Onigiri Bento in pink

If you are not Japanese but love Anime or Manga you probably were introduced to bento's and onigiri's in this way. This is how i was introduced to them and always had wanted to make my own. They are really easy and now I make them all the time.

I've showed many traditional square, rectangle and even circle shaped bento's before. This time i want to show my cute onigiri bento. These are shaped much different from my other ones. I got this cute pink one at a store in Seattle, Washington called Daiso. You can buy their stuff online at
Daiso Online
They have all sorts of cute Japanese things for decent price and ship to all over the us. Granted much cheaper if you find an actual store. I think I got this bento for a buck, where online they are about $18.

The little sauce bottle next to it is full of soy sauce. Its convenient non messy way to bring it. I squirt a little soy sauce on my rice balls as I'm eating them for more flavor. The top of the bento is a big domed shape.
This way your rice balls wont get smushed.

You can see i've got two medium sized triangle onigiris sitting on the platform the lid goes over. I also have them resting on some extra seaweed. I got this flavored sea weed squares at Uwajimaya

You could find these at most asian supermarkets. I'm not sure what flavor these ones are but they are crisp with a nice salty seasoning. I like to put extra on my rice ball for a crunchy texture on the outside.
It's also popular to season the outside of the rice balls with Furikake flakes like These.

Then the little part the Onigiri's rest on comes off and there is a little compartment for some more snacks or food to go with them. I put some small strawberries in for a sweet addition to my salty lunch.

Onigiri are a great lunch or snack. They are healthy, tasty and best of all very easy to transport. They hold shape well and can be eaten quickly with no mess, no need to be heated. You can also put fillings inside. Popular fillings are tuna and red bean paste. I have mine made plane with no filling.
It's best to use shortgrain rice because it's softer and holds together better then long or medium grain ones. If you're desperate you can use long grain it will taste good your rice balls just might fall apart since its not as sticky.
The best recipe for sushi rice for making rice balls i got here. I do it exactly like she directs except i use rice vinegar instead of white vinegar cause i adore the flavor of it. I make a whole bunch at a time and then keep them in a glass flat container with lid in my fridge. Then just grab them as i get hungry or am making lunches.

Old Bento

So this is a bento i did last month for my honey to take to work. He apparently had taken some picts with his phone so sorry for the poor quality.

The lower part of the bento is a potato casserole mix with some jalapeno poppers (they are from Costco and quite yummy) With a little babybel cheese.

Then to help balance out what i thought was a little too starchy i made him this cute salad.
The carrots i sliced and hand cut into little flowers. I also cut the cheese into cute shapes, and added some grape tomatos.

Because he has a bigger appetite then i do I put a bag of vegi chips in his bento bag alongside the rest of the food, and a bottle of some juice.
This was all packed into one of my brand new bento's that my sister got me for Christmas.
Isn't it cute! She also got me a red one.

After Hollidays Bento

Happy holidays everyone!

Hope you had a fantastic time. Me and my family had a fun, hectic, and busy time. I did several fun dishes that i'm still trying to get some of the video from to post here. Until I figure it out here is my most recent bento.


This was made for my hubbies lunch with a brand spanking new bento box I got for christmas from my little sis. I also got a matching black bento with yellow bag.

A two tiered lunch bento. The bottom has a cuppy full of Shephards pie which I've frozen in little silicone cups for perfect bento proportions. If you are taking it from the freezer just put the cup alone in the microwave for a few minutes before you leave the house and then put it in the bento.
I've seen people do the same thing for little spaghetti nests and bento size pizza's. The cups are microwave, dishwasher and oven save up to 500 degrees. So are super great for making bento size proportions or for using as a divider for colder foods.

There is also some bagel bites with slices of a polish salami that David got for Christmas.
The top part was some fresh slices of apples and a few blackberries all sprinkled with some cinnamon sugar.

I packed it up with a side ziploc of vanilla wafer cookies since he has a bigger appetite then me and a little bottle of cold water.

