Onigiri and Red Wiener

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!