Nothing much to say. Just wanted to share Thursday’s simple sandwich bento. I used the thin sandwich bread. My daughter loves them. I also looooove that cherries are in season! So yummy!
Cute Happy Musubi Bento and My Cool Eco-Friendly, Resuable Paper Towels
25 Jul
OMG! A cute bento. I haven’t made a cute bento in awhile. And as you can see I’m out of practice. LOL! I was struggling to think how I should arrange this bento. I guess making cute bento’s is like anything else, it take practice and imagination. 🙂 This is a really basic bento, nothing fancy, I didn’t even make shoyu hot dogs, just plain hot dogs. Poor Ms. Little Bubbles.
The highlight of this bento (for me anyway) isn’t the actual bento. It’s the fabric beneath the bento. In my effort to be green and conscientious, and thanks to Pinterest, I found a reusable, eco friendly snapping paper towel set. I know strange sounding but it’s actually pretty cool. Luckily, my family is humoring me and using them. I only purchased one “roll” from Mamamade on Etsy so I have to wash them with the laundry in the middle of the week. But I’m loving how much I’m saving. They are actually pretty durable, and given I don’t have paper towels in my kitchen now, I don’t have an excuse not to use them. I know, many of you are probably thinking “why don’t you just use towels from a drawer”. Well, I do have towels in a drawer. But it was still easier to rip a paper towel off and not use a towel. So this method forces me to use them. Plus they are pretty! 🙂
The upside to using these… I’m being eco-friendly and I will eventually save on the cost of paper towels. The downside, if I use them with something that could stain, I need to spray them with a stain remover and if I don’t take them out of the dryer promptly, they will wrinkle (and not look as pretty as the picture below).
On a side tangent, but related to being eco-friendly, I stopped using OxyClean and other cleaners as my carpet and stain remover. Instead I started using white vinegar, water and hydrogen peroxide. As crazy as it sounds…. it works so much better and I don’t feel guilty putting chemicals in my carpet. The downside (because there is always one) the vinegar smell. It’s stinky for a few minutes, but it eventually passes. Although, I kinda like the smell. It reminds me of my grandpa. Growing up, vinegar was my grandpa’s cure all. So, I’m kind of use to the smell. LOL! 🙂
Amusement Park Bento
18 Jul
My kids love going to the amusement park. Although they can’t ride the big scary rides (scary to me!), they love going on the kiddie rides and coasters. The one thing I hate about going to amusement parks is the cost to buy food or drinks. I try to pack food for our family but don’t always have the discipline. But I woke up Sunday morning with enough time and energy to make a fresh batch of rice and easy eggs for a quick bento. My kids love furikake and these cute Hello Kitty furikake packets complimented these bentos perfectly. Although, when my daughter opened her bento and saw eggs, she asked for ketchup. She loves ketchup with her eggs, probably because I do. As a child, I looved ketchup on anything and everything. I hope you do think we are crazy. 🙂
I hope everyone’s week is going well! Happy summer!
Wholly Cow… Its been awhile
5 Jul
Sorry for the lack of posts! I feel bad! The last few months have been nuts. 😦 I can hardly believe that it is July…my summer is almost gone. As with most summers, I take it easy on bento making given my daughter is in summer camp and I try to make lunches fast and easy. This summer is no different. Although, having to plan two snacks and a lunch is stretching my mind a bit.
In May I took an early summer vacation with my family to attend my sister-in-laws wedding. Which by the way, the food stations at the wedding were outrageously awesome! Once we returned home, Ms. Little Bubbles still had two weeks of school left and given how tied and exhausted I was from the trip, I got lazy and ordered her hot lunch from school. Which by the way, she sees as a treat and looooooves it.
On Tuesday I made my first bento in awhile and planned on taking a picture of it. But much to my dismay, my daughter packed her lunch pack herself (great, right?!?) except she put her bento box in sideways! Eiya! Nonetheless, I didn’t bother taking a pic of that.
Above is today’s bento. Most of it is leftover from 4th of July. The grilled peaches were great, as was all the meat my hubs BBQ’d. But the kiddos prefer their simple mac and cheese, go figure. 🙂
Oh, by the way, here is a pic of the gigantic squash my friend grew in her garden! Nuts-o big!! We grilled it on 4th of July.
So… Here’s to more posts and blogs. I have a few more to post to catch up and will work on those. 🙂
A few more sandwich bentos
3 May
This was actually the first bento I made for Ms. Little Bubbles and her friend, the daughter of the silent auction bidder/winner. I wanted to make her first bento from me a fun and happy one, and most little girls love Hello Kitty, so I thought I couldn’t go wrong this a Hello Kitty sandwich bento. It was a rather simple and easy bento to make. I added sakura apple (apples cut with my flower cutter and sesame seeds for flower accents), carrots, blackberries and white and green kamaboko.
Below are a few other sandwich bento that I’ve made the last two weeks. Sorry… I haven’t been very good at keeping up to date. 🙂
Disney Cars Cake
1 May
I’m nervous and excited to show you the very first decorated birthday cake I’ve ever made. It was Mr. Sweet Pea’s third birthday and I decided to make him a Disney Cars cake. I’m not sure what got into me, but I think it had something to do with me being on vacation, feeling really relaxed and thinking I could do (and have the time to do) anything. I found an inspiration cake on the web (I will post the link as soon as it’s back up. It’s broken right now.) and thought “hey, I can do that”. I chose an inspiration that had clean lines and seemed simple to do. I was fortunate and so grateful to my good friends for giving me a cake decorating set last Christmas. It is seriously the grand daddy of all decorating kits. Included in the kit was everything I needed to make the borders and grass. The grass tip is the most awesome tip I’ve ever seen!
