Obento Baby!

Breakfast Banana Muffins

2011-11-11T14:14:00.000-08:00

Woke up to no milk for cereal. Not a nice way to start a Saturday, with kids grumbling they can't eat anything. Woe is them, woe I say! Fine, I'll make muffins. Yes, I have no milk, but who needs milk to make muffins??

I do have a bunch of perfectly spotted bananas and quickly whipped together a muffin batter. I made enough to also get a banana bread so the poor dears can have that later for lunch treats or snacks. This recipe has no milk in it, only water. It's surprising how a recipe can still work even when you remove most of the elements you think must be in the recipe.

I like the bananas kind of chunky

See how the oil in the flour looks like Australia? That was a happy accident.

Breakfast Banana Muffins

3 cups of self rising flour
1 cup of sugar (add more if you want sweeter but the bananas are really ripe and sweet already)
3/4 cup of extra light olive oil (or other light veggie oil or extra virgin olive oil if you only have it)
1.5 cups of water and extra added to get right batter thickness. I don't know exactly how much as it was only 7am and no coffee yet.)
2 large bananas mashed a little with a fork (I like chunky bits of nana here and there)
TBSP of mixed spice
TSP of salt
2 medium eggs (Added for protein but not exactly needed so omit if you're vegan)

Bake in a preheated 170C oven for 20-25 minutes. These took 25. When mixing the batter, I left it quite thick so it needed spoon-pushed into the muffin tin.

I suppose the best thing about this kind of recipe is you can throw just about anything into the bowl and it'll probably turn out all right. You could substitute one or two cups of flour for whole wheat, or add some oat bran. Add some nuts or dried cranberry. Whatever makes you happy! Muffins should always make you happy.

Vegan Lemon Extreme Cupcakes Recipe!

2011-11-09T17:01:00.001-08:00

**Just an update to say these cupcakes won 1st place for flavour and 2nd place for presentation at the school's country fair. Shorty is very pleased and we're all proud of her.

Now really you have to say extreme like it's a monster truck rally, because these are EXTREME! Ka-POW! Punch in the salivary glands and make your neck ache tangy lemon cupcakes. No prissy pretty cupcakes; these babies bite back!

This is the same old vegan cupcake recipe I've used for years, ever since we found out Shorty was allergic to eggs and milk. Don't worry I'll include it again at the end. I made a first batch to let Shorty decide how she wanted her cupcakes to taste and she exclaimed "Not enough lemon! Needs more lemon! Double the lemon!" while Husband said "These are nice, a subtle lemon flavour. Pleasant. except for this bit of rind I'm left chewing on."

From that I took this: Double the lemon and get a proper lemon zester because shaving it with the veggie peeler and chopping with my curved knife isn't good enough.

I bought a big bag of lemons and found a fine cheese grater in the drawer of kitchen stuff I never use that worked perfectly as a zester. I did a couple things differently than I normally would:

That's the zest and juice of two small lemons. I did this bit first before anything else. I find it easier to squeeze over a small plate and then I can pick out all the seeds without fumbling up the sides of a bowl or squeezing over my other hand and trying not to let the seeds slip between my fingers. I then put the juice on the zest and let it soften up the zest and set aside until later.

When the batter is ready, I spooned it into paper cake things that I pre-sprayed with non stick. Why? Because how many times have you been ready to enjoy a lovely cupcakes and then had to eat it off the paper because the paper stuck to the cake? I hate when that happens! Also, see the one in the bottom left? That's how high you should fill the paper. The others are too full. Why? Because don't you hate it when you peel back the paper and it gets covered in sticky icing and it runs or gobs down the side? No? Well you're a finger licking icing freak. I like to have a bit of paper free of frosting to pull back and then I can grab the cake and not get all sticky from the icing. It's a dainty, delicate thing this cupcake eating! Al;so - look at all that zest in the batter - isn't it teasing you with its lemony promise of deliciousness?

See them baked and how the one with the paper at the top is nicer than the one on the right that's overfull and guaranteeing the icing runs down the side of paper?

This was them finished, the next morning. Now, I admit this was the batch I'd made and it has a flaw. The ones my daughter made were perfect and much, much prettier than these. The mistake was, I'd read other cupcake recipes (No, no not that reading recipes of others is a mistake, it's not, it's bloody essential!) and a few of them included a quarter of a cup of corn flour. I didn't understand this use of corn flour. Cornflour? I use that to thicken sauces. Does it thicken cupcakes? What was it going to do? Is it better than my usual corn flour free ones? So I had to try it out. I found it does in fact make the cakes a tad denser and flatter. Dense in a super moist sense not a hockey puck way. See how the cakes are slightly hockey puck shaped? That's the corn flour. I think it helps keep them from rising too high and dome-like and then they won't crack as badly making icing much easier. I'm guessing! It makes sense. Second batch, Shorty made without corn flour with her child's handful of lemon zest. This batch she proclaimed perfection while my husband grasped his neck hissing "My glands! Ack! Lemon! Tart!" and then grabbed another cupcake and left the room.

Sadly I have no pictures of the perfect ones Shorty made because they were scarfed up first. I'm not jealous! She did an awesome job, she was a kitchen Goddess! She'll have this recipe down pat by next week for the contest and she knows exactly how she wants her cupcakes to taste. She's 7 by the way, did you know that? She's a Junior Masterchef in the making. My cupcakes were only ok next to her ones. No one liked the mixed peel on top, they preferred Shorty's lemon zest only simplicity and the dome top on her no corn flour recipe was irrelevant in the end. I'll get you some more pictures of hers when she does her official entry for the 19th. If you cannot wait, then you'll have to try and make them yourself:

Vegan Super Lemon Cupcakes

Cupcake Ingredients

1½ cups of self rising flour
¾ cup of caster sugar
½ teaspoon of salt
1/3 cup of extra light olive oil
Zest and juice of two small or one large lemon (around 1/3 of a cup of juice)
1 cup of soy milk and another ½ a cup to be added if needed for a thick but pourable batter.
1 teaspoon of white vinegar

Icing Ingredients

¾ cup of icing sugar
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
Some lemon zest

Preparation

Zest the lemons and squeeze all the juice. Remove seeds but leave pulpy bits. Let the zest soak in the juice and set aside.
Place cupcake papers into a muffin tin and give a light coating with non stick spray.
Preheat oven to 170C.

Method

In a large bowl sift all the dry ingredients together. Make a well in the flour, keeping the vinegar aside, add the rest of the wet ingredients and mix until no large lumps appear – be careful not to over mix or the batter will become too heavy. Add the vinegar and give a few good stirs then spoon the batter into the cupcake papers leaving a few millimetres of paper showing at the top. Get quickly into the oven and bake for around 20-25 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean but the cakes aren't browned on top. Allow cakes to cool completely.

Once cakes are cooled make the icing by sifting the icing sugar to be sure it's free of hard lumps. Add the lemon juice a teaspoon a time and stir until a thick, spreadable icing is achieved. Add to the top of the cupcakes, top with the zest for decoration and allow to set.

That was coming towards us as we were happily baking.

Ah - in the ingredients there's white vinegar. That's a great trick and saved us yesterday. It was a muggy, humid warm afternoon with storms brewing on the horizon but as we were baking it was the worst weather for baking. Humid kitchens make sticky, overly moist cakes that sometimes don't rise well. Add a vegan recipe and it's a wonder they work at all. A little chemistry to the rescue. The vinegar added at the end reacts with the baking powder and makes bubbles in the batter - it creates crumb. A nice crumb is necessary to a great cake. The vinegar flavour bakes off and you never know it's even in there, unless you lick the bowl. Then you know. That's a great thing about vegan recipes - no salmonella worry! Lick that bowl clean! Otherwise, you don't actually need the vinegar so don't sweat it if you don't have any.

I hope you give these a try. They really are the answer if you've ever had a lemon cake and thought to yourself "I suppose it could be lemon?" and like Shorty screamed "More Lemon!!" then this will tickle your tang buds.

If anyone can tell me how to get the 1/3 to shrink down like the other fractions in Open Office, I'd appreciate that too. Damned annoying that.

Last trick - I didn't let the kids lick the bowl because there was about a 1/4 cup of batter left. After two bowls of leftover batter, I spooned it into the mini-muffin pan and baked them up too. Those were lovely lunchbox sized treats. Why waste it when it can be cooked and used up. Even cupcakes can be frozen and used later!

Birthday Bento

2010-06-16T18:56:00.000-07:00

Sassy is 11 today!

I didn't plan out a fancy birthday bento, because, well she doesn't eat them and it wouldn't have been all that big a deal. But she did ask for avocado maki roll and I arranged the avocado so it made an 11. No really, it's not a pig snout, it's an 11.

Also included are carrot sticks, Granny Smith apple, small mandarin orange, roll egg and a wiener fish.

Shorty gets carrot sticks, cherry tomatoes, Granny Smith apple, rolled egg slices and a wiener fish. there's slice of bread under the mini onigiri to lift them up and they just have a bit of carrot in them, with bread as a divider.

They both got a slice of Lamington as a dessert but it's not photographed. Here's a recipe though. We bought a giant one for Sassy's birthday cake and she's already dug into it. It's her birthday, so why not.

Israeli Cous-cous Onigiri

2010-06-07T18:54:00.000-07:00

My kids haven't been inspired to eat lunch lately as recess time is far more fun. I've not been putting much effort into bento since it all came back and they'd just eat the scraps and shooggled about bits as an after school snack. Why should I put in all that effort if they aren't bothered to eat or appreciate it?

I bought a bag of "Israeli cous-cous" at the grocery because they looked like cous-cous pearls. turns out they are more like wee pasta pearls but are cooked similar to cous-cous. I boiled them for 8 minutes in chicken stock and then left them to steam and plump up. I noticed once they cooled that they stick and clump together - like Beados!. Turns out, they make great onigiri too. Secret is put them in the mould while warm and leave them until almost cooled and then tip them out to finish cooling. Once cooled they hold together brilliantly. This one has ham inside.

The other treat is the mini jam tart which is simply cut squares of ready-made shortcrust pastry filled with chunky plum jam and baked in a mini-muffin pan until the crust is browned and the jam has melted.

The rest is carrot, corn, red pepper and cherry tomatoes.

(Oh no! there's a hair on it...don't view in large size!)

The Grapefruits Are Falling!!

2010-05-04T02:53:00.000-07:00

...on my head!

Seriously, it's dangerous out under my grapefruit tree just now. It's dropping fruit everywhere and I've been busy making lots of jam. We're a bit sick of grapefruit jam just now. So yesterday I thought I'd try and make some grapefruit curd. Here's the recipe I followed, except I added an extra half a cup of sugar because these are yellow grapefruit and they're really sour. I also didn't leave any zest in the curd. It's come out amazingly good. Zingy, sweet, tart. My salivary glands are aching from over-stimulation.

Today I made a grapefruit curd, apple and pear tart and some mini popovers with the same ingredients. I sprinkled in some cinnamon and brown sugar and baked on high for 20 minutes (or until I started to smell the sugar on the pan burning)

Bento for 13.04.10

2010-04-12T18:42:00.000-07:00

Top has corn cob, red pepper, cucumber, carrot, salami sticks and a tuna mayonnaise filled onigiri.