Lunch Picnic Bentos

Here are the lunch picnic bentos I made for meeting my hubby during his lunch break.
My hubby works as a delivery man and so sometimes I'll go meet him on his routes and we'll have a little bento picnic at a nearby park together.

He loves getting to see me in the middle of the day and having fresh food.
I made the blue set for him and the green one for me.

We had some left over Tortellini from the night before. It actually tasted even better the second day after a night of letting its flavors develop.

Also we had a salad with a little snowman with ranch dressing (originally a Christmas thing with gum that I took the gum out and found makes a great mayo or dressing holder plus it's cute), Some raspberry jello salad, and a boiled egg. You'll probably see a lot more boiled eggs in the bento's because he told me that they are one of his favorite things to have.

I got both of the rectangle hello kitty bento's at the dollar store.
I found the matching bowls a few months later on sale for 90 cents at big lots.
I find that keeping my eyes open at the dollar store every time I go there I can find some really good containers that are cheap and sturdy for making bento's. I recently found they had some more of the insulated round snack jars and grabbed a bunch since last time I did not and then kicked myself when they stopped carrying them.

I wrapped the round bento's using some ribbon. There are some silverware and napkins in there as well. Grabbed us some slurpees on the way as a treat and then had ourselves a fantastic picnic. I keep a nice picnic blanket in the trunk of my car for whenever we might feel like having one that way we can sit comfortably on the grass.

It all looked so cute packaged in this pink hatbox that my sister gave me for a wedding present.
I have two other ones of different sizes to fit varying types of bento's.

Breakfast Bento quick and easy

So to try and get back into my bento making I made a cute and easy breakfast bento for my hubby to take with him to work.
I made it the night before and then put it in the fridge over night. He just grabs it in the morning on his way out to work.

There are two boiled eggs. He loves boiled eggs, and they are a great bento item since they are good cold or room temperature, and are a great source of protein.
There are some Parmeson Basil crackers for him to eat with the eggs, some rice pudding with extra cinnamon and white chocolate chips melted into it. Then some strawberry fruit snack yogurt bites. They are tasty and have vitamin C, A, D and calcium in them.

Here it is all closed up and ready to go. This box I got at the local dollar store. It latches on all four sides making it spill proof and very durable. They had round ones as well at the dollar store in green or blue. I got the green ones since that is my favorite color. I also put a little thing of welshes juice in the bento bag so he had something to drink.

Reaction: David absolutely loved it. He said that the rice pudding was exceptionally tasty, and that he saved the fruit snacks for later and had them as a mid morning snack.

Cute Finds

So exploring the dollar store and local Asian market I found some cute finds for my growing bento obsession/ collection.
I was so excited too, although after a bit of a row with the owner of the Asian market who didn't speak English very well and was trying to force me to buy an item that another woman had knocked off the shelf and broke, because I took the time to point it out to him, I don't think I'll be returning to this particular place.

I got this very cute afternoon tea bento set. It includes bag, single tier bento with divider, and a fork in matching fork case. Its super duper cute!! Some onigiri seaweed wraps pre-cut in the right size, some cute wooden picks, yun yuns (sooo tasty), some Tupperware containers soon to be used as bentos, chopsticks, Panda bear treats, and instant miso soup packets.

Here is a close up of the bento, and the cute wooden picks.

All in all quite a successful set of finds. Also from this place I got my mom a cute green bento that has little removable cubbys in it to separate the food, and a matching bento bag. I will try to get pictures of that one this week too.

Sunshine Bentos!!!

Two beautiful sunshine Bento's.

So this winter has been one of the worst I've ever seen. There has been layers of snow week after week. It's enough to drive a native California girl crazy. This week the sunshine finally came out and melted some of the snow. I was so happy today I walked out to the mail box three times just to enjoy it. These bento's are to celebrate and hopefully welcome more sunshine here.
They also are an issue of pride since it is my very first time trying to make my own Tamagoyaki.

