soul soup soap

Oyster Sauce Chicken Donburi Bento

2012-02-10T10:58:00.000+09:00

Today's bento is Chicken Donburi. Donburi is *rice topped with dishes*, which is one of quick rice dishes that you can whip up. I make it when I don't want to think this and that about what to make for bento. Today I made oyster sauce-flavored chicken stir-fry. I put it on rice, and sprinkled with a bit of shichimi togarashi and white sesame seeds. Along with boiled egg wedges I made yesterday.

I dredged chicken thigh pieces with some flour, then browned both sides in a bit of sesame oil. Then stir-fried it along with green onion and some kinds of mushrooms that I had in the fridge. Then I seasoned with shoyu and a bit of oyster sauce. That's all I did!

This dish goes great with rice! And tasty cold! Of course it's better if reheated.

In the meantime, I made fluffy mousse using homemade yogurt. It came out so much better than I thought that I'm going to share the recipe on my sweets blog. Stay tuned!

Panko Chicken Bento

2012-02-07T15:32:00.000+09:00

*Hey y'all!!* Greeting from a relaxed Relakkuma! Has it been so long since the last post!? Not that I've been hibernating, I swear haha! Yuppi has not needed bento for a while and hubby has run to work with a simple onigiri lunch on his back. But they need bento today!

In the meantime, my little buddy, Yuppi passed the entrance exam of the junior high school that she wanted to go to. We've just received the notification from the school. She made it! We are going to have dinner out tonight to celebrate her pass as she studied very hard for the exam. By the way, the students of the school basically have to take their lunches to school every day. That means I'm going to have to continue making bento at least for 6 years to come, wow. Plus, that means I'm going to keep posting here such a long time heh!

Today's bentos contain panko chcken, egg corn salad, some onigiri and orange wedges for refreshment.

I took this shot under the room light.

Today's quick bento okazu is panko chicken (chicken katsu)! It has appeared in my bento very often, and you know I've written about it so many times. But I'll write my way again. I removed skin off from a chicken breast (I usually use chicken tenders instead), and cut it into easy-to-eat-size pieces. Then strongly pressed panko (dried) on both sides of them by hand to stick the panko to the chicken well. (Since I want to prepare bento foods quickly I always omit flouring and egg-coating for ponko-fry.) And then I fried them in a little olive oil until both sides were brown, then drained on paper towels for cutting calories. You don't need so much oil for pan-frying. I only use 1 - 2 tablespoons oil. Lastly I sprinkled some herb salt and powdered cheese on them. Plus a bit of ketchup if you like.

Curry Shrimp Bento

2012-01-20T12:29:00.000+09:00

Today's quick bento okazu (dish) is sauteed shrimp. I cleaned some shrimps then lightly floured. Then sauteed both sides of them, and seasoned with a little herb salt and curry powder. It's tasty cold and goes well with bread as well. Flouring keeps shrimp moist and helps keep its flavor. You could season your sauteed shrimp as you like -- For example, syoyu and garlic, tomato sauce (or ketchup) and Tabasco, ketchup and mayonnaise, and so on. If you find fresh and inexpensive shrimp give this a try!

There are two photos here. I basically like my photos unretouched and natural. But sometimes can't stand my photo which stinks. I took this one without enough sunlight so it came out a kind of dull shot. So I retouched it by Picnik.

Look, this one is that. Isn't it a bit brightened up? For those of you who haven't tried Picnik yet, you can use some basic functions for free with it. I think it's simpler and easier to play around with pictures by Picnik than by Photoshop.

This one is not retouched. These strawberries were so good that I had to post it!

First Bento 2012

2012-01-17T13:38:00.000+09:00

Helloooo everyone, hello my first bento 2012!! This year I decided I wanted to improve my camera skill. Of course my cooking skill as well. I am excited about how many bentos I can make and how I will pack them in the future. Hmm the memorable first bentos don't look so much great. I thought they would be more gorgeous haha! Well that's the way it goes. Maybe I'm going to stick to my bento style on. More effortless, yet tasty and comforting.

I'm not really happy with this picture. I took the shot in a hurry. The only thing, the Rilakkuma crawling on my tamagoyaki makes me smile.

I tried taking pictures of this bento in two patterns as I had enough time then. Which of them looks tasty?

This one is today's bento. I packed leftovers from last night, yes, super quick bento! One of Rilakkumas is digging into a chicken mound, and the other is working out on a balance ball!!

What I Have Done For The Last Week

2012-01-02T19:56:00.001+09:00

SHINNEN AKEMASHITE OMEDETOU GOZAIMASU!!! Happy Happy New Year! 2012 has come to you and me! I'd like to say thank you to those of you who frequently visited this blog last year. This year also, I hope that we can all share a fun time and nice ideas together through bentoing! I actually did not have a chance to make bento since the last post. Maybe I'll make some bento about a week later. So today's post has photos I've taken for the last week. I hope everyone enjoy them with me!

This is what I saw in the Christmas morning.

Our Christmas cake this time. I'm a bit proud of my chiffon cake hehe.

Yuppi and her best friend made a gingerbread house for the first time ever at her English school. The house base was prepared beforehand by the school. Its taste wasn't our type, but they really enjoyed assembling and decorating the little house.　

*Is Santa coming?..*

I feel so blessed because I had some Santa Clauses this time who gave me such hearty presents. I got a Christmas card from my great bento pal, Heather at Ohayo Bento, which put a smile on my face. Thank you Heather!

In the meantime, my cookie meister tofugirl at Open Mouth Insert Cookie sent us a super lovely gift! Way back, I actually said to her that I hoped to have her cookies because she'd made wonderful baked goods each time! So she granted my wish in time for Christmas! Thank you tofugirl!!

Yum yum.... Matcha flavored shortbread cookies and cinnamon ones. How cute they are!?!? They were really so good that we and Moxy already ate all up haha!

Yuppi is very happy with Moxy!

Here are presents that my sweet little Santa selected for me. I sent her a cute backpack, a muffler and a pair of gloves.

The New Year's Eve night was too beautiful not to take a photo.

Actually, the rest of the family have left for Sapporo by train to see relatives yesterday.

So now I'm savoring my own time at home.

Look! this is my dinner today yay! Haha just joking! It's a fake ebi fry teishoku that I found at the front of the restaurant in the station!

I like this one much better!

Simple Bento Meat Meat Meat

2011-12-21T13:45:00.000+09:00

My bento 2011 is coming to the end. I'm probably going to make a few more bentos until the end of the year though. Looking back, most of my bentos had chicken or pork. I rarely use sausages or ham or something like that in bento, and my family like meat. Plus meat comes in handy especially in the busy morning. You really just saute or fry it in a frying pan. That's why I use meat very often. But I secretly think I want to be vegetarian someday...　It would be a hard road for me haha. Hopefully I will use less meat next year. We'll see.

This bento contains jako & sakura ebi onigiri, ketchup chicken and homemade yogurt for dessert.

This one is a very teriyaki chicken bento. This day, I didn't have anything (that could be bento dishes), egg or vegetable but chicken thigh. This mikan barely made up for the lack of fun. But sometimes you feel like a simple bento like this one is also best hehe.

To liven up my bento, I scattered ginger pickle slices around the teriyaki. Ginger pickle not only gives an accent to bento, but also goes well with teriyaki stuff.

For this bento, I made sweet salty sour sesame chicken, grilled mayo egg halves, and a sweet potato cup which I mixed boiled-sweet potato, dried cranberry, walnut, a bit of salt and butter all together. I don't know why but these foods in this bento look not tasty. I think it's because of the sunlight and my camera setting. The foods were really good, I swear lol. I think I need a lot more tries to get pleasing pictures.

Fried Chicken Bento and Ginger Pork Bento and Totoro

2011-12-19T10:30:00.000+09:00

This bento contains two fried chicken drumsticks, macaroni salad, plain omelet and two onigiri. I rarely use drumsticks for bento because they are a bit hard to eat. I think bentos should be easy to eat. However I didn't have any decent stuff other than them in the fridge haha.

I seasoned the drumsticks with herb salt, then dredged in potato starch, then deep-fried (not as usual) them.

For these bentos, I lightly dredged pork slices with starch, then sauteed, then tossed them with a little of syoyu/mirin/grated ginger/water in a frying pan. Also I mixed shirasu (teeny tiny fishes) and umeboshi, then put it on rice as with the ginger pork.

What does this look like? As soon as I found this baby, I said *KUMA CHAN!!* I thought it just looked like a bear's head. But Yuppi said *TOTORO!!*

Yeah I know, it is Totoro as you say! Red Little Totoro!?!?

Bento and X'mas Prep

2011-12-17T20:14:00.000+09:00

Happy Saturday night!! It's so nice to be relaxed sitting in front of the computer. I want to somehow post this year's bentos before the new year comes. These bentos are the ones I've made recently.

Patatas bravas (Spanish crisp spiced potato), chicken bacon rolls and cheese omelet.

Loco Moco -- chicken/pork patties with sauce and an egg sunny-side up on rice.

Chili shrimp on a bed of rice and julienne lettuce. And scrambled egg and a cup of sauteed chicken tender and bacon.

This one is for myself. The tiny pink things are ginger pickle by the way.

Is your Christmas prep going well? I've been making tons of cookies this week. We've already given the first batch away to some of our friends. It's always great to see (hear) people saying *wahhh, kawaiiii, oishii!* with what I made for them. I still have another batch to bake and pack and pass out. Though it's just self-satisfaction, it's always so much fun, isn't it?

Whoa somebody is shouting... *Let me ouuut!!*

Ebi Fry Bento and Chicken Rice Bento and Birthday

2011-12-12T10:32:00.001+09:00

Ya Hooooi! Maybe... it's been a while!?!? I finally get around to writing a post whooo! I've got so many bento photos to post but I think I will only up three this time. I made ebi (shrimp) fry, boiled egg salad and onigiri for these bentos.

The other day, I thought I would make a omrice bento, but I ran out of eggs so this bento turned out chicken rice. In Japan, *chicken rice* means fried rice with ketchup and chicken in it. So you can probably say chicken rice is *omrice without an omelet*... Maybe I'm getting things complicated again? haha. Also I made potato milk soup along with the chicken rice.

In the past week, we had two birthdays. 6th is mine, 9th is Yuppi's. Not only this year was a terribly tragic one for everyone in Japan, but it's actually rough for us two also. However I am thankful that we are all healthy and great! And above all, that I've been able to continue fun bentoing! I really want nothing other than them.

Yuppi wanted a PlayStation Portable or 3DS or Smartphone for her birthday, but I talked her into waiting it until she finishes her entrance exams next February because she now has to study very very hard. So I made her a little flower arrangement and gave a cute cupcake-shaped jar instead.

This cake is from my favorite cake shop. Not only is it darn cute but scrumptious!! With a wonderful harmony of strawberry mousse, custard cream, raspberry jelly and sponge cake, mmm... melting!!

I can never believe it's been 12 years already! She is still a giant baby though haha! I am glad that she is a loving girl now. The only one on earth who loves me this much, and my best friend. She was really happy with all the little surprises I'd prepared.

Quick Menchi Katsu Bento

2011-11-29T21:32:00.001+09:00

This bento contains quick menchi katsu (breaded meat patty), tamagoyaki -- green onion and pink kamaboko, daigaku kabocha (fried and glazed kabocha) and two mini onigiri. Actually I don't really like putting tomatoes in a bento, but the one I put in the bento looked so tasty that I couldn't resist. Though tomatoes are not in season now. By the way, if you have some tag ends of kamaboko on hand, you should make a tamagoyaki with them. I finely cut my kamaboko and green onion, then beat egg with them, then made it a tamagoyaki, which was yummy! Menchi katsu is one of my favorite home cooking. For bento this time, I made it in a pretty simple way. I mixed some panko, grated onion and a bit of salt into minced chicken breast (also beef and pork both work well). And then made it into mini burgers, then put panko on both sides of them. Then pan-fried with a little oil as usual. I like to eat menchi katsu with tonkatsu sauce or syoyu.

I heard that many of my friends came down with a bad cold. It's because of the shift of seasons? I hate getting a cold or flu. Who loves it?! For prevention, I've tried to eat ginger and allium vegetables (such as negi, garlic) as often as I can. They are said to keep you warm and help to get rid of germs. Also I guess eating brown rice everyday helps us stay healthy. Are you okay? I really hope y'all and me stay well!

Quick Ebi Fry Bento

2011-11-28T14:21:00.001+09:00

Hey everybody! Another week has started! Today I made quick ebi fry (panko shrimp) and quick tsukune (chicken patties). I seasoned some shrimps with herb salt and breaded both sides of them. Then pan-fried them with a little oil as usual. I put boiled egg with mayo next to them instead of tarutaru sauce. And for the tsukune, I mixed some tofu, starch and a bit of salt into chicken breast that I had minced in a food processor last night. Then made it into mini patties, then pan-fried and seasoned them. Whip-up bentos are done! It seems like my bento dishes are in a rut these days. Okay I don't mind so much, that's how daily bento-making is, I think. It's probably the best way to make or pack foods you want to eat the most in a timely fashion.

By the way, I found a newcomer chocolate at Daiso! Which has strawberry marshmallow in it. Of course I immediately became a fan of it! Oishiiii.

Mini Omusubi Bento

2011-11-25T15:59:00.001+09:00

I didn't want to make bento at all this morning and had no idea what to put in bento. You also have those days, don't you? I did devote most of efforts for making some mini omusubi haha! I tried to a bit jazz bento up with them and cover up the blandness. Yuppi made tamagoyaki and I had simmered pork in a pressure cooker last night. I just reheated it with some syoyu, honey and grated ginger this morning. It turned out great! And I like the way the tamagoyaki kind of looks like a butterfly. Isn't it cute??

It feels like everything doesn't go well and I'm spinning my wheels having a lack of concentration. Today was one of those days. Oh well, thank goodness, at least I got home safe and sound despite the snow falling heavily. And yes! It's Friday today! That means... a happy time and something yummy to me!

I'm jealous of those of you who celebrated Thanksgiving. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day. And happy weekend to you all (ahead)!

Kabocha Salad Bento

2011-11-24T12:26:00.001+09:00

Today's bentos look boring. I don't feel like making bento today for some reason so I only made salmon onigiri and kabocha squash salad this morning. I braised kabocha slices then tossed it with a little salt and mayonnaise, and some crushed walnut. If you like kabocha this salad is perfect as a sandwich filling. I'm not a big fan of kabocha, but usually saute kabocha slices with a little oil in a frying pan until brown, and season it with salt and garlic powder. It comes out savory and not soggy. I like kabocha this way the best, it matches the mild sweetness of kabocha. If you have a chance to get a kabocha squash, give both a try!

Sammy Bento

2011-11-23T00:00:00.001+09:00

I saw sammy lunch boxes on the shelf at my favorite bakery and they were so cute that I had to recreate my own. Today's bentos have some kinds of sammies and panko chicken, which I dredged chicken tender slices in herb salt and panko, then pan-fried it. I find my self using chicken tender pretty much everyday! Maybe I have to send it a testimonial lol! Chicken tender really comes in handy for bento, it's skinless, low calorie, tender and tasty cold, besides cheap!! I actually used to hate it before because it was bland for a young girl babykins haha. Now I love it! Well, I think I got to make my sammy bentos a bit cuter than the bakery's ones, I made it!

Yuppi had egg salad sammies which I minced boiled-eggs and ham, then mix them with mayo. The others are a simple combo of ham slices and mayo. She also had curry flavored chicken soup, and a mikan for dessert.

Mine has my favorite combos. Butter and ham slices, cuke and oilless tuna and mayo. I had a cheddar cheese wedge and milk coffee too. By the way I always use low fat mayonnaise because regular one is super oily for me. Since Japanese low fat ones are great you can use them for bento without worry.

This Sanrio bento box is one of my childhood-bentos. I rarely use aluminum wares, but I like the retro feel of this box.