Bottom has grapes, half an orange and some smoked ham bites.

Dessert are a couple of Palmiers.

Bento for 12.04.10

2010-04-11T20:49:00.001-07:00

First day of school in the second term. We've had two weeks off.

Top has corn cob, cucumber, sliced low fat ham and an onigiri with a seasoned nori strip - they are yummy!

Bottom has a jam filled pancake sandwich, carrots and grapes.

Both girls got the same so I'll put one picture up.

School holidays wind down

2010-04-10T16:21:00.001-07:00

The past two weeks we've been on school vacation. Running about site-seeing and having fun. School starts back tomorrow and I must admit, although I've enjoyed my kids' company, I'm looking forward to getting my alone time back.

I did manage to pull the camera out one dark night when I made Spring Rolls for dinner.

I don't know about you, but I always manage to get a few veggies leftover in the fridge that don't get used right away and then I worry they may go off and I hate wasting money and food. The best thing to do is either make a pasta sauce and freeze if for a later day when I don't feel like cooking, soup or spring rolls. This week I had a green pepper about to go off and a 1/4 cabbage left over.

Spring rolls are also good for the fun factor of rolling up, seeing through to the contents and overall interestingness as well as getting kids to eat raw vegetables.

I fried a pound veal and pork mince in a pan with a puree of: garlic, ginger, soy, spicy plum sauce, chives, lime juice and coriander. Half went into the spring rolls, the other half went into a soup. Veggies were cut fine and long.

The spring rolls are very easy to use: pour a small amount of hot water on a dinner plate and place the spring roll sheet in the water for a few seconds until it starts to become pliable. Place on a wet but not oiled surface - I used my silicone sushi mat but a bamboo one covered in plastic wrap would work too. Place a few sprigs of coriander down first, hold them down with strips of carrot, add cabbage, pepper - whatever you love - and top with a few spoonfuls of mince mixture. Fold over the sides, then roll the contents tightly but be careful not to tear the wrap. Easy! Fun to get the kids involved too, because kids are more likely to eat something they had a hand in creating.

I think it's pretty obvious I'm not a master wrapper, but these are quite forgiving. I should have left a bit more space at the sides for folding over. The wraps are stretchy and stronger than you'd think. They're also quite sticky and stick to themselves while being wrapped, but won't if they get oil on them. It's a bit of a messy food with the contents falling out sometimes but it's fun, so what.

The best part: It's cheap! It's so cheap to make these. The wraps, as you can see above are less than $2 and there's about 50-60 wraps in the pack with a shelf life of a couple years so long as they're kept dry. A pepper costs a dollar? A half a cabbage is a dollar? a carrot? Some herbs may run a couple dollars unless you grow your own and the mince was $4.80 and I got two meals from that. I will have to try these for bento, and see how they work. I'll make some, pack them and try them myself first before packing for the kids just to see if the wraps dry out, they fall apart and the mess factor. Otherwise, there's another win.

Bento Bento Bento...I'm lazy bento lady

2010-03-16T00:40:00.000-07:00

It's hot lunch day today so I've made the girls just a snack bento for break times. They have grapes, cucumber, carrot, apple and orange slices, wee Japanese cake, broccoli and some ham wrapped around green beans.

I think I'm a bit out of the bento groove. It's nice to make the lunches, but with time short in the morning, I've lost the motivation to do the more artistic, cute styles of bento. I've hardly pulled my cutters out in weeks. Then again, I've not been getting very big carrots. I still love to look at bento, and learn more and get ideas, but I'm not in the creative mood myself. I'm not altering. I feel guilty about it.

I know I shouldn't. It's a hobby. It's a hobby in a rut. Everyone else is happy, it's just me who's gone a tad ho-hum.

I guess I shall have to ponder on what needs done to kick this up the butt.

In other news. I've figured out how to make pot stickers and plan a video/photo post about it. Maybe it's not as ruttish as I thought?

Drumstick Bento 10.03.10

2010-03-10T00:17:00.000-08:00

This was a quick bento this morning because I made all the meats last night. Chicken leg with chicken seasoning on top, beef chipolate, carrot, cucumber and red pepper. Top has grapes, cherry tomatoes, sliced apple and a mini dorayaki (For Shorty)- two mini pancakes sandwiched around some chestnut puree. Orange soft cake for SassyFace.

I bought a bag of mixed little cakes from my local Japanese market. I have to hide them or they disappear. These greedy gluts have no respect for the bento snacks.

Wiener Fish Bento for 09.03.10

2010-03-08T17:12:00.000-08:00

They have: grapes, red pepper heart (Was naturally that way) a home made fruit cake, cherry tomato. Mains have wiener fish and octodog, cucumber and salad with red and green apples and an orange slice.

The fruit cake is a super easy recipe and only has three ingredients:

2 cups of self rising flour
1.5 cups mixed dried fruit
2 tins of condensed milk

Mix the milk and flour until well combined then add in the dried fruit and combine well. Pour into a medium sized brownie pan and bake for 30ish minutes at 180C.

My oven is rubbish so I have to check it every 6 minutes from 25 minutes on, to make sure it's not under or over cooked. I found if I left them in the oven until lightly browned on top and then turned off the heat and left them in the oven for another 15 minutes, that worked well.

These come out firm and chewy. Shorty made this batch, so it's a great recipe to let the kids have a turn baking.

Next time we make this I'll add coconut and some vanilla because to me, all cake needs vanilla.

Wait...how is it Wednesday??

2010-03-02T17:38:00.000-08:00

I've just realised I've forgotten to upload the bentos for monday and Tuesday. Got them up on flickr but forgot to add them to the blog. It's the whole point of having the blog.

Monday 01.03.10 Snack Bento

On Mondays the school offers a hot lunch. I can't afford a whole lunch for two kids, but two mains, like a Hawaiian pizza slab($2.50) and a hot dog ($2.20) plus my box of snacks is a perfect compromise.

School lunch is different at our school as there is no cafeteria. Hot lunch day is like ordering from a café, complete with itemized menu and no set meals. A hot main item with many side items could cost over $10 per child. I find that exorbitant.

Each box has cucumber, green grapes, red pepper ring, carrots, orange tomatoes and sliced rock peach. box of sultanas and apricots. Sassy gets a yogurt tube and Shorty gets a banana. That's quite a lot to keep them going through the day.

Tuesday 02.03.10 Pizza Bento

I made a quick pizza on flat bread, chicken nuggets and potato swirls. Carrots, grapes, capsicum and cucumber with a small box of raisins.

I don't know why I couldn't manage one box for both girls, but I'm not going to stress over it. Sassy will have a slightly less soggy pizza than Shorty. Although I did try and keep the cucumber away from the pizza in Shorty's.

I did a post about flat bread pizza here, and a video here for Naan bread pizza which was done in Scotland before we had the kitchen renovated, very unprepared and it's me talking to myself, pretty much.

Bentos for 03.03.10

2010-03-02T17:34:00.001-08:00

Maki Roll Bento! I made a monster maki roll with carrot, cucumber and tuna mayonnaise. Sliced apples and orange, grapes, carrot sticks and a wee pork sausage. Curly lettuce for poncy prettiness.

In Scotland little pork sausages are called Wee Willie Winkies which always made me giggle.

With the bento box I got from Jomamma last year. Thanks again!

Bento for 24.02.10

2010-02-23T18:36:00.000-08:00

Shorty is home today but it's her last week of Wednesdays off, she'll be in school full time from next week. Sigh. She's growing too fast. Enough of that...

Lunch today was chicken nuggets, potato swirls, carrot, cucumber, red pepper. Apple bites and fig bars that I made yesterday. You'll notice the distinct lack of green in Sassy's bento - that's because the rotter won't eat her veggies and as it was the last of the cucumber, it went to the child who actually does eat her greens.

Bento for 23.02.10

2010-02-22T21:43:00.000-08:00

Both girls got the same, Sliced white nectarine, carrot, cucumber, pickle and red pepper and a ham and cheese sandwich on whole wheat bread. I baked the bread too.

Our fig tree is bursting with fruit. I was trying to chase the greedy birds away, but after 4lbs/2kg of fruit so far, I think I'm the one being greedy. I decided to make some fig jam. I found a simple recipe. I think it's come out more like compote.

Then my friend Jill suggested I make some fig newtons. What a lovely idea! Although my newton came out a bit more cakey than firm, crumbly newton-like the kids love them. That's all that matters. It was a pound(ish) of sliced figs - mix of greener and riper ones as I had read that green figs have more pectin, half a cup of brown sugar (which was too much, it came out very sweet), handful of orange zest, whole lemon halved and juice added, TBS of cinnamon and ground ginger. Mixed and put on a medium flame until it boiled, taken off the flame and let to sit for an hour, then put back on the flame until reduced to favourite consistency of gloop. Next time, I may add no sugar and see what happens. Better get harvesting...

Bentos for 19.02.10

2010-02-19T00:07:00.000-08:00

Ham cheese and salad wrap, cucumber, green pepper, carrot, string bean, extra fan fried ham and hot dog flowers. A box of raspberry raisins on the side, an apple in the lunchbox and a dollar to buy a slushie at the canteen because it's Friday.

It's all a wee bit too pink. I made the effort to find some cute cloths to photograph. Next time I'll not use pink bento boxes with the pink cloths.

Have a nice weekend!

Bentos for 18.02.10

2010-02-17T16:55:00.000-08:00

Top has pineapple, octodog and raisins. Bottom has BBQ kangaroo and cucumber sushi rolls, cherry tomatoes, red pepper, snow peas and hot dog flowers.

Bentos for 16.02.10

2010-02-15T18:04:00.000-08:00

Top has teenie super sweet grapes, half a tangerine and a box of perverse raisins. They stink! They smell awful and the box looks like a grape barfing up blood. But the kids love them and they're cheap.

Bottom has carrots, snow peas, red pepper, octodog and some turkey-kangaroo burgers.

Kangaroo meat is a high protein, very low fat and inexpensive option ($7.49 per kg) here in Australia. It tastes similar venison but not as gamey. I tried mixing it with turkey mince to see if it was more attractive to the kids. They loved it. Mixing the two made them taste more like beef burgers, but far healthier. A bit of garlic, spring onion and Italian herb seasoning.

Triple Bento!

2010-02-09T13:20:00.000-08:00

I used to make Husband a bento every morning too, but he doesn't drive to work now, and his laptop bag doesn't accommodate the bento box I've always used for him. I've not found something that will work when traveling on its side. So he gets boring, typical lunches and it's a bit sad. So today I thought I'd show what Husband gets on a day-to-day basis, just to...well show. I guess.

Ham and cheese salad roll with mustard and smokey BBQ sauce, a blueberry cake bar, chicken sausages on rocket, carrots and snow peas. He gets an apple on the side.

Top has ham and cheese salad roll with ketchup, two chicken sausages and okra. Bottom has carrot stars, snow peas, triple Tassie Cheese (Three types of Tasmanian cheese pressed into one) and half a green apple.

Half a ham salad roll with ketchup, two chicken sausages and okra. Right side is triple Tassie cheese (which she'll probably not eat), carrot stars, snow peas and some sliced green apple.

