Shaped Eggs Bento

Hello there!

I have too many eggs, so I went ahead yesterday and boiled a bunch of them. I used my egg molds to give them shapes but my eggs were a bit small for the molds. The shapes aren't as clear as they should be! Oh well.. still taste yummy! Fresh eggs!

Both boxes are put together exactly the same way. I made them in chain, adding each elements to each box at the same time.

Here's my box:

Top tier: I have a little heart shaped cup of lentil (left), mini-cucumber slices with my little duck skewers (love those!) to make them easier to grab, and a vegetable curry I had in the freezer.

Lower tier: I have 1 1/2 hard boiled egg, one bunny shaped, and one bear shaped (that one's only 1/2 egg, that's why it's kind of sunk in). With that I have 2 star shaped Onigiri, and red bell pepper pieces for color, and to fill the gaps.



My husband has the exact same box except that his skewers are vegetables instead of ducks, and his whole boiled egg is a little car instead of a bunny!

I don't think I ever really explained how to use the egg molds, or did I? I can't remember, and I can't find it! So here it is!

Here's the egg molds I use:


Those things are two sided, so there's the same shape on both side and they have little "clamps" on the side to secure them shut.

1- You hard boil the eggs like you would for anything else.

2- When the eggs are done, You break the shell all around and QUICKLY pass them under cold water. You don't want to cool the egg, just loosen up the shell.

3- You peel the eggs while still hot and put them in the mold. That's the sucky part really, but if you use a cold spoon to loosen the shell it helps.

4- Close the mold (make sure to clamp it shut), and put in the fridge for 10-15 minutes (until cool).

5- Carefully un-mold the eggs, and either serve (or put in a box), or color by soaking in water and food coloring for 10-15 minutes).

Et Voila! Shaped eggs!

The smaller ones I usually use whole, the heart shaped one and the star shaped ones make great shape for "halved eggs". You just slice the egg in two, and present it yolk-up. That would make awfully cute deviled eggs!

That's it for today folks! Keep the Cutsy curse alive!

Happy Bento Everybody!

Quick and Easy Bentos

Today my husband needed to leave early, so I got everything ready to go last night. I just had to put the boxes together this morning. Nothing to cook (and let cool).

Here's my box:


Clockwise, starting from the top:

I have ground turkey cooked with vegetables (leftover from dinner last night).

In the next tier, I have coriander scented bulgur with a container of Guacamole to eat with the cucumbers.

Finally in the 3rd tier I have cut cucumbers, and lentils in a little heart shaped cup.

My husband has the same foods, but in a differently shaped box:


The ground turkey dish was very simple, I did not follow a recipe, but rather went with what I had on hand.

Basically, I sauteed 1/2 red onion, celery, carrots, sweet potato and asparagus (all of them diced smallish) in a dutch oven, added drained diced tomatoes that I had almost pureed (chunky puree if you will). I added a mix of coriander, garlic granules, salt and pepper.

In the meantime, I added the same spice mix to the ground turkey, added minced green onions and browned that lightly in a separate pan.

I added the turkey to the vegetables, added a little broth and cooked that until everything was done.

The bulgur was just soaked with vegetable broth and spices (salt, pepper, coriander). Et Voila!

Next week I want to give myself another challenge: Cutsy Curse Challenge! The goal being to make my bentos cute! I've been sloppy on that score lately!

So there, have a great weekend!!

Happy Bento Everybody!

My first "Sushi Bowl"... kind of...

Today I'm home, so I made my bento and ate it right away. I wanted to try and make a "Sushi Bowl" but I didn't want to use rice. So here's what I did:

I used my "round box" I got from Kamei (didn't want to use my cute Donburi box that my husband got me for my birthday cause I didn't want it to smell like shrimp). I removed the 3 containers that usually divides it to make it work.

1- I put a layer of Bulghur that I soaked with chicken broth, salt and pepper. Ideally you want to use sushi rice, but I felt rebellious today! ;op

2- On top of that, I put pieces of avocado, spread over the whole surface. After slicing the avocado, I coated it in lime juice to keep it green.

3- Then I sliced a mini-cucumber and halved half of the slices. I stood those half-rounds between the avocado pieces to add dimension to the whole thing (thanks to the WW Core board for the english lesson AND entertainment LOL). I put the rounds here and there wherever there was space left, covering some, but not all, of the avocado. (I wanted both the cucumber and avocado to show through).