Here Comes The Winter

2011-11-21T14:53:00.001+09:00

Finally the winter has come! Woohoo! But to be honest I hate this weather, it's too cold to be active out! Plus too bad we have to go out this evening, though I want to stay cozy at home. Oh well, the landscape around the town had turned into the white world in the morning. At least, to brighten up my day, I bought myself these at my fave bakery! uhaha♥

For today's bento, I made onigiri, panko shrimp, easy chicken tsukune and boiled eggs.

I directly breaded shelled-shrimp then pan-fried it in a little oil. And for the easy tsukune, I roughly chopped chicken tender and green onion, then added some starch, a bit of water and salt. Then pan-fried it. Both are super easy and quick to make, and of course healthy oithy yummy!

Have another great week everyone!

Happy Friday

2011-11-15T17:12:00.001+09:00

Whew my bento tasks this week are done, yea yay. I made a lot, and ate a lot! I found that my bentos were getting even simpler these days as I was looking at my past bentos. Staple food and a little something. What else is necessary in a small bento box world? Love? Hehe. If there is anything missing it is definitely dessert or refreshment! I actually don't care nutrient balance for bento. A balanced lunch is of course much better than an unbalanced one though. I think taste balance and easiness to eat are more important for bento. I've been trying to eat the same one as bentos I made for the lest of my family so that I can find out if they are OK. There would be a lot of things you never know unless you eat.

These are bentos I made earlier. Nori onigiri, ume-braised chicken and konnyaku, syoyu tamago, and butter-sauteed kabocha squash slices.

A mini omelet on bacon yakiudon, mashed kabocha and mikan segments.

Sandwiches (egg salad, blueberry & creamcheese), apple bunnies, that's all. Awawawa they are pecking Yuppi's favorite sandwich...!!

Mini Burger and Salmon Onigiri and Happy Thing

2011-11-15T16:53:00.000+09:00

I now feel happy! Do you remember that I had a giveaway a while back? As soon as the bento gear arrived, the two winners made a bento with them! That has me grinning! Here is the bento from Aleksandra at Diary of a Liveaboard. How pretty!!

Meanwhile, Heather at Ohayo Bento has also shared her lovely bento, check it out!

I am so glad that they both liked the giveaway goods and used them! Thanks so much for being wonderful bento comrades, Aleksandra and Heather!!

In the meantime, at last, it snowed here two days ago! It's getting colder, but such a gorgeous day today. You know what, it's the latest record of the first snow in 89 years in Japan. While, the earliest one I've remembered is September 14, which I clearly remember because it is my sister's birthday. Okay I'm ready for the winter, bring it on lol! Although it has nothing to do with snow, I discovered a super cute and nice bakery the other day! They have all kinds of bread and all of them look tasty. I couldn't resist buying some mini bun cuties. So yesterday's lunch inevitably turned out bread bentos.

I made bacon/onion omelet and stuffed it into the buns. By the way the teeny green on the omelet burger is survivor of rucola on my window gardening. And I rubbed on cream cheese and blueberry jam inside the other one, which is Yuppi's favorite combo. She got potato chicken soup as well, you can't see it though.

This bento is mine, I sometimes have to have lunch in my car by the way, which contains the same omelet burger and a milk cream one. I love milk cream bread, but bakeries' ones are too greasy for me. So I make milk cream myself with butter and sweetened condensed milk. You just mix them. If you are a fan of milk cream bread like me give it a try!

These bentos below are today's ones. I made salmon onigiri, potato salad and tamagoyaki (mock crab and green onion). I put purple daikon pickle (nukazuke) and a mini sausage into my bento. I actually like the look of this one.

This is for Yuppi. I've had no time to shot hubby's bento lately. No worries, he also sure gets his bento everyday only if I don't oversleep in the morning wahaha!

Shichimi Chiken Bento

2011-11-10T12:43:00.000+09:00

It's a nice Autumn day! A bit chilly this morning though. The town is colored over with ginkgo yellow and other red/orange leaves. It's a real bummer I'm always driving when I can see such a beautiful streets. I can never take pictures of them. Meanwhile, it looks like the beautiful season ends soon... Yuppi doesn't need bento today as she has a cooking class at school. They call in a soba instructor for the class and will be making soba noodles for lunch themselves. I'm jealous! I wish I could join it. By the way, she requested chicken karaage yesterday. Actually she was a bit unhappy with the mock karaage (that I mentioned in the last post the other day) lol! Because chicken karaage is her always-favorite. I liked the mock one better than real one though! So I had to make tons of *real* chicken karaage last night. I saved some of the seasoned chicken for bento before powdering and frying it. I had seasoned it with syoyu, grated ginger and garlic powder. This morning I pan-fried it along with konnyaku slices that I had in the fridge. I topped brown rice with them, scrambled egg, umeboshi and nukazuke (homemade rice bran pickle). Then sprinkled shichimi (Japanese 7-spice powder) generously.

Okay I have to go off for the next task. Have a happy day all!

Sakuraebi Onigiri and Veggie Karaage

2011-11-07T21:26:00.002+09:00

For today's bento, I made sakura-ebi onigiri, tamagoyaki and a *meat-like thing*. I mixed sakura-ebi (teeny tiny shrimps), a little of salt and brown sesame oil into fresh-cooked brown rice, then shaped it by hand, then wrapped with nori as usual. Last night I made mock chicken karaage using soy meat made out of soy protein. The texture of the mock karaage is just like meat, and still has a bit of soy bean flavor. But if you season soy meat richly nobody would believe it's soy protein. Last night, for bento, I seasoned some of the mock karaage with syoyu and umeboshi paste (because I added too little seasonings to the soy meat), then kept it in the fridge. That is the meat-like thing! And I put a cup of soy milk yogurt (I made two days before) with yuzu honey in the bento. Gee, it may not so long until I become a vegetarian???

Omrice Bento

2011-11-06T04:27:00.001+09:00

I made omrice bentos the other day. Omrice -- omelet & rice -- is one of Japanese comfort foods. I always used to order it at a restaurant as a child. It was originally ketchup-flavored, fried chicken rice wrapped in a thin omelet with plenty of ketchup on it, but there are some styles of them nowadays. Mine is really simple (as always). I stir-fried cut chicken thigh and onion, then seasoned it with ketchup, salt, black pepper and butter. And then mixed it into fresh-cooked brown rice, then put scrambled egg (or an omelet) on it. I sometimes do a wrap version. I actually like it better.

Syoyu Chicken Bento

2011-11-02T17:04:00.000+09:00

This bento contains furikake rice, syoyu chicken, kanikama (mock crab) omelet, veggie salad, mikan segments (mandarin) and a blueberry yogurt cup for dessert. I simply pan-fried chicken thigh, then dressed it in only syoyu. Didn't come up with any names for it so I decided to call it syoyu chicken... how random haha. I think shichimi (nanami) tougarashi goes well with it, but I forgot to sprinkle it on the chicken, bummer!

In the meantime, as you see, I've been using this magewappa in a row. I expect that rice and dishes won't so cold in a wooden container. I'm not sure if it works though. Sadly all the magewappa bentos I've made lately look like the same... In fact, I've made similar things lol! If I bake bread or something, I want to make no rice bentos. By the way, I love this cloth on the back ground. One of bento buddies sent me way back. It's so cute I still wonder what to make with it. Thank you K! I miss you!

Healthy Bento

2011-11-01T18:16:00.000+09:00

Hallo hallo Hallo Ween! Too bad I didn't make any Halloween bentos. Crafting a bento sounds like a pain to me. Instead I enjoyed looking at everybody's. All were so much fun! Anyway my first bento this month (it's November already... sigh. Isn't it too fast?). This morning I made some hotdog onigiri, veggie salad and almond dressing for the salad, that's all. It's healthy huh? I've actually had a hard time taking enough time for bento and other stuff lately. Maybe I've been going through the second busiest time in my life. So I'm probably not supposed to consume time for blogging and the internet, but still I love taking shots and writing stuff. If I don't do that for a while I would feel sort of discouraged. However I feel that I have to focus on one thing, or I can't catch up with anything. Ah well, those of you who celebrated Halloween, I hope you had a super creepy... no, super happy one haha!

Soup and Simple Bento

2011-10-28T12:17:00.001+09:00

Such a crisp morning! It should be a nice happy Friday today! Today's main dish is chicken soup... you can't see the way it looks delicious though lol! Last night I cooked chicken drumsticks in a high-pressure cooker. Pressure cookers are very handy and helpful for cooking. It only takes a few minutes to heat any foods. With good soup, I don't have to fix that many bento dishes. It's okay to even have only onigiri or bread besides hot soup, isn't it? Let's enjoy SIMPLE bento!! Yes I'm trying to involve you in my lazy world haha!

I just braised purple sweet potato and seasoned it with a bit of salt and mirin and honey. It's nice to have a bite of sweetness in lunch. And I put ketchup and powdered cheese on boiled egg halves (leftover), then baked them in the toaster oven. And two usual onigiri.

Have nice weather and a happy Friday and weekend ahead!

Panko Chicken and Nori Paste

2011-10-27T12:56:00.000+09:00

I saw Heather having baked panko chicken in her bento yesterday, which made me crave it! So I decided to copy her. Last night, I made panko chicken -- Mine was chicken tender katsu this time, and herb potato. For bento this morning... I sliced the leftover panko chicken, made tamagoyaki (carrot, negi), sauteed hot dogs, made some onigiri, made potato gratin using the leftover herb potato. I mashed the potato and added milk and cheese, then baked it. I also sent Yuppi a thermal jar of wakame soup today. Since it's getting colder these days she wants hot soup for lunch.

Speaking of onigiri, I made onigiri filling using wilted nori. I mixed nori, some syoyu, sugar, mirin and water all together, and then cooked until it's pasty. Sweet salty nori paste (aka *Gohandesuyo* -- nori no tsukudani) is one of my favorite rice friends. It would keep for a while in the fridge. I sometimes mix umeboshi or wasabi powder or shichimi/nanami tougarashi into nori paste. Today's onigiri has wasabi flavored one in it.

Happy Thursday!!

Lazy Bento and Treat

2011-10-22T09:22:00.001+09:00

Yuppi had a fall field trip today. She decided to make bento by herself. She made simmered chicken thigh, shoyu tamago and mashed squash last night. And she put her favorite gratin cup in her bento.

All I did this morning was making some onigiri, and putting already-done-dishes in this magewappa. How nice I'm allowed to be lazy in the morning. You can have a cup of cafe au lait on the couch feeling comfortable. Ah there is another thing I did! I wrapped Yuppi's onigiri in baking paper like candies as her bento box had no room for onigiri. They look cute, don't they?

Today's shots!! I had a burger for lunch today, which has salty sweet fried chicken and lettuce. I actually eat this burger for the first time in ages. I always get a chili shrimp burger at this shop. I wanted to eat the fried chicken burger somehow, but regretted a bit not ordering a shrimp one.

Did you know? Santa Claus has already come to the burger shop!!

This is today's treat for myself. Milk & mango gelato, yeahow!

Yakisoba Bento and Odds and Ends

2011-10-20T11:54:00.000+09:00

I had yakisoba noodles and rice for only one person each. Plus I didn't have decent stuff in the fridge so I rounded up odds and ends and made yakisoba and onigiri. Whew I think I managed to make decent bentos, no? One of them is boring though. I think I forgot to put something else in it haha!

Today's shots! We went to my favorite park a few weeks ago. I discovered an anachronistic shop. It's a rental boat house. I felt like I was time-tripping back in around the 1950s at that time. And as always, we fed ducks and played a lot. Then we enjoyed scrumptious gelato!! They are insanely yum, mmmm

More photos on flickr.

Onigiri Bento and Things about Myself

2011-10-19T09:23:00.000+09:00

Onigiri bento continues. I'm big on onigiri these days, especially umeboshi one. Speaking of onigiri, I mentioned the difference between onigiri and omusubi on the last post. You can't remove *O* from *ONIGIRI* because *NIGIRI* is short for *nigiri-zushi* (hand-shaped sushi). I think Japanese is a confusing language. But I guess that's how most of human languages are. What else I made this morning are shrimp tamagoyaki and sweet salty chicken sticks, that's all. hehe

Today's shot!! I made chili oil using the red chili peppers from my garden. I'm going to use it for gyoza. Okay now I decided to make gyoza this evening so that we'll warm up because it's windy and cold outside today. It should have snowed somewhere else last night. Well, which am I going to make... Regular gyoza or boiled one??

Following the Tell me about yourself award, I'm finally sharing *7 things about myself*.

My favorite places --- The public library and the public park beside it. And fancy goods stores. I can hangout in these places for ages.

My favorite food --- Comfort food and simple homemade sweets. And all kinds of noodles.

My favorite homemade stuff --- Bento, bread, yogurt, pickled vegetable, soap, beaded accessories.

My dream --- Study abroad with my little buddy one day. Getting a Harley motorbike.

Things I love --- Coming up with a new recipe, blogging, yummy food, cook books, food photography, kawaii kitchen tools, travel, the Internet.

Movies I want to see at a theater now. --- Kung Fu Panda 2 and Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

Lastly, about the blog title and my online name.
At first I thought this blog would be a soapmaking blog because it was one of my hobbies. However, contrary to my expectation, this eneded up being a bentomaking blog lol! But I meant to write about my interests and all that jazz. I likened entertainment (such as music, books, films and so on) and spiritual things to *soul*, meal to *soup*, daily necessities to *soap*. All of them are absolute essentials for my life.
My online name --- *babykins* is from Richard Scarry's books. I love the world of his books and the adorable and naughty little cat boy, *Babykins* who is one of his characters.

These are all I came up with so far. I hope I haven't written too much haha!

Spam Musubi and Chahan Bento

2011-10-15T13:31:00.001+09:00

Yesterday I made spam musubi for bento. To be exact, pork sausage musubi though. The rest of this bento contains tamagoyaki (negi, crab kamaboko) and chili shrimp. By the way, do you know the difference between omusubi and onigiri? As a matter of fact... There' no difference between them lol! But omusubi feels sort of gentle and sophisticated to me. So when I want to put on airs, I'd prefer to say *omusubi*.

This one is a bento the other day, which has a nori omusubi, tamagoyaki, leftover chicken fry tossed in onion syoyu sauce, and orange, and a teeny tiny ichigo from our garden.

These are bentos I made a little while back. Simple fried brown rice with bacon, egg and negi in it. Chahan (fried rice) is really simple to make, but that actually makes it a bit difficult to make delicious one. It looks like there is a need to get the hang of it. But I think brown rice is great for chahan. It would help you make healthy and nice one!

I'm into making yogurt these days. It costs less than store-bought ones do, and is easy to make. Above all, homemade one is super yummy!

Today's shot! I love Pénélope! I have a lot of Pénélope story books. This is a bento cloth Yuppi has used since she's gone kindergarden.

Onigiri Bento and Handy Goods

2011-10-12T15:04:00.000+09:00

Today's bentos contain baked chicken tender, mochi mochi cheese potatoes, syoyu tamago halves and onigiris. I wasn't really happy with how the chicken and cheese potato turned out. I'll try them again so I can share the recipes. Syoyu tamago is our always-favorite. You just soak fresh-boiled/shelled eggs in some syoyu for a while (about 10minutes). My method is very simple. It's okay because it's tasty enough. You can reuse the used syoyu for other cooking so don't discard it.

Today's SHOTS!! I decided to share my favorite photos besides bento ones each time. I bought some goods from Seria (100yen shop). They have many more cute goods than Daiso does. I was looking for inexpensive stainless-steel mini loaf pans for a while. It's not that I bake loafs very often so I don't need expensive ones. Yes I finally found ideal ones!

Cooking timers come in handy not only for cooking but also for chores. It's so helpful when you don't have much time, or you have to do something in haste. Isn't this one so cute??

I've been using this onigiri mold almost every day. I like this shape and it's much easier to make an onigiri in it than by hand.

You can buy any of them for just 100 yen! Can you believe it? I can't!

