Bento Corner

So this was my daughter's Valentine's Day Bento because stars are so representative of Valentine's Day, yes?

No? No matter, that's what she got.

I fumbled about in the morning trying to find the medium heart shaped cutter, but it's neatly put away given my organizational skills (read: hopelessly lost). But I did find the small and medium sized stars so that's what I used.

Valentine's Day is not that popular in Japan -- no need to create Valentine's Day goodies for each student/teacher, so it was not that big of a deal. I believe the tradition in Japan on 2/14 is for the gal to give a Valentine to the guy she likes and then further on in March on White Day, the guy gives the girl a gift on this day to reciprocate. And that's History 101 from my childhood memories when I gave some guy a Valentines and never received anything in return on White Day (que somber violins)...

Back to bento, the sandwich is made of raisin bread and inside is a kuromame kinako spread:

OMG this stuff is really, really good. I bought mine from Pal, but you can also get it here.  If you love peanutbutter, which has been banned from our house ever since discovering our son's slight allergy to peanuts, and love kinako, this is the spread for you. I was eating it in small spoonfuls last night while watching Season 2 of Prison Break...

Guilty mom moment...*head down in shame*

Nah-, not really.

But you better believe I would be all over my kids for doing this since I'm also quite the hypocrite.

Bento also includes broccoli, wakame, and cucumber salad tossed in an oil-based soy dressing, mikan oranges and strawberry for dessert and cheese hearts on top of the sandwiches. Wrapping sandwiches in wrap keeps them dry and is easier for the girl to pick up since ther is another sandwich underneath.

This is a bento idea that I got from my latest bento book purchase. These are actually meant to look like dango, but they are actually small rice balls! Cute, yes? In the book they actually had toothpicks attached to the end to make it appear as if they were on wooden skewers. But since I didn't have any on hand, I just placed them in cups.

The steps were pretty easy. Just take piping hot rice and drop a small amount  in saran wrap and shape it into a tight ball or rice. Roll the rice in sakura denbu (fish flakes), kinako (grounded soy bean which you mix with a bit of salt and sugar to taste), and the last one is nori furikake. Aonori is also a good option and leaving one dango just of plain rice is really pretty too.

I taste tested quite a few with my son as we made them -- very flavorful and very good. My kids liked the kinako one best as that is their favorite kind of mochi. Speaking of which I tasted kinako soft cream a few weeks ago at Namja Town (thanks for taking us E!). They had all sorts of soft cream flavors and wasabi was one of them. The kinako soft cream was so-so. Was not brave enough to try the wasabi ice cream though...

Back to bento, I also fried some frozen whole okra in butter to get rid of the slimy factor and rolled them in tamagoyaki. My daughter really liked this too. And the last item is a menchi-katsu ball with cheese (frozen item).

Hot dog bento since my daughter started requesting them again.

Thanks to all the education I received from the commentary about "pigs in blankets", I was all set and ready to induldge in making them again when my son and I came across these ready made hot dogs sold at the nearest convenience store. Excellent!

These hotdogs were called hot dogs with mayo -- mayo is serious business here. The bun is super soft and there is a small sausage inside with a thick white stick that was cheese-like...So I thought "Hey, there is cheese in here too! Calcium! Nutrion! Great!" So I re-read the packaging to confirm and the contents were restricted to just two ingredients -- sausage and mayo.

Wait, no cheese...

Just a whole stick of mayo (!!)...yeesh, what's a mama to do?

Glanced at the clock, saw that we were running late, laughed in the face of cardiac arrest and shoved not one, but 2 in my daughter's bento, that's what.

Bento also includes cucumber salad with chirimen jayko (baby sardines) and wakame, and orange segments with apple star.

If you've got the work commute blues, check this out and cheer yourself up!

Rush Hour for Tokyoites.

If this happens to be your commute, my deepest sympathies...