sharing.

*cough cough* Ok, Helllooooooo night nurse!

<3

Ahoy Bentolings!

Spring has sprung and so have all the hedgehogs or hedgies as we call them in our house. I had a discussion the other day about Hedgehog Awareness Week, which is an actual thing here. It was the first week of May. According to the Isle of Man Courier (the only local newspaper), if you find a hedgie stuck in a hole, you should not reach in and grab him/her. You're supposed to construct a tiny ladder and lower it down for them to use and climb out. Is it wrong to hope I will find a hedgehog in a hole some day so I can construct a tiny ladder and see what happens? Probably.

Anyway, the theme of today's bento is hedgies! We have a soft spot for them in our house because Yuki's favorite toy in the world is a tiny stuffed hedgehog named (you guessed it) Hedgie. She brings it into bed with us, and carries it all over the house. It's the cutest thing you'll ever see.

I made the hedgies out of hard boiled eggs dyed brown with soy sauce and soy rice, with egg paws and nori faces. There is a bit of rice in the "garden" with veggies. The other side has chicken rolls and steamed broccoli with salad. The chicken rolls were a recipe that Pikko was nice enough to share with me. I modified it a bit, but it's pounded out chicken with baby spinach and fresh basil. You roll it up and bread via flour, egg then Panko. Pan fry in a bit of olive oil and holy crow... talk about delicious! I tried making enough for two rounds of boxes but snow ate every left over piece.

His

Mine

It was fun but slightly challenging to get the hedgies to work. I think they're pretty cute though. It's not exactly what I had in mind, but the rice wasn't cooperating like I would have liked. Also, my new favorite condiment is Furikake. I got some with my last Jlist order and it's so incredible, I'm sprinkling it on everything in site. I can't describe the taste, but it's really divine. On rice, it's absolutely perfect. There are loads of flavors, but this is the one I use. Here's a pic of the bottle:

I'm starting a nasty cold so, I'm not sure how bentotastic this week will be. I'm loading up on vitamins and juice so fingers crossed it just goes away before I'm curled up in bed feeling sorry for myself. I'm off to a date with the Night Nurse™ <3

Evenin' bentolings!

Tonight's bento box was fairly easy. The only reason I was in the kitchen for an eternity was because I made loads of onigiri and some special heart shaped ones for the boxes. That and the fact that we have no dishwasher. It took me almost as long to do all the dinner/bento dishes as it did to cook and prepare everything. I actually daydream about owning a dishwasher again. Now that's sad. The homes here just aren't really designed for one, unless of course you're willing to put your washer/dryer in the living room, which I am not. Some day though... oh yes, you will be mine shiny dishwasher. ALL MINE!

Back to the box. I found these adorable mini wholewheat pita breads at M&S while out shopping at lunch time. They are TINY! So, I carefully filled them with a bit of turkey and ham and some cucumber slices. The other side has some heart shaped fried rice style onigiri, lightly steamed asparagus and salad. I didn't use any oil fry up the egg/veggies, just a really good non-stick pan. I want these lunches to be as healthy as possible. There is also a wee side car of blueberries and the token Happy Panda cookie because my husband expects one in all his bentos now. They really are delicious little cookies.

Mine

Snow's

I have some ideas I want to try this weekend. One that if I can pull off, it will be amazingly cute. Fingers crossed! I managed to hunt down some super mini cupcake foils at lunch time, and some other odds and ends. I'm going to try the sweet potato puffs, but I'm confused because I don't think the recipe I have calls for the orange/yam type of sweet potato, because they're white in the picture. I'll have to do some research. Last resort is red potatoes because they're yummy and taste good in any potato recipe I think.

I'm glad I made them tonight. I took the night off last evening and today I looked at my manky old ham sandwich and thought, what's the point? I'm spoiled now and want to eat with my eyes as well as my mouth. That's the way food should be I think.

Ahoy civilians!

Sadly, no bentorific pic/update this evening. I don't think I can do them every night for fear of burning out. Tonight was a big work out night and I have a few books I'd like to look through and get some recipe ideas going for the next ones. I really want to try these sweet potato puff thingies, but I need to find very small cupcake papers to put them in. *glee* I plan to venture out into the world tomorrow and hunt some. There really isn't enough time in the day when you work full time.

