Bento #5

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Have I really only done a formal bento five times?? Ugh. I’ve been doing the grab and go’s lately and I’ve been griping about not getting in enough fruits and veggies. Well the easiest way to get them in, for me at least, is by doing bento lunches. It’s not that I don’t have the veggies cut up and ready to go, I do but for some reason I just don’t open the crisper drawer. So I decided to stop griping and start bento-ing. (Would that be a verb?)

So in today’s Aloha Friday bento I have a ham and swiss croissant sandwich with yellow mustard, baby carrots, broccoli, orange slices and red seedless grapes. I indulged getting croissants for the first time and I think that was a mistake…they’re YUMMY!! I hope 6 months from now I’m not saying “I’m Anele and I’m a croissant addict.”

Mini spam musubi tutorial

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I love spam musubi but I’m not a big fan of nori so I do my own spam musubi’s minus the nori on a small scale. They’re great for bentos but also good for appetizers at luaus as well. I don’t have fancy lighting or backgrounds so forgive my well used cutting board as the background in these pics!

What you’ll need to get started, Spam (I use light or less sodium because man can that stuff be salty!), cooked rice–the wetter the better since we’re not using nori, rice mold of your choice and spam slicer if you’ve got one.

Slice up your spam into equal width slices to make it easier to work with. If you’re going to use a knife, keep a cold, damp paper towel handy to wipe off the knife between cuts. Some residual spam can make it tear if it clumps up on the knife.

Take the bottom of your rice mold, the part that pops out, and use it as a “cookie cutter” with the spam. For small rice molds you can usually get 2 shapes per spam slice. The leftover scraps can be cut up and browned for use in quiche, omlettes or whatever you like.

Take your little spam shapes (cute huh?) and fry ‘em up in da skillet. You can use a little shoyu (soy sauce) or teriyaki sauce if you’d like some extra flavor.

Pop the bottom of the rice mold that you used as spam cutters back in the rice molds. Get just enough of the cooked rice to cover the bottom of the mold.

Put one fried spam piece on top of the rice.

Put enough rice on top of the spam to get it just above the top of the mold. Put the top on the mold and push the bottom up while holding the top to “smoosh” them together. Then refrigerate for a few minutes or you can even put ‘em in the freezer for a few minutes as long as you don’t forget ‘em!

Pull ‘em out of the fridge/freezer, remove the top and pop them out of the mold and voila! If you have problems with the rice not sticking you can either use a teriyaki glaze like Kikkoman’s and put a dab of it on either side of the spam and the rice will stick. Or if you want some extra color and don’t like nori, blanche some green onions until slightly wilted, dry them with paper towels and you can use them to tie around each piece of musubi.

First try with the egg molds

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So I told you in the Bento 4 post that I had my first run in with egg molds. The rabbit egg mold was the whole reason I even started doing the bento thing because I thought it was so cute. Then the more I looked, the more I liked all of the elements I saw. So I hard boil my eggs and start peeling. I’m not a big hard boiled egger. I’m lazy which is what I’m trying to change. So I think I started peeling too early because 1) they were still pretty hot 2) chunks of the egg started peeling back on the first two and 3) the shell was in teeny pieces instead of the larger, easier to handle pieces of the ones that had cooled longer. But I didn’t know how warm these needed to be to mold correctly so I got to town right away.

I boiled 5 eggs because something told me at least one would be a total mess and I was right. The first one was pure disaster. So I labeled them here in the order I did them, each one that looks better is because they were a little more cooled before being peeled. As you can see, Mr. Fishy got beat up pretty bad. Pakelo Cottontail here had a pretty big gash on the chin. Mr. Bear looks pretty good and the car turned out perfect. The bear and car were used for my lunch the next day. So I will definitely continue to use them. They make your lunch a little more interesting and its a good way to get pure protein in.

Bento 4 (First “fancy-ish” bento)

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So I decided I wanted to do something a little different than a blah sandwich so I decided to try a tuna fish roll up. Made your basic tuna fish (tuna fish in water; drained and just enough light Miracle Whip to get it wet but not oozy) and put it on on the end of a piece of boston lettuce. Then you just roll it up and you don’t really need anything to secure it, it stays in place as long as you’ve got the flap part either facing up or down. I wondered if I’d miss the bread I’m so used to having and I know people on low carb diets use this as an alternative so why not give it a go.

So I have 2 of my tuna fish lettuce roll ups on the one side and cheese bites and then I have the whole reason I even started doing this, cute little molded eggs and onigiri molded rice with some Aloha low sodium shoyu. I had my first try at the molded eggs last night which was comical. I’ll do another post on that one. Poor lil’ mangled things. But I saved the 2 best ones, the bear and car for this bento. Then 3 of the onigiri rice “nuggets” which I made this morning and I made 6 onigiri’s and 6 cute molds of bears, hearts and stars. I must admit I felt very sassy eating this and it was very filling. It’s the little things that amuse me these days!

New bento box/bento #3

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Here’s my new, bigger bento box. Cute, eh? I have no clue what it says but the characters are cute enough, I don’t care what it says! LOL I’ll show you the whole set in another post but for now this is the biggest bento, I think 970ml. Now for what’s in it. That sun shaped thingy, that’s my peanut butter and apple jelly sandwich on whole wheat. Then some celery sticks, radishes, 3 cheese bites and I save any butter or dressing containers from take out to put the same or in this case, french onion dip for the veggies in there. Once again I overestimated how much I needed but luckily I can put a lid on it and save it for tomorrow. I bet you’re wondering what that other thing is and is it really as gross as it looks. Well, that is one of my guilty pleasures taught to me by my aunt Robin as a child…cottage cheese with A1 steaksauce. I know, I know, it sounds hideous but don’t knock it til ya try it. Hubby thought it sounded horrific when I told him about it and then he tried it and liked it. Go on, I dare ya!

Bento #2

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Todays bento is an ode to our ocean friend the dolphin. I had these cookie cutters and wanted to see how much sandwich I could actually get out of using the small dolphin since I knew the big one wouldn’t fit. I could basically get 2 small dolphins out of it with one bite of sandwich left in the middle. Everything else was crust.

So I have a light bologna and cheese sandwich with mustard and lettuce. Some colby jack, mozzarella and extra sharp cheddar cheese bites. In the top level are celery sticks and organic pre-cut carrot chips. Then a small golden delicious apple which of course wouldn’t fit in there so hoggy is balancing it on his nose. I’m hoping my new bento box set comes today or tomorrow. Happy Aloha Friday!

My first bento

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I’ve been lurking at all of these bento sites lately completely intrigued about the art of these little compact lunches. I can’t believe some of the ornate levels some people achieve making little cartoon characters and such. But even the simpler ones are just more appetizing looking. So off I went to see what I could find to get myself started. It’s not so easy to find bento stuff that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg with shipping tacked on. I got the basics, a bento box, rice molds, sauce containers, dividers and picks. I got the box and like most people was surprised at how tiny it was. I picked that one because it has a hedgehog on it, our late pup’s favorite toy. I ordered another set that has 3 different sizes so I’m waiting on that one to come. So today I had my first official bento lunch. It’s nothing fancy but still…

So I have a pita in halves stuffed with lettuce, ham strips, miracle whip light and cheese. In the bento box is broccoli, cauliflower, carrot chips, radishes and some little cheese slices that I cut with some decorative cutters I already had. Like I said, nothing fancy and I hope they get much more eye catching as I learn how to do all of this. I don’t know if I’ll post my bento lunch contents every day because I doubt if they’ll be all that interesting. But if I get good at them, I’ll be sure to post! Any of you out there bento? Feel free to share any tips, recipes, etc!

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