Nanbanduke Bento and Award

2011-10-08T17:17:00.003+09:00

Today's bentos feature Nanbanzuke --- Fried chicken marinated or soaked in a sweet-salty-sour mix of syoyu, vinegar and sugar after frying, with tarutaru (tartar) sauce. It's so good for a rice bento or sandwich filling. The rest of these bentos have walnut potato, pickled celery. For the walnut potato, I stir-fried potato (that I'd boiled the night before) without oil in a nonstick frying pan, then seasoned with salt and some spices, and added crashed walnut. For the tarutaru sauce, I minced boiled eggs, fukujinzuke (pickle), onion, parsley, then mix them and a little lemon juice into mayonnaise. You could use various pickles instead of fukujinzuke. This sauce goes well with fried anything and sandwiches as well.

This is nanbanzuke Yuppi made the evening before.

In the meantime, Melonpan at my little japanese world passed along a cute award to me! Thank you so much Melompan! I appreciate it.

Tell Me About Yourself Award - Your Blog Is Great

The award rules:
1). Post the award with a link to the award post of the sender.
2). Tell of 7 things about yourself.
3). Pass along the award to at most 15 other bloggers.
4). Let them know.

Is this correct, Melonpan??
Well what am I gonna write... Mmmm about myself. Okay maybe I should let everyone learn a bit more about myself. However, time is up now awww. I have to postpone it until the next post. Stay tuned!

Congratulations to The Giveaway Winners

2011-10-07T16:20:00.000+09:00

HELLOOO! Finally It's time to announce the giveaway winners WOO HOO! Waay more-than-expected people entered it, I appreciate it! Although I've got countless bento/foodie friends all around the world, it was SO nice meeting another bunch of great fellows. But I'm sorry I can't send the prize to you all. Thank you so much for entering the giveaway, and the encouraging and inspiring comments! All of you made this giveaway so much fun! As I mentioned earlier, I felt bad that only one person could win the prize so I put up the second prize afterwards.

Make sure your name is not missing.

This time I drew the two winners by a extremely primitive yet impartial way lol! I was so thrilled! Guess who I drew...

Ta dahhhh!! Here are the world's luckiest winners at this moment! Congratulations!!!

The first prize to Aleksandra.

The second prize to ohayobento.

Aleksandra and ohayobento, I'll ship the prizes once everything is set up.
Those of you who missed the prizes this time, thank you for taking your time to enter the giveaway. Hopefully I can do my 200th post giveaway in the near future!

Let's enjoy BENTO!!

Karaage Bento

2011-09-30T12:36:00.003+09:00

Yuppi has a field trip again despite the rain. Today's bento features Karaage (Japanese fried chicken)! Looks like I make fried chicken for her field trip bento each time? Many kids are big on it. I was also no exception as a kid. Fresh-fried karaage is tip-top but it's tasty even cold, and marinated one is also good for bento. There are tons of karaage recipes out there, but I usually do in a simple way. I seasoned cut chicken thigh with some shoyu, ginger powder and black pepper, then dredged in potato starch, then shallow-fried it. The rest of this bento has two onigiri, usual tamagoyaki, honey buttered purple sweet potato, and a cup of grapefruit, orange and green grape for refreshment. Whoa I'ts already Friday!? And this one is the last bento this month!!! Happy weekend all!

Pork Gyudon Bento

2011-09-28T09:40:00.001+09:00

A bento this morning is a super quick one! Gyudon is a bowl of rice topped with simmered beef and onion, known as one of fast foods. Do you know *Yoshinoya*? I rarely eat beef except for hamburgers and BBQ. So I make beef-don with pork! I know that sounds funny, but you know pork-don is a bit different thing from my pork gyudon... oh wait, what am I saying?? Haha! Okay I'll stop complicating things. I simply threw together pork slices, onion slices, some shoyu, mirin, sugar and water in a frying pan and cooked swiftly. Put it over brown rice in a glass bowl so Hubby can nuke it at work. Yes this is his lunch. Since He has left home too early recently, he's had an onigiri bento or no bento. I made him a decent bento for the first time in a while lol!

Brown Rice Onigiri Saturday

2011-09-25T14:01:00.000+09:00

Happy Autumn! I'm happy everything is delicious this season! Those of you who are where it's winter now, sorry! You're heading into the spring right? Instead I'm heading into the cooold winter. So at least I have to relish fall deliciousness before the winter coming.

Today's bento is not fancy at all. Since the season of newly harvested rice has arrived here I restarted purchase genmai (brown rice). As you know genmai is great for your health. I heard that genmai itself was a complete nutritious food. But to be honest, I don't like it so much because of the texture haha! I sometimes want to eat it, but if I keep eating it everyday for a while I would get bored. And you can't get the most out of the nutrient of genmai unless you masticate it thoroughly. So I polish my genmai a bit in a rice polisher before cooking. But no worries, the bran removed from brown rice is just a little bit, so it's like you just scratch surface of brown rice grains. By this way, you can cook genmai as you do white rice, also it's closer in texture to white rice. I don't think it really makes sense to eat food that you don't like no matter how healthy it is. I'm currently loving this slight-polished genmai. It tastes good so I can keep eating forever. By the way, sprouted brown rice can also be cooked like white rice, but it's somewhat more expensive than regular one, isn't it? Not that you can't make brown rice grains sprout on your own at home, but doesn't that sound like a pain?

In the meantime, I'm sorry I'm behind on announcement of the giveaway winner. Far more people entered the giveaway than I'd expected, THANK YOU! I felt so bad that I could only draw one person so I actually prepared the second prize! It looks like it takes me a bit longer until everything is ready. I'll first email the two winners before announcing. Stay turned!

The first prize.

The second prize.

Sandwich Bento --- Teriyaki Chicken and Herb Shrimp

2011-09-16T14:11:00.000+09:00

Hi! How is your week going? My routine has a bit changed recently so I have made few bentos this week. To be exact, I have made some onigiri everyday though. Today Yuppi has a field trip again! So she worked so hard on her bento this morning. She wants to show her teachers and pals her bento that she prepared all by herself. It's nice to see her enjoying cooking no matter how much the kitchen gets messed up (to be honest... sigh) lol! She will be having a blast with the pals at some fun places to go to.

Yuppi made two kinds of sandwiches for today's lunch. The one is a combo of teriyaki chicken and tartar sauce, the other is sauteed shrimp seasoned with some sauces and herb mix. She also packed a mini macaroni gratin (Japanese mac and cheese) from last night's dinner in the bento.

Kyaaaahh more bento checkers today!!

What are you guys doing here!?!?

Since Yuppi so wanted me to have the same sandwiches, I got this one for lunch yay! The sandwiches were surprisingly yummy!

I also had a leftover gratin and a bottle of sweet milk kohi (Japanese latte).

It's been two weeks or so since the giveaway post. Hopefully I'll draw the winner this weekend. Have you entered yet? No time to hesitate. Plus you know what, I have another good news! Anyway happy weekend guys!!

Autumn and Sandwich Bento and Chili Pepper

2011-09-09T12:55:00.000+09:00

A field trip bento again! Despite that, it's cloudy and drizzling today. At least I want to make a bento lunch bright and cheerful on a day like that. Today I made ham/egg sandwich, pan-fried chicken-with-bone sticks, a cup of fruit yogurt for refreshment.

Waaaahh I didn't notice at all someone examine this bento carefully! I hope it's OK!

By the way, sadly, the product from our tiny garden almost ends as fall is around corner. I planted a togarashi (chili) pot this spring for the first time. It went best in all the plants we've grown this time. I'm still wondering what to make with it because my family don't like spicy food except for me.

Satoimo Shrimp Sandwich

2011-09-06T10:32:00.001+09:00

Thanks so much for entering my giveaway and the encouraging comments! I appreciate it. The giveaway will be open for a while. You are all welcome. Those of you who've entered it already, stay tuned!

Today I have something new to share. Though I made this bento a little while back, I've saved it for when I can have time to write a recipe for it.
Can you guess what these are? Yes they are satoimo, a sort of taro! Raw ones are slimy, but cooked ones are a bit sticky and smoother than potato. I think its texture is kind of similar to avocado's. Not that I'm big fan of it, but I love satoimo sandwiches so I thought I wanted to share the idea of this bento. Of course if you dislike satoimo or can't find it at your supermarkets, potato would work as well as satoimo on this recipe.

This is a do-it-yourself sammy bento. I prepared two kinds of fillings using satoimo and shrimp. And I baked some bagels and buns using one dough.

Sandwich filling -- Satoimo (taro)

Peel satoimo and cut into easy-to-eat size pieces, then boil in salted water until tender. Then drain and flavor with a little butter and ground sesame. Though you may not have heard of a combo of satoimo/potato, butter and sesame seeds, it has a soft and tender flavor, like kind of a comfort food.

Sandwich filling -- Shrimp

Boil shrimps, then drain and shell. Season with some mayonnaise, ketchup and lemon juice as you like.

You can eat satoimo and shrimp together, or separately as well.

Here are my soy milk whole wheat bagels and *butt buns*. Some friends liked this naming lol! I actually mismeasured the liquid amount of the dough. That's why these bagels look kind of tough haha!

Pink Bento and Meat Ball

2011-09-04T14:43:00.000+09:00

Quick post! This is a bento the other day. Does it look kind of gorgeous? All I made for the bento was mashed potato, and I only cut veggie. The rest of the bento are meat balls that Yuppi made in the morning, rice topped with umeboshi, a mini bottle of salad dressing, a mini frozen gratin cup (store bought), and two slices of baked sweet potato (also store bought) for dessert. A super quick bento!

This one is Yuppi's bento she packed herself, which has pretty much the same foods. The pink stars on the lettuce are red daikon (radish). She also had a mini jar of sesame dressing for the veggie.

Happy weekend all!

P.S. Don't you forget anything? My giveaway's here!

Tondon Bento -- Shoyu Honey Pork

2011-09-02T22:30:00.001+09:00

A bento today is really simple but simple is not bad. You don't need to feel ashamed just because you don't work hard on bentomaking. Bento is only one part of dairy meals. You make meals not to show people your creations but to make your family and yourself smile, so take it easy. --- Note to self... LOL! What I fixed for bento this morning are a cup of ruby grapefruit, tamagoyaki slices, mashed potato seasoned with red dekofuri, which you can hardly see how it's bear face-shaped. And main... is tondon!! It's short for pork domburi in Japanese --- a bowl of rice topped with grilled pork slices seasoned with special tondon sauce. But mine is not special at all. I make it in a super lazy way!

1) Cut pork slices into bite size pieces, then dredge in a little flour.
2) Saute the pork in a frying pan, then seasoned with shoyu and honey as you like. Then put it over rice. Done!

A combo of shoyu and honey will turn out a simple but great sauce. It needs nothing else. And it can be applied to chicken. So you don't have to buy a bottled tariyaki sauce anymore. I put a little sesame seeds and mustard sprouts on the pork. Yuppi also had a panda choco cookie for a little treat.

I have another few photos to share because It's boring having only one photo on a post. Some of you saw them already on Twitter or Flickr though.

This is where Yuppi went on a school trip. It was such a nice day!

Since It's been too darn muggy here for the last couple of days due to the typhoon coming, I needed shave ice to get rid of the heat and humidity around me. Our kyorochan did a great job this time also.

I have to share freaking scary photos! We got two kegani (crabs) from Dad the other day. It kept glaring at me with an angry eye till eaten by us. It was really yummy though. Do you have courage to eat it??

Whoaaahhh!

For those who've not checked my bento giveaway yet, click here!

Love From Japan

2011-09-01T15:55:00.003+09:00

This giveaway has closed. Thank you so much for the entry! (SEPTEMBER 16, 2011)

Hey everyone! At last... it looks like I get to do a giveaway whooooo yey yey! First of all, I want to apologize to everyone that it's been such a long while since I've mentioned my first giveaway for the first time. Actually, It was supposed to be done in honor of my 100th post, but oh Lord, the biggest earthquake and tsunami did attack Japan right before doing it. Since then, I'd been considering if I should not do a fun event like a giveaway, or should put up my giveaway items for auction to raise Japan earthquake relief funds. However, I eventually figured that the fastest and best way I could do something at that point for the affected people was not to call off the giveaway but to donate money directly to the Japanese Red Cross Society. I hope everyone understands my feeling.

Although I've done bento for quite a long time I'd actually never known that there'd been lots and lots of bento lovers worldwide until I started this blog. What made me even more surprised was that they all enjoyed their own bento style!　Not only that, I do feel so much love, caring and even a bit (or lot) of fun in every single one of their bentos. That has really inspired me so far and that's why I love looking at everyone's bento. But I feel bad about not having much time to leave a comment to all of them. And yet so many people have come by and made a sweet comment on my post since I started this blog. It has meant a lot to me. I also think I'd like to pull for people trying to make their daily bento -- in particular who are much younger than I am. And above all I appreciate that so many bento buddies have been supportive of Japan since the earthquake. All of these things made me want to do something that can show my appreciation and love. Now let me say, THANK YOU so much for always being awesome and thoughtful and inspiring! And of course, for bearing with my clumsy crazy articles lol! (But no worries, I do enjoy it myself hehe). OK, you may get fed up with reading too long story, right? Me too! I will move on to the main point now.

Ja jaaaaan!! Here are bento weapons you might get, which I selected with enjoyment. I sure hope the winner like and use them.
A two-tiered plastic bento box, a pair of chopsticks, four plastic dessert cups that fit in deep containers.

This is a bento Yuppi made the dishes and I packed them in the same bento box as the one above a while back. One of our collaborations. (Note: This bento isn't included in the giveaway since I ate it already lol!)

Two boxes of my favorite wax paper, flower-shaped silicon cups, a sheet of tiny bento stickers.

A regular bento sized furoshiki and a picnic bento sized one. Do you know about Furoshiki? It is a traditional beautiful Japanese cloth that is very versatile. Large ones are available as a scarf, picnic mat, shopping bag and so on. I really like the black one I selected this time.

I thought this giveaway was supposed to feature Sakura because I was going to do it during the Sakura season. And I think Sakura symbolizes Japanese culture. I'm soooo excited by thinking that one of you will use these lovely bento goods!
Maybe I won't announce this giveaway anywhere else because I'd like to send it to one of those who've enjoyed this blog so far. And I haven't set the entry period yet. It will be open until I get satisfied (wow how random!) Maybe for a couple weeks or so.

Here are the entry conditions I came up with. It's no problem even if you've never commented on the blog before.
1) You like to visit here and see my bentos.
2) You'd really like to use these items for your own bentoing.
3) You live where I can ship the package. (I suppose I can probably ship it to pretty much any countries, but in case I can't, I'm sorry!)

If you meet all the conditions above please write whatever you'd like to say in the comment box bellow. It's okay to even write just *Hi* or anything. You'll automatically be entered into the giveaway once you make a comment. Not that you need to show how much you like the blog, in case haha! This is to show my love for y'all. Just go and win!!

Note: Sometimes my DISQUS comment box doesn't come out on your comp/mobile screen. In that case, you can comment here.