Now, you may be thinking - lucky Husband gets a blueberry cake bar, but the kids don't! That doesn't seem fair. - Well, it is fair because I bring the kids their cake bar as a snack for walking home after school. If I put it in their lunches, they'll just eat that and ignore all the other stuff that's far better for them to eat. Honestly, they will eat only the blueberry cake and none of the rest of their lunch. They're pretty rotten that way. So no cake in the bento, it's an afternoon walk home and don't complain about how tired you are, snack.

Bentos for 2.8.10 and 2.9.10

2010-02-08T22:45:00.000-08:00

Crud, forgot to post yesterday. Then again, the picture was a bit blah. I think the bento was a bit blah too. Bento rut? Hmph.

The girls got the same bento, so I only took the one photo.

Top has half a chicken and cheese salad roll with an octodog (Although mine only have six legs) and a bacon wrapped asparagus spear. (Which they loved! Next time they'll get two)

Bottom has half a tangerine, cherry tomatoes, strawberries, red pepper and a string cheese. They each get an apple for snack time.

Right has half of a ham and cheese sarnie with salad (with beetroot! An Aussie must but Shorty hated the beetroot) and dry-fried prawns and red peppers. Left has strawberries, apple, half a tangerine and a string cheese.

Bottom has half of a ham and cheese sarnie with salad (with beetroot! An Aussie must and Sassy loved the beetroot! It's so frustrating!!) and dry-fried prawns and red peppers. Top has strawberries, apple, half a tangerine and a string cheese.

Is it really obvious I cut/paste all this stuff??

Tomorrow I'm making sushi, that will perk things up.

Just Wet My Bento Breeks!

2010-02-04T23:20:00.001-08:00

You know how sometimes you think "I have so much stuff, I'm content. I don't need any more. Life is good." Then you see something that makes you wet your pants in excitement.

Dragon vegetable cutter

Butterfly vegetable cutter

Veggie cup cutter thing (Ouch on the price!!)

Happiness!!

*Swoon*

Bentos for 5.2.10

2010-02-04T14:48:00.000-08:00

Grey rainy morning means food photography is pants.

The kids really liked the chicken nuggets yesterday and asked for them again. These are very nice, chicken breast chunks and not reclaimed meat. Rolled egg and broccoli stalks with carrot flowers and a cherry tomato. Snack side has strawberries, navel orange slices, apple slices (for Shorty) and a few extra carrot bits.

Bentos for 4.2.10 and Failed Mochi ARG!!!

2010-02-03T23:27:00.000-08:00

First let me apologize for anyone who is kind enough to comment on this blog about the new word verification thing. I despise them, but I've also been slammed by scum sucking pig spammers who leave too many spamverts in comments. If that doesn't work I'll have to move to full comment authorization, which I also despise. Hopefully they'll get the hint they aren't wanted and shuffle off to pester someone else.

Bentos!

Sassy Bento:

Cherry tomatoes, navel orange slices and strawberries. Bottom has chicken nuggets, sugar snap peas and carrots.

Shorty Bento:

Cherry tomatoes, navel orange slices and strawberries. Bottom has chicken nuggets, sugar snap peas and carrots. She ate all except the salad under the nuggets. Can't complain about that.

Yesterday I went to the fruit and veg market and they had a punnet of wee strawberries for $2.50 so I had to buy them. Perfect size for bento. Later in the day I thought, hey! I bought that mochi flour ages ago and never got the gumption to try it out. I'd looked into microwave recipes and found a few online recipes and a YouTube video and thought - just what we need!! (not really, Oi! My waistline!)

I didn't use enough water and it came out hard. So I thought I could break it up, add more water and reheat, but no. It came out lumpy and wouldn't even consider wrapping itself lovingly around a petite strawberry. We just spooned out and ate the goop. If you do follow her recipe, I used half the sugar and it was just fine. I don't like them insanely sweet as I prefer the filling to have the flavour, but she's making mini mochi balls for ice cream so I can understand her use of more sugar. also I didn't use vanilla because it sounds heinous.

Bentos for 2.2.10

2010-02-01T19:09:00.000-08:00

Sassy's Bento:

Top has ham wrapped green beans, green beans, carrot and red pepper, ham and cheese sandwich and an onigiri with seasoned chicken inside.

Bottom has cucumber, carrot, apple and red pepper. A small orange-date cake accompanied (not pictured)

Shorty's Bento:

Top has onigiri with seasoned chicken, green beans and carrots, ham salad sandwich (She doesn't like cheese)

Bottom has cucumber, carrot, banana (with a quick wipe of lime to stop them browning) and apple. A small orange-date cake accompanied (not pictured)

Back To School!!

2010-01-31T19:52:00.000-08:00

February First is back to school day for SassyFace and tomorrow will be First Day Of School for Shorty. Hooray!! We are all kinds of excited for them both.

Me? I've got to get my head around making three packed lunches every weekday, now. Not an easy thing - how to make them interesting and not boring? First - I'll get right back into the food blogging and Flickr groups for non-stop inspiration. Second, I'll get myself a food diary. Just Bento has the Weekly Bento Planner sheets and I've printed them off and will work out dinner and leftovers into lunches. However, in my attempts to reduce waste, and portion sizes as Husband and I have gotten a bit flabby, there's very little leftovers these days. I shall have to consider getting an extra portion into the dinner and remove it before plating up dinner so I can use that portion for lunches. Like I said - it's all a bit overwhelming. I know I didn't say that exactly, but you'll forgive, right?

Today's bentos:

Sassy's Bento

Shorty's Bento (Figured practice was necessary)

Corn on the cob, half a ham and cheese sarnie in a hot dog roll, carrot sticks, octodog and crab, carrot shapes and red pepper sticks with ham wrapped green beans and carrot.

First attempt at the ham wrapped veg things - they were pretty good! I'll make them the night before next time to save cool-down time.

First day back to school for this one. Tomorrow - both girls are in school. Bento/lunch planning has been kicked up a notch - big style.

Also, I'm looking through flickr for Valentine's Day ideas as I'm not good with the themed bentos and I want to make them special from now on. Paying attention to the holidays and encouraging excitement in these kinds of things even though I think Valentine's Day is a completely pointless day created to inspire guilt and make money for cards, candy and flower businesses. My kids their own adulthoods to become disenchanted with fabricated holidays - for now, I'll let them enjoy being kids.

The Summer Sloth

2010-01-14T13:41:00.001-08:00

It's been a quiet summer for us so far. Husband has been working really hard to meet his installation deadlines and Sassyface has a painful toe and can't go out walking much. It's hot, no one's very hungry and bento has fallen off the radar. Of course with school starting up in a few weeks, there will be two daily bento for me to make, as Shorty starts school this year.

I started bento with Shorty in mind because she has egg and milk allergies. Best thing in the world has happened, though - she's outgrown the allergies. Shorty can now have eggs and some processed dairy - for some reason milk chocolate still gives her hives around her mouth but it's not nearly the scary reactions she had as a baby. We still keep soy milk instead of cow milk because we've all grown to prefer it.

I've been looking back at the Flickr groups, getting myself geared up. Still not settled into a routine here - I'm just the house cleaner and to be honest, I have too much idle time - I know, Poor Me! I'm not complaining except that I am a tad bored. It's too hot to cook some days...I'm getting lazy.

I found this link on food photography I wanted to share: 3 Essential Angles for Food Photography!

Also it's a pretty neat site with all kinds of advice for bloggers and how to have a great food blog. Which this is. I forget sometimes with my other blog which is more grumpy and political. I need to pull out of the grumpy-funk and get back to the foodie fun. It is peaceful after and I love making things my family enjoy.

The other day we stopped at the fruit market and the owner had a table covered in brown bananas. It seems her whole stock over-ripened in our Monday heat wave (48C/118F) and she had to sell it off. Suited me fine to get a bunch of brown bananas - I made pecan banana bread. Did I photograph it? No - so easy to get out of a good habit! She also said she lost two cases of pineapple because the juices spoiled in the fruit. Damn shame.

So I'll get back to taking my pictures, even if it's not essentially bento, because anything we cook can become a bento item. Hope you are all enjoying a wonderful beginning to 2010.

Happy Holidays!!

2009-12-23T13:48:00.000-08:00

Wishing you and yours a wonderful holiday season and a Happy New Year!

Bento for 17.11.09 and 18.11.09

2009-11-17T18:47:00.000-08:00

Slightly boring bento. I've been waking up groggy now that I'm sleeping through the night again. We had a week of hot sticky nights and we had no air-con. Now it's cool, I'm sleeping and groggy. Can't win.

Hot dog bun with ham, cheese and salad, a chocolate granola bar in foil at the top, some red pepper and cucumber and two quail's eggs with nori stars.

Left is a tube with two mini blueberry muffins. Right has chicken tenders and nuggets, sliced red pepper and cucumber, roll-ups in ultra thin flat bread that have cheese and chicken tenders with ketchup.

Need to use other veggies. She eats these and I go back to them all the time, but the variety is blah. Sassy is just one of those people that prefers a very limited palate.

Bentos for 10th and 11th November

2009-11-10T18:13:00.000-08:00

Yesterday...
Left one is for Sassy and the right one is for Shorty, who I made bento for because she went with me to school and sat contently while I practiced playing radio.

They both contain chicken tenders covered in potato, some salad leaves on the base, hot dog shapes (attempted crab and octodog, flowers that look more like anemones), carrots, cucumber, grape tomatoes and corn cobs. Red peppers and carrots for flowers.

Today...

Ooo...just suddenly got excited about 11.11.11 when the date is all one number That will be fun! (If you're a dork for that kind of thing - Which I Am!) Do you think they were excited or predicting the End Of Days back in 11.11.1111 or did they even care back then that it was a full streamed date?

Anyways...

Today's bento has quail eggs which I didn't tart up too much but will look into tarting-up alternatives. Cucumber, lettuce, red pepper and some crab sticks with two ham and cheese sandwiches with ketchup on home made bread. I put a couple corncobs in a separate box.

Just noticed the panda faced egg looks more like a snowman. Ah well! First time I've used the tiny face punches, so live-n-learn.

Yes I did just cut-n-paste from the flickr blurbs. I'm busy! Sorry.

Busy Springtime!

2009-11-04T15:56:00.000-08:00

I didn't have a lot of lunches to make last week as Sassy's school was having BBQ's and farewell lunches for her principal who retired on Friday. Husband is happier with a big sandwich and isn't as enamored with the bento because he train commutes instead of driving and the boxes don't fit in his backback. I do what I can occasionally, but being slightly idle, when given the chance to just make a sandwich and toss in a muffin and bag of chips...I do.

This week was Melbourne Cup Carnival so everything was shut for Monday and Tuesday so the state could enjoy a day at the horse races - isn't that the neatest thing you ever heard? The whole state takes the day off to watch horse racing. Mind boggles. I didn't photo yesterday as it was boring lunches (Truth: I fell off my scooter on Monday and sprained my wrist and it was hard to do much, so sarnies were easy.) and Wednesday is my school day where I'm taking a night course and have limited time for prep. Thursday is the breath of fresh air I need to wind back down and so this morning, I made Sassy a nicer bento lunch. (Feeling much better, but still sore.)