It's an odd week. Work is feeling like that song you hear in the circus when all the clowns get out of the clown car and there's just colorful, kind of scary chaos all around you. The bento'ing and blog re-design have helped tame the stress though. Speaking of which, looks different in here doesn't it?

Snow and I have been working hard getting things up and working properly. I'm pretty much just drawing silly things and playing with colors and he's doing all the MT wacky back end voodoo to make it work. It's coming along nicely I think! Still needs some tinkering and a lick of paint here and there, but progress always gives you that warm fuzz. I will warn though, that during builds or code botches (most likely by me) the site could look totally broken, if showing at all. We're trying to get comments up and running too.

Previously when comments were allowed, the server got hacked so badly it was a miracle it made it back alive. So, my ninja is trying to come up with a secure way of doing things. Hence the silly captcha in the email link in the bio. Last night he put a security protocol on the server so strict that I couldn't even add a new entry. You'd think I was trading government secrets for nazi gold it's so locked down. Seriously, it's just a site about my lunches, cats and dreams about ducks.

Stay tuned for more bento fun tomorrow, and hopefully the server doesn't explode.

Ahoy bentolings!

I had every intention of just throwing some noodles and salad in the boxes and calling it a night. However, one thing led to another and I ended up spending more time than anticipated. The lady at Lunch in a Box specializes in speedy yet awesome boxes. She lists how long they take, etc. Very efficient! Sadly, I'm still a noob at this so I'm slow. I'm learning to be more organized to make clean up easier. I've been lining my counter work space with wax parchment that I can just roll up with all the scraps and throw away. Seems more sanitary as well. I started trying to prepare things ahead of time while I'm cooking dinner too.

Another of my favorite bento sites out there is Pikko's Adventures in Bentomaking which has some stunning creations and even has a youtube video how-to explaining bento techniques. Amazing stuff on there!

Tomorrow's lunch will be: Noodles with a sweet Hoisin and garlic with cashew sauce (like what was used for the bird nests I made in bento five), some steamed baby asparagus, BBQ chicken pieces. The other side is salad with a plain sesame mini onigiri, blueberries and a Hello Panda biscuit.

There are some cherry tomatoes with ham/turkey/asparagus wrapped up inside. I got the tomato idea from the new book that arrived for me today from Amazon called Kawaii Bento Boxes, which has some really great ideas and recipes. It's all in English and has loads of lovely pictures and thoughtful bentos. I doubt I'll be making any boxes just like in the book, but I'm still learning the recipes and "lingo" so this book is a great source of inspiration.

His

Mine

They look delicious! I can't wait for lunch tomorrow.

So, on a different topic... cats! As I'm sitting here writing this and sizing the pictures, I hear a strange slurping sound. I realized that earlier snow had filled a tub of water and set it out to get to room temp before topping up the fish tank. Well, Yuki thought this was set out for her. Obviously everything in the house belongs to her, seems reasonable enough. So, she's sitting there taking drinks out of the giant bowl and then proceeds to stick her paws in and clean her face like she's pretending to be a bird in a bird bath. >_< There's water all over the place and we had to move the bowl to the bathtub for health & safety reasons.

Never a dull moment in the Snoku house!
<3

I had this one planned for a while. I wish I would have waited for the weekend to make it because it didn't come out as nicely as it looked in my head. Tomorrow's bento boxes are inspired by Cat Face who I absolutely love! He looks very much like my cat face except she is Asian and Cat Face is French (I think?). I showed a picture of her to Weebl and he calls her "Pointy Cat".

I wanted to make CF and his trusty companion Box Cat. It took me ages to figure out how I was going to do a box. It's not edible unfortunately. I made an origami box out of a box color lined paper. It doesn't have a bottom so you can just lift it off and get to the treats inside.

Box Cat has a side of smoked ham tortellini with pesto sauce. Face cat is flying through the air with tomato balloons, salad and some broccoli. It was another fun one! I just wish I had more time to work on it. Detailed ones I probably shouldn't try doing on a work night. Enjoy!

