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Tuna Casserole Bento

23 Feb

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This past Sunday I channeled my super mom gene and prepared three dinner meals in anticipation of a busy week. The second meal in the batch was a tuna casserole. When I made it on Sunday, it was creamy and smelled so delicious! But then I put it in the refrigerator with a plan on warming it up the next day. Sadly the noodles soaked up all the creaminess. However, I still had the kids eat it and made a bento out of it.

This bento was a fast and dirty one. I accidentally woke up late, and had to throw this bento together. I tried to cover all my food groups, but probably went heavy on the starch and fruits. 🙂 that’s okay, Ms. Little Bubbles ate most if it!

Happy Valentines Day Cards

18 Feb

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I know these aren’t bento related but I wanted to share my daughter’s valentines day cards for her friends. We had a busy weekend planned last week, but carved out an hour for her to make these cards. For the most part, she traced and cut the cards herself. But she absolutely wrote each one herself. I’m not sure if she 100% got what it means (write vs right) but she was so excited to share them with her friends. Personally, I’m happy we found a way to give a Valentines without candy.

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Another Hello Kitty Bento

14 Feb

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Wow, I know, it’s been awhile since I posted a bento.  I’ve been making bentos and have been taking photos of them, but haven’t been able to get to the posting part.  😦  I’m sorry!  As a working mom, life gets crazy.  My “busy” period at work is January – February.  It coincides with flu season too, so it always makes for an interesting time of the year.  A few weeks ago, I caught a bug that knocked me out!  Man, my bones hurt.  But thankfully that flu is done and I’m back to normal, just in time for busy, busy days.

This bento was made last week, or the week before (I’m sorry, I can’t remember).  I swore that I would make a fast bento, but it looked so sad and I felt bad that I wasn’t making “cute” bentos for Ms. Little Bubbles.  So I threw in a Hello Kitty.

Again, a fast and speedy bento.  I hope to catch up with the photos I have on my phone and I have a few recipes that I want to share too.  🙂

Take care everyone and Happy Valentine’s Day.  May your day and YEAR be blessed with love.

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“HaHaHa” Onigiri and Shoyu Hot Dogs

12 Jan

Happy Hot Dogs

Looking at this bento I get really happy.  I honestly think it’s just because of the fabric I used for the picture.  The bento is pretty simple – shoyu hot dogs, happy onigiri’s, carrots, beans and cantaloupe.  Nothing fancy, and pretty easy to make in the morning.  But the happy fabric, just makes you smile.  LOL.  The fabric is actually an apron that my aunt made for me.  She made Ms. Little Bubbles and Ms. Little Bubbles’ doll matching aprons too.  We have a complete family of aprons.  Soooo cute!

To make the hot dogs, I quickly tossed them in a pan with a splash of shoyu (soy sauce) and mirin (sweet cooking rice wine). Super simple and super easy.

Contents:  shoyu sugar hot dogs, happy onigiri’s, carrots, beans and cantaloupe

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Soup Bento Bowl Box with Nishime

4 Jan

Nishime Bento

Happy New Year Everyone!  Wow, I can’t even believe it’s 2012.  My goodness…. my mom use to say that as an adult, time flies and she is right.  My daughter will say time takes forever, but seeing how fast she has grown up makes me sad.  She will no longer be Ms. “Little” Bubbles in a few years.

As we do every year, my husband made nishime for the new year.  Growing up, this was a dish my grandma made and although I’m 100% positive that it was delicious, I didn’t eat it.  (Everything my Grandma made was GOOD!)  As a kid, I didn’t like Japanese food.  Kinda strange, considering it is my favorite type of food now.  In fact, in 2nd grade, my mom took me on a two week trip to Japan and I didn’t eat during the entire trip because they didn’t serve cheese burgers!  I think my mom says I only ate rice for two weeks.  However, I do remember that when we drove into Tokyo, the tour bus passed by McDonald’s and every person on the bus tried to remember where the McDonald’s was and immediately rushed to it during our stop. I distinctly remember eating a lot of cheese burgers that night.

