Star Pancake Bento

This is my Saturday "brunch" bento. I made the star pancakes out of 2 different sized cookie cutters. The pancakes are filled with blueberry and strawberry jam. I had a little container of maple syrup underneath the pancakes. Also in the lower tier are 2 maple sausage links, and tangerine sections.

Upper tier contains star shaped potato patties, fresh strawberry and tangerines.

Fishie Bento

This is what I had for lunch yesterday, there is also another tier which consisted of some sauteed mushrooms, fresh blueberries, and some leftover homemade General Tso's chicken that we had for dinner the night before. That's one thing about living in Japan..the Chinese restaurants here are nothing like the ones back home. Here there's no such thing as a Chinese buffet with lots of greasy fried things.. The best Chinese restaurant here is called Bamiyan and it has a great set menu where they keep bringing you tons of food for about $30. Not bad, but still no General Tso's..

This picture is the bottom tier, it is made up of steamed short grain rice with a layer of black sesame furikake sprinkled on the bottom for (gravel, sand?-maybe this is Hawaiil) :)

The coral is made up of thin strips of imitation crab, and the water plant is the tops of some flat green onions. They were actually the inspiration for this bento, I saw them and thought of the ocean.. The fish are carrots cut with my little fishie veggie cutter, and if you look close, you can see the air bubbles which are made out of a thin crepe-like egg omelet. I used a little piece of a straw to make the tiny circles. My wonderful husband made the eyes of the little fishies out of nori. He cut them out by hand.

*Helpful tip*

Use a cut 1" length of a plastic straw to make perfect circles (works great for eyes!) out of cheese or egg. Some restaurants have the bigger size straws, so you can make different size circles. So grab an extra straw next time you are out for lunch!

-Wait, who goes out for lunch anymore?

First Post!

Hello! This is one half of the bento lunch I made for my daughter last week, it consists of 2 different kinds of rolled sandwiches- blueberry jam and cream cheese, and jam & peanut butter. I also added a pink onigiri made with one of my rice molds and nori punches. Fresh blueberries on a Hello Kitty pick. Romaine leaf and plastic yellow baran accents.

The sandwiches are made using thinly sliced crustless bread, spread with the filling and rolled up jelly-roll style. I then wrap them up in plastic wrap, twist the ends and stick em in the fridge overnight. (they seem to hold together alot better that way) Then in the morning just slice them and voila! This also works great with egg or ham salad sandwiches.

I am excited about posting new bento pictures and instructions, and I look forward to meeting new people who also love bento!!