Bento Corner

My daughter got that this was Mickey, but I could not pass the test with my son who is a true, die-hard Disney marketing victim, erh, fan. Son looked at this and said,

son: "Neko? (trans: cat)"

the husband: No, it's Mickey.

son: "Nya-, nya? (Meow, meow?)"

the husband: Mickey!

son *still unconvinced, looks confused*

Critics, I tell you, critics!

Speaking of critics, I'm not really happy with the overall bento coloring from the picture so the critical aspect probably stems from my own DNA. What's that idiom, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree?

I put whole okra in the girl's bento and she has taken a liking to it! Lately she has poo-poo'd green beans and asparagus so I am happy she has taken a liking to another green vegetable. The whole okra is sold frozen in bulk, so I just took that out of the freezer, fried it in a bit of butter to get rid of the slime and rolled in tamagoyaki....

Which reminds me to mention that lately, actually for quite some time now, I have been making tamagoyaki with butter and not with cooking spray or oil. Butter is big on my husband's side of the family -- they take butter as seriously as mayonnaise is taken in Japan -- that is very serious, folks. And I've stopped being part of the butter police and have used it quite liberally in my cooking because the taste of butter cannot be beat. Seriously. I use it now to cook the veggies in curry, obviously in veggie soups, and in general when I'm frying some vegetables I will use butter. All you non-converts, just try it and you'll see what I mean. My daughter no longer likes the tamagoyaki that is sold in bulk here in Japan because it is so bland compared to the butter version I make. Forget about health issues for a second and enjoy the taste of food, I say.

Bento also includes sweetened kidney beans on a pick, tamagoyaki underneath the Mickey ears and menchikatsu ball with cheese (frozen item). Underneath the Mickey face is onigiri with umeboshi. The Mickey is made with cheese and nori -- all made the night before so all I did was place it on top in the morning.

Kuromi-chan bento. Kuromi-chan is made with cheese, nori, and imitation crab.

My daughter actually requested a My Melody bento but I had no ham on-hand so that was a no go. So instead I made this for her. She took a look at it and said, "Something is wrong...Kuromi-chan should not have red cheeks!"

Jeez man, everyone's a critic.

Underneath Kuromi-chan is an onigiri mixed with hijiki, corn and edamame picks, and avocado and tomato salad. The girl has started eating tomatoes -- it sprang up almost overnight. So strange. I just mixed cut up tomatoes and avocadoes with a Chinese style salad dressing and added fresh lemon juice. The salad has a lot of fresh lemon juice to keep the avocadoes from turning color and gives it a nice burst of flavor.

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).