Cute Robot Taco Rice Bento

A theme which I had never done before - robots! This edible robot is also pretty simple to make and you don't need any special cutters to make it - I used a small kitchen knife to make the little shapes before assembling them together, and a pair of micro tip scissors to cut out the nori eyes and smile.

Below you will find the ingredients I used to make this friendly robot - pretty simple, right? This bento is also healthy as it contains plenty of fresh produce. Here are the contents:

1. Steamed Brown Rice
2. Edible Robot (made from vegetables, nori and Colby cheese)
3. Taco Meat (made from organic ground beef)
4. Chopped Cherry Tomatoes
5. Chopped Avocado
6. Corn
7. Radish Slices and Stars
8. Carrot Flowers
9. Lettuce

Do you know that Taco Rice is originated from Okinawa, Japan? Due to the large presence of the American military in the 1980s, Matsuzo Gibo created this dish and introduced it in his cafe's menu to appeal to the US military personnels that were stationed just minutes away from his cafe. Nowadays Taco Rice is one of the most popular Okinawan dishes

Usually you top taco rice with salsa and a dollop of sour cream, but I'd mixed the sour cream and salsa in the taco meat, so it's not necessary to include both items in the bento box (which I think is better for transport purposes too). 

Hope you enjoyed this post and I wish you all a lovely weekend :). 

Sunflower Bears Bento

These two lovely bear onigiris are filled with chicken teriyaki and mayo. I  covered the rice balls with katsuobushi (bonito flakes) which make the bears look pretty fluffy. The nori details were punched out from the pink nori punch below and the white nose is made out of quail egg.

Source: CasaBento

You can easily get these nori punches from CasaBento or other bento suppliers in Amazon or Ebay.

The two little chicks are also quail eggs. They look quite worried as they know that they will be gobbled down by the two little bears quite soon. Fortunately for the bears, they don't know that they'll be gobbled down by me soon after I finish writing down this post, that's why they're still smiling ;).

  Have a great week ahead everyone!

Braised Duck Bento

I ordered a new vegetable cutter last week. I own several butterfly cutters already but this one now belongs to one of my most favourite cutters ever because it's so pretty...!! It's also quite small, perfect for bento making!

This simple bento contains delicious braised duck breast which I cooked in soy sauce/oyster sauce/cinnamon mixture for an hour before I cut it into thick slices. I also included half a scotch egg - my scotch egg is made differently to the usual scotch eggs which are covered in bread crumbs and deep fried. My version is healthier and much simpler to make as I only used soft boiled egg which I wrapped with seasoned ground meat and then pan-fried without oil in a non-stick pan.

I finished up the look by adding some carrot butterflies, cucumber leaves, tomberries (miniature tomatoes), lettuce border, parsley, a piece of radish and a piece of blackberry.

Osechi Bento

 

I have always liked to look at Japanese New Year's foods or Osechi-ryōri pictures, even though I have never had the chance to personally see and taste it myself. Everything in the osechi boxes always seems to be so prettily arranged and the combination of colours is just breathtaking. I hope my osechi bento has somehow managed to capture the essence and style of Japanese osechi.

Anyway, as I promised last week, I use my newest bento box from CasaBento to present my osechi bento.

This bento box is truly beautiful and definitely a keeper for people who love traditional bento boxes. Nevertheless I have to warn you that this box is not a box that you would like to carry around to school or work, and is more intended for elegant food presentation to impress your guests or when you want to celebrate something special at home.

There are four separate compartments which are stacked on top of each other.

As you can see from the picture above, the chance of food leaking or spilling is too high. If you are looking for portable bento boxes, this bento box is not for you. But if you are into elegant and sophisticated Japanese-style bento boxes which are pleasing to the eye and don't mind to limit this bento box for home-use only, then I can only recommend you to buy it.

This box is called Sakura Appetizer Bento and costs €27,99. CasaBento ships worldwide and they pay the custom taxes/import duties for you, which I think is a real great service, as I can only say that I hate paying custom taxes! - I recently bought a bag from the US and had to pay €100 for  Zoll (German custom tax) :(!!

As you can see there are quite a lot of food items in the four boxes, but I didn't need very long to make this osechi bento since I used both yesterday's lefover and some frozen foods - I love to make a big batch of something (e.g. dumplings, ebi fry, etc) and freeze them for future use.

Top boxes: Ebi fry, shiu mai, cherry tomatoes, asparagus sticks, octopus salad, soy sauce egg and grapes on sticks.

Bottom boxes: Shrimp temari sushi with brown rice, tamagoyaki and leftover turkey/calamari stir-fry.

Ebi Fry Bento

I made this bento around last week. This time the bento box consists of steamed brown rice sprinkled with toasted sesamed seeds, Japanese-style fried shrimps (ebi fry - check out the recipe here), stir-fried green beans seasoned with soy sauce and Japanese seven-spice powder and some fresh sweet pepper sticks.

Don't forget to drizzle the ebi fry with mayonnaise and tonkatsu sauce, these two condiments really bring out the beautiful flavour of the fried shrimps...!

Cute Puppy Bento

 

Aren't you all happy that it's weekend? I absolutely am...:)!! Unfortunately I always feel that it's much too short, especially in winter when everything is already dark by five.

The last time I made charaben was about 2 weeks ago, it's indeed time to make something cute again... A puppy...:)! I have always wanted to have a dog, but I don't because it's too much work. Since I can't have one, I made one myself...;). This is just the kind of dog I like...

Cuteness overload...:D)!!!

The little puppy is made out of rice and the brown spot is tonkatsu sauce. The eyes are made out of nori and cheese, the nose of nori and the little tounge of ham. I also had three fried panko-coated shrimps which I bought from my local Asian market and a few pieces of cherry tomatoes.

I wish you all a great weekend!