Bed of salad leaves from a store bought bag, a pizza-puff pastry that I bought frozen but looks so easy I may just take a Sunday afternoon to batch up a bunch myself - they are puff pastry, ricotta cheese, Italian herbs and a dash of tomato sauce. Very yum. A few chicken goujons which have a mashed potato coating instead of breading - Double Yum!, some cherry tomatoes, sweet corn and carrot sticks.

2009-10-19T20:26:00.000-07:00

I didn't post last week because it was a week of activities at school where BBQ and stuff was provided and Husband was having working lunches so Vacation for me!

Today I made them both a bento - I must have been in a good mood this morning. Husband's first:

Husband gets a Lebanese flat bread wrap with ham, cheese, mixed salad and BBQ sauce. There is a cheese string under the olives and cucumber, which I topped with some shichimi togarashi. Spinach leaves and two homemade cookie truffles - one is ginger orange flavoured (made with gingernut biscuits, candied peel and creamcheese) and the other is strawberry cream (made with store brand strawberry wafer cookies and cream cheese)

Carrot and cucumber decoration of a wee frog and some flowers.

Sassy gets:

Sassy's bento has a Lebanese flat bread wrap with ham, cheese, mixed salad and ketchup. Rocket leaves, carrot sticks and carrot decoration with cucumber accents - butterfly and frog. A strawberry cookie truffle at the end. Top has supersweet corn on the cob, yellow kiwi and a cheese string.

I got the idea for the cookie truffles from this site.

Here's some pictures from our adventure. Did I mention that my 5 year old made them? She did! They're that easy. I didn't measure or anything, I just used half the packet of cookies and made a small amounts of dough with the cream cheese - or Shorty did really, and then rolled the dough into balls and covered them in the melted chocolate - which was easy done in the microwave. no double boiler. Then we played with the leftovers, ate our art and licked the bowls clean.

Huhzewha?

2009-10-10T01:42:00.000-07:00

I don't quite know how the followers have nearly doubled in the past couple weeks but Wow! and Hello! Also for some reason my whole links side under Obento Babes has disappeared and I'm kind of cranky about that so give me some time to rehash it. The follow thing has changed too. Have I been facebooking it too much?

I have a bunch of new people to go stalk. See your blogs soon!

Bentos for 6th and 7th of October

2009-10-10T01:23:00.000-07:00

I must remember that just because I put these on Flickr, they don't magically appear on the blog. If Only! Talk about a slick thing that would be. Highly efficient! Which sadly is not a phrase used to describe me.

So on the 6th I made SassyFace:

Slightly busy bento, but it was the first day of the last term of school. There are plain rice balls with sakura denbu (A fishy topping that's salty and sweet - utterly weird but really pretty), ham and cheese wraps,grape tomatoes, hot dog octopi, carrots and string cheese slices. The top right is cola falvoured gelatin that I set in the box - it still glopped out - and the bottom is some homemade chocolate-chocolate chip cake.

On the 7th I made:

Ham and cheese salad wrap with a grape tomato and extra lettuce. Right side has red peppers, string cheese wrapped in ham, lettuce, leftover roast beef and carrots. She got a juice box and a homemade mini muffin for dessert.

I got annoyed with her because she didn't eat any of the bottom container, only the wraps. She says she doesn't like vegetables anymore. Well that's just tough! So the next day I made her the most boring lunch in history of a ham and cheese on white with no condiments, an apple and a juice box. I wonder if a week of that would be souless enough for her to enjoy the bento again and be begging for a carrot?

It's Here!

2009-09-27T23:45:00.000-07:00

My beloved bento stuff has arrived. Joy joy joy!

Damn I have a lot of stuff.

I'd forgotten how much stuff I had, and I have a lot of stuff.

...not as much as others though, so I'm not in the Bento crazy category yet. Not far off though. I recently bought some instant meringue mix because it came in a plastic egg that would be perfect for wet wipes and napkins and sauce bottles and also for keeping any rubbish in so it can be disposed of properly later and not left in playgrounds or parks.

So once school break is over, next week, I should be back in the groove. OH and I have a new camera! OH! I should make that light box I've seen others use for photographing their bento.

It'll take some time to get back into the groove, but enthusiasm is returning.

Bentos - I forgot to blog the bentos!

2009-08-19T22:03:00.000-07:00

Grr! It's just been so hard to get back into the routine. This house is also difficult to photograph a morning bento as the sun is in an unfavorable position and my light sources are scarce. I may have to get something portable...but enough about that. As it stands I've not got a lot of time for this so apologies for the post and dash.

Sassyface gets a simple wrap in the Mountain Bread with smoked ham, mozzarella, cucumber and ketchup, some extra ham and cheese roll-ups with red pepper and a few carrot and cucumber slices. There's a granola bar in there. She was naughty this morning so I told her no sweets.

Yesterday I Flicker'd about these neat new food containers I'd found:

I got this new lunch container last week where you can interchange different sized tubes and screw them together for one long lunch container. It's pretty neat!

Tall green one has flat wrap bread with ham, mozzarella, lettuce and ketchup, small blues have huge red grapes and carrot and cucumber sticks. A small chocolate bean crisp for a sweet. In the comment section, Mosaica asked where they were from and I told her; They are pretty neat. I found them in the grocery store last (Safeways Australia) and I think they are very new. They come in three colours and two sizes (the other colour is bright pink, which I bought too and I'm not sure if they offer more choices but this is what was available) and they also do a compartmented lunchbox similar to a laptop lunchbox with two small pods in yellow and orange. The company is called Smash Enterprises and is based here in Melbourne. Best thing is they are safe plastics and the insulated lunch products are lead free. A very cool company. I'm not sure if they ship outside of Oz, but you could email them and ask, or let me know in an email if you want me send some.

And that was a slap/dash cut and paste post. Sorry if it shows up weird! I'm now desperate to get my bento stuff back - it's still on a ship and not due to arrive for another 3-4 weeks. Sigh!

Bento for 3/8/09

2009-08-02T20:50:00.000-07:00

We are back to the bento, although I forgot to take pictures last week - getting back into the routine has been a struggle but hopefully this will spark back the habit. We recently emigrated to Australia, so all kinds of new things to try.

Sassy gets edamame, ham and cheese roll up made with this extremely thin and strong wrap from an Australian company called Mountain Bread - that are fabulous! They come in squares and will be nori substitutes in the future. You can look them up at: www.mountainbread.com.au

The bottom tier has some homemade banana and date bread, some jelly sweets and a wee packet of red bean paste.

I've really enjoy having lots of Japanese markets to choose from and have had a grand time visiting them. Sadly, very lacking on actual bento boxes. I think I'll have to submit to using Ebay and mail order for my fix. Or figure out how to start my own bento shop.

Later this week - there will be kangaroo in the bento. Yum!

Stretching my legs

2009-07-22T00:42:00.000-07:00

My time so far in Australia has been shopping for things for the house. We emigrated with virtually nothing apart from our clothes. The rest of our things are on a ship which isn't due into port for another 8-10 weeks. We didn't bring our furniture so it's been a lot of furniture stores, Ikea, appliance store and electronics shops. It's getting really boring now. I could happily stay clear of Ikea until X-mas time when we need to get ornaments and a tree.

I've been scoping out Japanese Grocers and managed to pop out and see my closest one which was Suzuran on Burke Road and it was great! I managed to get all my usual favourites and then spent a fortune on all the other stuff I'd never had the chance to try. They even had green konnyaku! I got to try a mochi cake for the first time which we loved, as I had to buy one for the kids as well, and I figured they wouldn't like them as they were filled with sweet red beans but of course; they loved them. The grocer also has a sushi counter in the adjoining room which I didn't partake of this time, but will next time. They also had a good sized frozen foods section which I'll give more attention next time, but on this trip I didn't plan on going home straight away and didn't want to risk thawing. I did buy an assortment of furikake, rice, toasted sesame seeds, bag of mixed mini treats, wasabi peas, nori, 40pc inari and hontsuyu sauce and as I was walking and the bag was getting heavy, I stopped there. But cannot wait to go back

I did ask the cashier if they ever carried bento supplies and she said they did once but not for a long time. I said I'd love to find a store like Daiso and her face lit up "You've been to Japan!" and I had to confess I had not been to Japan but that I would love to one day and I like obento. She treated me to many big smiles after that. Makes me really want to go to Japan now.

I found out from my perusals of blogs that I may find some bento boxes at a shop in Melbourne central called Robio and I also want to go and see Fujimart in South Yarra.

I think, ultimately, I'll have to feed my habit via Ebay. How disappointing. Takes all the fun out it.

We're in Australia!!

2009-07-13T07:30:00.001-07:00

Just wanted to let you know we made the big journey on Friday and all arrived safely. Our belongings shall follow in another two months. I miss all my bento stuff!!! Here's hoping the ship catches a faster current and arrives sooner.

Hope all of you are well - make wonderful lunches for me as I'm always on the prowl for new ideas.

Xoxo

Lyvvie

Bento for 26.5.09 and 27.05.09

2009-05-27T07:37:00.000-07:00

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Green tea soba noodles with Thai 7 spice and soy sauce, three quail's eggs, shrimp, red pepper, carrots and lettuce. Top has a fruit chew bar, cheese and some pretzel sticks.

No leftovers.

Yesterday was slap dash as my Mom was leaving to go back to America and I wanted to get the lunch made and spend time with Mom. It's a simpler affair.

Sometimes it's ok to be a bit boring, it makes the fancier lunches all the more exciting. Ham and cheese sandwich cut into triangles, cheese, granola bar, carrot sticks with cream cheese in the teddy for dipping. Side has a couple of jaffa cake (these are the new strawberry ones and they are pretty awful. Orange is still best.) and some dried pineapple.

She ate the lot, but came home hungry. She'll get more protein from now on.

Bento for 25.05.09

2009-05-25T03:01:00.001-07:00

Bacon wrapped quail's eggs, steamed carrots, lettuce, bonito rice with sukiyaki furikaki. Clementine halved, cheese and pretzel sticks. A packet of crisps for recess time.

Cooking With Dog Bento

2009-05-19T06:32:00.000-07:00

I've not been doing much of my own bento lately as I'm doing my best to keep food supplies and shopping to a minimum. But I may have to go back to packing lunches as it's expensive to pay for school lunches. £8 per week. Yikes. I'll have to wait and see. Perhaps I'll keep two bento boxes behind when the movers come next week.

Anyways, if you don't already watch CWD, here's her latest bento video! It's rather sweet, but I wonder - is it right to put the pumpkin into cold oil and fry while bringing the oil up to a boil? I would think get the oil to temp first then put the pumpkin in so it's not oil-logged. But that's just me. Enjoy Cooking With Dog.

Bento for 02.04.09

2009-04-02T00:24:00.001-07:00

Leftover pan fried pork chop, carrot and red pepper - surely the kid would be sick of this combination all the time but she asks for it! - two rice balls filled with smoked salmon, a few grapes hidden underneath things to give them some lift/support, half a black olive for a nose that she won't eat but looked better than the green grape and a red pepper mouth. Curly lettuce for separations.

