A Very Small Apple Bento

This bento accompanied me on the first rainy day of the season. My acorn and leaf Totoro bento box is so cute with the little shrooms and soots. 

It is two tiered with the bottom level solid rice. On one side of the upper level has a cut up baked chicken tender that was rolled in Panko crumbs (leftovers from the previous night's dinner), a slice of bacon, and two jeweled picks - one with three Junior Mints, and one with three Hot Tamales. That's right folks, Candy!

The other side has strawberries, pomegranate seeds (jewels all by themselves), Gouda cheese, and un petite apple.

I always shoot my photos in natural light because I find if I use a flash, the food is less appealing. So here is the ensemble from a distance.  

Kokeshi bento with BACON!

My Kokeshi doll bento is so cute!

Here with Miso Soup - me so hungry! Left over Malibu chicken, rice cubes (!), BACON, and kiwi, pickled radishes and carrots and pickles. 

Super Fly!

Mr. Bento is such a stud!

Mr. Bento came to work with me this past week.

I made a batch of teriyaki chicken as per hapa bento's suggestion to have a bento stash. Good idea hapa bento! (She's having a giveaway too!)

Also made a quick chili with black olives. The crisper was bare, so no additional veggies, darn it. But lots of cheese melted in (which is why it looks so orange) (that and lovely florescence lights at work).

Organic wheat thin styled crackers. So good. And Botan Rice candies! smile smile smile

Hard egg that is sliced-o-matic, hummus, pickles, raspberries, and bacon.

I can never say "bacon" again without sounding like that dog in that commercial.

Notice the background? That's my beachy desk - all speckled with sand.

The Groundhog sees his shadow bento

And that means 6 more weeks of winter. It also means winter is over half-way done. So yay! Happy Groundhog Day!

This groundhog was made with peanut butter and nutella (Oh btw Happy Nutella Day is today!) and that's buttah for the whites of his eyes. I really envisioned something a little different than this. But this is what came out. It's all on my homemade sourdough mini loaf. 

Gamene over at bentozen requested the sourdough recipe, so I might try to post it someday. I sort of do it differently every time. Also Gamene is throwing an outrageous give-away, if you're into bento, check it out.

The rest of this bento is a deviled egg (I know - my old stand by) and bacon. For fiberous fun I added a sliced purple carrot and a little yellow carrot cut into sticks. And tangerine juicy jellies. Actually it looks like the groundhog is eyeing the candy in this pic.

Breakfast for Lunch

The lessons I learned making this bento, my my, I will tell you.

After feeling like a pile of crap for many days, I awoke to a slight headache and full of energy. The headache went bye bye after a nice hot shower, and I was ready to begin the day.

The first order of busy-ness was a pomegranate. Now everybody knows that seeding a pomegranate is a zen-like experience. It might also be helpful to be stoned. But rather than fall down that slippery slope first thing in the morning, I decided to let my *yawn* first blush of the day ease me through the task.

I cut open the monster (the pomegranate was as big as a grapefruit) and the puddle of blood oozed out on the cutting board. I cut each half again in half again and rub the jewels into a container, all the while jabbering on to The Mister about my plan of the day.

I want to do a Cute Bento, I said. Of course, that is a redundancy, I continued, hahahahah.

He said something like huh-ehh (fart).

Yes, I said, a Cute! Bento.

Hmmm. An acute bento, he said. Sounds like a disease.

So we were off and running as they say of the day. Many of my favorite bento artists were using pomegranate in their daily bentos the week I non-commissioned. Inspired by my growing stash of shiny gems, I envisioned using my new pink single story box and filling it with breakfast food that I have been craving.

Really pink and girly with no Halloween-y to detract.

Then I thought well maybe a couple of ghouls with big eyes hiding in the back, but everything else - pink bows and pink elephants and pink flower cups.

Lesson 1. Keep the creative process open.

Maybe the french toast could look like an old dead tree, I thought. That would be cool. Like the trees in OZ that threw apples at Dorothy & Co. With eyes and mouths and arms. And if I have an old dead tree, I might as well have a graveyard. Yes indeed the bento was being transformed.

What I didn't expect were the owls. They were ghouls poking their heads up from the ground. When I went to put eye on them, they became owls. You can't see the wings, but that doesn't mean they don't have them.

Lesson 2. Working with Nutella is a bitch.

Since this was to be a edible bento by me for me straight away, I wanted my eggs hot. Cold eggs are okay, but today they had to be hot, or at least warm. So I had to be quick with photos plus no stress on the details and perfection. Ah yes. The heat of the eggs melted the Nutella which was also the glue that held the eyeballs on the owls and they started to slide down.

Meanwhile The Mister started to bug me. Not now, I cried. I've put too much into this piece!

Oh the Drama!

In the end I had to change lenses. Nutella on everything. Yuck! But I ate my Breakfast for Lunch bento and it was really good.

Lesson 3. The unexpected pairing that was superb - pomegranate and bacon - yum!

Oh and the milk bottle (bats eyelashes) that's maple syrup.


Now for a couple of blog items:

I have a giveaway in progress. You must go here to enter. Please do. The more, the merrier.

I have a new Flickr group, Bentoland, and I'm the only member. I tell you that is sad! I know there are lots of bento groups out there already, but I'm really open to suggestions to make this a fun adventure!