たまにDISQUSのコメントボックスが画面に表れないことがあります。その場合はこちらにコメントを！

この記事をやっと書き上げて思い出したことは、もしかして日本にもこのブログを読んでくれている人が何人かいるかも知れない、と言うことでした。なので日本語でも書いてみたいと思います。日本には数え切れないほどのお弁当ブロガーさんたちがいますが、私はこのブログを始めるまで世界中にこんなにもたくさんのお弁当大好き仲間がいるなんて全く知りませんでした。日本の伝統的な食文化の良さを取り入れようとしている人、日本人とは全く違う発想をお弁当に盛り込んでいる人、食べるのがもったいないぐらいに手の込んだ愛らしいキャラ弁を作っている人、本当に様々です。でもどれもみんな食べる人に対する愛情がこもっているのは海外も日本も同じ。みんなのお弁当から沢山の刺激をもらい私自身のお弁当作りもだんだんと変わってきました。このブログを始めて以来、当初の予想に反して（！？）沢山の人たちが励みになるコメントを残してくれました。批判めいたものが一つもなかったことが本当に驚きです。そしてこのブログを通じて色んな人たちに出会えたことがほんと～にうれしいです。この前の地震の際には沢山の海外の仲間たちが日本のことを心配して、なんとか力になりたいと一生懸命行動を起こしている様子を見て、ありがたい気持ちでいっぱいになりました。それから私は結構長いことお弁当を作っているので、私よりもずっと若い人たちが日々、お弁当作りをがんばっているのを見るとものすごー感心します。かげながらそんな人たちを応援したいとも思っています。まあそんなこんなで私の感謝と愛をあらわせる事をなんかしたいとずっと思っていましたが、よ～うやくその時が来ました！！応募期間はまだ決めていませんが私の気が済むまで募集する予定です（かなりてきとうやん！）。多分２～３週間は開けておきます。応募方法は簡単。下のコメントボックスに書きたいことをなにか書いてね。例えば*こんにちは*だけでも何でもオッケー。特にこのブログに対するあなたの想いをあらわす必要があるというわけではないので、念のため。これは私のみんなへのラブをあらわすためのものです、はは！なのでみんなも下の条件に合うならどしどし応募してね！

お弁当グッズプレゼント、参加条件
1) このブログに遊びに来て私の弁当たちを見るのを楽しんでいる
2) 私が選んだお弁当グッズをあなたのお弁当作りにぜひ使いたいと思っている
3) 私がプレゼントを発送できる地域に住んでいる

School Trip Bento

2011-08-28T01:02:00.011+09:00

This is Yuppi's first school trip bento in months so I wanted to give her a bit more fun with a cute bento. But hey I noticed that I brought out the fact again that I stank at creating cute stuff by making this one ahaha. It seems like I need practice to satisfy myself. We'll see how my kawaii-bento skill is going in the future. Well Yuppi got shallow fried herb chicken (her favorite), a cup of mac salad, sweet tamagoyaki, and a smiling boy. She also took some snack with her to the shore where the students headed to that day.

This one contains the same foods plus spicy pickled zucchini. I topped rice with edamame and umeboshi to brighten up the bland bento.

In the meantime, we went on a biggest carny festival in the city, which I've gone every year since I was a wee kid. For those curious about it, more photos on slide show or flickr.

I am praying my buddies in Hurricane Irene's path are okay please stay safe!!

Crispy Chicken Bento and Magic Salt and Rusutsu Resort

2011-08-24T10:17:00.013+09:00

Hi there! What's up with you? Our summer is almost over, sadly... Yuppi's summer break was also over already. That means making her bento. She often needs bento at school. What I fixed for this bento are crispy chicken breast, pan-fried potato stars, two Dekofuri-flavored onigiri, and a fruit cup. For crispy chicken, I sliced chicken breast, then dredged in starch generously, then shallow fried until it's crispy. And then sprinkled it with some Magic Salt.

Here is Magic Salt which I use for bento and usual cooking very often these days. For those of you who are curious what it is. It's similar to Crazy Salt, but I like Magic Salt better. The package says... It was supervised by Three-star French chef Daniel Martin, consists of natural salt, black pepper, sugar, sesame seed, tomato powder, parsley, fried onion, garlic, tarragon, and processed starch. You can use it instead of Salt & Pepper, and it's also good for salad dressing as dried herb. I think this can be a big help for simple quick cooking.

By the way, we went to Rusutsu Resort --- a huge amusement park hotel. Had a blast with so many rides, attractions, and fireworks! More photos on Slide Show, flickr.

Easy Ice Cream

2011-08-19T08:57:00.024+09:00

Today's post has no bento. You know what I just came up with an icecream recipe. It tuned out much tastier than I thought. This is probably the best one I've ever made so I wanted to post it before our short summer is over. Actually I think I want an icecream maker! BUT I basically eat iced sweets only during summer so maybe I'm not going to buy it, *maybe*. And as you know, I'm super lazy, always want to make everything in a simple way. This method calls for a food processor for the smooth texture, but no worries, even if you don't have those machines, you could make nice icecream, only stirring icecream mixture by hand is kind of tiring though. And this type of ice cream isn't as smooth as store bought ones, but I'm pretty sure it's worth making it from scratch. The only key point of this recipe is to pick out tasty ingredients. By the way, I thought I would try using jam as a stabilizer. Blueberry jam sounded perfect for flavoring, so yes, it worked great! However, I think you can use any sorts of jam or jelly (for bread) you like. So it would be the best way you can *rescue* abandoned jam from the fridge. I simplified the measurements (as usual) so anybody could make it with ease, (after all that's right up my alley lol). You can adjust the amounts of the ingredients depending on your taste and fridge situation. I used yogurt for improvement of the texture. So should I name this *frozen yogurt* or *yogurt ice cream*??

Simple Fruit Ice Cream Recipe

Ingredients

Mix fruit jam into heavy cream in a mixing bowl, then stir until thickened.
Add yogurt and mix well. Taste the mix at this point. If you like it sweeter add more jam to taste.
Pour the mix into a freezer bag or shallow container lined with plastic wrap. (With this work, you can easily break the hardened mix and get out of the bag or container afterwards). Then freeze until hardened.
Before serving, break (or cut with a knife) the frozen and hardened mix into fit-in-foodprocessor size pieces, then smooth in a food processor.

If you make this without a food processor

If your finished product is less sweet than you expected it to be

Teriyaki Bonito and Harvester Yakumo

2011-08-12T17:54:00.035+09:00

Since I got a fresh fillet for sashimi of bonito at my supermarket today's lunch came out a teriyaki bonito bento. I did a bit different thing than usual. I seasoned it with Usuta sauce (Japanese Worcester - shire sauce) in place of my usual tariyaki sauce.

Slice binito into easy-to-eat size pieces, then dredge in flour and pan fry.

Soak them in Usuta sauce for about 5 minutes.

Pack rice in a bento box, then put some julienne lettuce or cabbage over the rice. Then put the sauce-soaked bonito onto the lettuce rice bed. Really fresh bonito doesn't smell fishy at all so you could get much nicer and healthier teriyaki than meat. It's good as a sandwich filling as well.

I decorated the bonito with some mayonnaise, green onion, and torn umeboshi because teriyaki stuff itself looks too plain. But I don't like to use any garnishes that don't go with my dishes only to make bento look fancy.

I made scallop salad for a side box, which contains torn lettuce and shiso leaves, fresh-picked Aiko tomatoes and sugar peas, and quick-boiled scallop. Fresh shell-on scallops are available cheaply now. Who could miss it? That't why I made seafood curry yesterday.

In the meantime, we went to Harvester Yakumo, a farm restaurant located in south Hokkaido. It was originally opened under the direct management by Kentucky Fried Chicken as a experimental farm and restaurant. Now although KFC has backed out of the management, you can still enjoy the beautiful location and goodies they serve. More photos on flickr.

Seafood Curry and Shiratama Shave Ice

2011-08-11T13:41:00.012+09:00

Today I don't feel like detailing bento for some reason, but just in case some of you may be curious about these bentos I'll write as usual what I fixed for bento.

This curry contains scallop, shrimp, onion, and some sorts of mushrooms.

Hubby gets shiratama zenzai (dumplings with azuki) for a treat, which contains nata de coco and canned mikan besides them. I sent him a mini bottle of sweet condenced milk as well to make it even yummier.

Another bento, pieces of pan fried salted-salmon, scrambled egg with nameko (mushroom) sause, pork and shishitou (green pepper) stir fry. So simple but my kind of bento.

Since it's been muggy here lately I'm on a shave ice kick at the moment. It's a soothing refreshment for your burning body on a too hot day.

This time of every year, I get this old school ice shaver out of the shelf. Isn't he too cute? Yes, what I did want to write most this time was actually this!! I up it on my blog this time of every year though hehe. We call it *Kyoro chan* because his eyes roll from side to side as you're turning the handle. *Kyoro Kyoro* means rolling eyes. Though he is such adorable, he is suspected of being older than I am. I want to share this vintage cute bear-shaped shave ice maker before it breaks up by our overuse lol.

I've been craving koori shiratama (shiratama with shave ice) lately, but I don't have a place nearby that has good ones so I made it on my own.

Though I don't really like Japanese sweets or matcha flavored ones, this one was delicious! I'm so happy with the result yeeey.

Hopefully I'll post shiratama in detail sometime soon.

Sammy Bento and Omu Yakisoba

2011-08-09T09:52:00.009+09:00

It's been too hot here for the last couple of days uggggh. YES this is summer! We are having a blast going out around, and enjoying our very short summer.

I made a sandwich bento the other day. The fillings are sliced omelet with potato salad, and chicken onion salad. A bottle of yuzu (Japanese citrus) honey water for refreshment.

Yesterday I made omu yakisoba, which contains sliced green onion and spam, and I put an omelet onto the yakisoba. Omelet is good with sauce yakisoba! A cup of fruit yogurt for dessert.

This one is an udon version. I like yakiudon better than yakisoba because I really like udon, and it sounds healthier than yakisoba noodles. Though the one I like the most is stall's yakisoba. The yakisoba sauce they use is pro-use and a bit different from our’s so I think I can never make that flavor without the sauce. Oh I bought a can of spam for the first time. They had cut the price at the super market. The flavor of the spam is a bit similar to canned corn beef, and the taste is much better than I thought. The nicest thing about the spam is that it contains no artificial preservatives, but I may not buy anymore because it's a bit too salty to me and greasier than my usual pork sausage.

Summer vegetable and flowers are just livening up around the house. I feel so happy!

Have a happy August wherever you are on the planet!

Noriben and Chicken Potato Sandwich and Mock Insalata Caprese

2011-08-05T09:53:00.022+09:00

I made Noribento again! I want to make it every now and again. I guess it is like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to American people. No matter if you aren't American you have something to crave at times which brings back fond memories of childhood for you, don't you? What's food like that for you?

This one contains...
Sanma Fry --- Seasoned leftover sashimi of sanma (saury) with Magic salt, then dredged in starch, then shallow fried.
Tofu and Pork Stir Fry --- Stir fried pork slices and atsuage (fried thick tofu) slices, then seasoned with syoyu and oyster sauce.
Scrambled Edamame and Egg with Ketchup.
Zucchini Pickle.
Orange and Blueberries for dessert.

I hate cooked zucchini because of that mushy texture but LOVE pickled one! This pickle only takes like 20 minutes to finish. This time I thin-sliced a zucchini and put in a poly bag, then added Hontsuyu, salt, vinegar and chili oil, then gently kneaded by hand for like 30 seconds. Then set aside for a while. When you have enough time to pickle, it's better to slice zucchini more thickly. Of course you can substitute shoyu if you don't have Hontsuyu (Mentsuyu), or you can season your zucchini as you like. Either way pickled zucchini is yum, and good stuff as a bento gap filler.

Today I made sandwiches and mock Insalata Caprese for bento. Can you guess why it's mock? Just keep reading. By the way the bread is store bought. When I first saw it at the bakery I wanted to make baguette sandwiches so bad. I had come up with an idea for it already.

How to make chicken potato sandwiches

Braise chicken tenders with a bit of water in a frying pan. Then slice and marinate in your favorite dressing (or mayo and lemon juice and olive oil, etc). You can do this process and store in the fridge the night before.
Boil cut-potato, then season with salt and your favorite herbs or spices (and a little olive oil if you like). This time I used of course Magic salt lol!
Stuff the fillings into your favorite bread. You can taste two flavors at the same time.

I bought a zaru dofu besides the baguette yesterday. *Zaru* means a bamboo strainer (this one is plastic though). Zaru dofu is tofu in it so it's moderately drained already. The taste is richer than normal ones, and the texture is somewhat close to mozzarella. It's tasty cold, but good for mapo doufu and tofu steak as well.

Oh yeah I made tofu Caprese salad! Using the zarudofu, fresh Aiko tomatoes and basil from our little garden, and yellow Aiko (from the veggie store nearby). I sprinkled some olive oil and a bit of salt & pepper on it.

Have a happy Friday Buddies!

Yakitori Bento

2011-08-02T16:22:00.005+09:00

Yakitori Bento is one of very popular take-out food in our area, which is well known nationwide as one of tasty local food. But I don't think it's that good. Homemade ones are way much yummier, I bet. Luckily, I had some chicken thigh and bell pepper in the fridge. I made my version of Yakitori Bento this morning. I cut chicken thigh into bite-size pieces and dredged in flour, then pan fried and seasoned with syoyu, mirin and sugar. And I sauteed cut bell pepper, then seasoned with Magic salt. I placed them, boiled egg halves and pink ginger pickle atop rice. A super quick but filling bento is done! Whew I made it!

Salmon Chirashi and Corn Potato Pancake

2011-08-02T00:44:00.006+09:00

Hey there! I was blowing off making bento for the entire last week. I was kind of unmotivated, but just got back on the track. This salmon chirashi is one of my throw-together bentos. I first mixed sushi vinegar into hot rice, then mixed flakes of microwaved salted-salmon, cucumber slices, lemon juice, and sesame seeds, then put julienne omelet and pink ginger pickle on top. Chirashi zushi is one of my favorite rice dishes, and this type is easier to make than authentic ones.

In the meantime, I got fresh picked corn on the cob and potatoes, so I made pancakes using both of them this morning. I cut the kernel off from the cob with a knife, then added grated potato, flour and salt, then pan-fried.

Corn Potato Pancake Ingredients
2 potatoes, peeled and grated
1 ear of corn, removed from the cob
about 2 - 3 tablespoons flour
a little salt
a little butter or oil for pan-frying

Besides the pancakes, I made mayo/cheese chicken for bento. I rubbed some mayonnaise on sliced chicken tender, then sprinkled a little of magic salt and powdered cheese. Then toasted in the toaster oven. As you see, I've recently tried to make my bentos more simple ones than before. I consider simpleness is important in everything. In cooking, yumminess is even more important though. Haa yeah you know, I'm just making an excuse to be lazy lol.

Take a look. Our Aiko tomatoes are finally getting ripe. We've been trying to give it as little fertilizer and water as possible to concentrate the taste. So I think we won't be able to get so many ones, but it's fun to think of what to make with it. I don't eat raw tomatoes but loooove tomato sauce pasta! I know that's pretty inconsistent, hehe.

We had an itsy bitsy visitor in our teeny weeny garden.

We went to the bay area to watch fireworks display this evening. Though it was somewhat chilly, we had a blast shopping around there and watching great fireworks going off in the sky. Sorry for the dull shots, my camera stinks! No it's due to my skills. It looks like it hasn't improved at all since this time last year haha! Well, more photos on flickr, check it out!

Onigiri and Red Wiener

2011-07-21T20:22:00.012+09:00

This may be the first time I've used red wieners (hot dogs) in bento. Actually I don't really like them but I did when I was a little kid. I was a big fan of sausages. Of course red ones were no exception. They just remind me of a cheap *Eki ben* (train bento), and it feels like they taste kind of artificial to me. However, I wanted to buy them for some reason. Ah maybe they also remind me of my good oi' bento that my mom made me to take to kindie with me. So today's bentos have red wieners in them. I made these onigiri with salted salmon, salted radish greens and sesame seeds. And I sauteed broccoli with magic salt. Magic salt... what a nice and magical name! Have you ever used it? I'm into it these days so I'm using it for everything! You'll see it being used in my bento many times in the future.

I used wakame furikake for this onigiri, which is Yuppi's favorite.

We made milk ice cream. It only calls for milk, heavy cream and sugar to make. Have you ever eaten milk ice cream (or milk soft ice cream) before? I love them, Haagen-Dazs' in particular! This one is not as smooth because we don't have a icecream maker, but it has home/handmade yumminess, and is good enough for me!

Sorry for the delay in response by the way. I'll respond to everybody's comment soon. Have a happy bentoing!!

Milk Bread and Bonito Patty

2011-07-20T15:26:00.011+09:00

Bread breadooo♪♪ Baking is really fun! Especially bread baking! This morning I baked milk breads for bento. I used milk in place of water, plus added milk powder, a bit more of butter and sugar than usual. So the breads turned out soft, fluffy and light as I expected yay yay! And I added some dried blueberries to half of the dough. That worked well. My method of baking (cooking all around) is rather rough, but nothing can beat fresh baked ones, right? Above all, you will be so happy when you see your breads went great, even if they aren't cool they should be so cute!