Bento for 01.04.09

2009-04-01T02:08:00.000-07:00

April Fool Bento has a couple of happy, laughing rice balls filled with Scottish salmon, carrots (two bigger ones with Hello Kitty presses) and red peppers, babybel cheese and some pan fried pork chop. Leafy greens for decoration and separation.

Egg Shaper!

2009-03-31T06:02:00.000-07:00

This is the egg shaper that I bought recently from J-list. I've been coveting this thing for ages but couldn't buy it. So I emailed J-list to ask them to carry it and They Did! Aren't they cool?

This comes in a lot of small bits and can be fiddly at first. Especially as I couldn't read the instructions, but there were pictures so I managed to figure it all out eventually.

The first attempt, I made every mistake possible, I think. I over filled the tubes with egg white and I didn't oil the parts. So the first time I tried to pull the shape middles out, they stuck and the tops were still raw egg. Then the only way to fix that was to overcook them. Then I added in the yolks, and as the whites were too full, the yolks were too and made quite a mess everywhere. Also I overcooked them and they turned a yucky green colour.

So the second try - lucky I had enough eggs - I used a non-stick spray in the tubes, and on the shaper inserts. I filled the tubes half-way only with egg white. I boiled them for 10 minutes. then took them out, added the yolks, and put them back in the boiling pan for another seven minutes. When I opened the tops they looked done. I quickly put the whole thing into a cold water pan and left them to sit for twenty minutes.

This time they came out perfect. I do wish the yolks had been a brighter yellow, but I'm not going to complain about it. I also found that adding a bit of salt to both the white and yolk prior to boiling made them taste much better.

I had to rush to make this bento because I over slept this morning. It has a quick poached chicken breast sprinkled with salt and a little bit of garlic, red peppers, carrot sticks and the egg shapes i made last night. Aren't they sweet!? Sassy gets a few grapes and s fruit chew bag for dessert.

Bento for 30.03.09

2009-03-30T01:36:00.000-07:00

After one week of school lunches, Sassy has asked that I make her bento again. I was touched for all of two seconds before she added "I hate having to sit with all the boys in the cafeteria." Oh well. At least she hates boys. An almost ten year old should hate boys. Also the school is only providing packed lunches just now as they are renovating the kitchen, so no hot foods for anyone. Thanks Karma!

Top is a chargrilled chicken breast, lettuce, red pepper, carrot sticks, snow peas and some cheese cut into triangles. I don't know why.

Bottom has a halved clementine - I find the lazy pain is more likely to eat fruit if it's peeled or cut already for her. Packet of berry oatcakes which are Yummy! and I'll miss them when we go. Finally a few sugar-free fruit chews.

Adventure of a Lifetime!

2009-03-18T23:54:00.001-07:00

You may be wondering why I've been so quiet lately. Well, we've just found out there's a very high chance we'll be moving to Melbourne Australia in the VERY near future. My Husband has been interviewing for a position there and is about 90% hired. He's flying out there to finalize and meet clients and whatever other stuff he does in his job that I tend to glaze over when he talks about it as it's technical engineer computer stuff and involves a lot of numbers and other stuff.

This has been very aggressive; he was notified on Friday he'd be getting a call on Monday, Monday was told he'd have a telephone interview Tuesday, Wednesday was told they wanted him in San Diego for Monday for one week and then Melbourne for two weeks to meet clients, team and start visa application - giving him very short time to get packing ready and have a haircut, The job is to start in May. Six weeks.

Now, we've discussed it and have decided that we want the kids to finish out their school year, which takes us to middle of June. Husband will start his job, we'll finish up here, and I'll sell the house. It was what we'd planned ages ago anyways, and now seem like the best way forward.

Having said that, I think I'll take a break from the bento blog until we're resettled in Australia - so long as nothing bad happens. There's just so much to do and so little time. I'll of course, keep the blog up for archives and I absolutely intend to come back to it, as it's been amazing fun.

Wish us luck, and I'll see you...in the Winter. (I just got through winter, for goodness sake.)

Bento for 12.03.09

2009-03-12T01:23:00.001-07:00

Sassy gets pan fried gammon, Five County Cheese - which i love for it's stripes; each stripe is a different cheese including: cheddar, red Leicester, someone else's cheddar, Wensleydale, and someone else's smoked cheddar. Imitation crab sticks, red pepper rings, carrot shapes (Look like nuclear symbols, mange tout and curly lettuce. this is so packed I struggled to get the lid on. The side is a snack mix of pretzel sticks, fruit pastilles and dried dates with a clementine to finish.

2009-03-11T02:59:00.000-07:00

I made extra rice last night so I could whip up some sushi for the bentos today. I love those easy press sushi moulds they just make the whole affair so much easier. I rarely use the roll mat anymore. Granted they're not as good for an insideout roll, but then I've never made one so it's not an issue. I'm sure I could finagle it if I tried. (How cool the dictionary knew the word finagle! All these years I thought it was a weird New England term.)

So there's imitation crab or smoked salmon with green onion sushi and I added some bonito furikaki to the rice. Granted, some of the strips I cut were too wide and I had overlap. If it happens again I'll just top the sushi with some tuna or similar. The cup has some leftover ginger-soy turkey strips, with mange tout and red pepper rings.

Bottom is just curly lettuce, salted cashews, cheese, prawns, gherkins and some cherry tomatoes.

Sassy gets imitation crab or salmon and green onion sushi - it's all a mix. Looks like she got more salmon. Crab sticks, mange tout and a side of leftover ginger-soy turkey with mange tout and red pepper rings.

Top has curly lettuce, babybel cheese, prawns and cherry tomatoes. She'll also get a squeezy yogurt which are frozen now and will act as an nice pack for at least a little while.

Bento for 05.03.09

2009-03-05T03:07:00.000-08:00

Another quick one from the freezer section. Fish sticks, veggie burger, cream cheese stuffed orange pepper with red pepper flower, sugar snap peas, cheese string, baked ham slices and carrot slices. A small pot of ketchup for dipping and a granola bar for dessert. Also included a banana with a message on its peel (not pictured).

I want to start using fancy leaf lettuces in bento more. They really do make the whole thing nicer and more cohesive.

Banana!

It should be very clear by lunch time. This was just ten minutes.

Bento for 03.03.09 and 04.03.09

2009-03-04T00:32:00.000-08:00

Forgot yesterday! Darn and dash!

Yesterday:

Sassy gets some leftovers in the form of dried tofu reconstituted and soaking up the pan drippings from tonight's dinner of pork stir-fry with sugar snap peas and radish bits, leftover rice and ham grilled with cheese until brown and topped with a pretty red pepper. The bottom has carrots, red pepper strips around peppered salami, a couple egg wedges and a babybel cheese,

Husband's Bento has half an egg, pan fried gammon steak and seasoned rice with sukiyaki furikaki on top with radish flowers. Bottom has babybel cheese, carrots, red pepper, radish shrooms and sugar snap peas.

Today:

I made soup for dinner so there were no leftovers for today. This was made from stuff in the freezer. Sassy gets grilled fishcakes and smiling potato stars, sugar snap peas, red peppers, carrots and a babybel cheese. There's a pot of ketchup for dipping and a few cocktail sausages. She also gets a mini lollipop for dessert.

Bento for 25.02.09

2009-02-26T06:00:00.000-08:00

Veggie burger with salami flowers and lettuce. Orange pepper stuffed with cream cheese, shrimp, flower hot dogs, and carrots. A bag of crisps and a frozen yogurt in a tube. Forgot to post up yesterday, and we had pizza last night so no leftovers which means they got sent off with ham sandwiches. They feel so cheated now to get a typical Western lunch, but as they take me five minutes to make it's a boon for me occasionally.

Bentos for 24.02.09

2009-02-24T09:09:00.000-08:00

Sassy gets two onigiri made with bonito broth, filled with smoked ham, a soy marbled egg, carrot, more ham, smoked cheese, sugar-snap peas and a few mooli flowers.

Leftover stir-fry rice with smoked fish sauce and ginger, lotus root, peas, Jerusalem artichoke and red pepper, topped with grilled chicken thigh, a miso egg (HB egg covered with miso paste and left to cure for 24 hours), sugar-snap peas, carrots, mooli flowers all on a bed of rocket leaves.

As it's Pancake Day, the kids insisted on pancakes for breakfast. I made too many so they also got to take some, syrup soaked, for school for snacks.

Bento for 23.02.09

2009-02-23T05:22:00.001-08:00

Where has February gone? It's been sand through my fingertips and is almost past. Bento is for Husband as Sassy like to have a hot lunch with her friends on a Monday and a Friday.

Husband's bento has homemade chicken goujons, on rocket and lettuce salad, sliced carrots. Bottom is sticky rice with Thai 7 spice, sesame oil, garlic, peas, honey ham and chopped inari pouch with a dash of salt. Herb cheese on the side a chocolate muffin for dessert.

Goujons

chicken breast cut into strips
garlic herb mix (I used Garlic Italian from Schwartz) mixed with 2 tbs of corn flour.
one egg beaten.
Bread crumbs (I used Paxo)

Dip the chicken strips into the flour mix, then egg, then bread crumbs. lay out on an oven sheet and cook in a high oven for 15 minutes or so. Grill for a few more to brown up. Better than store bought and cheaper.

Next time I'll not use the yellow towel as a backdrop as it's washed all the colour from the lunch.

Obama Makizushi

2009-02-19T23:24:00.001-08:00

I took a bento break because I've gotten into this bad habit of grocery shopping mid-week and ran out of lunch foods, so I'll have to rejig this so it all works and I don't run out of food again. As the family was on vacation last week, supplies were snarffed up. (I'm full of all kinds of excuses, no?)

But I'll leave this with you, as I saw it on a friend's blog and found it interesting, if slightly weird.

Presidents are yum! Here's more.

Bento for 18.02.09

2009-02-18T06:51:00.000-08:00

Sassy gets two heart shaped ham, salami and cheese sandwiches with nori faces and ketchup cheeks, carrots in a red pepper band, string cheese, and a crudities selection of carrot, red pepper, sugar snap peas and mooli radish. She also gets a mini chocolate muffin and a yellow plum. I'm wagering the plum comes back home.

I know I've left spaces in the bento which bug me, but I couldn't think of what to fill them with. I felt it had enough protein, and enough carbs from the veggies. Her dessert was in a separate container - I suppose some lettuce would've worked if I had any left. It's obsessive this bento filling.

Husband got a sandwich because I was tired last night. A nice sandwich. And a chocolate muffin. I feel no guilt!!

Bentos for 17.02.09

2009-02-17T06:18:00.001-08:00

Sassy gets some fishcakes, a cream cheese and mustard stuffed pepper, red Leicester cheese in ham, sugar snap and snow peas, a "treasure bag" which is an inarizushi pouch filled with and egg that's been poached in seasoned water (Maki's recipe), mooli radish and a small pouch of jelly beans.

Husband gets two red Leicester filled pan fried potato pancakes (Tried oyaki but the dough wasn't firm enough), pepper filled with cream cheese and grain mustard, small rolls of sweet ham, Takarabukuro cut in half, snow peas, mooli and lettuce. He also got a bunch of fruit and bag of jelly sweets.