Times have changed and I definitely love Japanese food now, especially nishime. For Ms. Little Bubbles bento, I packed her red bean rice and nishime. Although, you cannot see the nishime as it is behind the green divider and apples. However, the highlight of this lunch is not the nishime (surprisingly!).  Rather, it is the container.  It is supposed to be a soup container, but I think it works without soup too.  Don’t you think it is just the cutest?  Mr. LoveInABento got us matching soup bento boxes.  🙂

Soup Bento Boxes

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Quick 5-Minute Breakfast Bento

16 Dec

Breakfast Bento

Today’s bento for Ms. Little Bubbles is a bit different.  I thought I’d change it up a bit and give her a breakfast bento.  (Plus, I thought she would not be happy with the leftovers AGAIN).  If you put this bento on a plate, it would be a basic breakfast – waffles with strawberries, syrup and eggs.  The syrup is in the blue heart container. Nothing fancy, super fast and hopefully it was good.

Contents: Waffles, strawberries, and a hard boiled egg

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Mickey Mouse Bento

10 Nov

Mickey (Minnie) Mouse Bento

In October our family took a trip to Disneyland. Our first in many years. The kids had a blast, and by the end of the week, we were all exhausted. To celebrate our recent trip, I thought I’d make Ms. Little Bubbles a Mickey Mouse onigiri. Shaping the rice was easy, as I had a onigiri rice mold. The nori facial features were made using a nori punch, so again, it was easy. But the ears were not so easy. I had to free form that and I’m not exactly the best artist. I wish they were a bit bigger so they would cover the entire ear, and the big nori part that is supposed to frame the face isn’t perfect (thus the bow and transformation into Minnie Mouse), but I think we all get the gist of who this is supposed to be. 🙂

In the small dish is some leftover chili, with some cheese hearts for accents.

Contents: onigiri with nori accents, chili, grapes and a cutie

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Simple Cheese Flower Brings A Smile To This Hamburger

13 Sep

Hamburger Bento

This is a perfect leftover bento.  This past weekend we had some friends over and BBQ’d.  We have so much left over I don’t even know what to do with all the food.  I will probably have to freeze a bunch tonight, and am officially over hamburger and chili.  🙂  This is a bento I made yesterday for Ms. Little Bubbles.  It has a small hamburger slider, made with a Hawaiian Sweet Bread Roll.  The hamburger my husband made was really moist and good – he for the most part followed this recipe.  As I mentioned in another blog entry, the apples in the bento were dipped in salty water to keep them from browning.

For this bento, I have a simple tip – cut out a cheese flower, put a cute face on it (made with my quail egg nori punch) and tada – a simple cheese flower that will make your little one smile.

Contents: Hamburger slider on sweet bread, apples, carrots, strawberries, all fruit gummies.

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Super Quick and Easy Sandwich Bento

9 Sep

Soynut Butter and Jelly Sandwich

I woke up this morning and prayed that I had bread in the house. LOL. I had no leftovers to put in a bento and hoped I at least had bread to make a sandwich. This bento is my super quick and easy bento. I didn’t even have lettuce, so I used gai lan (Chinese broccoli) to cover the divider. I used three cute food dividers to make the bento a little cuter, but other than that… it’s a no frills bento.

Contents: Soynut butter sandwich, cheese stars, crackers and a plum

Shoyu (Soy Sauce) Bear Egg

7 Sep

Shoyu (Soy Sauce) Bear Egg

This bento features another hard boiled egg.  But rather than using an egg mold to decorate it, I dipped it in shoyu.  This idea was inspired by Sheri, a fellow bento blogger.  I rolled the hard boiled egg in shoyu and then let it sit for a bit in a bowl as it dried.  I don’t think I let it sit in the shoyu long enough as my brown bear is not as dark as Sheri’s.  But I love the idea!  The ears are part of another hard boiled egg that I attached with tiny hard spaghetti noodles. I read in a bento book that they will get hard as the day goes on. But I’m not 100% sure. I’ll have to ask Ms. Little Bubbles if they were soft when she ate them.

BTW, the strawberries were recently picked when we went to an organic strawberry field.  They are so ripe and juicy!!  Love them!

Contents: Shoyu hard boiled egg, fried rice, carrots, strawberries and crackers.

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