Bento Corner

Bunny/billy goat onigiri, okra wrapped in tamago, tamgoyaki heart with imitation crab, and ketchup shrimp.

These were meant to be rabbits but I had a really difficult time with the ears and the husband labeled this the billy goat bento and indeed, they look more like billy goats than rabbits. Hindsight is so 20-20...

I used hanpen (fish cakes) for the ears but they weren't holding up and so I placed them in cups for support but as you can see it's not really helping. And the ears are placed so close together they look more like horns...of goats. Thanks, husband...friggin' smart mouth...

Speaking of which, my son has followed in the footsteps of one parental unit and is walking towards the evil path of smart mouth-dom. It's a bit disturbing but also quite comical.

There is a gesture in Japanese that people (mostly kids) use -- akkan beh--  which loosely translates as "nanny nanny boo-bo". This is said usually accompanied by this gesture:

My kids are not allowed to do this to each other nor to anyone in the household. Sometimes the kids will do it in protest to something I've said. My daughter is smart enough to mutter it under her breath and once in a while I will catch her and demand an immediate apology. But my son, being the up and coming smart mouth, did the following in an act of defiance toward me:

son : akkan-beh

me: Son, is it time for you to sit in the corner?

son: No........

son: *mutters* beh-da (shortened version of akkan-beh. For the record, 3 year olds don't mutter well).

me: Hey, son! I am not kidding. Do you want to goto the corner?!

son: No! I sorry mama! *quickly skirts away*

moments later...son returns now holding his miniature crocodile. Points it in my general direction and says

son:  akkan-beh-da!

me: *muffled giggle, trying to hide the smirk from my face*

son: *impatiently waiting for a reaction* MAMA!!! Crocodile said BEH- to you!

See what I mean? Sassy, yet innovative. Constantly pushing my limits. It's quite obvious to me this did not stem from my DNA...

This bento was made of all left overs from the prior night before. I was emailing a friend of mine (Hi, E! I just have that one friend, E. Sad.) who didn't think about using left overs for bento. You can change the left overs a bit and create different dishes so it's not exactly the same thing.

We had chirashi-zushi the night prior with shrimp, edamame, ikura, etc. on top. I had plenty of sumeshi (rice with vinegar and sugar mixed in) so I wanted to use that. I heated up the rice in the microwave and added about a teaspoon of water to make it easy to mold, plus the sugar/vinegar mixture helped the rice mold better as well.

We had scads of tuna so filled the onigiri with that instead of the fall back umeboshi which even my daughter has admitted to becoming a bit tired of...So decided on tuna mayo rolls.

To make the filling for the tuna rolls, you need:

• tuna
• mayo
• bit of soy sauce

Mix together and place filling inside the roll. Then make a thin crepe-like omelet with eggs and butter and roll around the rice.

Place the edamame on picks, add imitation crab stars on top.

For the ketchup shrimp, there is a recipe in my bento book for ketchup shrimp:

• 4 small shrimp
• 1/2 teaspoon of olive oil
• 1/3 clove of garlic (diced)
• Tablespoon of ketchup
• salt and pepper
• parsley

Spread oil in a small pan over low heat and sautee garlic until auroma is released. Then add the shrimp. Add ketchup and salt and pepper to taste. Continue sauteeing until most of the liquid is evaporated.  

But I didn't follow this and instead used the remnants of butter from the omelet and sauteed the shrimp in that and added this pasta sauce. Then added that to the bento.

Placed some prunes and sliced apples for dessert and fini! The bento was a bigger hit than the dinner the night before.

But what to do with the rest of the sumeshi still left over? I didn't want to feed my family more chirashi-zushi so since we had some marinated meat and red leaf lettuce, we had Korean style bulgogi and sanchu -- at least I believe this is what it's called (please feel free to educate me if I'm completely off the mark). Korean style BBQ is my absolute favorite kind of food so I'd love to talk about it at length.  Anyway, it's like temaki-sushi (hand-rolled sushi), but you use the red leaf lettuce in place of nori. It's really good if you add a bit of sriracha sauce into the rolls too.

In the US I used to use a bottled sauce for the meat, but maybe I'll try this next time...

I made this bento 2 weeks ago but never got around to posting it.

I tried a couple of new recipes from the new bento book I bought so I thought I would at least post that.

There are 2 rolled sandwiches with nori on picks which can hardly be seen in the photo. For these you will need

• nori
• sandwich bread
• ham
• cheese
• butter

On a piece of bread spread the butter, place the nori on the butter, then cheese, and ham. Roll the sandwich and secure in plastic wrap. I left if over night and cut them in the morning. I was going to just pack sandwiches as the main carb in the girl's bento but I thought the sandwiches were on the dry side and would have tasted better with mayo, so I was hesitant to just fill most of the bento with this sandwich.

In addition to the sandwich I packed a potato and broccoli augratin. This was also taken from the bento book, but I changed the recipe a bit.

To make this you will need:

• A potato the size of your fist
• 1/2 cup of broccoli flourets (I used frozen)
• 1/4 cup of any kind of cheese (I used sliced cheese and parmesan)
• 1/4 cup of milk
• salt and pepper to taste

Wash the potato and poke holes in it with a fork. Then microwave until the potato is soft -- about 3-4 minutes depending on the potato and microwave. Once the potato is done, peel the potato and slice into bite size pieces. While you are peeling the potato, defrost broccoli in the microwave or if you are using fresh broccoli, steam them and cut into bite size pieces.

Combine potato and broccoli in a bowl and add milk, cheese and season with salt and pepper. Then place in foil and in the toaster oven for about 5 minutes until everything is bubbly.

The book version does not call for pepper nor parmesan cheese, but I found it to be too bland without the parmesan cheese. What would have been really good is to sautee the potatoes in some butter and chopped onions first (maybe garlic if you are into it) then follow the recipe with these potatoes instead of using just plain.

The last item in this bento is mini-omu-rice. This is a frozen item from Pal, but making omu-rice is pretty easy...but I hardly ever do it since I'm personally not too fond of them. To make omu-rice you will need:

• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup of left over rice
• 3 Tablespoons of chopped onion
• 3 Tablespoons of frozen mixed veggies (peas, corn, carrot variety)
• 3 Tablespoons of chopped meat
• salt and pepper to taste
• ketchup
• 2 Tablespoons of butter

Melt one tablespoon of butter in a frying pan and sautee onions until soft. Then add raw chopped meat first and once that's cooked add vegetables. If you are using cooked meat then add at the same time as veggies. Microwave left over rice and once it's warm,add to the pan with veggie/meat mix and incorporate evenly without mashing the rice. Then season rice mixture with ketchup, salt, and pepper to taste.

In a separate pan melt remaining tablespoon of butter. Scramble the egg and pour into the pan. Create a thin omelet and place the rice mixture in the middle of the omelet. Fold the edges of the omelet over the rice and plate it up with the seam side down. Garnish with more ketchup.

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.