Bento for 16.02.09

2009-02-15T23:34:00.000-08:00

Husband gets leftover pork stir-fry with rice. There's: baby corn, red pepper, okra, sugar snap peas, bok choi, garlic, ginger and sesame. The top has lettuce, red pepper, mooli (which is like a daikon radish), red Leicester cheese and the blue strawberry - which by being blue makes it masculine by law - has some pork drippings with stir-fry sauce and sweet vinegar as a dressing. Jellybeans as a dessert.

Bentos for 10.02.09

2009-02-10T00:12:00.000-08:00

Heart shaped onigiri coloured with beetroot concentrate (I'm sure he'll love a pink onigiri!) with soy shrimp inside, ham flowers. ham wrapped green beans, red peppers, sausages and a super sweet orange pepper stuffed with salami and cheddar. Bottom has mixed giant raisins and dried cherries, brazil nuts, cookie and a cheese stick.

Today is the last day of school for the week as the kids break up for February holidays. I have no clue why they need another holiday as it feels like they only just went back from New Year, but anyways...

Heart shaped onigiri that I formed around a small heart shaped cutter to make a depression so I could fill it on top with cheese and is coloured with beetroot concentrate, salami, and ham layers. Broccoli, mini gherkins, sausage, carrot sticks in a red pepper ring, olice stuffed with feta and tamagoyaki

Bento for 05.02.09

2009-02-05T02:38:00.000-08:00

Mini hamburgers with cheddar and salami wheels, salad of raw veg: red pepper, carrot, green beans, snow peas and broccoli. They each get a portion of cheese and a chocolate cookie for a snack. The sauce tub is a mix of ketchup and brown sauce. Brown sauce is like thick A1 sayce or Bulldog sauce, but the Scots just call it "Brown sauce".

Forgot to post up yesterday's bentos for some weird reason. No excuse really as I spent most of the day on the computer.

Sassy's bento has ginger soy lotus root leftover from dinner, cheese butterflies, peeled broccoli stems, red pepper (The sweetest, it's delicious!), sugar snap peas, salami and cheese rolls. The bottom are plain rice mini-onigiri that Sassy put the faces on herself. She did a great job, I think. The side is sukiyaki furikake.

I love saying sukiyaki furikake.

Bento for 03.02.09

2009-02-03T08:03:00.000-08:00

Sassy gets two basmati rice onigiri filled with curried turkey and sweet potato, sausages, red pepper, carrots, sugar snap peas, cup of curried sweet potato and roll-up ham and cheese on a pick.

Dinner was sweet potato and turkey curry, so leftovers were a big help. the potatoes were wonderful. I tried to make the onigiri look like they had snow on them since we had out first snow yesterday.

While making the bento, I was putting rice and curry anti the box for Husband when he asked if he could have a sandwich instead. He doesn't get to heat up his lunch and he didn't want cold curry. Fine - girlpants. Boring sandwich for you it is. :P

Bento for 29.01.09

2009-01-29T04:05:00.000-08:00

Sassy gets grilled garlic salmon, ume noodles with bulldog sauce and mirin topped with shrimp, tomagoyaki, bok choi and yellow peppers.

Husband has been getting sandwiches because I'm so tired at night I've not had the energy. I've also not had any leftovers. He's ok with that though.

Bento for 28.01.09

2009-01-28T02:52:00.000-08:00

Sassy gets a red pepper top flower with yellow pepper center - couldn't resist it when I saw it! Snow peas for stems and sushi rice underneath. sliced veggies of yellow pepper, snow peas, sugar snap peas and a cherry tomato. Salami "flowers" with string cheese middles held on a toothpick. Egg furikaki packet, sticky junk food bar and a ripe pear.

It was all about the flower, really.

Bento for 27.01.09

2009-01-27T02:54:00.000-08:00

Smoked salmon sushi (requested!) topped with a little cod roe furikake, cocktail sausages, cherry tomato, yellow bell pepper and sugar snap peas. A home-made chocolate muffin with marzipan inside, crisps and a string cheese.

Stem Ginger and Rhubarb Pies

2009-01-26T08:05:00.000-08:00

This is a very simple recipe. I took ready made short crust pastry and cut the block into six smaller cubes, rolled them out and filled the sections a large muffin silicon...er...tin.

The first batch was just frozen rhubarb, tablespoon of sugar and some diced stem ginger. Fold over the edges of the pastry, sprinkle a little sugar over the top and they were baked for half an hour in a medium oven (180C fan assisted). These came out fine but still very tart. I didn't roll the pastry out thin enough and some of the fold over bits were chewy and gross.

Second attempt, I rolled the pastry thinner and filled the same pan. I took a small glass tray and put some frozen rhubarb (maybe two cups), diced stem ginger (two balls), some of the ginger syrup (tbsp) and 1/4 cup of sugar and microwaved it all for three minutes. I was then able to mash the rhubarb with a fork. Then filled the pastry cases with some mashed rhubarb mix and a few frozen bits for tartness and bite. Such a difference! So this is the better way to go.

The first way was fine, but rhubarb being rhubarb, it needs a lot of sweet. If you like it tangy-tart then go with the first recipe - it was fine apart from the pastry being too thick. But most folks have the sweet tooth, so the second recipe may be more suitable.

Bentos for 22.01.09

2009-01-21T23:34:00.000-08:00

Sassy gets a nest of leftover ginger, soy and garlic soba noodles in a chicken gravy with mushrooms and lotus root. Three slices of string cheese for "eggs". Hard boiled egg mommy chicken, sliced ham, carrots and red peppers. She gets a granola bar as a treat.

Husband gets leftover ginger, soy and garlic soba noodles in a chicken gravy with mushrooms, spring onion and lotus root. For dinner we had the noodles with stir-fry chicken, but all the chicken was gone with plenty noodles and sauce, so I just added in some ham that's been in the fridge for sandwiches. Bottom tier has carrots, red peppers and dip made from cream cheese, chili miso paste and French mustard - sounds icky but tastes awesome. Three olives fill in the space under the dip.

Lotus roots were bought from Japan Centre and came with no instructions at all on what to do with them, but I'd seen them used and figured it can't be too hard. So a google on "How to cook lotus root" gave me Maki's Just Hungry site where she tells not only how to cook them but gives several recipes too. The family were very "Oooo what's this weird thing?" and everyone liked them. They're pretty flavourless and just take on the taste of the sauce used. They just add crunch and visual appeal. Three large roots for £4.30 was a bargin...I think? I also bought low salt soy sauce, soba noodles, cooking saki (on sale!), mayonnaise cups and onigiri wraps. I have to reign in my splurging at JC as it's easy to go crazy to want everything!

Bentos for 21.01.09

2009-01-21T04:22:00.000-08:00

Husband's bento has grilled chicken thigh on rice and gravy. Mini kebabs of smoked cheese and ham, grapes, red peppers, carrots and salami flowers.

Sassy's bento has a grilled chicken onigiri, sausages, extra chicken on a chicken pick, cheese, red peppers in a carrot ring, half a tangy satsuma and grapes in carrot rings. The rings were left over from Husband's carrot shapes - I like to think of them as wee planets.

Bentos for 20.01.09

2009-01-19T13:16:00.000-08:00

Breakfast bentos with pancakes, spiced ham, Cumberland sausages and butter-syrup sauce. Husband gets a salad with smoked cheese, red pepper and carrot with a small bottle of vinaigrette. Sassy gets mixed fruit and veg.

Bento for 13.01.09

2009-01-13T03:52:00.000-08:00

Top has mushrooms and a baby plum toamato with mini kebabs of smoked ham, cheeses and imitation crab. Bottom has three mini onigiri, smoked salmon, imitation crab and matchstick carrot bundles. All on some shredded lettuce.

I did assemble it upside-down; note to self - make sure you fill the right side of the bear.

Bento for 12.01.09

2009-01-12T02:53:00.000-08:00

Both Husband and Sassy will get two pies, the triangle one is leftover omurice where I added some scrambled egg instead of wrapping the contents in an egg sheet, wrapped in shortcrust, and the semicircle is an apple pie. Both get a bit of cheese, sugar snap peas and baby plum tomatoes. Sassy gets a small purple bag of corn nuts - she loves them! Who couldn't love some corn nuts? I was surprised to find them as I'd not had them in eons and saw them in Tesco this weekend. These are from Australia.

p.s. - I love Cooking With Dog.

Bento for 09.01.09

2009-01-09T02:47:00.000-08:00

Four sushi with carrot, red pepper and smoked ham (Who says sushi has to be fish??), matchstick carrot and red pepper bundles tied with a nori strip, mini kebab with shrimp and red pepper, sugar snap peas, grapes and grilled salmon on lettuce.

The 9 year old will eat it. She loves fish.

Sassy Bento 08.01.09

2009-01-08T02:22:00.000-08:00

Roast beef, cheese and veg pastie, carrots, red peppers, wiener flowers and sugar snap peas, grapes and and attempted wiener-salami flower that was a fail because Danish salami is too fatty and it just melts and won't cut and the egg sheet was too thick but the wieners came out nice. At least it'll taste nice. Under the grapes lurks a chocolate covered cookie.

I got the idea for the pasties from Sakurako Kitsa's recent post on how to make samosas. As I had plenty roast beef and enough cheese and veg I thought I'd make some bento sized pasties.

They're rather yummy, if I say so myself.

Bento for 06.01.09 and 07.01.09

2009-01-07T03:52:00.000-08:00

I'm in a financial pickle just now that I won't pester you folks with, but let's just say I'm still waiting for a large refund to come back. As a result I've been skimping on the grocery bills and living off the bounty of my freezer. That means a lot of stew, soup and burgers with steakchips. I seriously need to get some groceries now. I looked into the fridge to get something ready for Sassy's first day back to school and there slim pickings, meagre offerings and a few mouldy cucumber ends. So yesterday, Sassy got this:

There's two onigiri both with seasoned chicken inside from last night's dinner. Carrot sticks, red pepper slices and a Hello Kitty egg flavoured furikaki packet. Crisps and a mini blueberry-orange muffin. I worried if it was enough, but she's a light eater so it was fine.

Today there was even less to choose from. I didn't do the shopping yesterday. Yet, there was inspiration from all sides from my beloved bento friends. Today, Sassy got this:

This bento is made with the remaining few things left in my fridge and cupboards. I'm very thankful I've found Anna The Red and All Things Purple or I'd have not had any ideas of my own.

This is a DIY lunch where the small tub contains tuna and sweet corn mayonnaise and the bento has four small slices of bread for her to make her sandwiches with. On the bread are some hot dog mushrooms with cheese stems (there was one snack cheese left in the fridge) which was an idea from ATP's site, the rest of the hot dog is in the bottom of the bento. Cucumber, carrot sticks and a few bits of raw broccoli give a nest for the "chicken" egg. Tutorial followed at Anna's site.

She also gets a pack of crisps and a fancy chocolate cookie.

I'm going shopping later today.

Happy Hogmanay!