The pink one is my new afternoon tea bento set, and the green one is for David in a very masculine hello kitty bento.
Each bento is made up of a sun and a flower, or I guess it could be interpreted as two suns. Whichever makes you personally smile more.

There is a flower center made of sweet peaches, and the leaves are sliced buttered toast. (I like having toast with my eggs.) The sun is made from sliced Tamagoyaki roll that was seasoned with garlic, salt, onion powder, and parsley.
I actually used something between the cheater's method found from my idol Biggie on her Shortcut Tamagoyaki tutorial
and the traditional folding method.

I did try to do it the traditional way of making a folded omelet but as you can see it was a bit lopsided and not very pretty.
That is when I stepped in with biggie's method to make it more attractive and hold together well.

I put it on some saran wrap on my bamboo mat, and then used the bamboo mat to roll it into a nice long cylindar shape.

Behold the beauty of the omelet now!!

Then i sliced it into cute pieces. I like how mine looked since it still showed the folds, but i like the cheater method to help it along. Since I'm not good at making normal omelets much less making a rolled one look right.

Tada!! Two lovely breakfast sunshine bento's packed up and ready to go.
We had Peach Mango juice with each of ours.

A Beary Cute Bento

So my second day of breakfast bentos. Since David works tomorrow, but I don't I've made him a little breakfast to take with him on the road.
Here we have bear shaped waffles with rainbow sprinkles and a little container of 100% maple syrup to dip them in.
The second tier is sliced up banana and a little chocolate treat.
He loves his sweets so this should definitely wet his appetite.

I partially added the sprinkles just to add some fun colors. The bento seemed too yellow to me.
Also he is always telling me that when he was in the netherlands they ate sprinkles all the time on any breakfast. Especially toast apparently. *shrug* who knew dutch people liked sprinkles so much? Perhaps I was also meant to be dutch in my past life. I too have a love of sprinkles, I just prefer mine on ice cream... YUM!

Then we've got banana again. Yes you might have guessed it, but we have quite a few banana's that he bought because they are one of his favorites.
You might even say we have a "plethora" of banana's rofl.

And last but not least don't forget the little chocolate treat in the corner.
That my friends is not just any chocolate treat, but a genuine sees candy.
Breakfast Bento Two Complete!

A New Chapter- Bentos

So you are probably wondering where the heck all my bento's have gone.
Yes I mean Angel the site is even called "Angel's Bento Blog" accent on the bento blog part.
All we see anymore is baking stuff and romantic dinners, i mean come on already where are the bentos?
I know I know...
Well the truth is since I've gotten me a handsome honey pie I've been going out for most of my lunches so that we can see eachother during the day.
I love getting to see him especially since he often gets off work later.
So there hasn't been much opportunity for bento making my friends.
Today though as I surfed through all my bento buddies pages I found my self feeling a strong sense of homesickness to make a bento. Looking at all the cute ideas, and recipes, and bento boxes... oh how I yearned to make bentos again. At the same time I am not willing to give up my fun lunch times with my sweetheart.
What oh what is a poor girl to do?
That is when I received inspiration from our friend at Lunch Bucket Bento
Who on a regular bases makes breakfast bentos. I'm often hungry in the mornings, and can't wait until lunch. I often don't have time for breakfast and just run out the door.
*light bulb comes on*
duh I can start making breakfast bentos for myself. So fokes that is the plan.
Something as I was reading that she brought up really resonated with me.
She talked about how bento making isn't as hard or as expensive as many people think it is at first sight. I can attest to this since majority of my bentos are from the dollar store, or were actually containers I washed out from side salads or to go boxes from restaurants. (Wendy's side salad container is awesome, and Applebees has great to go containers.)
Anyways read her thoughts on it here
and dispel some of the myths you might have about bento fun.

This is the cute and simple breakfast bento I made for David to take with him to work tomorrow.
He often stops at a gas station and gets sugary donuts and crap food that will probably kill him someday. =P
So here is a healthy bento breakfast made with lots and lots of love for my honey bunny!
It is a cherry bagel with peanut butter and honey spread in it. Also a banana (his favorite fruit) where I put honey with plastic wrap on the end to keep it from browning.
(i saw this on the site too, and thought I would try it)
Mine is the same, except I'm having cream cheese on my bagel.

