Kweh!

In celebration of the Vana'fest 2010, I wanted to make a Final Fantasy XI themed box. This is the first chocobo (cheese) to hatch in the nest (rice with furikake), see him breaking out of his egg (rice), with his brothers (or is it sisters?) down at the bottom (quail eggs). All sorts of healthy treats (clementine, broccoli, carrots) are waiting for him to eat!

Rising Sun

I finally am cutting nori! I have a few fun designs planned in honor of FFXI and my love for it- but I wanted my first one to be a little "simpler". As a result, the right half is a little plain, but I'll get there. ^_^

Some Days, It's Just Not There.

My bento today wasn't pretty, so I'm not going to post it. It was just some veggies, but I was in a hurry and didn't have time to embellish or anything like that.

I have an idea for a few bento boxes, I want to do a series of Final Fantasy XI themed boxes. I bought a dissecting kit JUST for bento'ing (10.95 well spent, imo). I was just going to get an exacto knife. Then I realized a scalpel was the same thing (for bento purposes anyway). Then I realized that those multitude of tweezers would be great for bento too, so I just got the whole kit.

I might do the Sandorian flag first, since I am currently an Elvaan from Sandy. I'd like to do a chocobo and moogle at some point, too.

I will try it tomorrow- hopefully the results will be postable! Well, even if they are ugly, I will still post them, because this about my journey!

Land of Yummy

Rice with furikake (I expanded my collection and found one I really love), a pork/cabbage/carrot patty, quail egg, almonds and dried cranberries, and celery sticks.

Really Useful Box

I found a box while shopping at STAPLES! Isn't that funny? They're called "really useful boxes" and they have them in a bunch of sizes.

I'm sorry I've been MIA from bento land lately...I was trying to finish a really difficult class and just had no time to eat much less spend time making fun bento!

The good news is that I have some some great ideas for some bento boxes. ;)

Healing

Today, fruits and veggies are in my small lunch bento. I still feel not quite right, so I want to stick with better things for a bit longer!

Love is in the Air...

Lots of hearts! Probably because I am in love and happy. ^_^

Break

Taking a break from bento today- we celebrated the Chinese New Year yesterday, and Valentine's Day the day before that, so I'm feeling a little stuffed! Doing a nice juice fast for the next day or so to reboot my system!

Speaking of juice fasts, has anyone ever tried Blueprint Cleanse? I came across their website last week and I am thinking of giving it a try!

Anyway. I had gluten this past weekend, and it didn't make me happy. When Coury P. suggested that gluten free would change my life, I thought "sure, okay, I know I'll lose some weight, so I'll give it a go", but I never realized that he was right- it actually has changed my life. Joseph and I had chicken paninis and some beer the night of the Canes/Devils game, and then last night I had some sourdough bread along with our wonderfully festive meal (main course of which was a pork roast with a lovely five spice rub). This morning, my body was very upset with me, and I feel kind of heavy and icky all over. SO! Back to being completely gluten-free lifestyle is actually something I'm looking forward to.

I am eagerly awaiting getting back to my craft/hobby again though- I can't wait to use my new nori punches! I went to Michael's (a US chain craft store) on Friday. I wanted to see if I could get some scrapbook punches in different shapes to use for nori. I got a star and a heart, so I was happy about that, since I only had a clover one and wanted a bit more variety. I really like doing a single punch in the middle of a nori strip on musubi, I think it gives it something a little extra special. I also found the metal cookie cutters, so I bought a flower set and a heart set. Before I knew it, I'd spent $60! But, all the items I got were items I will use, so it ends up being an investment rather than frivolous expense. I do always end up spending $5 or so from their $1 bins- they have card sets that are a great deal, and I do love sending cards in the post.

I also have a craft idea to make a dinner bento box, so we'll see how that turns out. I may or may not post it, depending. But I will let you know if it turns out. ;)

A Day Late...

Not exactly a bento box, I know. But I didn't make one yesterday and this was dinner. ^_^

It was so yummy. And the perfect size, although I didn't finish my whole rice ball. Also: I have discovered that I LOVE what furikake does to rice. Absolutely love it.

Giveaway Winner!

So I took all the entries, and gave each one a number. Then our trusty friends at random.org picked the winner!

Who is... Gnoegnoe!

Congratulations! You have 48 hours to claim your prize! Please email thebloggingmum@gmail.com to do so!! Thank you to everyone who entered the giveaway- and more are coming soon. It's way too much fun! ^_^

Happy Bento

This bento box makes me very happy.

I have been feeling as though my last few bentos weren't very healthy- or were too big, or something (I wasn't even able to finish the last bento, it was too big as I suspected). Anyway.

I went to the store tonight, and let the food talk to me for a little while. I kept an open mind but honestly, I love fruit so very much and so the fact that I ended up buying a bunch of fruit was really no great surprise.

What WAS a surprise, however, was finding this Stay Fit EZ Freeze Lunch container. I was excited about the possibilities- and came home and was even more surprised to see the variety of products available on their website.

I was well pleased with the price (I bought mine at my local Super WalMart), as buying authentic bento boxes gets expensive for me here in North Carolina, especially once you add in the shipping. So I have been looking for alternatives to hold me over until I can afford to invest in more bento boxes from Japan.