2008-12-31T02:17:00.000-08:00

As I've not had any lunches to make because we are all on vacation, it's been a lonely Bento blog here at Obento Baby.

I sincerely hope you've all had a wonderful winter holiday - whatever that may have been - and I wish you all a Happy New Year, or as we say in Scotland, Happy Hogmanay! Although technically, today is Hogmanay and tomorrow is just plain old New Years' Day. Enjoy your fireworks.

Or as we like to say in my house "Happy Birthday Lyvvie!" day.

Palmiers

2008-12-21T07:47:00.000-08:00

I cheated to make this classic French biscuit. I use ready made, ready-rolled puff pastry because it's vegan friendly which means my daughter with the food allergies will be able to enjoy these.

I took a bowl and added a cup of granulated sugar, a tbs of cinnamon and a tbs of ground ginger. then I unrolled the pastry, lifted the pastry off the blue sheet and covered the sheet with half of the sugar. Put the pastry back on the sheet and put half of the remaining sugar across the top of the pastry. Use a rolling pin to gently roll the sugar into the pastry.

Begin to fold the pastry by folding the two long edges into the middle. then fold the two long edged into the middle again. Finally sprinkle the remaining sugar along the middle of this crease, and then fold over to have one long log.

Cut in 3/4 to one inch slices and rub the slices into the loose sugar to cover the cut edges, and then place on a baking sheet covered in baking parchment.

Put into a hot oven (450F/230C) for about 6-7 minnutes or until the sugar has begun to brown and caramelise, then take them out of the oven and turn over. Put back into the oven and cook for a further 6 minutes or until equally brown.

Mine came out very well, but the ones in the corners of the baking sheet began to burn a little bit - but still edible. These took a total of 30 minutes to make. Brilliant, easy and good.

Bento for 18.12.08

2008-12-18T01:53:00.000-08:00

Husband gets a DIYBLT today. I didn't want to make the whole sadnwich ahead of time because by the time he'd get to eat it the tomato would've made the bread soggy. So the bacon and cream cheese is ready done and all he'll have to do is add the chopped tomato and lettuce for a scrummy BLT. He also gets a wee box of mixed nuts, crisps and a blueberry muffin.

The kids both have Christmas parties today at school and I made them small snack boxes to nibble from - especially for Shorty as she can't eat what everyone else does.

Sure this may look like the lamest Christmas snack box for the class party, but the kids asked for these things, and they are very excited.

There is a blueberry muffin - I offered fairy cakes with frosting but they wanted the muffins, crazy I know (Sassy ate hers for breakfast)! I'd have gone for cakes and frosting myself - chocolate chip cookies, orange sugar cookies, starburst fruit chews, potato rings, Sassy gets a few veggies and lychees and a bacon and cream cheese sandwich.

Bento for 17.18.08

2008-12-18T01:48:00.000-08:00

Forgot to post up yesterday's bento. Sassy stayed home from school so only Husband got one.

Smoked salmon sushi, sugar snap peas, peppered sirloin steak, baby carrots. Some flavor of furikake - it's nice on salads. Homemade chocolate chip cookies.

The sushi was the fastest thing made in that lunch. I used a daiso nigiri sushi mould and it's just so simple! Pops out five nigiri that I just topped with a dab of wasabi, a slice of Scottish smoked salmon and wrapped in a pre-cut nori strip.

Bento for 16.12.08

2008-12-16T06:45:00.000-08:00

Again with the same but different bentos for Husband and Sassy.

Each gets a ham and onion quiche, sausages, sugar snap peas and cheddar cheese. Husband's onigiri has roast beef and chili miso inside and sukiyaki furikake on the outside with nori, and Sassy has sausage in hr onigiri with sukiyaki furikake and nori. I added the nori as I'd made the rice too wet and it was falling apart. Husband gets Minstrels for a sweet, Sassy gets Starburst chews.

Now, for you folks who are keen, here's the recipe for the mini quiche:

(copied from the Flickr page here)

These are a very quick way to make something special for the lunch that is calorie, protein, and flavour rich. The base is made with store bought shortcrust pasty that I've cut into small cubes, rolled out with my daughter's toy rolling pin (which I now keep) and pressed into the bottom of the silicone muffin pan. I did not pre-cook them with beans or anything.

The quiche mix is:
four whole eggs.
2tbs cream
pinch of sea salt
pinch of ground pepper
tsp of Shwartz garlic Italian seasoning
Whisk together until liquid and no more gelled egg is visible.

Into each pastry section I put in a diced slice of ham, few bits of finely diced onion and some shredded cheddar cheese. I poured to the top of the pastry and put into a hot oven, 250C, for about 20-25 minutes or until the tops are nicely browned and puffed up and the pastry looks lightly brown too.

Eat hot or cold.

And if you fancy, I made these amazing cookies over the weekend, too.

Recipe and photo journey here. I'll add that these came out brilliant the second time I made with with the no-stick bake sheet beneath them.

Bento for 15.12.08

2008-12-15T02:11:00.000-08:00

Husband and Sassy get matching bento today, although slightly different.

Sassy has a mini ham and onion quiche, 1/2 ham and cheese sandwich, cocktail sausages, sugar snap peas, red peppers and minstrels; which are like giant M&Ms.

Husband has the same except he has a roast beef and mustard sandwich with fancy balsamic vinegar onion cheese and peanut M&Ms which should be a nice surprise as I told him last night I'd eaten all the peanut M&Ms and he laid a small guilt trip on me for it although the words "Greedy cow," never crossed his lips, I know he was thinking it.

I'm still on this kick to prove that you can make bento that are suitable for adults and children alike so there's not really a need to waste a ton of time making one special over the other. I admit this isn't full or salami flowers and mooli designs and whatnots, but it still fits the bill. Tell me if you think otherwise, I may be deluding myself and not be aware of it.

Bento for 10.12.08

2008-12-10T11:02:00.000-08:00

I need to get groceries. The girls are having growth spurts and are eating everything! I can't keep up with the "I'm hungry!" demands. And they're so skinny! You'd never know they chowed down non-stop. As a result this looks a bit light because I'm just running out of food. She may get cereal and a cup of milk for lunch tomorrow.

Today she got red pepper and sugar snap peas, a ham cream cheese and ketchup sandwich, cream cheese Ritz cracker sandwiches (Always better with peanut butter but her school doesn't allow), yogurt tube and a cheese string. Also an apple. If she wasn't so picky I could put plenty more but she has to be fussy - it's what The Sassyface is all about.

bento for 08.12.08

2008-12-08T02:54:00.000-08:00

Husband got a boring western lunch today with a roast beef sandwich and fruit and cookies. He annoyed me this weekend. No fancy lunch for him.

Sassy gets leftover veggie pizza, sugar snap peas, ham and cream cheese wrapped around cucumber and red pepper, persimmon and a cheese stick which is hidden under the persimmon.

I'm looking up quiche recipes today and will hopefully have something done this week. I think quiche is a great winter meal. Also, I'm trying to find recipes that are for he bento that are high flavour and high calorie in a small package but aren't sweets. It's easy to do with sweets but getting a high protein, high energy, calorie packed yummy lunch bit into bento size and will still taste good cold is a challenge.

Bento for 27.11.08

2008-11-27T01:35:00.000-08:00

I don't tend to make a big deal about Thanksgiving. Most years I completely forget until after the day. But I remembered today. I'm not planning anything big, but I thought I could at least give Sassy some turkey sausages for her lunch. She also gets some cut up seafood sticks, a halved babybel. Red pepper, sugar snap peas and a touch of early morning pre-coffee insanity with a mini kabob of lettuce, cheese and salami. Ginger nut cookies with gummy sweets and a fat nectarine with a toothy grin.

Surf-n-Turf Bake Bento

2008-11-26T02:59:00.000-08:00

Today's' bento has the surf-n-turf bake, red pepper, sugar snap peas, seafood stick, sausage, and gigantic raisins. A side of gingernut biscuits, fruit bar and a breadstick and cheese dunker.

Surf-n-Turf bake is a miniature pie made with eggs whisked with salt and pepper, cocktail sausages, a whole seafood stick and then topped with shredded cheese.

I should've put the cheese on before putting in the oven, but I waited until halfway through cooking. It didn't brown nicely as a result.

So next time, cheese goes on before they go in the oven. I should also add a bit of cream or yogurt in there to give it a bit more substance. They end up like flat souffles. Still tasted really nice. (even if the egg on the inside went that funny green/grey colour)

Bento for 25.11.08

2008-11-25T08:03:00.000-08:00

These sandwiches/wraps didn't photograph well. What I had to do was pull out my rolling pin and flatten a normal slice of decrusted bread. That way I could add ham, cheese, lettuce and ketchup, roll them up and hold them with a toothpick. I also made one with salami. I guess next time I'll slice them so they look like sushi sandwiches. The rest are cocktail sausages, carrot slices, red pepper and a lemon biscotti that's now too soft to be called biscotti and is instead a stale lemon cake, for dessert. But she really liked the lemon "cookies" so she's happy and that's all that matters.

Lemon Spice Biscotti

2008-11-24T08:22:00.000-08:00

I've been playing around with biscotti recipes and haven't found one that works right yet. Nothing like the hard, crisp, dunkable biscotti I've had in cafes. This recipe I tried today is an alteration of the one I found yesterday...which makes no sense to any of you reading this because I never posted either. First recipe is as follows:

2 eggs
150g caster sugar
1tsp mixed spice
100g plain flour
zest of a small orange.

1. Preheat oven to 180C and grease and dust with flour a loaf tin.
2. Beat eggs and sugar and zest together until well blended and frothy. Add dry ingreients and mix well. Scrape mixture into the tin; it should go about half full.
3. Bake 20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Remove, turn out onto a cutting board and slice into 1/4 inch slices. Place the slices onto a baking sheet and put back into the oven for five minutes to toast, then turn over and toast the other side. Remove and cool.

Pretty easy. But leaves a chewy middle. Biscotti shouldn't have a chewy middle. Yesterday's with the orange zest was much nicer than the lemon, but the lemon is nice too. I just ran out of oranges. I'll have to try traditional almond and chocolate next time.

So I've looked around at other recipes and some seem to not end up with a batterlike texture, but more of a dough that is rolled, sliced and then toasted. That sounds a bit more accurate then what I found. Granted, I was trying to veganize this recipe - but I've since decided that these should be my own special cookie treat that I don't have to share with anyone. Greedy? No, just something special all for me. Doesn't mean I don't make something special for everyone else too.

I'll keep trying.

Bento for 24.11.08

2008-11-24T04:15:00.000-08:00

This bento made me hungry, so Sassy is lucky there are no bites taken out of her hamburgers. I love the smell of hamburgers.

There's mini hamburgers and cocktail sausages, red pepper, sugar snap peas, hunk of cheese (I hanker for a hunka), and cut raspberry fruit bar. The side has three gingersnap cookies and a few gummy sweets.

I did make a couple extra mini burgers to add to my lunch of teriyaki chicken and rice. Teriyaki hamburgers taste great.

What am I like?

2008-11-23T03:12:00.000-08:00

I made bento last week, uploaded to Flicker and then completely forgot to put them up here on my beloved Bento site. I blame the head cold. It's eroding my brain. I posted on my personal blog that I have a village of Trolls excavating space so they breed in my sinuses and are clearing space down my neck and now into the space under my shoulder blade. Not comfy.