Now it's the season that fresh and good seasonable veggies are available here. So today's bento contains a lot of veggie. Can you guess what patties these are? Fresh bonito is showing up in the supermarkets nearby these days. Since I got a big chunk of very fresh bonito, I made bonito patties for dinner last night. It came out so good! Doesn't smell fishy at all, so who finds it out of fish? My family totally believed it's meat lol. I processed bonito, leftover bread (which I baked awhile back), egg, onion and a little salt&pepper all together in the food processor, then pan-fried. I'm happy with how the bonito patty goes well with the milk bread.

Bento and Weird Happening

2011-07-19T07:26:00.022+09:00

Good morning! The new weekday just started here! We had a 3 day weekend because yesterday was a holiday *Umi no Hi* (Marine Day). But I feel kind of sad. Something weird happened to my blog yesterday. I finally managed to write up a giveaway post and thought I could do it at last! But darn, the post disappeared just as I clicked the post button!! The post is nowhere now. I never clicked the delete button! That's pretty weird! I heard of some troubles that have happened on Blogger recently, but this kind of thing happened to me for the first time since I started Blogger. Now I have no idea what to do. This bummer may make me unmotivated to keep on posting... Because the post was long articles which included some pictures of giveaway items. Oh poor babykins... lol! Ah well, anyway my bentos have waited to be posted hehe!

Yuppi made fried chicken and potato so I made my version of Kentucky fried chicken combo.

This one is Yuppi's version she packed on her own.

This is a salad soba bento. Do you like soba? I didn't like it when a child because it had adult's kind of texture and flavor, but once I awoke to the unique yumminess I got a fan of it. Soba goes great with tempura and something peppery such as wasabi, daikon. I love to eat cold soba with grated daikon and tempura on a hot day! Slurp!!

For the salad soba, I fixed braised chicken tender, boiled egg, radish slices, mustard sprouts, sugar pea, tomato, and do you want to fry tempura early in the morning? Noooo, I don't! I toasted some aburaage (fried thin tofu) instead. I wanted to give a crispy texture to the soba, and aburaage is somewhat more healthy than tempura. As salad soba sauce, you can use your favorite sauce or dressing. This time I made my sauce with hontsuyu, a little minced onion and vinegar and lemon juice. It makes soba salad even more refreshing.

Bibimbap bento. We all love bibimbap! One of great inventions of Korea! This salad... cherry tomato halves, iceplant, wasabina (a kind of leaf mustards).

Pork sukiyaki bento. One of my rush bentos. Good thing I boiled and shelled quail eggs the night before!

This is also a rush bento. This shot stinks! I meant to make omrice because I was in a rush then. Omrice doesn't take me that much time to make... But I'd totally forgotten that I'd been out of ketchup until I started stir-frying ingredients, uggggg. Well I seasoned rice with tomato sauce and put tonkatsu sauce instead of ketchup on omelet. That made the omrice look not tasty haha! But I'm sure it was not bad and this salad helped complete this lunch! The salad contains boiled shrimp, grapefruit, frilly lettuce and cherry tomato, with creamy lemon dressing.

Shrimp Burger and Potato Egg Burger and Soda Fruit Jelly

2011-07-14T10:06:00.011+09:00

I baked some buns (I meant to make boule). I'm in a bread mood these days because it's been hot here. Since I don't want to eat rice so much on such a hot day I eat noodles or bread almost every day.

They turned out burgers (or I like to say boule sandwiches).
Fillings... scrambled egg, herb flavored potato, boiled shrimp, lettuce and sliced onion. Aaahh I wish I could have much more time for writing recipes and posting and commenting on everybody's blog... I've been kind of frustrated recently haha!

Yuppi made soda fruit jelly again.

Have a great one buddies!!

Spicy Fried Rice and Bento Sticker

2011-07-11T17:37:00.007+09:00

Atsuuuii!! The full-fledged summer has arrived! I'm toasted under the burning sun. But it seems like the rainy season is still not over here in Hokkaido, somewhat muggy.

Today I wanted to eat something spicy so I made curry fried rice. The rest of this bento contains black tiger saute, veggie salad and butter sesame potato. I LIKE potato! It is a main product in our area. Finally seasonal potatoes have come up recently on our stores.

Another topic of today is cute stickers. I found these at my book store the other day. I love the bento one in particular. Each of them is too small but really well replicated. It's a real bummer I can't eat this perfect bento lol! It has all kinds of the popular Japanese bento dishes in it. I'll try to use it for reference each time I come up with what to put in my bento. Does anyone want it?

Croque Monsieur and Iceplant and Little Fireworks

2011-07-08T11:46:00.006+09:00

Today's bento is so simple, oh I should say *another simple bento*. Since I don't like to have elaborate bento on a hot day, simple bentos should probably continue for a while.

Foods I made this time are croque-monsieur and salad. I tried iceplant for the first time. This veggie is sort of strange. Not only the look but the taste as well. It looks like succulent plants, and the taste is a bit salty and sour. It's not that I really like it, but it's not too bad. I'm not sure if I buy one again though.

These are treat Yuppi made her pals for tanabata (star festival), which are in a layer of calpis jelly and ramune one. One of perfect refreshments in the hot summer.

The girls enjoyed fireworks after *treat hunting*. They came back with tons of snacks, sweets and etc. These fireworks are the smallest ones and not gorgeous, but have an ephemeral yet uniquely attractive feel to it. I hope you feel it. So the girls saved them for last. Yay for summer!!　

Teriyaki Chicken Bento and Tori Soboro Bento

2011-07-07T15:24:00.002+09:00

Happy Tanabata! What day is 7th July? It's the day that the two lovers in the sky, Orihime and Hikoboshi can meet only once a year. They are pulled apart on opposite sides of the Milky Way. If it rains this day Orihime can't cross over the Milky Way to meet him. So we wish them good weather this time of the year. Plus, in my area, we have a tradition that kids walk around on the evening to get treat from people. You know, it is just like Halloween!

This one is yesterday's bento. I made tariyaki chicken, boiled egg salad, carrot tuna salad for it. And a cup of calpis jelly for dessert.

Today I made tori (chicken) soboro for bento. Today's dessert is fruit ramune jelly. Ramune is kind of a soda pop that's old style, and contained in a strange shaped bottle. By the way, have you ever eaten soda pop jello? It's refreshing and pretty good.

Hey doesn't this bento look like the Milky Way? I didn't mean that at all though. Soboro Milky Way!?!? Heh

Colorful Riceballs and Blue Onigiri and Cow Onigiri

2011-07-06T09:08:00.003+09:00

OHAYOOOO the middle of the week!

These are bentos I made a little while back. I used Dekofuri again! But to be honest I'm getting bored with it hehe. Dishes I made at that time were yakitori and boiled eggs, very simple! Yes yes I didn't really feel like cooking then.

But I wanted to freak hubby out so bad, so I tried coming up with something good idea. I thought he would be shocked if a blue onigiri came out of his lunch bag lol. This one was more clear blue in person than it looks on the pictures. I wish I could've seen how surprised he was. I'm sure he said WHOA! He got plenty of fruit as well!

These are also short time bentos of another day. It took me like 20 minutes to complete them. All I did were just chop and stir fry (usual) chicken tender, and cut and throw other ingredients in the side boxes. Pickled cucumber, dekofuri mayo egg, and mikan (Japanese mandarin).

Salad... edmame, tomato lettuce, sesame tofu, and hontsuyu dressing.

Karaage Bento and Frying Pan

2011-07-03T11:10:00.010+09:00

Happy Saturday! Finally July or already? More than half a year has passed away?!? So Christmas is coming soon? Hah I can't be so comfortable any longer haha.

The first bento of July is Karaage bento. Karaage, Japanese fried chicken, one of most popular bento dishes here in Japan. It's way much better than KFC. I was crazy about KFC as a child though. I still remember clearly when my mom got me a box of KFC combo snack for the first time in my life! It had a couple of fried chicken pieces, a cup of corn, a cup of coleslaw, a bun, and some fried potato in it, and along with a cup of coke! Ah I came up with an idea just now, KFC style bento! How about it? I'll have to make it sometime. Don't judge me, I sometimes adore *junk-ish lunch*.

I also fixed Thai-conscious harusame (bean starch noodles) salad besides karaage. Why Thai-conscious? I used nampla for flavoring, but not that the salad itself is exact Thai harusame salad (yum un sen), I just used nampla. And of course I also used other seasonings, vinegar, sugar, and so on.

babykins' fried chicken combo, BFC combo yay!

I bought two frying pans the other day. Please don't say it has nothing to do with this post. Frying pan is a must for quick bento cooking, right? And a cuuute one is more necessary to make it fun, right? So I was a bit excited to have these pans. That's why this picture is here. However, you can never see the painting while cooking in the pan hehe.

Happy long or usual weekend buddies!

Baked Donut Bento and Menchi Katsu Bento

2011-07-01T16:09:00.022+09:00

Humm I think I can't catch up on my bento making pace. It looks like my bento pictures will keep piling up. Hopefully I'm going to post the rest of them this weekend.

Yesterday Yuppi made hotcakes (Japanese pancakes) for breakfast so yesterday's bento came out baked donuts. What? Hotcakes are baked donuts? No, I stole part of her hotcake batter and baked it using a donut pan. I thought donuts would fit much more in a bento box. And I think the shape of these donuts is kind of cute. By the way a hotcake just looks like a pancake, but I think they are a bit different. Hotcake is more fluffy and cake-ish. My hotcake recipe is here. I arrange this batter a little, according to the situation, and use for American dogs (corn dogs), takoyaki cakes, drop donuts, and steamed cupcakes.

Another day, I made menchi katsu. Menchi katsu was my favorite dish when I was a child. If you don't know of it you imagine a panko-fried meat patty. But since I didn't have beef or pork then, used tofu chicken patty instead. Tofu and chicken tender are regulars in my fridge because they both are always available cheaply at any stores haha! My tofu chicken patty recipe is here.
I added some onion to the recipe, and dredged direct the shaped patties in panko instead of starch, and then shallow fried them. This menchi katsu goes well with both syoyu and tonkatsu sauce.

Wishing y'all a fabulous weekend!

Oyster Sauce Yakisoba

2011-06-29T06:54:00.003+09:00

Hi there! Lady Gaga is staying in Japan now. I'm ever so impressed with how she's trying so hard to help Japan recover from this adversity. You know she loves Japanese culture and she's been pulling for Japanese people ever since the earthquake.

Well, today's bento. I wanted to have noodles so bad for no reason today so I made oyster sauce yakisoba. I first boiled ramen noodles to al dente and rinsed, then stir fried separately the noodles and other ingredients (bok choy, shimeji mushroom, pork belly slices, scallop, shrimp, squid). And then combined all together, seasoned with oyster sauce, sesame oil, a little syoyu and salt. This was very good! There are so many variations of yakisoba. You should give them a try!

Take a look! We finally got the first pick from our teeny tiny garden yay! But I'm a bit scared to take the first bite.

Hey welcome Little Cuke chan!

Pasta Bento and Hot Dog Bento

2011-06-26T21:08:00.005+09:00

Today unfortunately I don't have time to babble, bummer... Actually I'm keeping someone waiting in the kitchen. Oh well, at least I should let you know what these bentos contain... Tomato sauce pasta, veggie salad, crispy chicken tender, and fruit yogurt.

Another bento. Since I baked some buns the lunch of that day came out a hot dog bento. I'm big on hot dogs these days. One of the simple goodness I like, it needs nothing other than yummy bread and yummy sausage. So you'll probably see some ones here again next week. I put on too much ketchup by the way!

Here is the person who is waiting in the kitchen to be eaten by us. WOW!

Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

New Bento Bako and Dekofuri

2011-06-22T09:14:00.009+09:00

Belated Happy Father's Day to all the sweet and cute dads out there!

Today's post has lots of pictures. First, this bento is for Hubby. Look, I bought a new bentobako again ahhh! It may look featureless, but it's a bit different from the ones I've purchased so far. Doesn't it look kind of glassy? It's made out of saturated polyester. I like glass containers and have got some for bento, but Hubby goes running to work pretty much everyday so his bento stuff has to be small and light. I liked the look and texture of this one as soon as I saw it at the store. So I decided to buy it under the excuse of F'day heheh.

This is my own bento. Hubby's brother gave us a lot of salmon fillets the day before which he'd caught off so I made some marinated salmon for bento. I dredged the fillets in starch and sauteed. Then soaked them in marinade of syoyu, mirin, vinegar, onion slices, bellpeppr slices, and grapefruit slices. I wanted to add lemon, but didn't have any so I subbed grapefruit this time. I also made potato salad, and topped my rice with daikon leaf stir fry and torn umeboshi.

This one is for Yuppi. I saw the topic about colorful furikake, coming up on Facebook bento group page that I've joined. I happened to have two bags of Dekofuri on hand. So there was no way I wouldn't use them in these bentos so that I could show them in detail to the members who were so curious about it.

For those not familiar with Dekofuri, it is a kind of furikake, rice seasoning/topping made out of natural food colorings, egg, vegetable, salmon and something. You can mix it into rice or simply sprinkle it over rice.

I had enough time then so I played around with bento using Dekofuri for the first time in a while. It was so much fun, however, Yuppi said things like this... *This bento was so yummy but mama, blue food doesn't look really yummy, right?* (haa sigh, I was a bit excited to be honest because I thought I'd made a cute bento for the first time in forever lol) Oh totally! You got that right. I would use the blue dekofuri left when I need to lose some weight haha! (I don't know if she knows that blue is one of the colors that make food look bland and unappetizing...)

Lastly, for Father's day Yuppi worked so hard. She did challenge lots of newies (to her), made coffee jelly, wine gummy, nama donuts, and she did even chocolate tempering. By the way, baked donuts and nama ones are all the rage in Japan lately. *Nama* means not baked or fried. Nama donuts are the same as rare cheesecake or mousse cake in general. I consider they're actually not donuts, but just cakes shaped into ring donuts. But anyhow, it's no problem as long as they taste good! Here is Yuppi's nama donut she decorated for Hubby.

I also decorated one because I had tons of fruit in the fridge.

Harusame Salad and Onigiri Bento

2011-06-17T00:40:00.008+09:00

Hiiii! Now I'd like to say anew, thank you for all the support and interest, to those who come read my clumsy post each time. I've learned tons of English words and phrases writing this blog and reading everyone's. (But to be honest, still I'm not able to write even half of things I really want to communicate though haha.) Well I hope to do the giveaway in a timely fashion that I missed the timing due to the earthquake. Although Japan remains in the rough situation everyone's hanging tough.

In the meantime, since it's getting warmer here each day, I thought I should consider summertime bento. I think I'm probably going to make onigiris and salad for bento very often because they are easy to eat and tasty even on a hot day, and hard to go bad yea? This morning I made harusame (thin starch noodles) salad. You can't see boiled harusame in the bento at all, but it's hiding underneath the vegetable, egg, and chicken. I also made dressing for the salad using mentsuyu (Japanese noodle sauce) that I mentioned earlier. With it, you can eat Japanese noodles such as soba, udon, somen, hiyamugi, and so on. Also you can make easily nimono, salad dressing, hiyashi-chuka sauce because it contains syoyu, mirin, sugar and dashi all in one. There are so many kinds of mentsuyu at stores, but I always pick up *Kikkoman Hon Tsuyu*. It's not too sweet and its dashi taste isn't that strong either. That's why I like it best.

=== Harusame salad dressing ingredients (serves about 4) ===
Adjust the amounts according to your taste and mentsuyu. You can use this sauce for fresh veggie salad and hiyashi chuka (hiyashi ramen) as well.