4- I sprinkled shredded carrots over the whole thing (for color).

5- I placed steamed shrimps over the whole thing, spacing them enough to see the layers under them. It'd be better with slightly smaller shrimps, but I had only those (I buy them frozen at Costco).

I love to eat food that makes me happy. I'm not talking about eating a chocolate cake to "feed my sorrow" but I'm talking about "fun foods" that looks and tastes neat!

That bento would be a great carry around box if it was given time to cool completely before closing!

I did make a bento yesterday, but forgot to take a picture! :o( I had like 2 minutes to put it together and go.

I used my 2 tier red longish box(I have 3 of those, a yellow one, a blue one that my husband uses, and a red one). There wasn't anything overly inspiring in it, but still! I had 3 small rice balls over lettuce, the rest of my tiny eggs boiled and halved (so cute! I'm out!) and veggies with guacamole.

Ah the life of a sub teacher! Bento on, my friends, bento on!

Happy bento!

My Mini-Burgers

Ok, yesterday I wanted to make mini black bean burgers. So I looked up recipes, but nothing looked like what I wanted. So I started making up stuff.

I didn't want to put in bread crumbs, because they don't fit in my food plan, so somebody suggested to use cornmeal instead. Here's what I did:

Black Bean Mini-Burgers

Ingredients
1 can of black bean, rinsed drained
1/2 carrots grated (very mushy, but that's ok)
1 small shallot, minced
1/4 cup red bell pepper minced,
1 whole egg lightly beaten
4 tsp (more or less) fine cornmeal
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp coriander
1/4 Indian red chili powder
Pinch garam masala
Salt, pepper

I mashed the beans with a fork, it makes a coarser texture than processing it. Then I added all the ingredients and mixed until combined. The mixture was pretty wet, but I managed to make 18 tiny patties that I put on a rimmed baking sheet (I covered it with aluminum foil and used cooking spray, less cleaning).

I pre-heated the broiler, sprayed garlic olive oil on the patties and then put them about 4-5 inch under the broiler for 3 minutes. Then I took them out, flipped them gently (use a flat spatula to keep half the patties from staying on the sheet) and cooked them another 3 minutes.

Finally I flipped them again and cooked them about 1 minute. Don't overcook them cause they'll get dry. Keep an eye on them!

It was delicious for dinner, and I'm sure it'll be even better today!

Next time I'll do 20 patties so that they are a little bit smaller. They'll fit better in the bentos!

Here's what they look like (top right corner):



Happy Bento everyone!

Bento and Onigiri

Today I stayed home. I have people working in here and I need to keep an eye on dog and cat, not to mention my stuff! I still made a bento for myself. Also, since I was getting bored, I decided to try something new: Broiled Onigiri. They are made, broiled, cooled and in the freezer!

Here's my bento today:

I had left over vegetarian "chili". I made that up yesterday thinking that it would keep us from hitting the restaurant (I work Tuesday evening). Good thing I did cause I ended up working later than I had planned and everything went crazy from there.

In the lower tier I have a simple salad made of lettuce, shredded carrots, minced celery and cilantro.

In the top tier, I have my vegetarian chili, and steamed broccoli (with salt pepper and garam masala).

I like steamed broccoli, it taste great and it's easy and quick to do!

My husband has basically the same thing: vegetarian chili, steamed broccoli, extra lentils (he likes to mix them with the broccoli), his trusty carrots (last pack!), and celery sticks (to beat the munchies!).

As I said, I got bored today and decided to try to make Broiled Onigiri. I got the idea in Let's Cook Japanese Food, by Amy Kaneko. Here they are coming out of the oven:

They are very easy to make really! Here's what I did:

Broiled Onigiri

1- I made short grain brown rice in the rice cooker. Just rice and water, as recommended in the manual of my cooker.

2- I put the rice is a glass bowl, and I added a little rice vinegar to it (not in the direction, but I felt like it). In another bowl I put water and salt and mixed to disolve the salt.

3- Making sure my hands were wet with salted water, I made the rice balls with molds that I bought at Ichiban Kan. You could very easily shape them by hands (it's just less cutsy shapes). As I took them out of the molds, I patted each rice ball very gently with my salty wet hands to give them extra saltiness.

