Face

I made faces in bento for the first time in a very long time. For some reason I felt like doing that. I'm clumsy with making cartoon characters or something like that, and not a chara-ben/deco-ben person though. It's a bit hard for me to cut out nori without a nori punch, so my nori faces always turn out a bit awkward haha. But I am enjoying making faces at the moment. How long my nori face kick will last, we'll see.

Happy Autumn!

Hello there! I hope you're all doing well. I guess you've been missing me. Haha, just joking, yes. Actually I posted something a few days ago, but accidentally deleted it. I've got tons of stuff to talk about. Anyway here are some of my recent bentos.




Yakisoba and omusubi.




Chicken katsu, carrot kimpira, potato and edamame tossed with mayo.




Chahan with egg and pork belly slices, and raw veggie salad.




Karaage, a shoyu egg half and omusubi.




Mini teriyaki pork chicken burgers, panko-fried salmon and usual potato edamame salad.




Karaage and omusubi again.




When I was writing this entry it was a real autumn. Yesterday, we had the very first snow in this season! I'm shivering. I haven't taken photos of snow yet so I'll leave with this one instead, which I took two days ago. I'm going to be back here soon!

Back in Spring

In this bento are curried pork patties on rice, potato omelet with ketchup, and some raw veggies with mayo. As some of you are aware, I painted my table top white! I was so tired of the darkness of the table haha!



These ones contain slices of shoyu chicken thigh, sweet potato dressed with sesame seeds and a bit of salt and butter, shoyu egg halves and carrot bacon stir-fry.



For these ones, I made carrot salad, herb-mayo broiled salmon, snow pea salad and egg aburaage pouches. Egg aburaage pouches! You are curious about that, I guess. I have you covered of course! Eh I want to say so, but I'll save it for a future post, sorry hehee.



You know what, Yuppi complained later, *Mama, that sour carrot wasn't my type. I like carrot to be stir-fried, not sour*. I was a bit miffed because I was happy with the carrot salad and it is one of my hits (at least I think). Not to mention I insisted. *It's really good and not even that sour. Just refreshing! You can leave it if you don't like!* I was a bit opinionated and mean LOL.

I first lightly cooked carrot julienne and then seasoned with a bit of salt, rice vinegar and shirasu (cooked and salted tiny little fishes). It may be hard to imagine, but is something like carrot tuna salad with no oil. Sounds good and healthy, doesn't it?



Although It's totally long overdue, I decided to post some photos I'd taken when going on a trip to my favorite park to see sakura this past spring. This year I got my hands on a telephoto zoom lens for the first time, which is very affordable but enough fun to use. I've taken quite a few photos using it. I'm going to post a lot more in future posts as well. I hope you'll like them!

Cosmos

Hi there! I did give up on the summer and am already excited about winter haha! Before that, yes, fall has come. One of the happiest things about living in Japan is that I can feel the differences in each season. Each season, you could enjoy each air, smell, color or food. One of the typical signs of fall is cosmos, right? Hey it's strange I've hardly seen dragonflies this year. Cosmos flowers and dragonflies are kind of a pair to me. This summer was very short and we've had a lot more rain than usual so far. It's weird.

These pictures are obviously duds, but I like them, so here they go.
























In the meantime, isn't this jar so darn cute? I also have the Gaspard and Lisa version. I've been making mayonnaise myself for some time now, but couldn't resist buying them teehee. I used up the content and made my own again. Mayo is so easy to make I do suggest making your own!




For these bentos, what I did the night before is sprinkle some salmon pieces with herb salt, save part of mini chicken pork burgers, carrot burdock salad and boiled broccoli from the dinner. In the morning I broiled the salmon, tossed the broccoli with minced umeboshi and shoyu, re-sauteed the burgers and then dressed in thickened shoyu sauce.




For these ones, I made pork sukiyaki (pork, aburaage, shirataki, maitake mushroom and green onion). Then put them on beds of rice neatly and added shoyu egg halves. I used aburaage (fried thin tofu) instead of tofu, which turned out a very nice idea. Aburaage in the sukiyaki sauce is delish and it goes great with rice. Ah I wish I'd added something red to top it off. Don't you think so??

Fireworks Display 4

These are... I'm not really sure, but probably haven't posted them yet. They contain my bento standards such as chicken katsu, broiled chicken, ninjin shirishiri, potato salad, tamagoyaki and what not. They look so familiar, not new at all. I think homecooking is repetition. Okay, an excuse again haha!



I loved the tiny purple turnips. They are a quick pickle I only sprinkled with a bit of salt. By the way, I hardly put daikon (cooked or pickled) in bentos because of the unlovely smell. For those not familiar with the difference between kabu (turnip) and daikon (radish). At least here in Japan, kabu is a fat stem of some cruciferous vegetable, while daikon is a root. Plus, in my opinion kabu doesn't smell sulfurous so much, which is bento-friendly. Though, they look so similar you can't tell which is which just by looking.



Noriben is one of the best ways you can enjoy rice itself, which means you don't need to fix so many items for bento. I know there are some people who prefer crispy nori to wet one. When I was a kid, omusubi wrapped in nori was more common than that type you wrap naked one in crispy nori yourself right before eating. I like the crispness, but you can enjoy the real umami flavor of nori only when it's wet with the moisture from the rice.



I believe that except for pasta salad, napolitan (Japanese ketchup pasta) is the only pasta dish that is good even when it's cold and soggy haha! That also means? Bento-friendly, you know!



I like fried-anything just fried, but for some reason everybody is happy when they have deep-fried stuff in their bentos.



The greens next to the turnip pickle are leaves of the turnips. I stirfried them along with some kamaboko slices. The rest are broiled chicken and some usual items.



Here is how they turned out. I say, bento-packed comfort food to me.


In the meantime, the series of my fireworks event is coming to an end.



I knew that I couldn't take nice photos of night view or fireworks because I didn't take my tripod with me there. However I couldn't help but shoot this romantic scenery.



At last! You can see the fireworks! Hmm it's not much LOL.



It's always a real bummer, leaving your heart there, you have to go before the last climax. We hate being stuck in the terrible traffic jam. Goodbye Summer 2014!

Thank you for reading!

Fireworks Display 3

Here are some of bentos I have made recently. My diet itself is getting even simpler so I don't do that much work for everyday bentos. Maybe my bentos aren't so much fun to see anymore. However, something consistent about my bentomaking is that I'm heartening and cheering for my family through bentos. I want bentos that I made to be *pick-them-ups* when they feel tired or down at work or school.


















It was getting a bit dark. You can see the first Starbucks in the city, which is a very comfortable space to relax between seeing around.



Also, you can see us faintly reflected on the middle of the window, heehee. Having shared my oyakodon with the two hyenas, I was already hungry at this point. Had a piece of spinach quiche and plenty of cold drink. It was a hot night.



I was still roaming around haha! This is an Italian restaurant on the street.



A ramen shop, *Aburi*.



Although I've been there a number of times (because it is my home town), I love hanging around the street each time.

More photos coming soon!