6 tablespoons hontsuyu or mentsuyu
1 to 2 tablespoons mirin
1 to 2 tablespoons vinegar
A little sesame oil
A little rayu (chili oil) or doubanjiang or red pepper powder or mustard, whichever you like

For these onigiri I used medium polished rice, shiokombu, shirasu, and sesame seeds. Whoaaa one of them looks sour. I should've given him one more eye....I guess?

Chili Shrimp Bento

2011-06-15T09:37:00.007+09:00

2011.06.14, originally uploaded by babykins.

Seafood bentos in Magewappa are continuing. Yesterday I made ebi chili (chili shrimp). So this one is yesterday's bento. For chili shrimp, scrambled egg is perfect. You could relish the yumminess dressing scrambled egg with excess sauce of chili shrimp. When you make chili shrimp you should definitely make scrambled egg too. Chili shrimp goes great with noodles as well by the way. So I usually make a little extra sauce purposely. Since chili shrimp is really good for bento, I hope to share my easy recipe sometime. The rest of this bento contains aspara bacon stir fry and hijiki (a kind of seaweeds) bell pepper salad.

Maguro Steak Bento

2011-06-14T09:45:00.015+09:00

2011.06.13, originally uploaded by babykins..

Good morning OHAYOOO!!! lol. Today's quick post is featuring maguro (tuna) steak. It looks like teriyaki because I dredged it in starch before sauteing. But it's not sweet and I gave it a bit of a garlic flavor. So I want to call today's bento a maguro steak (domburi) bento. This came out so good, really! I sliced a tuna fillet for sashimi into bite-size pieces, then dredged in starch. Sauteed in a pan, then seasoned with some syoyu and sake, a bit of mirin and garlic powder. I thought this bento would need something mouth-refreshing so I made bell pepper marinade. I boiled some cut bell pepper, then soaked in a mixture of mentsuyu, sugar and vinegar for a while. Mentsuyu is so useful for quick-making bento dishes in the busy morning. By the way, my favorite is *Kikkoman Hon Tsuyu*. I'll mention about this item in detail next time.

Have a fabulous one!

Hire Katsu Bento and Early Summer Flowers

2011-06-11T23:53:00.020+09:00

Helloooo! I just want to give a yell to the world. Having quite a pleasant afternoon all by myself at home for the first time in forever woo! The rest of the family went out for errands. I'm so relaxed now.

I got a good pork tenderloin at my supermarket the day before. So today's bentos have hire katsu (panko-fried pork tender with tonkatsu sauce). Fresh fried hire katsu is delicious, I swear, but I found this time, chicken tender is better than pork for bento because it's tender and yummy even cold. Well the rest of the bentos are scallion tamagoyaki slices, ninjin shirishiri and cherries. Good thing I didn't forget to put cherries in Hubby's bento this time haha. And that bitsy thing in the picture below is a portable misoshiru (miso soup), which I added cut scallion, dried wakame, and a little dashi powder to miso so that Hubby could pour some hot water over it and eat at work. I think misoshiru is a must for a perfect katsu lunch any day. Ninjin shirishiri is an Okinawan popular carrot dish stir fried with egg and spam or canned tuna. But I only used some chikuwa instead for this one because I didn't have spam or tuna and had already made tamagoyaki. I shredded carrot then stir fried with thinly sliced chikuwa and sesame oil. Then flavored with a little salt, black pepper and sesame seed. Guess what, this dish tastes pretty good and doesn't really smell carrot so even carrot haters like me can eat it!

The strawberry in our petite garden is growing steadily. I just can't wait to relish them!

Mini Loaf Bread Bento and Purple Sweet Potato Tarts

2011-06-10T13:39:00.005+09:00

Happy Friday! already!? incredibly fast!! I've been lazy this week, but today I managed to prepare bento. Today's bento has leftover tofu kima curry, egg salad, some tomatoes and a couple of kiyomi orange wedges. And I also sent Hubby a mini loaf I baked early in the morning, though it isn't in the picture.

This one is for myself, which contains a few slices of mini loaf, ham slices, curry, egg salad that's too little compared to the curry because somebody ate most of it before I packed lol, and some fruit. I had cherries instead of tomatoes because I don't eat any tomatoes... But I like tomato sauce and ketchup! Yeah that's pretty weird, I know hehe. I have trauma about tomato since my childhood, actuallyyy. Oh it's a pity I forgot to put cherries and ham in Hubby's bento! Well it's okay, he should never notice that heehee.

Here are the mini loaf breads I baked. I used both whole wheat flour and normal one this time. They are a bit cute, right?

I made purple sweet potato tarts the other day so let me share this picture. I was kind of happy with how they'd turned out. They didn't turn out as pretty purple as I expected though. I added some of heavy cream and sugar and butter and brandy to boiled purple sweet potato, then mixed it in the food processor. I should've steamed the purple sweet potato instead of boiling. It may have kept deeper color.

Have a fabulous weekend all!

Salmon Chahan Bento

2011-06-03T01:24:00.003+09:00

Yay! I'm posting today also. I was going to try to reduce posting, but I realized that it's easier to do a quick post everyday than to post many bentos and articles in bulk at a time lol! So I thought I should try to short-post as often as possible, hopefully in the morning, instead of letting my bento pictures pile up.

These bentos are the ones I made a couple of days ago. I forgot to up them. By the way I didn't prepare bento today because I overslept in the morning, stinks! That's how I do every now and again though haha! Well today's main is salmon chahan, which I used chunks of broiled salted sockeye, egg, and daikon leaf in. I also made shrimp salad and red spinach/bacon stir-fry for this one.

Now tulips were over, then snowflakes and suzuran (lily of the valleys) are coming out around my house. Are you ready for the summer?

Okonomi Omelet and Salmon Onigiri Rools

2011-06-02T10:16:00.005+09:00

Heehhh it's already June?!? About half the year?... Can you believe it?
Well today's bento contains two rolled onigiri and omelet style okonomiyaki. No no *okonomi style omelet* is right. Its taste is just like okonomiyaki, but it's much easier to make than okomomiyaki. I used egg, pork, cabbage, and moyashi (bean spout). This one is nice as a sandwich filling as well.

Salad-udon Bento

2011-06-01T09:08:00.009+09:00

It feels like the cold noodle season is coming here soon. So this bento has cold udon, braised chicken tender, and fresh vegetables.
Sauce: mentsuyu (Japanese noodle sauce), minced onion, lemon juice and vinegar. This sauce is so perfect for cold noodles and veggies that I hope everybody gives it a try!
Have a delicious and fun fun lunch y'all!

Mock Gyudon Bento and Baked Goods

2011-05-28T10:10:00.035+09:00

Good mornin!! A fun weekend has just started. Today it's a bit gloomy outside though. Oh well, I'm glad to get to write something to share today also. Yeah I like writing. But as I mentioned earlier, I have a lot of stuff to do lately. I think I'm going to have to slow down my blogging. I actually have tons of articles, recipes and something that I'd love to share with everyone though... In fact I decided I'd spend time for my family as much as possible. But you can find what I'm making for fun everyday on twitter.

Well I made many eats Yesterday! This is... I call it *mock gyudon bento*. Do you know *Yoshinoya no Gyudon*? Gyudon is a bowl of rice topped with simmered beef slices, which is a kind of savory dombri (rice and dish in a bowl). However I rarely eat beef. So you can hardly find beef dishes in my bentos. So I used pork slices for this one instead of beef. Are you aware yet? That this gyudon looks pretty much the same as Sukiyaki. But gyudon only has beef and onion unlike sukiyaki. I added shirataki to them this time because I love it! Since I only prepared the mock gyudon, this bento turned out too simple and bland. Okay, one store bought looking gyudon bento is done up aha!

I made some syoyu tamago the other day. Syoyu tamago (soy-soaked boiled eggs) are also called *aji tama* (flavored eggs). I guess some of you have seen it in ramen before. You know, egg goes well with gyudon and sukiyaki besides noodles. There are a lot of syoyu egg recipes out there. I like to only use syoyu, but you can make your eggs as you like. It's okay to add dashi or chicken stock, sugar, mirin, spices etc.. according to your taste. I added 1 tablespoon syoyu to 5 boiled eggs, then allowed it to soak well for more than 20 minutes, flipping or rolling them in the polybag several times to soak overall (in this way, you don't need to waste a lot of syoyu). Syoyu tamago can keep for a few days in the fridge.

I baked whole wheat breads yesterday. They turned out so good.

Also I baked some cupcakes. I'm into cupcakes lately. Trying to come up with a nice fluffy cupcake recipe. This is decorated with morron whipped cream.

Though I only took two pictures Yuppi and I made some kinds of creams this time. Yuppi decorated all of them. You know what, this cream is supper nice in particular!! So I have to write, and you have to try! Don't you wanna know?? We added some cherry jam to unsweetened heavy cream, then whipped. Without an electric mixer, you could make whipped cream pretty damn quick because of the pectine that's included in jam. And I think cherry jam is the best for a berry cream, ummm YUMMooo.

Kima Curry and Yaki Udon and Last Sakura

2011-05-26T08:13:00.005+09:00

Hey there! How are you doing up? Actually I've made few bentos lately because I've been busy. Plus It seems like I've been out of luck! I dropped a heavy pan on my toe the other day. The kitchen drain pipe overflowed and the floor was flooded about a week ago. And I fell over in front of the house holding laundry a couple of days ago. My right toe and ribs still a bit hurt. Aaahh poor me! What unfortunate days... I'm still alive though hehe!

In the meantime I feel so sorry for the losses by the tornado that struck Joplin, MO. That really reminds me of the sights of Tohoku, Japan (hit by the hugest tsunami). So I feel so sad. It's our turn to pray for them. I've heard a lot of sad news recently... But looking at everyone's bentos always makes me feel good! I really love and enjoy seeing bentos my buddies made even if I don't have time to leave a comment to them. Thank you all!

So I thought I had to post something so that I would pick myself up even more. Post something? Yes of course I do bento!! Today I assembled scraps and made a quick kima curry, seasoned it with a piece of Japanese curry cube, tomato puree, syoyu, usuta sauce, garam masala, and salt. This bento also has turmeric rice, a syoyu tamago, purple potato salad, pickled turnip, turnip leaf stir-fry, and a cup of orange yogurt for a perfect-curry-dessert. I'll write my simple syoyu tamago recipe next time! Oh I forgot to say that this one was the store-bought-looking bento series part 3!! Or I should call it *deli style bento series*?... I guess.

This one is a yakiudon bento, consists of udon, pork slices, shrimps, cabbage, seasoned with yakisoba sauce. I put an aonori omelet on it. Omelet goes great with yakiudon and yakisoba. Apple/dekopon yogurt for dessert.

Late-blossoming sakura are still bursting around my area. Since they are double-flowered the petals look fluffy, and the color is so pretty pink!

Have a happy Thursdee!!

Teriyaki Chicken Patty Bento

2011-05-11T15:46:00.011+09:00

It looks like spring has totally come around here! Various kinds of sakura are blossoming now everywhere. I feel sort of excited for no reason. How is it going in the middle of the week?

Today's post is featuring a teriyaki chicken tofu patty recipe! The rest of this bento are a grilled salmon fillet, syoyu tamago halves, purple potato salad, and noriben. Bummer, I forgot to prepare dessert!

Purple potato salad: Boil diced potato, then toss with diced cucumber, chopped onion, vinegar, lemon juice, olive oil, and salt.
Syoyu tamago: Soak boiled eggs in some syoyu for a while.

babykins Healthy Tofu Chicken Patty Recipe
Chicken patties (*tsukune* in Japanese) are one of good bento dishes, which go well with both rice and bread. Especially tofu patty is soft and tasty even cold. I usually use astuage for patty because it's not watery. So you wouldn't need draining. (If you use a lot of soft tofu for patty mixture it would turn out too soft or watery.) But if you can't get atsuage you could use well-drained normal firm tofu instead. This patty is so simple but you could add whatever you like which is not watery according your tastes -- such as onion, scallion, carrot, bell pepper, beans, sesame seed and so on. By the way *teriyaki* means glossy-sauteing with sauce that includes sugar. Although this time I made teriyaki patties, fresh-sauteed plain ones are tasty with salt & pepper as well. Give it a try!

== Patty ingredients ==
1 chicken breast, skinless
1 atsuage (fried firm tofu) or drained firm tofu
1 tablespoon flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
(Some flour for dredging)

== Teriyaki sauce ingredients ==
1 part sugar
2 parts shoyu (soy sauce)
2 parts mirin (sweet rice wine)

1) Process together all the patty ingredients until ground. Be careful not to over-grind.

2) Shape it into small rounds, then dredge with flour lightly. Brown both sides of them in a greased frying pan over medium heat, then cover the pan and cook over low heat until cooked through (for about a few minutes).

3) Add some teriyaki sauce and dress well, medium-heating. Done!

This is for Yuppi. Take a look at this cute cloth. One of my dear friends sent it to me! Thanks so much dear!

Sakura Picnic

2011-05-08T00:54:00.069+09:00

Happy Golden Week, May Day, Star Wars Day, Children's Day and Cinco De Mayo (all are belated though) haha!! Well, MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU!! I'm so wishing all kids all over the world their happiness, especially those who've lost their both parents by all the recent disasters.

I finally got to go see sakura for the first time this year. We had this lunch viewing beautiful sakura trees. This one has mayo-shrimp, dashimaki-tamago (a kind of tamagoyaki), butter-sauteed purple potato, curry flavored shimeji and chicken, four kani-mayo norimaki, and rare cheesecakes with strawberry sauce for a treat after lunch.

This type of norimaki is very easy to make even without a sushi mat because it doesn't need to be rolled tightly or sliced. You could gobble it down nom nom. Kanimayo is crab meat tossed with mayonnaise. It's okay to use any foods you like as filling -- cut cucumber, scrambled egg, cut tamagoyaki, sauteed spam or hotdog, meat or chicken soboro, umeboshi, canned tuna, sliced avocado.... mmm any suggestions?

babykins Kanimayo Norimaki Recipe

Kanimayo-maki Ingredients

Prepare kanimayo. Toss crab meat with mayo, a little of lemon juice and salt.
Place a nori on plastic wrap, and then spread rice thinly and evenly over the nori, leaving an even border of uncovered nori along the top edge. If you use plain rice, sprinkle a little salt over nori.
Place some of the kanimayo on the rice, and then roll it up like a roll cake. Decorate and wrap as you like.

babykins Easy Lazy Sushi Rice Recipe

Sushi Vinegar Ingredients

Prepare rice. Fresh-cooked rice is best, but you can use microwaved leftover rice as well.
Put all sushi vinegar ingredients in a jam jar or something, and shake it. Add it to the hot rice and mix well, 1 to 2 teaspoons sushi vinegar per cup of cooked rice.

Note

Actually we went to the public library I can enjoy all kinds of books, and feel so refreshed and comfortable each time. So I love to visit there so much. These pictures are of the park right beside the library. Fortunately, the day we went, the sakura trees were just in full blossom! Although it was still windy and chilly, we were ever so excited and impressed with the beautiful and spectacular sight.

The park is a historic place where there used to be a Bugyosyo (magistrate's office of the samurai period) until 140 or so years ago. A part of the bugyosyo was duplicated in the center of the park two years ago. We were able to look around inside of it as well. It looked like a gorgeous mansion of the highest samurai.

You can hardly see the way this moat is a huge star shape, but you could check it out from the top of this tower. Tooons of sukura trees are planted along the edges of the moat! The moat was made around the magistrate's office in order to prevent enemy invasions.

Don't stare at meee! Bye!

Plop!

We're having another holiday left. Fabulous weekend everyone!!

Huge Onigiri Bento

2011-04-29T09:06:00.000+09:00

Hi there! How is your day? Our work week is about to end. A long holiday will start tomorrow inatead! I don't have any plans for the holiday yet though. Maybe I'm going to make some bentos in the meantime. And I hope we can go on a sakura picnic!

