Rice Ball Bento

This was the Middle of Summer and a cooling bento was amongst us. Rice balls covered the black sesame seed and salt, radishes, grapes, and lettuce.

Sly Cat and a Totoro Snack Pack Bentos

Cute little flap-down bento box that I'm calling Sly Cat. It's filled with cous cous with pine nuts and homemade kimchee. I always bring a juice and a piece of fruit with my lunch bentos that I end up drinking/eating at 3:00pm to power through the afternoon

I'll be working later starting this summer, so I might bring an extra bento. But the main problem is I need refrigeration. I like the "two hour rule" even with blue ice. It's just that it gets so hot around here!

This is my lovely Totoro snap bento. The pick and container are from Japanese planes, trains, and automobiles set that is perfect for a little boy (or a little girl if the little girl was like me). I still like to chase trains.

Things That Go Together Bento

Leftover baby back ribs and fried potatoes. Chocolate and strawberries. And teeny tomatoes.

Stanley's Friend Totoro Bento

I had a good laugh eating this lunch the other day. A young man came into the shop and said "Please don't tell me you're eating fruit salad with chopsticks."

I held up my Totoro box cover and said "You do know ToToRo?" To which he replied yes.

Then, much to the fun that is where I call work, he did the whole Totoro scene when the girl lands on his stomach.

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.  

Strawberry Soda Rides With Bento

Another bread bento this time with a strawberry soda. I had covered the Totoro box before remembering I needed to take a photo, so the two grape tomatoes hopped into the blue cheese dressing in the meantime. They kind of look like they are hot-tubbing. 

Half of a pastrami and pickles and stoneground mustard sandwich was eaten in the parking lot before I went to work. 

My nutty lunchtime buddies are staring at you.

Caviar Bento

Fresh radishes from the garden, a sweet orange and blackberry bombs, and dried pomegranate seeds hang out with Mr. Grumpy Giraffe. Believe me, I can sympathize with Mr. Grumpy Giraffe as this consoling bento was my lunch on my first day back to work after my vacation.

So I used a new box, My Neighbor Totoro holding a four-leaf clover, and filled it with rice and teriyaki chicken and pickles. That is black caviar on the rice.

I know it looks like a blackberry. I bought the caviar to add to salmon sashimi, my birthday dinner.

Yay! I made it another year. Yes indeed I'd rather be lucky like my lucky Totoro!

Gerry the Giraffe gets a round bento

I didn't notice how round this bento was till I looked at the photos. I mean, had I thought of it, I would have cut the dill pickles in round slices, then the roundness would be complete.

No, this bento was made for the rice, which has a calming effect, which I needed.

The champagne grapes were so sweet like candy, and the blueberries were divine as well. I used green accessories because I didn't have anything green to eat, but wait, the dill pickles are green. That counts!

These dills were also very garlicky, so they got a wrap in cellophane.

The really fun addition here is the Ko-Umeboshi. I bought a jar from Gold Mine Natural Food, a cool online resource.

I love my leafy Totoro bento box too.

Plumy Bento

Here's my bento for this week. Vitamin Water in dragon fruit flavor, Mio, two different kinds of plums, blueberries, five raspberries, Totoro box with two chicken drumettes that are roasted with Panko crumbs, organic wheat crackers and rice Chex, le Brie (so cute), and a V8.

I'm trying to eat only organic fruits and vegetables, and I haven't been finding any good organic baby greens lately. It's that time of year. Supermarket lettuce taste awful to me. Sometimes I can't tell the difference in taste between organic and non-organic, but with lettuce I can. I think it's the water they spray on them in the store.

It seems hypocritical (even to me) that I support organic farming, then turnaround and drink corporate vegetable juice and flavored water, not to mention the fake brie, but can I say something in my defense?

I used to juice. I probably will again too. It is time consuming and a mess and really healthy for you. You have to be committed to it - the buying fresh organic veggies, the making, the cleaning, and the immediate consumption. That's right. In order to get the maximum vitamins and goodness, you must consume the juiced veggies straight away. But it's like another thing in the morning added to the long list of things in the morning and I just can't hack it. Right now. Maybe someday. We'll see.

She was an American Girl bento

If I had a pub, an American pub, I'd probably serve sliders and beans and fries too. I'd serve plenty of vegetarian dishes too. I was vegetarian for awhile, and eating out was the hardest thing. Everything looked delish except for the veg plate. Slab of tofu on rice, anyone. 

This is leftover. Beef sliders with Colby/Monterey Jack cheese and pinquintos beans with Mexican cheese were made by me the night before. 

Below are sides for the sliders: sliced pickles, tomatoes slices, red leaf lettuce, and Bob's Bleu Cheese Dressing in the kiwi container. On the left: watermelon balls. Summertime!

This is the sides box closed.
With the cute TOTORO!

Beet star bento

I love pickled beets. That should be no surprise to anyone, I suppose. I love beets in general, boiled or roasted. In this bento and the one previous, I use my star beets to add color and vegetable matter of the box.

I have a really easy method of pickling. I save the leftover fluid from a jar of Bubbies pickles (they are in the green four-lead clover holder). Boil beets until tender. Skin beets and slice. Or cut into shapes. Stars, fat stars are looking good! I put the stars and chop a small raw red onion layering as I go in a Ball jar. Pour the Bubbies leftover pickle juice and refrigerate.

Gets more pickley with more time.

The chewy molasses spice cookies make a debut here.

I need to hunt down that recipe. It's a Martha Stewart one and I'll post it here. Or maybe I'll write it out. Her website is massive and it's easy to get lost, just in case you are the last person on Earth who has never been there. Too bad she isn't into bento (yet). I bet she could come up with some fun ideas.

Saturday's Snack

Kiwis, pears, watermelon (my own), pomegranate seeds, double cream Gouda, and pretzels turned out to be a nice snack on a cloudy day.

I made a landscape bento with rice, sausage, egg, strawberries earlier in the day that didn't work out visually. It tasted good, and I ate it without photos.

Totoro Bento Box

It finally feels like fall and this little bento box has leaves and acorns and funny little creatures on the cover. As I was making the turkey/pork patties, The Mister was reading the newspaper to me. Lucy died, he said. I was shocked. Our friend's black lab is named Lucy and she's a sweetheart and how did that make it to the newspaper! No, no, he said. The Lucy in the Lucy in the sky with diamonds. Oh, I always thought that was the Beatles tribute to LSD, I said. Nope. It was a real person that John Lennon's son knew from school.