His

Mine

I also am in the process of a blog re-design. It's looking a little less 90s now. Make sure you refresh if you still have the blue background, etc. Snow is trying to work on the server so comments are allowed/safe. Feel free to email me naku(at)naku.org if you have any comments or questions though. ^_^

I spent a lot of time on the bento boxes for our lunch tomorrow. I had a dream last night about all these baby ducks and birds. There was even this very large black and white puffy bird walking with the duck family. The strange/cute thing was, this bird's baby was riding on her back! Just this little teeny black and white puff. I'll have to try and sketch it. Nice dream! I was going to do something else for this round, but I was inspired by the dream birdies and made little chicks in noodle nests.

mine

snow's

The nest is made of fine egg noodles with Hoisin and garlic sauce, ginger, soy and crushed up cashews. Snow took the left over noodles for a test drive in his belly and said they were really delicious! The chicks are small onigiri with sweet scrambled egg, carrot beaks and nori eyes. The rolls are turkey, ham and cheese rolled in a tortilla and some lightly blanched broccoli with sesame seeds.

I really loved making these boxes. I'm pleased with how they turned out! I really hope my nori punches arrive in the mail this week. Trying to cut out tiny eyes is really painstaking.

<3

Tonight's bento boxes for tomorrow!

Seeing as tomorrow is snow's last day of work at the orc prison to follow his dreams of harvesting unicorn sparkles (consult full time)... I thought it would be appropriate to make him an onigiri with this face:

Tonight was supposed to be a speedy bento night, but I wanted to try the nori faces. It's fun and difficult/annoying at the same time! I'm already formulating ideas for really nice boxes, but I'll have to sketch them out first. This one is similar to the boxes we had today, but I added some more substance aka: meat to them. Mainly because I think some of the co-workers will want to drag him off for last day at the office drinks and I don't want the world spinning for him. Salad lunches will do that to you.

I ordered some more gadgets and tidbits from jlist tonight. I should not be allowed to go on that site. Luckily snow is happy to support my new obsession hobby so he doesn't mind me getting the fun tools required.

Speaking of obsession, I had a dream last night that we had some Japanese neighbors living in a secret part of a new house we apparently purchased. I wandered into this section of the house and thought it was ours and we had a second kitchen! I was totally over the moon as they say here. I prepared the most amazing bento for snow and put it in the fridge in the secret kitchen.

In the morning, I went to get the box out for him and the neighbors screamed at me that I was in their house. I didn't realize and got a terrible fright. I tried to explain and told them I needed the bento from the ice box. I looked in and it was GONE! *doom* THEY ATE IT!

In the dream it seemed like my world ended. In this same dream, Yuki escaped into the forest and was being chased by a polar bear. I was trying to assist. Cue too much Lost for me.

<3

*recap from a week or so ago*

I've decided to take up bento making as a hobby. I bought my first rice cooker and gave some onigiri a whirl tonight. Not too hard surprisingly! I ordered a bunch of molds and cutters to make really nice looking boxes, but it hasn't arrived yet. It's a super simple one, but it was my first go and I just wanted to try and get the rice correct.

Very basic plain onigiri with sesame and pine nuts mixed in, with salad and some fruit. I also put a little too much lettuce and it was a bit full. I'm sure it'll wilt and be closed by tomorrow. Someone also commented that it looked like a Henry hoover and I'm not sure I like the idea of eating out of a vacuum cleaner. Blech. New boxes should arrive shortly I hope.

I'm going to try and make some really good ones for snow to take to work. I'm sure none of his colleagues will laugh at him for eating a Pikachu rice ball.

*advance to this evening*

I got our new boxes in the mail today! I made us his/hers bentos for lunch tomorrow. I'm still getting used to all the things and gadgets so they take me a while. I'm much better at making the onigiri and tried a few different kinds. I've made some with tuna and some with beef and ginger. So far, I like the plain ones the best with some sesame seeds and black pepper. Nom nom nom!

His

Mine

Romantical lunch!

These have plain onigiri with red pepper hearts, assorted salad and a small cheese and cucumber triangle sammich. The hearts and stars are a mixture of carrots and different kinds of cheese. Filling the tiny fish bottles with soy sauce was interesting. I'm definitely hoping I get faster at making these. I'm a bit of a perfectionist and the stuff is going to go off before I close the boxes and get them in the fridge at this rate. >_<; It's so much fun though. Healthy, cheap and artistic fun! Hooray!