Yuppi has made bento dishes straight recently as I wrote earlier. So I can be somewhat lazy every morning. All I have to do is pack my own bento and take bento pictures, wheee! Today's bentos only consist of scraps from the fridge. Mushroom/pork/edamame stir-fry, spinach/corn salad (our late favorite) with sesame dressing, a nori/tamagoyaki swirl, a mini vanilla cheese cake and usual fruits for dessert. I mixed *ume nameshi* -- kind of a furikake (made out of umeboshi and green veggies) into rice, and made a flower atop the rice using pink ginger pickle. I like it much better than pink fish sausage or kamaboko to be honest. This time I took a thermal bottle of hot hoji tea with this bento. I really liked today's lunch, simple yet tasty and satisfying. Though it was rainy and chilly today, the hoji tea warmed my heart.

These bentos below are Yuppi's arrangements. They contain sauteed bacon-wrapped cherry tomatoes besides the same food as mine. Who ate this huge onigiri?! You compare it with the two mini onigiri in the red container. (Maybe she didn't want to make more than three onigiri ha!)

Happy weekend all my pals!!

Teriyaki Pork Bento

2011-04-27T15:37:00.004+09:00

Today's shots all stink! Okay I won't make excuses. Bentos themselves were neat!
Today we had teriyaki pork, potato stir-fry (curry flavored), spinach/corn/chicken salad, dekopon orange. I'm too much worn out now to babble on here. Hopefully I'll post bentos tomorrow too. I hope y'all have a nice weather and day!!

Sukiyaki Bento

2011-04-22T16:32:00.016+09:00

I didn't have enough time this morning so I incredibly speedily turned and worked in the kitchen. I threw all ingredients into a pan and dashed off!

Store-bought-looking bento series part 2!! (Just *looking* -- not store-bought lol). This sukiyaki bento contains rice underneath sweet/salty-cooked ingredients --- pork slices, shirataki, onion slices, shimeji mushrooms, green onion and boiled quail eggs. A fruit cup for refreshment. Easter is coming soon but I came up with nothing for an Easter themed bento. But after shooting this bento I noticed that this one incidentally had two must items for Easter yay! Ummm I think Easter bentos are supposed to be cute or pretty. So can't this be counted as an Easter bento?? But anyhoo I sure did this year also hehe!!

Make your Easter/weekend a fabulous one!

BLO Sammy and Subuta Bento

2011-04-21T23:35:00.005+09:00

Man, it's amazing! We made a lot of bentos today. Although you can only see 5 here, Yuppi and I made total 7 bentos this time... phew! I felt as if I were a bento shop staff. All of today's bentos are themed *takeout lunch*. Yes, they are shamming store-bought haha! It was fun to pack store-bought-looking lunches. By the way, I'm going to wash these throwaway packaging clean and reuse again and again. I've been trying to create less waste for the environment but I want to play around with bento props at times. I actually don't want to buy bento stuff anymore but I do find my self grabbing cute or interesting goods (even if it's non-for-bento) here and there ahhh.

BLO sammies (not BLT) -- bacon/lettuce/omelet, chestnut cream, cherry jam. A pork/chicken burger (leftover from last night).

This is for Yuppi (she packed herself).

We were all so busy and had to go out tonight so we needed a bento dinner so that we could eat dinner fast. Yuppi made all the dishes below after school. Then I packed myself this bento. She'd been craving for subuta (Chinese sweet/sour pork dish) so this one contains it. The rest of the bento are tamagoyaki slices, daigakuimo (candy-coated sweet potato), a grilled saba (mackerel) fillet, a dekopon orange wedge. I rarely buy furikake because don't like it too much, but I found a bag of pretty furikake the other day, which was tasty yay!

Yuppi packed herself this one. It contains pretty much the same dishes as mine.

I found tiny springs around my house.

Happy warm Friday all!!

Nori Bento

2011-04-20T10:36:00.013+09:00

Sorry for the gloomy shot. It's due to overcast. Well today's bentos are featuring NORIBEN! Noriben is a bento of rice covered over with nori that was lightly soaked in syoyu. It is one of the traditional bento styles. I loooove noriben! It is a lot easier to make than onigiri. I used to take it to kindergarten when I was wee. I was quite a picky child and had very few dishes I could eat by the way. You could eat up a noriben without being bored even if it doesn't have enough dishes next to. However, I've probably never seen before bento buddies outside of Japan make a noriben. It may be unpopular... Anyway I love noriben!

I toppped usuyaki tamago (thin tamagoyaki) flowers and ginger pickle petals on noriben to a bit liven up. The rest of this bento are sweet/salty/sour chicken tender pieces (super yum), potato salad (as usual), tamagoyaki slices, and a cup of milk kuzumochi with choco syrup for a little treat. I love chicken tender. It's literally tender even when it's cold. So I think it's perfect for healthy bento okazu (dishes). I'd like to write some variations of flavoring for chicken tender when I get to have time!

Here is Yuppi's bento. She made all the dishes and packed this one.

Three Happy Bentos and Fruit Crepe

2011-04-17T17:22:00.021+09:00

Yuppi's no-school-lunch-days have started. She's been so much into bento lately. Now I can hardly believe that she was not interested in bento-making at all a little while back. She got up pretty early that morning and prepared all of these dishes here. She made penne arrabbiata, German potato, a seared chicken thigh and cheese omelet. As you see she prefers western food. And she's been on a tamagoyaki-making spree so that she polishes her skill. She packed herself this bento. She really enjoys making and packing bento but I have to clean up all the mess afterward each time, sigh...

This one is for hubby. Yuppi also packed it.

This is the bento I packed myself, which contains all the same dishes as Yuppi's and hubby's. How great to be able to have bento someone else made. Though I do give Yuppi credit for her cooking skills, she was sort of bummed and jealous that I'd packed more neatly than She had done. She wants to get a chance to knock my socks off. So I can no longer be comfortable haha! I think her bento beats mine and nobody won't notice the difference though.

Some of you may wonder if these bentos didn't have any desserts, but no worries, I made quick (as always) crepes for this lunch. I put on some custard cream, cut strawberry and dekopon orange, and then wrapped them into a portable and easy-to-eat shape. I'm crazy about custard cream. Not to mention I'm going to write my lazy recipe sometime.
Hope y'all have a happy start of the week!!

Pocket Sandwich and Nikumiso Onigiri

2011-04-14T12:47:00.034+09:00

I meant to bake whole wheat breads but the dough didn't rise well for some reason. I wondered how I should make it. Then devil babykins said *Throw it in the garbage! It's no longer useful.* Meanwhile, angel babykins said *No! It's a shame to waste food!* Of course I made a good choice. I decided to make the most of the dough and I thought it hopefully might come out chapati or pita.

I made pocket sandwiches using MOCK pita breads. I stir-fried chopped chicken tender and onion, then seasoned with a little curry powder and usuta sauce (kind of a tonkatsu sauce) and ketchup and salt. And the other pita pockets have some salt-boiled cut potato and cheese slices. I was a bit surprised and excited with the taste! I think normal breads also go well with a combo of simply boiled potato and cheese. Simple yumminess. Give it a try!!

Today's bento is simple. I made two nikumiso onigiri, crispy chicken, pan-fried potato and a cup of fruit custard for dessert. This time I'd like to share my nikumiso recipe. *Niku* means meat, so niku-miso is meat-miso, which is very salty and kind of a filling for onigiri. You can put it in onigiri or directly put it on hot rice and eat. For those vegetarian, you can use vegetables (garlic, ginger, onion, bellpeper, carrot, burdock, etc..) instead of meat. It is called *yasai-miso* (vegetable miso).

By the way these onigiri are inspired by one of my sweet bento pals, Gamene's vege meatballs (Bento Zen). Her meatballs have turned out really pretty, tasty!

babykins' nikumiso recipe
1/2 teaspoon brown sesame oil or your favorite vegetable oil
2 chicken tender fillets or your favorite meat (chopped or ground)
About 3 tablespoons chopped scallion
4 tablespoons miso (salty bean and/or rice paste)
1 to 2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon sake (if you have)
A little chili pepper (if you like)

1) Put the oil, chopped chicken and scallion in a frying pan and stir-fry over medium heat for a few minutes.

2) Add all the rest of the ingredients and stir-fry for another few minutes until the excess liquid is gone. Adjust the taste as you like. Done!!
Note: This could keep in the fridge for awhile.

Nikumiso would go great with various veggies as well -- especially cuke!

Yakiudon and Purple Salad and Oyakodon

2011-04-11T16:32:00.019+09:00

Haaaahh look at these! Edible sapphires! Seriously I'm thinking that I want to wear pieces of these purple potatoes as accessories. I'm getting lately a purple addict, purple woman or purple monster?!? No no I'm just a purple-eater lol! As a matter of fact, it's not that I love all of purple things. I only love purple vegetables.

This time I grabbed odds and ends together from the fridge and made yakiudon (stir-fried noodles). And a purple veggie salad with a tiny pouch of sesame dressing. (You can stick a pick into a dressing pouch then squeeze it onto your salad.) A cup of very berry yogurt for dessert.

These are today's our lunches. Oyakodon!! I love oyakodon. And I had a purple potato salad (as usual) and a custard tiramisu for dessert.

Tadaaaahh!! Krisi of Japan und die Bentobox gave me a lovely award. I'm so happy and honored. Thank you so much Krisi. It means a lot to me!

Golden Blog Award

Three Spring Bento Sisters

2011-04-08T13:07:00.013+09:00

The title doesn't have any special meanings haha. But as you see, spring has come here at last woo hoo!!

Tofu/chicken soboro bento. I'd like to share my healthy yummy soboro recipe sometime. I'm ready for a sakura picnic. However it looks like I have another few weeks to wait. I just can't wait!!

Chicken nanbanzuke with tarutaru sauce, potato salad, tamagoyaki slices, and a candy omusubi. I *remade* karaage (fried chicken) that I'd made the night before into nanbanzuke. Nanbanzuke is a combo of tarutaru sauce and fried chicken marinated in a mixture of shoyu and mirin and vinegar. It's so tasty that I hope to write the recipe also.

Rice sammy bento. Rice sammy is easier to make than onigiri and norimaki. And also much easier to eat. I put pork soboro, thin tamagoyaki and tarako in them. It's okay to put in whatever you like that goes well with rice.

I baked chocolate cupcakes the last weekend. Fluffy and flavorful. I'm so happy with the result, but I need to complete this recipe. Then I'll share it!

Fabulous weekend!!

Rice Gratin Bento

2011-04-06T16:08:00.044+09:00

I made this bento a while back but I've been saving it up for the time I'm ready for writing its recipe. Now it's time for it!! Gratin is heart/body-warming. It may be surprising but I think a gratin bento is perfect for lunch on a cold day if you can use a microwave at lunchtime. (It's now almost spring or summer here in the northern hemisphere though haha). Yeah it's okay, hot foods and roomheating are still needed here. Well my white sauce does not contain butter or cream so this gratin is light and tastes relatively good without reheating. So I put a mini gratin in my bento every now and then. Although general white sauce recipes need flour and a lot of butter, I use rice flour instead. Since rice flour is gluten-free, it's hard to get lumps. Besides another advantage is that it has no *flour taste* no matter if you don't stir-fry it with butter. So you could make a white sauce a lot more easily and quickly using it.

shrimp/ chicken gratin

potato/cheese gratin

potato/cheese gratin

babykins' quick gratin recipe
White sauce ingredients
5 cups (or 4 and 1/4 American cups) milk --- (about 1000ml)
6 level tablespoons rice flour
1 level teaspoon salt
Note: If you like your white sauce more light you can replace a part of milk with chicken soup stock. If you don't have rice flour on hand you can use plain flour instead. In that case, you need to mix well and dissolve flour completely before heating not to make lumps.

Other ingredients (whatever you like). For example...
Braised (or stir fried) chicken & onion, shrimp & onion, mushroom & bacon, and so on
Boiled potato, egg, pasta, spinach, and so on

1) Put all the white sauce ingredients in a heavy saucepan and mix well.
2) Cook it over medium heat stirring constantly until thick and smooth. Be careful not to make it burn in the pan.
3) Prepare other ingredients. Then mix it into the white sauce.
4) Add extra seasonings according to your taste. (Such as salt, pepper, cheese).
5) Pour it in a casserole or heat-resistant container. Sprinkle Parmesan or buttered panko (breadcrumbs) on top if you want.
6) Bake it in the oven until the surface is golden brown. Done!!

This time I made a rice gratin. I stir-fried chopped onion, cut chicken and mushrooms then mixed it into hot rice with a little salt and ketchup together. Then poured some white sauce over the mixed rice and put a little of sliced cheese on the top and baked. Why not try an effortless but nummy yummy gratin??

Teriyaki Pork Bento and Chicken Katsu Bento

2011-04-03T11:24:00.005+09:00

Aaahh how much I love the natural colors of food! Especially purple veggies! I'm always appreciative of the gift from nature.

Rice topped with teriyaki pork slices, purple potato/edamame/corn salad, mineola orange wedges. Purple cabbage sprouts atop the teriyaki pork.

Rice, chicken katsu skewers, tomato/cheese omelet slices, mashed purple potato, and boiled veggies.

Chicken katsu slices, rice underneath it, a boiled egg wedge with mayo, purple potato salad, a milk/iyokan-orange kanten for dessert. You can check out my kanten dessert recipe on the previous post.

I found cow-printed mini plastic jars at the fancy goods store the other day. Aren't they pretty cute?? I like them so much hehe. When I bought them I decided I'd sure make a milk dessert.
Happy Sunday!!

Onigiri Bento and Milk Kanten Dessert

2011-04-01T14:58:00.019+09:00

I made an onigiri bento the other day. It contains two onigiri, a potato gratin, meatballs, tamagoyaki slices, and a mini cup of ichigo/milk kanten for dessert. I'm going to write my quick gratin recipe sometime.

Have you ever seen a box of kanten powder at stores?

The recipe I'd like to share today is a milk kanten jelly. Kanten is kind of a jello, kanten powder is made out from seaweed, which is calorie-free and sooo healthy. I do recommend this for vegetarian/vegan people. When you don't want to use milk, you can use soy milk instead. This time I used them half and half. The best thing about kanten is to firm at room temperature as well unlike gelatin-jelly. So I think kanten desserts are perfect for a bento lunch. I'd really like you to try if you can get kanten powder. Although this milk kanten jelly is enough good without fruit, it would be even better if you put on your favorite fruit!

babykins milk kanten jelly recipe --- Yields 6 -7 cups
3 cups milk (600ml) or 2 and 1/2 Amecican cups milk
2 tablespoons sugar
1 heaped teaspoon kanten powder
(I improved this recipe.)

1) Put all the ingredients in a pan and cook it over medium heat stirring slowly until right before boiling. (Be careful not to make the milk boil, milk is easy to bubble over.)
2) Then cook it over low heat for a couple of minutes to dissolve the kanten powder completely.
3) Pour it into cups then cool it down at room temperature until firm. Then refrigerate it if you like it cool.
I made mine somewhat soft and smooth. If you like yours firmer you can add a little more kanten powder.

And only one thing, I want to say thank you to those of you who've listened to my heart recently. I so appreciate it. Actually I may take a break for a while from blogging. I think I need a bit long rest, I'm so tired....

HAHA I'm sorry, just joking!! Do you know what day it is today??

Fruit Sammy and Baguette Sammy

2011-03-30T17:50:00.003+09:00

It's raining here today. Look at today's my lunch, boring shot. I'm considering seriously that I need a lighting for my shooting so bad. Oh well I'm doing pretty good every day but still cry every day actually. At the afflicted areas, quite severe situations are still continuing. A man who lost his five family members, a young mother keeping looking for her two little children in mass of rubble. Supplies still don't reach some evacuation areas. Some people are only given one onigiri a day. Can you believe it? Here is Japan! And the nuclear workers working so hard without getting enough sleep who are risking their lives. Everything is heart breaking. Meanwhile, I can lead a normal life, nothing different from before the earthquake... What can I do for those affected and our country now other than donation? I've been considering. I guess everyone thinks the same. But I know, anyhow, we just have to do things we can. So I think I have to keep on as usual.