Here it is all packed up with a bottle of white cranberry juice to wash it down and a folded up napkin to wipe away any sticky honey he might get on his fingers or face.
LOL aren't I a thoughtful girlfriend.
Hopefully the nightmare before Christmas bag will be manly and goth enough to make up for the fact that the breakfast is in a Hello Kitty box.
He's secure in his masculinity right?... no really. ... guys... hey guys........

Stuffed Acorn Squash

A Fantastic Dinner for two. Made by yours truly.

So I wanted to make one of the guys I'm dating a fantastic meal to come home to. So on the menu tonight was Stuffed Acorn Squash... My own recipe tada!
Served with garlic sourdough bread toasted with thyme. A fresh green salad with avocado sliced on top, Blueberry Cranberry juice to drink.
We had his favorite for dessert which is cheese cake.

the Acorn squash is slightly sweet and tastes really good with the salty sausage and herb filling.

Ooh doesn't it just make you want to take a bite.

Two easily made bentos from the leftovers. There is salad dressing in the blue snowmen.

Angel's Stuffed Acorn Squash Recipe

three acorn squash
1lb Italian Sausage
1 package of cream cheese
two cloves of garlic
1/4 of a red onion chopped finely
1/4 tsp sage
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp rosemary and thyme
Mozzarella cheese shredded

Directions: Preheat oven to 400 degrees
Take the acorn squash cut them in half and scoop out the inards.
place them on a baking pan (I put mine in a cake pan so i can steam them a bit towards the end)
Chop up garlic and onions very finely and add to cream cheese mix in a mixing bowl. Then add all the herbs and mix some more. Then add the Sausage (raw) into the cream cheese mix and continue mixing until the sausage is completely covered with the cream cheese mixture.
Scoop meat mixture into the little bowl area of the acorn squash. Put in oven and bake uncovered at 400 for 30 minutes.
Then turn down temperature to 300 degrees (or 250 depending on your oven) add some water in the bottom of the pan, cover with foil and put back into oven for another 25 minutes. This will moisten and steam the squash up a bit.
Then take out uncover, and add the mozzarella cheese to the top of each squash. Put back in the oven for 5 minutes just to melt the cheese. (this is also when i put the garlic toast in the oven to melt the butter and toast up a bit.)

The Great Glop Bentos

Made myself some tasty Glop for dinner

Had enough left over that I made two lunch bentos with it. The glop is hamburger, cut up carrot, purple onion, and frozen peas stir fried with rosemary, lots of basil, a pinch of parsley, lots of pepper, and some paprika. Then I added a can of sloppy joe sauce, and let it cook on medium covered until boiling. I stirred pretty often so it would stick to the bottom of the pan. I served it over a bed of twisty noodles, topped with some cheese and pinch of parsley.

The bentos are made of the Glop dinner, with a glop of cottage cheese, and another glop of cherry stuff. Also included is a tasty almond rocca. (totally addictive)
The glop inspite of its gloppiness is very tasty. I like the texture the cut up carrots added.

Ok left is my dinner bento for Anime Night tonight, and right is my lunch bento for today.

I made mini cupcakes in my tiny cupcake pan and they are the perfect size for the bentos, and a cute little bite sized morsel.

On the left is some stir fried vegis, and on the right angel shaped potatos and some carrots both baked.

Also have some dried apricots for fruit, and some cottage cheese with shredded cheese on top. I was in the mood for a more salty taste.
The angel's and bears looked really cute.

Lunch Savory Bento

A beautiful lunch bento that I had yesterday.

For our top layer we have pasta mixed with vegetables and butter, sweet pickles and the last handful of my purple grapes.

For our bottom tier we have left over baked chicken and potato wedges from Smith's and some cinnamon sugar graham crackers, and one carmel filled choclate for dessert.