Anyway, here are the two bento I forgot to post last week.

20.11.08

leftover naan bread pizza (Thank you Nigella!) that has pepper, onion and cheddar/mozzarella mix. Roast ham, cheese cubes and clementine slice. (I ate the leftover slices. They were yummy.)

Pretzel sticks and a fruit bar. A tub with half a mini Belgian waffle and a couple vitamins.

19.11.08

Mini wrap with ham, cheese and ketchup. Snow peas. Pretzel sticks, clementine slices - so sweet and tart! - a fruit bar hidden underneath and some craisons. Dunkers.

She ate it all. It was boring and she liked it. Would she eat the uber-fancy onigiri? No but this boring pap she loves. Not fair.

There we go - up to date.

I'm currently working on a 30-day challenge that will include recipes. Those of you who don't know me apart from bento should know that I'm an avid gym goer and weight lifter, very active. I also love food, which is why my weight has been over 200lbs for the past 10 years. Yes yes, a fat fit person, we do exist. I've been visiting a very fun blog called The Fat Loss Troubleshooter run by personal trainer, Leigh Peele. She ran the 30-day "One Big Meal" challenge recently and her team had great success. I bowed out because I didn't have 30 meals pre-prepared (More likely 15 would suffice), at least mentally, in order to make it work. So I've been scouring the internet for one pot dishes that would work. The good thing is although you'll be eating the same meal all day (You didn't think it would be one meal per day - no no - all your required calories for the whole day baked into one meal that you portion out throughout the day), you can change the meal from day to day to get the variety one needs to stave off boredom.

So I'm planning this for December 1st. I'll include recipes, and that means Christmas too, which lets be honest is just One Big Meal. On this challenge you are allowed a cheat day or re-feed day per week and I'll probably count that as Christmas day and New Years. It may work, it may not, but at least for now it gives me something to look forward to, plan and have fun with.

Bento for 06.11.08

2008-11-06T11:40:00.000-08:00

First try back at bento since the new kitchen. It's not completely finished yet, but almost, for which I'm grateful and annoyed at once - just want my kitchen to be mine.

Top has grilled chicken thigh, salami, sticky rice and green shiso furikake.

Bottom has a small brie, star shaped bread. dates and sugar snap peas.

New Kitchen Chronicles

2008-10-28T02:49:00.000-07:00

Are being posted on my blog. Come get to know the non-bento me a little more as I slowly lose my patience. You can also follow me on Twitter as I live blog the ordeal.

Twitter

Day One

Day Two

Bento Break

2008-10-25T00:57:00.000-07:00

Just want to let you gorgeous people know that I'll not be posting Bento for the next week. I'm getting my kitchen pulled out and replaced with a brand new one. I'll be back with pictures of new Bento and kitchen for early November. Wish us luck that the contractors aren't stoned, arrogant jerkwads. See you soon!

Bento for 23.10.08

2008-10-23T01:23:00.000-07:00

Today's bento has spiced minced turkey with onion and red pepper mixed with some sticky white rice and topped with sweet chili sauce. Looks like dog food but really was very tasty and I served this in inari pouches for myself and the girls for dinner but Husband got some in a tortilla with cheese and toasted in a toastabag I love those things. (He worked late so didn't have dinner with us - Karoshi)

The bottom has mixed nuts with home-made toasted pumpkin seeds (all hidden) two venison sausages which are really good and virtually no fat and carb free - just great, lean protein, and red pepper. He got a protein flapjack (we have to finish them off and they really do fill the belly and could be used as a cure for diarrhea and constipation. Makes me think of the Elvish bread in LOTR that one bite can fill the belly for a day.) a couple apples and a small packet of spiced fruit oatcakes from Nairns which I adore.

Bento for 22.10.08

2008-10-23T00:29:00.001-07:00

This bento has strawberries and blueberries, mixed nuts and raisins, home made protein flapjack which I followed from a bodybuilder's website and it's really dry and must be eaten with a huge cup of coffee to soften it up but it tastes all right as it was made to encourage Husband to eat something for breakfast. I won't share the recipe as they're not nice enough to make again.

Bottom has what tastes like blackened Cajun turkey breast but what I used was Thai 7 spice, pepper and kalonji seeds which I love - they're black onion seeds and used a lot in Indian cooking. I fried the spices up dark in a small amount of oil and then fried turkey breast steaks in the spiced pan. They were amazing. Comes with white sticky rice and mirin furikake

He got an apple and blueberry pie for dessert. Husband IM'd me in the afternoon to tell me how great his lunch was. then he told me again that night, so blackened turkey with mini pie is a hit with the Man.

Bento for 21.10.08

2008-10-20T15:10:00.000-07:00

Not many bento coming from my kitchen lately. The kids are on school vacation and I've been mean giving Husband sandwiches most days. But today I got my thumb out and made him a bento.

Top has stir fry turkey breast with sugar snap peas and baby brussels sprouts. Don't make a face - they're really sweet and nice and I'm usually the one making the face over sprouts but those are great. Basmati rice with wasabi furikake.

Bottom has strawberries, snow peas, mixed nuts and a wedge of brie.

The tub on the left has a muffin sized homemade apple pie. I got the idea here. Bookmark her blog she's amazing. The right side has Scottish oatcakes for spreading the cheese and strawberries on.

The wee pies were fucking brilliant.

Bento for 09.10.08

2008-10-10T10:04:00.000-07:00

Quinoa seasoned with garlic and herb salt, mirin furikaki and pork chops with Thai 7 spice. Bottom is a rocket salad with yellow pepper, sausage, snow peas and peppadew. soy sauce, rice vinegar and chili dressing in fish.

Bento for 08.10.08

2008-10-10T10:03:00.000-07:00

Brown pilau rice, steak and tonkatsu sauce, sausages, radish, carrot, cherry tomato and sugar snap peas

2008-10-02T02:05:00.000-07:00

As evidence of my previous post, this was Sassy's lunch on Tuesday. How uninspired.

Today she gets this:

Today's bento is for SassyFace as Husband is going out for lunch and dinner with clients, lucky sod.

She gets a heart shaped sandwich of boring cheese and ketchup which she loves but I dread in its complete lack of anything interesting, carrot slices with Hello Kitty faces, sliced giant clemetine, pork sausage, tomagoyaki, babybel and snow peas.

I added a box of orange juice, a fruit bar and a bag of gummy skulls with gooey bloody middles of strawberry syrup. Bleh and yum all at once.

Manic House

2008-10-01T06:49:00.000-07:00

Things are very busy here just now. I'm also having trouble as the kids, who aren't getting out to play and run wild and burn tons of calories like they did over the summer, aren't as hungry and the need to make such big meals which lead to leftovers for bento has gone down. I've got a lot on and I'm out of the house - needless to say I've been making quicker sandwich lunches and not bento. Although today I did make bento as I had leftover ginger soy chicken from last night's dinner but I was so tired last night I didn't photograph them. This has been the way this past couple weeks.

Also, I started Atkins again a couple weeks ago and the not having rice seems to have stumped me in bento making. It's a complete mental block because I've made loads of bento without rice so why is this different? I made the mental association of bento=rice. It was convenient "out" clause for my tired mind which said "No rice no bento, make a sandwich instead." I now see the total dipshitness of that.

So in the coming weeks I'll probably make fewer bento but I'm going to make the effort to make sure they are quality bento. My family are worth it.

2008-09-23T12:53:00.000-07:00

Husband gets leftover chicken breast, salami slices, sugar snap peas, yellow pepper and cheese cubes. Bottom tier has a few chocolate biscuits, almonds and a breakfast bar. He'll get a couple pieces of fruit and a protein shake added to his lunchbox.

No school tomorrow as the lunch workers and janitors are on strike.

I had the onigiri messy play day with the nursery today - it went great! The kids seemed really interested and had a lot of fun squidging rice and making shapes. they played with the egg shapers the most, don't know why, maybe they seemed the least fiddly?

I made a full kilo of rice and split it into three bowls and coloured each red, blue and green. The girls were the most curious and keen to get stuck in while the boys hovered about saying they didn't like to get sticky or dirty - weird boys! What mean Moms they must have to let them think they can't sticky or dirty. They watched a lot and a few came around and gave it a try.

I thought it was sweet how most of the girls would take dainty handfuls of rice and try and fill a shape until given permission to have a big handful of rice. It was as if they were worried about taking too much. I had to keep saying "No, take a BIG handful and stuff up the shape, then smoosh the rice in it." Then they took to the task like gangbusters. Not one child ate one vegetable that I cut up. Most of them were happy to eat the rice balls and nori - they loved the face punches, absolutely loved them, and were fascinated by the "edible paper" (nori). I don't think one of them thought the seaweed was yucky.

Clean up was extensive. That's all I'll say.

When talking with the Mums afterwards I was telling one how much fun her son enjoyed it in particular and how it was a shame that of the three boys who gave it a try only one actually was willing to eat the rice. "Well it wasn't my son, he hates rice." Well when I told her it was her son she was gobsmacked. Didn't believe me, and then asked for the recipe. I told her maybe the fact it was blue and Pikachu made it ok?

I don't know when the turn for the 7th graders comes as they've not gotten back to me on dates but I'm assured they'll be a million times easier and ask tons of questions. that made me feel a whole lot better. It was a great time. And my daughter felt like a star to have her Mum there for the day, plus she knew all the answers to the questions about onigiri and where they came from and what we do with an onigiri "Eat it!!"

Bento for 23.09.08

2008-09-22T12:34:00.000-07:00

I've only just now realised I made my Husband a bento and he's got the day off work tomorrow. *heavysigh* I'll eat it.

It has red shiso furikake rice, pan fried lamb steak. Chopped green and yellow pepper, sugar snap peas, carrot sticks and a hot pepperami, a small tub of cream cheese with paprika on top for dipping.

Sassy gets cream cheese dip, carrots, sugar snap peas, cocktail sausages. Bottom has a Tigger cheese, shiso furikake onigiri with smoked salmon inside and a few marshmallows.

Bento for 18.09.08

2008-09-19T07:38:00.000-07:00

Finally got around to using the Pikachu rice mould for Sassy's lunch. It was a wee bit confusing to figure out, but I got there in the end. Shame the picture is so yellow but I either had it over exposed, or under and never just right. It's rained al week so the natural light sucks and it's dark so early...yes yes bitch bitch.

Anyways, the pikachu has a sausage in the middle and I painted the face with a diluted bit of turmeric in water, nori, red pepper and ketchup. A hard boiled egg, cheese flower and carrot flowers, super sweet cherry tomatoes, cocktail sausages and iceberg lettuce on the bottom

Bento for 17.09.08

2008-09-16T23:38:00.000-07:00

Only Husband gets one today because Sassy asked for a hot lunch so she could sit with one of her friends.

Top has marshmallow, fruit bar and almonds. Not pictured is a huge satsuma and an apple. Bottom has Medium cooked sirloin steak with pepper, cherry tomaotes, snow peas, cocktail sausage and radish-shrooms.