Sheep go baa~

Two face bentos in a week? I must be crazy!

But the picture of the sheep was soo damn cute I had to do it, and I wanted my first use of quail eggs to be awesome~ The sheep idea is from the Yum-Yum Bento Box: Fresh Recipes for Adorable Lunches

Menu: Spam hash brown, bacon potato mash, sweet pickled capsicum, rice made to look like a sheep, and broccoli and tomatoes.



Now I wanted to keep the second layer simple, just a mix of easy dishes and stuff I had around. But the first layer with the sheep was my main focus and again simple over complex. The idea was to have the cute sheep in the middle of a "field" of broccoli with mini tomatoes (from the garden too!) to add colour. And finally carrot flowers to tie the two together and add a splash of colour.

PS Landrins bento is in the photo and as its a bit bigger then mine I added saltants to take up more space and be a sweet snack.

Now to munch as I am looking forward to it!

Three bentos

Since I got back from Vietnam I have been keen to get back into bento making. I think that the arrival of my new bento books from Amazon, visiting a Daiso in Vietnam and finding a place in my town that sells quail eggs has gotten me excited.

So one of the new books from Amazon was Easy Japanese Cooking: Bento Love which is actually a bento book for maily bentos! So I made landrin a variation of one of the bentos and he loved it, apparently the way to a mans heart is a steak lunch!

Menu: Steak!, sweet pickled capsicum, mushroom, corn and rice.



While simple and quick the colours were effective and also very filling and manly.

The next bento came from the Yum-Yum Bento Box: Fresh Recipes for Adorable Lunches. Much more girly and suited for myself.

Menu: spam hash brown, beans and bacon, tiger onigiri, jelly, octodog, and a chicken drumket.



The lunch box in the book was only a single layer, so I had to do some thinking about how to fill the lunch box. I dont think I did the best I could have however I feel that the really cute tiger onigiri helps to cover the bad planning of the second layer. And spam hash brows are awesome! Very yummy.

I seem to be having an uploading issue with the third photo... But it was cute and yummy :P However the third book I got was Cute Yummy Time: 70 Recipes for the Cutest Food You'll Ever Eat. While not a direct bento book, should have heaps of ideas for when I am stuck and want to make my lunch a bit more cuter.

Tomorrow I think I will be making another bento out of the Yum-yum book, and I will be using my new ingredient! Quail eggs!

Today's bento

Today's bento is based very closely on the previous two days. Though I was in such a rush I did not get a chance to make it a bit more pretty.


Menu: lasagna, potato salad, salad, salted cucumber, and sweet carrots.

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Yesterday bento

Yesterday I took a photo of my bento at lunch time, you can see I have melted the cheese, mmm cheese.


Menu: lasange, salad, onigiri and shanghai wok tossed eggplants.

I liked the recipe for the egggplants and will definitely use again.

Simple meatball bento

While normally on Sunday I like to do a more complex bento I have taken up beach volleyball on Monday nights. This means I play volleyball on Monday and tuesday nights and therefore it is best to have foods ready for the start of the week. Sunday is now cooking day.

I was busy in the kitchen making a Singapore chicken and potato curry for volleyball nights and some Japanese style sweet grilled fish for dinner. But I found time to get my bento lunch done.


Menu: meatballs, salted cucumber, onigiri, sweet carrots, and a simple salad.

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Friday bento comp

Friday bento comp again and the entries are below:



I went with a simplistic effort, fried rice with a bite of chicken. A single layer bento that while tastey and filling, definetly not creative.



Sisters garden bento is amazing and definetly wins the day!

The challenage is on and I shall have to up my game next time.

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Rolled meat with salad

Mmm rolled meats with vegetables rock and are so easy to make when you get the hang of it. The other salad of sweet cucumber and mandarin is pretty damn nice too, it walks the line of a sweet savoury dish very well.


Menu: rolled meat, curry egg, sweet cucumber and mandarin salad, bacon mash with octodog.

Though this is all just leftovers from the picnic I packed for Territoy Day dinner XD should be nice and tasty for tonight too.

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Weekend bento O.o?

So every Saturday I go to my friends house to do some pen'n'paper roleplaying.

Being me I have now decided that taking a bento as dinner is more fun then buying my meal.



Menu: rolled steak with carrots and beans and onion, eggs with salt, pickles, happy rice with seasoning and steamed eggplants with miso sauce.

By the way the onion rolled meat is awesome. I now think the rolled meat is going on my face list as it is really easy, tasty, pretty and can be varrated easily.