Well I think you may think I eat TOO much. But don't worry, I shared these bentos with my friends. They contain my fave sammy. A combo of strawberry and whipped pure cream, it's almost HEAVEN. The rest of this bento are ham&cheese sammies and pasta salad which is also my favorite! Now it's the strawberry season here so it's fun to make something using fresh strawberries woo! I'm going to share a strawberry dessert recipe next time, Stay tuned!

Hinomaru Bento and Wrap Bento

2011-03-25T09:45:00.017+09:00

I'm finally back in bentomaking. Yes I'm going to keep going! Thank you so much for the thoughtful comments to my earlier posts. I appreciate every single one of them. They really encouraged me and let me know how much I was loved by you all.... Haha that's a joke but it was so great to see that all of you had thought of me at that moment. And I have to say, many many bento pals are trying so hard to help Japan. I realized how much they loved our country. It means way more than they know. I saw some of them make a hinomaru bento to encourage Japan. Not to mention it inspired me so I thought my first bento after the earthquake was supposed to be a hinomaru bento. *Hinomaru* means a round of the sun. It's the symbol of Japan and the name of the national flag. Hinomaru bento is white rice topped with a red round umeboshi, which is one of good old bento styles. From time immemorial, it has been said that Japan is the country where the sun starts rising. GANBARE Nippon!!

Hinomaru bento... syoyu-braised chicken slices, cheese omelet slices, boiled shrimp gyoza (leftover), boiled romanesco and iyokan orange bunnies that cheer me up.

Wrap wrap bento... I forgot to cook rice this day so I made some chapati-looking things for this bento. This one contains cheese curry (leftover), a fried egg, heart-shaped cheese slices, ham slices and cut fruits. Making chapati is such a pain in the busy morning. So I made super quick crepes using whole wheat flour and rice flour. It has a sticky texture like mochi. But the recipe is too rough to share yet.

Thank You Again

2011-03-16T16:23:00.007+09:00

It's already been 5 days since the earthquake. I haven't felt like doing anything in the meanwhile. Fortunately my area has been little affected. A part of the town was only flooded by the small-scale tsunami. I am really thankful that we are all safe and didn't lose any of our friends or relatives. But the suffering of those affected is still lingering. Many of them haven't been able to see their children or parents yet. More than 10,000 people are still missing. My heart is wrenching thinking about it. At the evacuation areas, all sorts of stuff come short, food, water, heating, fuel, lines of communication, transportation for essentials. Besides we are intimidated by possibility of nuclear explosions. We are going through such a severe ordeal that we've never had before. However, everyone in Japan started stepping forward to overcome it. The relief teams from abroad arrived in Japan. I saw many people outside of Japan considering donation for Japan in all kinds of ways. I was very touched to tears. All Japanese and foreigners who live in Japan know that everyone around world is praying for them. It has absolutely become a big big power to bear up under this disaster. They really appreciate it.

Many of my dear buddies sent me messages, concern, thoughts and prayers, really cheered me up. I appreciate all of them. Thanks again from the bottom of my heart.

I'm doing alright!

2011-03-12T10:41:00.002+09:00

What frightening sights. So many people have already died. I'm so sad, and now afraid of tsunami and radiation leakages at the Fukushima nuclear plant. But I'm OK so far anyway! My phone is still not working though. Thank you so much for lots of your messages and concern. Please pray for Japan.　

Spring Bentos and New Bentobako

2011-03-08T16:21:00.007+09:00

Although I mentioned my 100th post giveaway earlier, I have a few more posts left to write until I reach it hahah. I've been preparing my first giveaway items to send the winner in the meantime. I'm so excited finding some lovely bento gears. I sure hope the winner likes them! Sooo I'm going to post some bentos before I'm ready for the giveaway. Some of you may already saw these pictures everywhere else!

This contains scrambled egg and spinach stir-fry atop rice, shrimp/mayo, lettuce/braised chicken salad and a simmered chikuwa skewer.

This one contains some karaage, tamagoyaki slices, nimono, pickled cabbage, rice and sakura (cherry blossom) shaped cookies for dessert.

Here are stuff I baked for Hinamatsuri (Girl's Day).

This is my new bento box whoopee! You know what, the same one is included in the giveaway list!! Do you like this?? I hope so!

Recent Bentos and Giveaway

2011-03-03T09:26:00.008+09:00

Hey everybodyyy Happy Girls Day!!! Today's post has nothing to do with it. I may post something about it later though. Well I've been blowing off blogging for a while. In the meantime, guess what, it looks like it's almost 100th post! At first I had no idea how long I'd keep posting this blog. I guessed nobody would give a hoot. I appreciate that so many people stopped by and left a comment. It has really meant a lot to me. So I decided to do something fun and exciting to commemorate my 100th post on the blog! Oh yeah I'm going to do a giveaway some of these days wow! I'm now assembling my favorite bento gears. So stay tuned!

Locomoco bento with a chocolate banana pudding.

Hodgepodge omrice with a chocolate madeleine.

This bread bento contains a homemade bread, egg salad, a teriyaki tofu/chicken patty, boiled romanesco, dekopon orange wedges. A homebaked chocolate chip cookie and hot tea for dessert.

Ginger pork, tamagoyaki slices, potato salad, dekopon wedges and rice.

Baguette Sandwich and Kinako Spread

2011-02-17T13:02:00.008+09:00

Hey it's been a while!? Not that I've been goofing off haha. I made a sandwich bento again! Today's bento is pretty simple but contains my favorite sammies! The fillings are tuna/mayo and kinako spread. This orange-ish thing is a dekopon, I love it! Also contains a small bag of munch for snack.

Although I shared my chocolate spread recipe earｌier, I really like peanut spread hehe. It reminds me of my childhood so I used to think of making it on my own but I could never get a pure peanut paste. Also I've thought that KINAKO would go well with bread. In fact, cups of kinako spread are sold at stores. Today I'm sort of excited to share this recipe. So I came up with a kinako spread recipe! Listen, it came out a pretty nice friend of bread heeehooo! By the way, have you heard of kinako? It is a roasted soybean flour, which has literally a bit roasty soybean flavor. It is generally used for flavoring mochi and Japanese confectionery and it's a so healthy food. I use it for meat patty instead of tofu to make it more healthy, and you can mix it into milk to drink as well. I think there is no way you could miss kinako if you can get it!!

babykins' Kinako Spread Recipe

1 tablespoon butter (melted)
4 tablespoons kinako (roasted soybean flour)
6 tablespoons sweetened/condensed milk

All you need to do is mix all together. If you like yours more creamy you could add a little more butter. If you like yours even more healthy you could use vegetable oil (such as peanut oil, olive one, etc) instead of butter. Either way, adjust the amounts of each ingredient according to your taste. Give it a try!

Sandwich Bento and Chocolate Spread

2011-02-02T16:52:00.021+09:00

Today's bentos are sandwich ones! Some of you may be aware that's rare. A bread lunch sounds not filling to me. I guess bread is easily digestible. But it's fun to have it for lunch at times and to make it as well huh? I only made a bacon omelet this morning. These bentos contain bacon-omelet sandwiches, chocolate ones, shrimp/chicken gratin (leftover from last night), lettuce & a bottle of dressing and seasonal fruits.

Do you like chocolate spread? I don't really want to buy store-bought ones because cheap kinds of them mostly contain a lot of trans fat. It's not good for your health if you take it very often. You could make one amazingly easily!

babykins' Chocolate Spread Recipe

1 bar chocolate (about 60 grams, or 2 ounces), your favorite kind
5 tablespoons condensed milk (sweetened)

1) Melt chocolate by double-boiling
2) Mix condensed milk into the melted chocolate, done!!

If you don't know how to double-boil feel free to ask me please.
Note: This chocolate spread will get hard after refrigerating like butter.

Wouldn't you like to try tasting?

Bunny Egg and Mock Spam Musubi Bento

2011-01-29T21:42:00.080+09:00

If you are familiar with Asian traditions you may know that 2011 is the year of the rabbit. The last year was the tiger year by the way. It is said that people born in the rabbit year are ambitious, talented and financially lucky. You know what, Yuppi was born in the rabbit year 11 years ago. How could I miss making BUNNY-STUFF for bento? I thought I was going to make a lot of cute (or ugly) bunnies this year. So this time I made a bunny egg. Hey bunny egg?! Bunnies lay no egg, right? Then I should say *an egg bunny*?! OK it doesn't really matter anyhow. This one has been the first bunny of this year to me, it's too darn simple and easy though haha!

Another main in this bento is a kind of SPAM MUSUBI. Spam musubi is an onigiri popular in Hawaii and Okinawa. But I didn't use any spam but hot dogs this time. In fact I've never bought a can of spam, usually use a pack of pork sausage. Both should go well with rice. Also this bento contains ketchup chicken.

For those unfamiliar with spam musubi I'd like to share my own way.

1) Sear sliced spam or sausage (whatever you like) in a frying pan, then flavor it with a little soy sauce.
2) Make a thin tamagoyaki, then cut it into right size sheets.
3) Make some plain musubi (onigiri) into your favorite shape, then sprinkle a few pinches of salt on it.
4) Put the tamagoyaki sheet and the seared spam (or sausage) on the musubi, then wrap nori around it.
DONE!! It would be a nice snack for both kids and adults.

Belated Happy New Year

2011-01-21T22:25:00.009+09:00

HELLOOO 2011!! It's rather late though. I finally got to return from hibernation. My bentomaking has started. So this is my very first posting of the year. Well should I share my New Year bento resolutions? -- Although you may not be curious about it I want to write it here to admonish myself. Tadahh... To make more simply, to not take much time, to pack neatly, to make everyday as far as possible, to make for myself as well, to eat delectably, that's all. Aw one more thing, I hope to share as many recipes of mine as I can.

I started the New Year with this cake. Yes I know, it has nothing to do with bento hehe. I just like this photo actually. My bentoing of this year started with a freaking simple and boring bento. I guess I was not completely awake from hibernation at that point lol!

Maybe this time I won't write each menu of these. Ask me please if you are curious about that.

Shogayaki (ginger pork saute) Bento

Chahan (fried rice) Bento

Ebichiri (chili shrimp) Bento

Onigiri and Chicken Katsu Bento

Yuppi made these onigiri flowers. I love them. Thanks Yuppi!! You have something I can never have so you better help your mom MORE haha!

Chicken Tender Curry Bento

I'm looking forward to checking out new bentos of my buddies! Happy happy New Year and Bentoing!

This Year's Last Bento and Arigatou

2010-12-30T10:45:00.020+09:00

♪ And so this is New Year's Eve. And what have you done?? Another year over. And a new one just begun ♪
I'm singing haha! Hello to all! Tomorrow is New Year's Eve here in Japan. I can't believe it! How fast time flies... sigh. Well although I don't have much time today --- still have to do housecleaning actually, all anyhow I need to post to say hi to you guys! I just want to say, thank you so much for visiting and commenting each time! All have really been encouraging and motivating me so I sure hope to keep going. I am grateful to everyone for being supportive. Wishing you all a happy and lovely year, thank you again, yoi otosio 良いお年を everyone!!

Bento on Christmas.

Yakiniku bentos

The last bentos this Year. I put together odds and ends from the fridge. I only had one fillet of chicken leg, leftover vegetables and slices of pork sausage from the breakfast. Despite the last bentos of the year, these have gotten poor ones lol! I tried to cover it up with the smiling faces though haha.

Let's have a fun blast-off to the New Year!!

Almost Christmas... and A Bit Bento

2010-12-20T10:25:00.021+09:00

Hey there! Glad to get back to bento posting yay! I realized again how much I love bento in the meantime. Bento is a little world, like a treasure box, isn't it?? It may be a bit exaggerated expression though hehe. By the way I am sorry that I've been late to visit my favorite blogs, I've recently had a hard time getting enough time for the Internet. I think y'all are also in the same situation in this season.

Well, these are bentos I made recently, which contain cheese omelet slices, daigakuimo (fried purple potato), meat balls, boiled broccoli and rice! Yea I wanted to make snowball-shaped-rice, in a word, it is a *rice ball* haha. I sprinkled a bit of argent and black sesame on the daigakuimo to liven up.

These are bentos Yuppi made all by her self. They contain bean sprout/pork stir fry, broccoli/bacon stir fry, daikon/kanikama salad, yogurt with apple jam for dessert and rice topped with cutouts of bell pepper and fried egg white. Maybe she meant Xmas colors.

This one is also Yuppi's creation. I'm sure she just woke up to fun of bentomaking. This contains boiled egg and vegetables, lotus root stir fry, bacon/onion ketchup stir fry, teriyaki chicken slices atop rice. Mmm she likes doing stir fry at the moment, I guess...

In the meantime, we're baking lots of baked goods as Xmas presents for our friends. Hopefully I'm going to make some cakes today if I can have time. Here are cookies we've already finished. You can check it out in detail on my flickriver

I guess everybody is having a fun time going off to Christmas. I'm still getting ready for our Xmas. I wonder what they will make for the feasts? Anyway just hoping you all have a happy Christmas wherever in the world you are!!

Third Snow and Last Bento??

2010-11-30T09:56:00.018+09:00

Hey everybody! Actually I haven't made bento at all for a while. My hubby has run to work lately so he doesn't want to carry bento boxes on his back. He only takes onigiri to work every day. So this is (perhaps) the last bento, featureless one though! But don't worry maybe I would make bento again sometime soon haha! ANYWAY I thought I'd have to post because it snowed here yesterday. We've had a lot of snow and been excited, wheee! Look at the snow around my place!!

Chicken nanbanzuke
Chicken/simeji mushroom stir-fry
Tamagoyaki
Carrot/spinach/naruto salad
Hopefully I'll share this nanbanzuke recipe some of these day.

It was somewhat gloomy weather this day...

This girl loves swimming in snow!

Hoarded Bento Pictures and Second Snow

2010-11-17T09:25:00.019+09:00

The second snow fell lightly here yesterday! Turning on the roomheat and a cup of hot latte in the morning are necessary. Winter has come yeeey! How about your place?

This contains...
Roasted mayo/cheese salmon
Simple omelet
Sauteed pork rolls
Boiled broccoli
Mushroom stir-fry
and 4 onigiri.

Bibimbap!!
Carrot, pork, spinach and rice. Orin apple and persimmon for dessert. Don't you think something yellow is lacking? Yes I forgot to put egg in this bento!

Pork/shrimp chahan!

I meant to make a traditional style bento like ones available at convenience stores. Yeah conveni-bento.
This has sweet tamagoyaki slices (MUST), pink kamaboko slices, stir-fried shredded carrot, ginger pork (STANDARD), ume/cuke salad, salty sockeye salmon (benijake) and rice.

Roasted mayo/cheese chicken tender
Potato kimpira (recipe here)
Chili sauce shrimp
Boiled flower-shaped carrots
Chunks of salty sockeye salmon
Usuyaki-tamago and edamame on the rice.

Mushroom rice
Mashed purple sweet potato
Spinach/carrot/corn salad with sesame dressing
Grilled syoyu chicken.

♪Today's simple cooking....♪

babykins' mushroom rice recipe
Some kinds of mushrooms you like (as much as you want)
Aburaage - fried thin tofu (as much as you want)
A little of shoyu and mirin and rayu (red hot sesame oil) or brown sesame oil & chili powder
Cooked rice (as much as you want)

1) Cut the mushrooms and the aburaage into small bite size.
2) Place it in a pan then add a few pinches of salt then braise it for a few minutes until get watery.
3) Drain it (remove the extra water) then replace it in the pan.
4) Add all the seasonings and stir-fry it until the excess water dries off.
5) Add it into freshly cooked rice or microwaved leftover rice then mix them together. At this point if it tastes light, add a little more syoyu or salt. Done!!

You can season mushrooms as you like. For example, salt & black pepper & butter plus onion, salt & curry powder plus shrimp or chicken, and so on... Anyhow all you need to do is make a mushroom stir-fry and mix it into hot rice! Yes pretty yum! Aw do you know that autumn is the mushroom season?? You should definitely enjoy them NOW!