Happy Halloween!!

I hope you all get many more treats then tricks.

Eggs, hash and bento's Oh My!

So here is my Bento lunch for tomorrow and I made one for Wednesday as well. Tomorrow's is in my nightmare box. Wednesday in the green hello kitty one.

The bottom tier on the nightmare box has cinnamon graham crackers (I adore these dipped in milk). With a little cup of pineapple to give me some fruity vitamins wohoo.







On the top tier to the left I have a rolled omelet made from egg whites, and has rosemary and parsley cooked into it. I sliced it into nice little strips to make easier to get with chopsticks.
On the right is corn beef hash that was cooked with some frozen peas. I put it on a tortilla and also puts some strips of tortilla on top. I would have done toast (more of a breakfast theme) but didn't have any bread.







For Wednesdays lunch I have some more of the corn beef hash and peas, as well as some tasty large curd cottage cheese and pineapple with a sprinkling of raisins. That looks so tasty to me I almost ate it right then.

Lunch bentos

These are the two lunch bento's I made with the extra rice from my dinner one. It's the rice garnished wtih some parsley. I just adore the color parsley adds to everything. A fortune cookie and a cup filled with some pineapple. The pineapple was refreshing and I think I'm going to add it to more of my lunches.
Oh and the fortune cookie said I'd be having some luck financially. Here's who's hoping it comes true.

Nightmare bento dinner

Here is the Nightmare before Christmas bento dinner.

I decided to make a dinner bento to take with me to anime night. The Top tier is rice cooked in tomato sauce with chopped onion and garlic as well as tons of herbs and spices. Its decorated with a green bean and carrot flower.

The bottom tier is sliced porkchop with mixed vegi's baked

I think this bento is so cute, and it was a nice meal too. I had enough left over rice I made two lunch bentos in my hello kitty bento boxes for work.

Nightmare Bento Box!!! The new arrival.

This post is actually a little late since I haven't had time to do it. Last friday my Nightmare before Christmas bento came in the mail. I was so excited about it and its such a cute set. Tonight I'm going to make a dinner bento using it since I'm headed to a friends to watch anime, and I can just bring this along to munch on. The set came with a two tier bento, a strap to hold it together a cute little bag everything fits in and a case with fork and spoon and another pair of chopsticks. The bento comes with chopsticks too so I got two sets of chopsticks total. Its super cute and even drew the notice and interest of a co-worker. Now I have three bentos which means when my mom and sister come for Thanksgiving I will have enough to make all three of us a bento lunch to celebrate!

Sunday is for Baking. Bread Pudding and more.

So today being Sunday a nice lazy day I decided I needed to do the baking project I keep telling everyone I would do. So today I made chocolate bread pudding. My friend Elwin came over and I showed him how to make these breakfast cup cakes that are tasty and simple and followed that up with making the bread pudding.
I also made some deviled eggs since another friend said he really likes them. All and all a busy day.

Here is the bread pudding that I just dumped out of its pan and into another that will make it easier to cut. Hmm I actually chopped up roughly some white chocolate chips to melt in it too.

Tasted so nice served warm with a dollop of frozen whipped cream on top.

I love these dishes too they were inherited from my Grandmother.

Last but not least the deviled eggs. I have never made deviled eggs before, and just followed a recipe I found online. Over all they look a little skelumpy but taste pretty good. If I make them again I'm going to use a little less mustard. I garnished them with sprinkles of paprika and parsley for color. Unfortunately the picture isn't a very good one to show off the pretty colors. Over all consider todays baking and cooking adventures a total success.

Surprising Bento Find. The kitty Arrives.

Hello Kitty Kawai!!!

So last night I was hitting up the dollar store to grab some things. I'm walking down the tupper ware aisle and see these two cute hello kitty tupper wares. I thought aah cute. Then I remembered someone posting on their blog about Dollar Tree having some hello kitty bento's. In my head I thought "no way these totally can't be those, I'm never that lucky" Low and behold my friends a little deeper investigation revealed yes indeed they were bentos.
They had green or blue and of course I grabbed one of each color (lol they were only a buck so I could splurge a little). They had another kind that looked more like a two tier one, but the second tier didn't stay atop the first instead nested inside which didn't make much sense to me so I decided to leave that one there.

These will make great lunch bentos I think since they are wide enough to fit more things even if they are only one tier. I always love the movable dividers too. Hello kitty is so cute, and this time also affordable. I also grabbed some new bake pans there, and some paprika to make deviled eggs with. Woohoo I'm definately going to be having fun in my kitchen tomorrow. The attempt tomorrow will be to make chocolate bread pudding. Wish me luck folks!!

Bento the Sequal

I decided to make a second one for myself using a tupper-ware container I have that is very bento-ish looking. I didn't want to miss out on the tasty treats either.
So here was my mini bento. I have some of the extra home made stuffed wantons on the left, a fortune cookie, and my mini cookie pie. In the bottom are some strawberry filled bear crackers that I got from the little Japanese market I went to.

Bento Numero Uno-The happy present bento

My very first Bento. TADA!!!

It is made up of bottom Dinner Layer. Which is homemade Gyoza (tried out my food processor for the first time) and Sausages that I hand cut into little octopus's due to not having a cute wiener cutter.