However, it seems I am now trained to make enough for two bentos... Though this worked out well as I made two mini bentos for landrin and my lunch as well XD



For this mini bento I used mini onigiri flower moulds and pickles at decorate.



Simple mini bentos are pretty fun and a great way to use leftovers. I find I get leftovers as I overestimate how much will fit in a bento.

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Friday lunch challenage

So after a crushing defeat last week by my sister I knew this week I would have to bring it to the Friday lunch off between my sister and I.



My Menu: rolled steak with carrot and beans stuffing, pickles, cherry tomatoes with cucumber stars on picks, simmered mushrooms in soy sauce and happy flower rice.



Sister menu: terryaki chicken donburi, rolled omlette, pickles, cherries, and tempura vegetables.

I won cause of the smiley face on my rice. Let me know what you think.

Grilled chicken bites

Finally made a bento worth sharing again.

While I have still been making my lunch I have not been doing anything great to post. Today's is both pretty and yummy!

Menu: grilled chicken bites, curry flavoured egg, red bean cake, pickles, honey carrots, salted cucumber, and rice.


The soy used to base the chicken was a dark soy cause it has a much stronger and sweeter taste. Both the pickles and the red been cakes are from Takayama, Japan from my little side trip last month.

Also I will be showing off some of my new bento supplys that I brought home soon. I have soo many new toys I don't know which ones to play with.

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Octopus rice

Mmm leftovers with octopus rice is good. I forgot that I needed to take a photo of the main side, but got the rice before I ate it.

Menu: eggplant in miso, asparagus in dashi and mini hamburgers. The rice side has got cute octopus swimming. So easy, so cute and soo tasty XD




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Leftover lunch

I wanted to cook something a little complicated last night for dinner so lunch was a bit of leftovers. Dinner was something like, roast herb chicken with fennel and citrus rice.

So for lunch I have leftover citrus rice and some eggplant, tomato and olive side dish, and asparagus. The rest is just normal potato salad, pan fried chicken and pickled daikon.

Very yummy!




And of course dinner was great and complimented by a nice chadonay.

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Triangle onigiri

Today's lazy post!


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Crabs on the beach

Hehe I put my crabbies on the beach to day :-)

Using half the container as a rice dish make the bento soo much easier and I think looks pretty.

The other side has chilli egg and eggplant, gyoza and pork cooked in gyodon style (note the use of mayo on top)

Tomorrows lunch is going to be onigiri XD


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Indochine

So I wanted some indonesiean food at home and went a head and made some. One of my favorite recipes from when I was a child is pork in dark soy and add one of my favorite recipes from today chili eggplant and egg and it's a winning combination.

But I spent too much time cooking so I did not make the bento pretty but rest assured it was damn tasty!



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Daikon and carrot salad

This is actually yesterdays lunch. But I forgot to put it up until now.. Woolies had daikon in like they randomly do so I brought some wondering what to make I found a recipe for daikon and carrot salad. It's pretty easy just chop vegetables and some rice vinager and put in fridge for a day ... Good thing I made it early!



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Tempura bento

So friday I also made a bento for my sister, landrin and myself. I made a favorite in my house, karage chicken~

I think I am getting better at portions, I dd not have any gaps that I had to madly try and think of any thing XD



For today's lunch I kept it very simple cause tempura can be over powering in texture. Sesame rice, salty cucumbers and mixed tempura.

Yesterday at the shop I found cute little sauce containers so I made the tempura dipping sauce to go with lunch~



I am already excited about making tomorrows :-) it's going to have gyoza!

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Hokkien noodles

Menu: vegetable and hokkien noodles, potato salad, sweet apple and egg.

Simple and tast, though if I had a few more minutes I would had done something with the egg.



Left over bento!
Menu: taco sandwich, curry egg, potato salad, brocolli, and sweet apple dumpling sandwiches.


I first tried to make dumpling taco sandwiches but the mince kept spliting the bottom :( Australian bread is not great for pocket sandwiches as I have to be super careful with the crusts as there is only just enough room for the press.

But I am very happy with the apple sandwiches, landrin has been a huge fan of the sweet apples so I have been doing them all week but I wanted to mix it up today :-D

If they are good I might experiment more with sweet sandwiches. The dumpling style is good for low level of filling where the more traditional sandwich press is better for higher level of fillings.

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Teady bear

Being a Sunday yesterday I had more time to work on my bento. Since I had not done a face bento in a while I just had to make a teady bear bento, and yes landrin has one too!


Menu: mini chicken drumsticks, potato salad, salad, teady bear rice and simmered sweet apple.

