Bento Corner

OK, so this is not really a bento, but rather what my daughter ate for breakfast this morning. At her request, I heated up some vegetarian pizza and served her some sliced apple both of which were left over from this weekend's activities.

Half way through her first slice of pizza, she began taking the sliced olives started arranging them on the apple.

Now you may be thinking that this should not even be placed within the bento section, but just feast your eyes on this:

Behold, ladies and gentlemen, the culinary talents of a 4 and a half year old!

Moments like these just make a mama so proud...

Ultraman umeboshi onigiri with hanpen, tamagoyaki, wakame salad, and fruit.

So the girl can be girly, but also loves Ultraman and karate. Really, she would rather be taking karate lessons than her current ballet lessons -- but the karate place won't take her until she is 5 years old...

The Ultraman was pretty easy to make since I just used sliced ham and eggs for the eyes. But in retrospect, I should have just done everything with nori since it stays in place better than the ham and egg. My daughter said when she opened the bento, it didn't look like Ultraman. It also doesn't help that the bento gets thrown in all directions when she carries it to school while swinging her backpack all over the place. She, of course, counters that the disarray of her bento is attributed to my "fast driving" on the freeway. Riiiiiight...well, sort of. Are four and a half year olds really that observant??

Moving on, I sliced hanpen and put some cheese in the middle and fried it in a bit of butter. The wakame salad has shirasu and mandarin oranges tossed in a soy, non-oil dressing. Bento also includes a sweet tamagoyaki and grapes and edamame on picks.

Inari bento with nimono and cherries.

Had some left over gomoku sushi with unagi mixed in. I think I made this 2 weeks ago and froze the left overs. So I defrosted it this morning thinking I would just pack it as chirashi, but my daughter woke up earlier than usual and said she would rather have inari...I think this is why I end up so rushed in the mornings since I don't stick to my original plans...*note to self: work on time management skills*

Also had left over nimono from last week (lotus root, shiitake, and carrot) and the edamame from the freezer. Since I didn't make it to the farmer's market this weekend, I just used the maraschino cherries from the fridge.

My daughter will be on summer break as of Friday afternoon, so we are all (well, really, mostly I am) looking forward to a bit of a break from shuttling her to and from preschool for a few weeks. Not to say that this would mean I get any rest since we are all busy running around nowadays...

Anpanman umeboshi onigiri with niku jyaga, tamagoyaki, and apple.

The Anpanman looks a bit scary, but this is the best I could do with the time I had. The red is all umeboshi, mouth and eyebrows are made of kizami konbu, and the eyes are made of nori. The niku jyaga was made with the thin beef we had from the weekend. It turned out pretty good so I will post the recipe later. My daughter currently loves the tamagoyaki with kanikama so I'll keep making it until she decides otherwise.

I showed my daughter this bento this morning and she said "Anpanman! Wow! Take out the apple please I don't want it." It's b/c she doesn't like the peel of the apple. I kept it in the bento and ignored her request and she had finished it all with no problems. She said she thought the peel would be bitter, but since it was sweet she was able to eat it all.

This weekend the weather should be nice so we have outings and birthdays to attend. Hope it's a great weekend for everyone!