Bento Corner

Pancake sandwiches with hotdog, edamame, and egg.

I was thinking about what to make for bento last night since these days my mornings are pretty rushed. I was thinking of pasta or maybe tuna or egg salad sandwich, but then remembered that we had pancakes left over from the weekend.

My family has been indulging in freshly whipped cream with fresh fruit and pancakes or French toast for the last few days. This is such a great combination! For French toast we use stale baguette bread and top with organic heavy whipped cream. We add about 1.5 tablespoons of sugar and 1 teaspoon of vanilla to one cup of cream and blend with the hand blender. Place over pancake or French toast and top with whatever fresh fruit on hand. So goooood. I could eat this for breakfast everyday but it cannot be a daily indulgence...much to my daughter's (and my) dismay.

The bento itself took very little time to prepare -- maybe 15-20 minutes or so. Mostly because everything was left over from the weekend. The pancakes have cream cheese and strawberry jam spread in the middle. Bento also includes hotdog flowers with corn, edamame picks, and quail egg chick with umeboshi beak.

I got these animal cutters from Japan. They are made specifically for sandwich bread, but I used them for pancakes this morning. We also use them for cookies, so my daughter thought she was getting cookies in her bento when she saw it this morning. Hahaha...but I bet if I had put in cookies, I would totally tip the "cool mom factor" scale.

This is what my daughter said to me this morning when she saw the onigiri. It's actually made from the bear mold, but I intended it to be a frog. Just imagine the eyes are where the bear's ears would be and the two dots are the nostrils. Can you see it? My daughter called it "obake frog" or "monster frog". Maybe I need to make it a green onigiri to enforce that it is indeed a frog...I got the idea from Ms. Chibibu who runs this site here.

Anyway, it's an umeboshi onigiri, with sweet tamagoyaki, fruit, broccoli wakame salad, and this Hawaiian noodle dish. We got this from a friend's party over the weekend. It's like harusame salad with bits of meat (I suspect pork). If anyone is more familiar with this dish and knows what it is, please let me know.

Had a very emotional weekend with an unexpected passing of a close uncle...hoping he is in a better place now...

Kuma Onigiri made of scallop rice with croquette, kanikama tamagoyaki, salad, and fruit.

Wow, it is hard to maintain a bento blog when you're on break for a while. I actually took my kids on an outing yesterday and made bento again for my daughter.

We went to a local park but took the CalTrain so the kids could enjoy riding on the train. Trains in Japan are quite a bit different from trains in the US. We all had fun though. The kids had more fun riding the train than playing at the actual park.

Bento includes a onigiri made of scallops, tamagoyaki with kanikama, cucmber and wakame salad, honeydew melon, and vegetable croquette (frozen variety). My daughter refused to eat the melon requesting another fruit immediately. She also didn't eat the onigiri even though she raved about how cute it was -- it's because it didn't contain umeboshi/shibazuke...mattaku shouganai musume dawa...

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...