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!! ^_^