4- I put the rice balls on a rimmed baking sheet that I had covered with aluminum foil (don't like cleaning much) and sprayed lightly with cooking spray. I broiled the Onigiri about 5 inch from the heat until very lightly brown (about 2-3 minutes), then I turned them, and did the same thing with the other side.

5- Then I brushed soy sauce on the top of the Onigiri and broiled them some more until well browned (but not burned!). I did the same with the other side.

6- After done, I put the Onigiri in a large pasta bowl and covered with a wet paper towel to cool, about 20-30 minutes.

7- I put them back on a baking sheet, with plastic wrap to cut down on cleaning, and put the whole thing in the freezer for 15 minutes.

8- Finally I wrapped each Onigiri individually and put them in a ziploc bag in the freezer. I used Biggie's trick of using a straw to suck out the air of the Ziploc bag, it works just fine!

Here they are ready to eat:


The original recipe was with white rice, but it didn't fit with my food plan. These were yummy (what? OF COURSE I tasted it, what are you thinking?) and hopefully will freeze very well.

So there, that's my Bento adventure of the day! I hope you had as much fun as I did!

Happy Bento everyone!

The Cutsy Curse!

Yesterday I made sushi again, and it was good! I made extra rice to make rice balls. I'm still learning how to really prepare the rice well, it turned a little more mushy this time. I'll get it right!

I decided to go the cutsy way. I made 4 bigger triangle ones (cause my husband like those) and the rest I made smaller ones. I have heart shape, bear shape, and star shape. Here's the first plate of them cooling:

Here's the second plate with all cutsy ones:

So today in my bento I used some rice balls, of course, and I played around with whatever I had in my fridge. Here's what my bento looked like:

So, in the bottom tier, I had 3 cutsy rice balls (one of each shape) over lettuce.

In the top tier, I made a roll with a low carb tortilla, canadian bacon, and mashed avocado with a little lime juice. I cut it, kind of like a sushi roll, and used my new cutsy picks I got at Sanko (a freaking fortune!). I added sliced cucumber and red bell pepper pieces.

In my husband's bento I put 1 triangular rice ball, 1 oyaki, a little container of guacamole, cucumber and red bell pepper sticks and a ham wrap that I cut in big pieces so it would fit in the box. I held his rolls with my sea critters picks.


So that's today's bentos. I'm in a cutsy attack, so I'll be thinking up tomorrow's fare today! I frozen a bunch of rice balls, so that's one easy quick thing to throw in. I'm running out of oyakis though. Oops.

Happy Bento!

I got my book!

I got my cookbook Bento Boxes, Japanese meals on the go. It's really great, simple, beautiful and very inspiring. I'm happy! The recipes in there are very interesting, and I think I'll be able to adapt it to my chosen lifestyle.

I stopped by the Outlets in Petaluma and got me some big silicone cups (normal muffin size) to put in my bento tomorrow. I knew I had planned two different side dishes (Shredded Green Beans and Citrus-Chive Couscous) and I wanted to keep them separated.

I also took out mini frittatas to eat with that, and I have leftover chicken. I even bought blueberries for dessert and extra veggies to fill the gaps!

I'll post about it tomorrow with pictures and everything.

This Bento thing really has renewed my enthusiasm to plan ahead and prepare things and have fun with food.

Food isn't the enemy!

Thinking ahead!

Yesterday and today, I stayed home, so I didn't need to pack lunch.

I'm still thinking Bento though. Yesterday my husband ordered "Bento Boxes: Japanese Meals on the Go" I'll get it tomorrow, I can't wait to play with it!

Today I was home, so I decided to experiment. I tried to make mini-frittatas two different way:

1- using a metal mini-muffin pan straight in the oven, with cooking spray.

2- Using a flexible silicone mini-muffin pan sitting in water, also with cooking spray.

(These are the mini-frittatas I made in the silicone mini-muffin pan, don't they look cute?)

#2 proved to be MUCH MORE effective. They came right out... My metal pan is still soaking.

(You can see the mini-frittata that got stuck in the metal pan in the background)

I cooled the mini frittatas, and then put them in the fridge to make sure they were totally cold. Then I wrapped them individually in saran wrap and put them in a zip bag. That way they don't stick together, I can take them out one at a time.

Sooo I've got plenty of mini-frittatas ready to jump into a Bento box when needed!

It's ridiculous how much fun I'm having with this!