The top layer is the dessert layer. It has strawberry poky, fortune cookies, little strawberry filled koala crackers, and a homemade cookie pie (which I baked in a soy sauce dish that came wiht my sushi set at a lower temp in the oven 250 ish) I got the idea from reading another girls blog that made mini muffins using paper condiment cups and they looked really cute.

So tonight was tons of fun making it and I was very pleased with the results. Not only that but when I brought it over to my friend he was very happy to receive it. He inhaled the food and thought it was really tasty. It will work perfect since it latches instead of closes with a band so it won't open in his backpack when he takes it to school with him.
The filling on the Gyoza is made of sausage ground up with fresh vegetables, and mozzarella cheese and some herbs. Put them through the food processor. Used regular wonton wraps which I got at the asian market for like 99 cents.
For the cookie pie I covered the bottom of the little dishes with plain oatmeal and then rolled the sugar cookie dough into a little ball and flattened on top of the oatmeal filling the dish like a little pie crust. In the center i made a small indentation with my finger and put some chocolate chips in it to melt in the middle. When they came out of the oven they popped right out of the ceramic dishes and had a yummy sweet oatey bottom to them ( i really enjoyed the oat texture added to it) and soft chocolaty middles. Then I topped it with a dollop of whipped topping in the center.
They were absolutely delicious and super easy too.

Bento Arrival

Men's Bento Box from Japan.

So today it finally arrived, Hurray!
The black mens bento box I had ordered online as a gift for a friend's birthday. It is super cute and seems pretty sturdy. I'm surprised at how small it is though especially since this is the larger mens size box. The women there must eat like rabbits. Well when mine arrives it will just have to be viewed as an opportunity to shrink my portions and maybe shed some inches on the waist lol. I will edit this post later tonight with more pictures of the bento with it open and showing the cute chopsticks spot in the lid. They also had this same one in blue (grrr his favorite color is blue but they added it after I'd already ordered black) and one in red. The shipping took about a week and a half to two weeks which isn't bad considering it came from Japan, and the packaging was excellent. (not a single scratch on the item) I ordered it on Ebay and recommend this seller although it did seem a bit pricey to me.

You can see their Ebay store here http://stores.ebay.com/JAPAN-SOUVENIR
They have lots of cute bento's and accessories. Too bad I'm not richer lol.

Onigiri Virgin No Longer

Today I was feeling pretty depressed after having a very bad weekend. Not knowing what to cook I put some rice in my rice cooker, and just left it there while I rested and recouped. Once it was done I decided it was the perfect time to put my new Onigiri mold and Furikake seasoning to the test.

So here before you my very first attempt at making Onigiri's. I think they turned out very cute. For the size of my rice maker I was able to make ten onigiris plus one small rice ball. The filling is tuna mixed with shredded cheese, mayo, black pepper, and some ketchup and mustard to taste. On half the batch I used the Furikake seasoning which I thought smelled kind of gross, and the second I mixed in a smidge of garlic salt, dill, parsley, and black pepper with the rice.
Over all I consider this a success. They turned out so cute and yummy. The filling is particularly delicious (goes great on tuna melt sandwiches too) I'm going to try freezing half the batch and then have a few for lunch tomorrow and dinner tonight.

Sugar Cookies

Here is the cute pumpkin

So Last night was my adventure with sugar cookies. My co-worker who is amazing in the kitchen gave me her recipe. Unfortuenately when I first got it the margerine and sugar amounts were missing. I think i put a little too much margerine in them and rolled them too thin. They turned out extremely tasty, but the first two batches were a bit crisp and the last one was too soft and falling apart. Sigh. Luckily i still have half a bowl of dough in the refrigerator which i'm going to add cinnamon and nutmeg too and cook the rest tomorrow. The cookie cutter shapes are really cute. I had a pumpkin, ghost, and cat cookie cutters to play with. For the guys I frosted theirs with chocolate frosting and added sprinkles.
Here is the recipe for those who want it.

Soft Sugar Cookies

By, Dianne

Cream together:

2/3 Cup margarine (not butter)

2 eggs

1 Tsp vanilla

2/3 Cup sugar

¼ Cup milk

Sift in:

2 ½ Cup flour

½ Tsp salt

2 ½ Tsp baking powder

Mix well. Mixture will be gooey. Refrigerate 10 to 15 minutes or overnight. Turn on to LIGHTLY floured surface. Roll to ½" thick with LIGHTLY floured rolling pin. Cut out using floured cookie cutters. Bake 7-9 minutes @ 375°

The hunt continues

Ok so it's been a bit frustrating trying to find a place that sells bento boxes here in Utah.
I've been to four Asian markets and the only Japanese market all the way in Salt Lake. Five stores total and nothing. So I've resorted to using the internet which is both great for better quality and cuteness, but also frustrating because I have to wait for it to be shipped here (and I want to start making cute bento's now). On top of that I can't find my camera anywhere even after scouring the house yesterday. The good news is I have bid on a cute Nightmare before Christmas bento set, and bought a cute onigiri mold. Not much but at least it's a start. I wish my friends birthday Bento box would come in so I could at least make his bento lunch.
To help my avid cooking fever I think I'm going to make some sugar cookies using my cute new Halloween cookie cutters and dinner for my friends since we have anime nights on Wednesday's and all get together for fun. Nothing like feeding a house full of bachelors lol.