Oi!

Oi! Oi! Oi!

I'm sorry I haven't updated here for a while. With the holiday season in full swing, my husband starting a new job (working evenings), and the baby, I just haven't had the time to post new bentos, let alone make ones that were all that pretty or interesting. I guess I could still put up pictures of them, but I feel like they have to pass at least one criteria (not just be rice with a topping or fried rice).

Hopefully, I'll be posting more soon, at least something more meaningful than this. Thank you all for reading!

Halloween foods and bentos!

First the bento boxed lunches!

Single Tier: Sticky rice, steamed purple cauliflower "trees", snow pea "grass", nori bats, and American cheese moon. Packet of instant miso soup on the side.

Snack: Apple, two candy corn Hershey's kisses, and snack sized Snickers.

Single Tier: Four homemade smoked salmon and cream cheese "sushi" rolls (more like kimbap since there's no seasoning in the rice) with nori bats and pumpkins and cut up snow peas.
Snack: Black and white halloween dango with savory sweet sauce ("Troll oysters and Goblin blood"), blueberry daifuku, Hershey's dark chocolate snack bar.

Now for the "normal" foods!

Close ups of the Halloween Dango.

("Troll oysters with Goblin blood.")

Another close-up.

Spicy Shrimp Bokkeum over glutinous rice

("Witch Finders with Enchanted Giant Carrots")

Sauted Fennel with Lotus Seeds

Baked Fresh Beets

Seedless Watermelon carved into a brain.

(First time I ever did that... I think it turned out well.)
Close up of the Halloween sushi. :-)

Rice Buns a plenty

I've heard of rice buns for a while now, well over a year. Not buns made with rice flour, but buns made with glutinous (sticky japanese) rice. Glutinous rice does not contain gluten. It's called glutinous due to it's sticky nature. I wanted to make some, but I never got around to it for whatever reason.

Well... I finally made some.

If you ever made onigiri, the concept is very similar. The steps are as well.

To make Rice Buns: Cook glutinous rice as usual. (Methods are slightly different depending on whether you are using a rice cooker or not. There are many websites that explain how to cook rice in each instance.) Let rice cool enough that you can handle it without burning yourself. Fill a bowl halfway with water and add some salt. Stir until the salt is mostly dissolved. Take a handful of rice and press into a bun shape, making sure to apply an even, firm pressure. Basically, the same thing you would do with onigiri, except you are making a bun shape. Keep rewetting your hands with the salty water as you work or the rice will stick to your hands and become hard to manage. Heat some oil in a pan, just enough to lightly coat the pan. Add the rice buns. Gently turn the buns over after a minute or so. There should be a light crispy coating forming. **If you want to add some flavoring and color, you can brush the cooked side with some soy sauce while the other side is cooking, turn the buns over and brush the freshly cooked side with more soy sauce and finish by toasting that side again as well.

Do NOT broil the buns or try toasting them in the oven. This draws too much moisture out and makes the texture unpleasant. I have yet to try toasting them on my kitchen grill.

Rice buns are so easy and inexpensive to make. We have had them with hamburgers, egg sandwiches, tuna fish salad, peanut butter and jelly, and even cream cheese and jelly. I actually prefer these over baking or buying gluten free bread, if for no other reason than the low cost, neutral flavor, pleasant texture, and how easily I can throw them together. I plan to try flavoring them in other ways, by adding other sauces as glazing or by adding herbs. Maybe add a little food coloring to make them look more like bread buns.

They don't store incredibly well, but I've used older, cooked, unformed glutinous rice with great results. Some people freeze them until ready for use, but I have yet to do that. I usually eat them fast enough that there's no concern. ;-)

Bentos for 10.20.08 - 10.24.08

I didn't have a chance to post these last week. I was fighting a cold or something and my husband was preparing for his new job. So... Monday there was no bento, and I had instant miso soup for lunch on Wednesday.

Here's the Bentos for last week:

Tuesday Bento

Top Tier: Homemade kimchi, sugar snap peas, halved red grapes

Bottom Tier: "Go Bulgogi" kimbap with kimchi flavored furikake

Dessert (not shown): 1 dark chocolate and 1 milk chocolate with almonds snack sized Hershey bars.

Thursday Bento

Top Tier: Whole seedless red grapes, halved sugar snap peas, chocolate graveyard (chocolate pudding with chocolate "headstones")
Bottom Tier: White rice, smoked salmon, nori tree, furikake seasoning

Dessert: Dark chocolate Hershey bar, 2 candy corn Hershey kisses

Friday Bento

Top Tier: Two large and one small onigiri with minced carrot, nori faces, smoked salmon (on the small onigiri), halved snow peas
Bottom Tier: Sliced apples tossed in lemon juice, tapioca pudding

Dessert (not shown): 2 snack sized Snickers bars

Husband's "first day of work" snack bento (Friday)

Single Tier: Six small onigiri with minced carrot and kimchi

furikake, carrot slices with flowers cut out, sugar snap peas

Eye See You!

I'm going to make some fake eye balls for my mother's Halloween dinner this Sunday, for a bentos this week, and for our smaller, but scarier dinner on Halloween night.

One idea I had was using Daifuku or sweet red bean filled mochi. The red filling with the mushy sweet outside would be a wonderful treat, and I could try using food coloring to paint on details (if it works). Dango (boiled mochi balls without fillings) was another option.

The other idea I had was for a more savory treat. My husband and I made some "Go Bulgogi", as he likes to call it. Basically, you make bulgogi (korean grilled marinated beef) using ground beef instead of strips. This made it easy to stuff into Onigiri and was darned tasty. So, for the savory Zombie Eyes, we were thinking about making the "Go Bulgogi" into meat balls before cooking. Then we would wrap the cooked meatballs in the mochi dough much like the red bean paste is wrapped in the mochi dough, though I'm not sure if I would use a plain flavor or a sweet. (I think the sweet mochi casing would be a nice compliment to the savory sweet meat filling!)

Here's one sweet recipe my mother sent me. It looks good and was very different than what I was originally going to do. Enjoy!

From About.com:
http://thaifood.about.com/od/thaidesserts/r/scaryeyeballs.htm

Chocolate Rib Cage

I found this last night, during my search. A chocolate rib cage! Couldn't you just die?!? The original project on the website was to fill the ribcage with organs made of cake with a filling that oozed out when the organs were cut. Pretty nasty looking, but a great idea! Click on the link at the bottom of this entry to see the full cake. Definitely worth looking at! (And then check out the zombie head cake!!!)

I fell in love with the rib cage part more so than the rest and it looks easy enough. I'm thinking about making this for my mother's Halloween Dinner this Sunday, though I might make it smaller. It's tempting to try to make it large so it can hold the Bone cookies, but we'll see. A smaller one might be cool and easier. We'll see if I have the time!

Hm... I wonder how chocolate bones would work in bento... Or if I can make one to work in it... hm...

Anyways, here's the link for the cake. The ribcage instructions are on page two: http://www.theyrecoming.com/extras/pumpkinfest03/

Halloween searches and Bone Cookie Recipe Link

I'm working on finding Halloween recipes to make for my family. Of course, any that would work for bentos are doubly nice. So many cute ideas, and so many that can be altered to work for lunches. Ooh... the possibilities.

I'll definitely post the websites as I find them with my top pick from their selection (even though there might be a few from the site). Hopefully, I'll be able to make a few and post pictures too, along with a review. If I can't, at least some of you might be able to enjoy the spoils of my research. So, to start you off...

Bone Cookies from "How Stuff Works": http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/meringue-bone-cookies-recipe.htm