The cake was a mix by “Duff”, the Charm City Cakes dude. I contemplated making a cake from scratch, but the mix was on sale and decided to go the easy route and use a mix. The mix was actually really good, but that’s probably because it called for 3 eggs AND oil! I did however decided to make my own fondant. I found a marshmallow fondant recipe and it was relatively easy to make. The hardest part was adding the gel coloring. The directions say to add a little bit at a time to get the desired color you want. But given I wanted a deep black and green, I should have just dumped the container as the little by little method took much longer. I did plan enough time to let the fondant sit overnight which made the colors deeper.
I have to mention that my son’s name was written in yellow on the road leading up to Lighting McQueen, but I’m showing you the one without the name. The cars are his actual die cast cars. As soon as my son blew out the candles, my husband made sure he washed the cars immediately after they were taken off of the cake. The fondant did stick to the wheels and some of the “grass” got on the cars.
All in all, I’m happy for my first cake. I’m not sure how many more cakes I’ll make, but it was fun making this one. 🙂
And the winner gets…. a Panda Bento! :-)
30 Apr
Last month a mom in Ms. Little Bubbles class bid on my bento for our school’s silent auction. Every Monday and Friday in May I feel honored to make her daughter a bento for lunch. I love seeing how excited she is to receive her lunch and it makes me energized to make them. And I think it makes my Ms. Little Bubbles appreciate them a bit more too.
Today’s bento was a fun panda bento. My sister-in-law surprised me with a panda mold and punch, and I LOVE LOVE LOVE them! What a wonderful surprise. 
They are really easy to make, all I had to do was put rice in the mold, and punch the ears and facial features out. And ta-da! A panda!! To compliment the panda, I made shoyu (soy sauce) hot dogs, added strawberries and blueberries and steamed carrots. I’m happy to report that both girls ate everything. Humm… now that I think about it. Ms. Little Bubbles didn’t even have a blueberry in her bento left. I wonder if she ate them or gave them away? For the longest time she REFUSED to eat blueberries. hummm….
Bunny Bait
10 Apr
Are you on Pinterest?! Well, if you are not, it might be a good thing because it’s very addictive. I love Pinterest as I’m a visual person and it’s so nice to see different ideas. Although I have to say, I do a lot more pinning than doing. However, I took the opportunity this past weekend to make something I found on Pinterest – BUNNY BAIT. This is so easy to make and is so good. Probably as addictive as Pinterest! 🙂
Bunny Bait (adapted from SingForYourSupperBlog)
2 bags microwaved popcorn, popped
12 oz. bag Wilton White Candy Melt
1/2 bag Easter M&Ms
pretzel sticks, broken into small pieces
colorful sprinkles
Place the popped popcorn in a large bowl with the broken up pretzels and M&Ms. Heat the candy coating in the microwave in 30 second intervals, stirring after each time, until melted and smooth.
Drizzle the candy coating over the popcorn mixture and stir to coat. The pretzels and M&Ms will sink to the bottom, so make sure to get those stirred in and coated with the rest of the popcorn.
Spread out on a large piece of wax paper, top with a few sprinkles and let cool. Break into pieces and serve in a large bowl.
Easter Bento Bunnies
9 Apr
Wow, is it April already? Easter kinda caught me by surprise. I didn’t plan on making a bunny bento for Ms. Little Bubbles, but I was inspired by Happy Little Bento. Sheri is talented and her bunny made me wake up to Easter and think “hey, I got the stuff to make that!” This bunny is totally inspired by Sheri! The bunny is made from swiss cheese and the flower is made from a fruit rollup. Totally cute and simple.
This is my second Easter bunny. This was a last minute bunny. I woke and remembered that I had a bunny mold that came with a bento kit my husband bought for me. I molded my hapa rice into a bunny, made deli meat features and then nori eyes and nose. Under the cheese is taco meat, which we used to make taco rice the night before. Yes, I said taco rice. To me, taco rice is the epitome of Asian Americans eating anything and everything with rice. I have to admit, I eat rice with almost everything. I think most people that I grew up with do. Eggs… YEP. Spaghetti… YEP YEP. Taco salad… YEP! My husband and I first discovered taco rice in Okinawa. I have to admit, I thought it was WEIRD. And it kinda is. But once you get past the weirdness, it’s actually very good. LOL. (You’ll have to comment if you think I’m crazy! LOL!) Here is a picture of taco rice from In The Wabe
Good Ol’ Standby – Hello Kitty Sandwich
1 Apr
This is just a good ol’ standby lunch. This morning I need to make a simple, fast and easy lunch as Ms. Little Bubbles and I had to leave early for school. Hello Kitty is a good standby for me as it’s fast to make out of white non-hole swiss cheese and ham and I can whip it out quickly. I didn’t have any kamaboko on hand so I made the bow from a slice of ham. Unfortunately, the veggies in my fridge were sparse, so Ms. Little Bubbles just got fruit.
loveinabento 