The teady bear was hard and he did not come out as cute as the book but I think he's pretty awesome for my first go. I was ment to make a egg mesh but ended up just making an omlette, though I now see how I can make a mesh and might try it another day this week just to see if I can. Since the patty was too thick I cut it in half to make the face and the rest is thanks to food dye and cheese.

The eyes and face are the hardest as I don't have a nori punch, though I think I shall get one when I am in japan in 6 weeks XD I have my shopping list ready~

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Somen noodles

Easter is over, back to making my lunch. But there is always room for left over Easter eggs.


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More lunch

Risotto onigiri, karage chicken and vegtables~

Nothing exciting today


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Risotto bento

Not as much decoration in today's bento, but instead I got it done nice and quickley.

The main dish is my fave smoked chicken and mushroom rissotto, using a extremely simple cheating recipe and tastes like I have made it by stiring it over the stove the whole time XD the cheat of course is a rice cooker, what a great cooking device.

As with late I seem to be in a yellow mood and over do the colour in my bento. However, it's a happy colour so I don't mind. Am looking forward to one of my other faves, karage chicken~ mmm

The brocoli is a first, I am impressed with the overall look. And finally I went with a min egg salad due to space constrantes.






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Panda invasion

My latest order arrived last nice XD not anything dramatic, more cute sauce bottles, a couple of paper cups and extra long picks.

So I used one of my new sauce bottles for the salad dressing and a matching panda pick for the meatballs, however due to space considerations they went next to each other >.<



I am happiest about my octopus, he has a headband~

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Plum chicken

So there's pizza in my bento o.O well I had to use what's on hand and after an hour and a half in traffic I am not cooking dinner. Pizza night!

I made ham, cheese and nori rolls, my cooking manga book calls them naruto rolls which is cute. German potatos and shallot flowers to balance the meal. Too much carbs for a perfect balance today but you get that some days :P



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Bunnies

So I got to 7.30pm Sunday night and went "omg lunch!" so apparently I can throw together a nice bento in no time and without going shopping all weekend :-P



Some leftover curry rice and little imagination and an ideas book saves everytime, hehe.

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Friday leftover lunch

Being the end of week I made my lunch out of whatever I found leftover in the fridge.



Only thing I made last night was the rolled omlette which tastes good but not as visually attractive as I wanted but I had not made it for a while and might have rushed it.

The goyza sandwiches are so damn easy they are going to be a regular though I did nat make stamps for mine today, that's what you get at the end of the week.

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Goyza sandwich

So flicking through my awesome present of 501 bentos (while not recommend for a beginner, great foe ideas once you have a few tools and recipes) and I saw some thing that I just had to try as I love goyza and already had the tool!



So I made ham and cheese half sandwiches~ and to remind what is inside I made a stamp out of ham and cheese and lightly toasted it on top XD




The only reason I like to show both the bentos I make, even though the same foods are in them, is the differences in packing styles.





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Classic bento

So this is actually almost exactly a bento out of one of my books.

Mine is the same but a little smaller. I have found that grapes are an excellent filler the same with an egg~

Menu: onigiri, grapes, capsicum, cucumber, tomato, Japanese potato salad, mini hamburgers, egg, orange cake and strawberry.



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Back into it

So back from holidays and making bento again. A new part of the challenge now is landrin requires a bento for work too.

Even though I had not made one for a while and had lent my books I came up with a nice bento~

Menu: karage chicken with mayo, rice with seasoning and salad and to finish orange poppy cake and a strawberry.



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Noodle bento

I had a go at yakisoba Thursday night and it was nice. I also tried stuffed baby peppers with bacon, however they had rather a bite...






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Family bento

So in my last eBay order I also picked up a family bento. Since I am only making for two I have not compacted it but have a look at what I have prepared for volleyball dinner:



Roast chicken and salad


Cute box


All wrapped up

My lunch: is just a quick throw together, I was having too much fun with the larger bento.


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Square frying pan~

So I finally got my square frying pan (thanks eBay) and made some rolled omlette!

Here is a serise of photos of the process:



Pan is square~


Half cooked mixture.


Roll, roll, roll.


Finished rolling let finish cooking. Done!

Enough for dinner and my lunch.
Menu: omlette, karage chicken, japanese style mash with shitaki mushrooms, pickled vegetables and jello (two toned~)





Final note: with the power being out for half the day Saturday I went and visited my vegetable patch. I pulled out all of the dead plants and was shocked to find tha four of my eggplants were still going and even had two fruits on one plant! So I found some poles and tied the up, hopefully they keep growing happily XD



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