Bento Corner

As I was making this bento I thought about Peter Gabriel and sang that song as I was assembling the monkey together -- geek at heart, absolutely. I just googled the lyrics and true to form, I had the lyrics completely wrong. And of course after all these years, it all makes sense now about shocking monkeys! Erh, slow much?

I have 2 pictures of the same monkey because I assembled the one in the pink box first and my daughter said it was too much food. She can eat more that this but she is a really, really, really slow eater. She will chew one morsel of food for like 5 minutes -- I am so not kidding. Well, I guess it's more like a minute, but even that is a really long time. So I have to adjust bentos a bit so that she can finish in time with her peers and function as part of the classroom unit. This is very important in Japanese culture -- do as everyone else does, don't stick out, follow suit, be orderly... So I stuffed it all in the smaller yellow box and everything fit except the broccoli and a few beans. Doesn't the color scheme in the yellow box look better anyway?

The monkey is made of tamagoyaki, cheese face, carrot cheeks, and nori face. I made the cheese part the night before and just placed on top of the tamagoyaki in the morning. Underneath the face is an onigiri with hijiki mixed in and underneath the two ears are tamagoyaki with spinach. Under the heart carrots are sweet kidney beans and Japanese sweet potatoes.The last item is the mayo shrimp dumpling (frozen item).

I also packed a small box of whole yogurt mixed with maple syrup and added cut kiwi and raisins -- the raisins should be soaked a bit in hot water first to soften. This was dessert, which can always be eaten quickly and needs only 5 seconds of chewing each bite. How convenient for my girl.

So I got this new bento book from, say it with me, Pal System!

I really like this book because it's a compilation of bentos for kindergartners from 26 different moms. I got the French toast presentation idea from the bento  book, but used my own recipe.

The recipe in the book calls for thick sandwich bread, milk, egg, and sugar. To this basic recipe I add vanilla, cinnamon, and brown sugar. And I like to use french bread or some baguette but didn't have any on hand I used butter rolls which worked very nicely. Sometimes I have used whipping cream or half and half in place of milk -- this makes it a bit richer, but is really good. Fry the dipped bread in butter and when done, cut into heart shapes. If I were serving this at home I would serve it with a side of whipped cream and fresh fruit.

Bento also includes breakfast sausages on the left pick and a meatball on the pick on the right. And added broccoli and cauliflower to balance out the meal (read: so the teachers won't have to remind me that bentos need to be nutritionally balanced).

Been wanting to blog about Japanese pizza for quite some time now. In case you don't know the Japanese pizza experience is one that can take you by surprise if you do not know what to look for...and therefore what to avoid.

The pizza ordering process in our house goes something like this:

me: OK I think this one looks good! Look at the picture!

the mister: Don't even show me -- the picture is deceiving. Just read me the toppings.

me: OK, tomato sauce, camembert mix cheese, fried garlic...oh crap. It also has squid.

the mister: Next.

me: Ooooh! This one's good! Fresh mozzarella cheese, tomato, fresh basil, pimento, onion...oh crap. It's got corn...and mayo.

the mister: Next.

And so on until we finally find a more Americanized version of pizza that the husband can tolerate -- no seafood, no mayo, no corn is the rule of thumb.

The mister has been away for some time now and with all the cold snow I thought it the perfect opportunity to order take out pizza that daddy normally would not let us order.

The pizza I prefer is from Pizza-La but the husband insists it already has mayo mixed into the tomato sauce and therefore should totally be avoided. I called and found that they were not delivering anyway due to the snow. So I called Dominos and ordered the Quattro Giant -- chicken-teri (chicken teriyaki with mayo), Domino's deluxe, garlic master, mayo jaga (mayo and potatoes!). The pizza was OK but they were really heavy on the mayo so it was super rich. And I love mayo so you can just imagine just how much there was on top when even I thought it was a bit much.

So yeah, the Japanese pizza experience -- know what to look for and what to avoid before ordering.

Above bento is left over pizza cut into star shapes, strawberries, spinach tamagoyaki with a cheese heart on top.

My parents live about an hour's train ride away in Yokohama, so the kids and I visited them this past weekend. We knew it would be cold but had no idea it would snow like this on Sunday.

The kids walked home in their tennis shoes and me in my broken down Bass clogs -- the heel is broken off in parts. Still totally wearable, but only in good weather. And they look perfectly fine from the top, just are no longer skid proofed on the bottom...what's left of it anyway. It's hard for me to throw stuff away, especially comfortable shoes.

By the time we got home, my feet and legs were completely soaked.

The kicker is, I contemplated wearing my Ugg boots  for the trip, but my dad hates them. Well, he didn't say hate exactly, but when he saw my Dansko boots he immediately said, "Honey, these boots are really nice. I like these much better." So I'm not blaming my dad for this or anything, but somehow I think it's karmically connected and worth mentioning. 

My mom ended up helping me take the kids home part way -- my clogs were no match for the snow and I was sliding around all over the place and I could not handle 2 kids from slipping, let alone myself.

Note to self: must overcome boot insecurities