We have strawberries, cherries, blackberries and a clementine in the left side, and a rice ball (from yesterday's rice) that I absolutely cannot wait to enjoy. Then some wedges of "bread" and fat free turkey breast. Cilantro to garnish, and I plan to put that in the sandwiches (I think). Yumminess all around!! ^_^

Tomorrow I will draw a winner for the contest and post the name!

Fields of Clover

This bento box may prove to be too big for me....I felt like I was putting too much in as I loaded it up. I guess we'll see! ^_^



Anyway, the rice balls are made with sushi rice, shredded carrot, tuna, and shoyu sauce. YUM. I wanted to gobble it up as I was making it- and a few bites MAY have been eaten. Clover nori details. The "meadow" is made from cucumber sticks and cilantro, with tomato "balloons".

Then we have a citrus/apple salad, with sunflower seeds, blue cheese, and cherry cranberries, in a citrus dressing. ALSO very yummy. Then we have some kiwi and orange slices, on a bed of seaweed salad.

Yummy, right? I think so. ;)

Fans

Today's bento: fans! I used fan cutters and onigiri shapers to keep a common theme.



Cabbage bun, carrot sticks, cucumber slices, a clementine, kamaboko, and onigiri. Super simple, super fun!

Flowers

It's exciting to see that people are entering the "Think Pink" bento gear giveaway!

Today's bento box is all about flowers!



Flower onigiri with umeboshi, clementine and dried cranberries, tuna and carrots with shoyu sauce and carrot flower details, flower apple slices with blood oranges, and cherry tomatoes. The best part is, with all this red, it qualifies for Hapa Bento's February B.O.M.B challenge!

Giveaway: Think Pink!

I have found a whole new group of wonderful people since I have started doing bento boxes. I feel very encouraged every single day, and inspired to do more and be even more creative.

I want to do a giveaway to celebrate my first month of bento boxes! Today's giveaway is a small one, but a fun one for those of you who love doing bento boxes!



(1) Three compartment, pink bento box
(2) flower silicon reusable cups
(3) sauce bottles
(1) syringe (for filling the sauce bottles!)
(1) bag of my very favorite candy! Small, colorful, and the perfect addition to any bento box.

I'm willing to ship anywhere in the world, so everyone can enter if they like!

To win, post your answer to this question:
"What inspires you?"

Additional entries:
1. Follow me on Twitter (and post here to let me know!)
2. blog about the giveaway and link back
3. Tweet about it!


So there you have it! Contest will run until Wednesday, February 10th!

Gyoza and Fruit

Ok. I have been so stuffed with rice the past few days, I decided to take a day (maybe two) off.

I packed tomorrow's lunch tonight, with some gyoza leftover from dinner. Yummy! I kept it simple with some fruit on the side. Those musubi's are good- but way too big! Next time they will be smaller. I don't like feeling stuffed at lunch. Anyway.

Here it is:


Pretty, huh? I also have some broth soup on the side (in a steel thermos), flavored with a teensy-weensy bit of garlic and ginger- yummy!!

Nice, light lunch. All is right with the world.

Smiley Bear!

Today's Bento Box is a really fun one!!

With some tamagoyaki that I made yesterday, I cut a circle. then I put it on an onigiri (with nori furikake) of the same shape! I used cucumbers for ears, and cheese and nori for the face.

The rest of the box is some raspberry and chocolate pudding in a silicone cup, a clementine, cherries, tomatoes, and more cucumber slices. I feel like I should have had some sort of decoration for the pudding, so I made notes on that for the future. Maybe a flower stencil and some sugar sprinkles?

Anyway, I can't wait for lunch!!

Musubi Bento Box

Inspired by Pikko at Adventures in Bentomaking, I decided to try my hand at some spam musubi. I also wanted to try my tamagoyaki pan, BUT my first effort was completely dismal. The second go around I sort of cheated and just cooked all of it at once. I'll keep trying until I get it, though...even scrambled, the eggs are completely delicious like that.



So. Around the edges, I have cucumber slices, a dried plum, tomatoes, clementine pieces (I picked up a big lot of them, so they will be making more of an appearance in the next week or so!), and star fruit. In the middle I have some spam musubi (I'm making good use of my new clover nori punch), tamagoyaki musubi (I don't know if this is a proper combination but it tastes so yummy!), and another spam musubi. I did put a bit of nori furikake between the rice and the top.

I DO wish I'd made them smaller- like half the size, as I don't think I will be able to finish all three. I think that next time I will! ^_^

Oh!! The candy...I was especially pleased to find out that my favorite Japanese candies were in stock at the Asian Market (it's hit or miss, they have a hard time keeping them in stock). I love these- they are tiny little fruit flavored balls of candy that FIZZ in your mouth! It's fantastic, and so yummy. Such a perfect little treat!

I also discovered (thanks to my bento friends on twitter!) that the difference between onigiri and musubi is that onigiri is just a rice ball, and musubi has nori wrapped around it. I didn't know- but now I do- and now you do too!! ^_^