Bento Easy Roll-up Sandwich

After a few days of making rice-based bentos, I have decided to make a sandwich bento for a change. This is an roll-up sandwich bento is an easy one and is great for busy mornings.

For this bento, I used the usual square white bread easily available in the supermarket. Because the bread I have is slightly dry, I placed it in the microwave for about 10 seconds so that it gets softer and is easier to roll. Next I remove the crust and put in whatever filling I have on hand. It happened to be cheese and salami today, but jam and butter works well too :D Next I roll it up and secure it with a food pick.

I place the sandwich rolls in the bento box and stuff in some left over salad. (This salad was sold already cut in the supermarket near my place, so I didn't have to do anything) Add in the star and its done. I hope you like this easy roll-up sandwich bento!

Tutorial Thursday - remove apple seeds with cookie cutters

Its Tutorial Thursday again! Today's tutorial is on how to remove apple seeds with cookie cutters and/or vegetable cutters. Here is a quick and simple way of coring those apples while entertaining yourself (and of course the bento receiver). All you need is an apple, a knife and a small cookie cutter or vegetable cutter.

Apple rings as a bento space filler - see more examples towards the end of post

Here is how I made the apple rings:

Apple rings and cookie cutter tutorial - Step 1

Step 1 - Slice the apple as shown in the picture above. I sliced the apple into slices about 1 cm thickness. You can also sliced them paper thin for a different effect :)

Apple rings and cookie cutter tutorial - Step 2

Step 2 - Take a small cookie cutter or vegetable cutter. The ones I used here are about 2-3 cm in diameter. Shove it right into the centre of the apple, where the seeds are.

Apple rings and cookie cutter tutorial - My favourite photo

I like this photo a lot, it reminds me of my design school days for some strange reason. Ops, sorry I digressed, hahaha, got lost in my thoughts. This is where I place the cutter.

Step 3 - Push the vegetable or cookie cutter hard and VIOLA! You have just de-cored an apple and got a pretty shape, without actually doing anything much :D

Here are the results of my experiment with various vegetable cutter shapes.

Using a vegetable cutter on apple slices - Part 1

Using a vegetable cutter on apple slices - Part 2

Here's another way you can use these apple rings as a bento space filler

Apple rings cut with vegetable cutter or cookie cutter - Bento Space Filler

I hope you like this Tutorial Thursday post! It's a quick and easy way to remove seeds from apple  slices without too much effort because your trusty cookie cutters and vegetable cutters had done the work for you :D 

Bento Leftover Fried Rice Salami Cheese Star

Today's bento post is a quick and easy one. It's largely made of leftover from dinner on the previous day, which happens to be fried rice with corn beef. After filling up the bento box, I placed the big cheese star and the little bits of lettuce. Smaller salami stars follow next and the eyes and mouth come in the last.

Bento Leftover Fried Rice with cheese and salami star

The bento box I used here is called the Ojue Bento Box, while the cheese and salami stars are made from a 6-in-1 plastic cookie cutter from Daiso. Hope you like this fried rice leftover bento with salami and cheese stars :)

Bento Easy Transportation Vehicles

Today's bento is another quick and easy one. The school term has just started and I'm still trying to manage the new school schedule. For this bento, I used a Daiso sandwich cutter with 4 transportation vehicles joined together. If you are thinking whether you should buy it, here's a review which I had written sometime back in August.

First I placed some lettuce at the base of the box (which also makes cleaning up a whole lot easier). Next I buttered 2 slices of bread and lay a piece of cheese right on top of both slices of bread. I could have also placed the cheese between the bread, but chose not to do so. This is because:
#1 I think it looks brighter with the yellow cheese on top.
#2 the cheese makes it easier to stick the nori pieces on the little vehicles

Finally I threw in some olives and a piece of sundried tomato in the remaining spaces.

Bento Easy Transportation Vehicles

Hope you like this easy transportation vehicles bento! :)

Lego Bento Sandwich Star and Salad

This is another quick Sandwich Bento. Its also simple and fast, just like this bento I made previously. This time I rolled up the sandwich instead of cutting them into halves. I like rolling up sandwiches because it doesn't require that much precision cutting. Perfect for a I-don't-feel-like-going-to-work Monday!

Bento Star Sandwich with Teriyaki Beef Salad and Strawberries

Close up: Bento Star Sandwich with Teriyaki Beef Salad and Strawberries

From the close up, you can see that I place the salami star on the bread and rolled everything up. I also managed to put in 2 little containers for the vegetables and beef teriyaki. Next I filled up all remaining space with strawberries so that nothing moves while the bento is being transported.

The Bento Box I used here is produced under the license of the LEGO Group. Its food safe and dishwasher safe and can tolerate temperatures from -20 degree celsius to 100 degree celsius. Although it doesn't state what the capacity is, it's quite big for a bento box. It measures about 19.5cm x 9.5cm x 5.5cm. The only disadvantage is that it is not microwave safe, so do take note. Other than that, this Lego Bento Box is one of my favourite bento boxes. I bought this in a shop in Amsterdam but it is also available online here .

Bento Sandwich Naked Baby Salami Star

Its been a long time since I made bentos that doesn't require any cooking. Today I have decided to wake up at 0700hr to make what I call a Cook-Free bento for Mr Bear.

Bento Sandwich Salami Star and Naked Cheese Baby

Close up : Bento Naked Cheese Baby and Salami Star

This is what I did while Mr Bear was getting ready to work:

- Cut of the crust of bread.
- Spread butter on 1 side of bread and lay the cheese and salami.
- Cut the bread neatly into half and squeeze them into the bento box.
- Add the salami star and cheese baby which I had prepared last night.
- Fill up the rest of the bentos with fresh strawberries.
- @ 0715hr BENTO FINISHED!

For this Naked Baby Sandwich Bento, I had used a black bento box from Daiso. I guess its meant for  men because of some funny words printed on the lid. It says, "THE KING OF KINGS the king wore a crown. he is the king of kings" :D :D :D I bought both sizes and this is the larger one.

For the cheese, I chose to use sliced young Dutch Gouda cheese ( Goudse kaas - Jong belegen) instead of the usual cheddar cheese because Mr Bear doesn't like cheddar and also because it doesn't go all floppy so soon. For the nori bits, I used a nori punch for the mouth and the leaf piece. The leaf shaped nori punch I had does not have the jagged edges, so I add them in myself. This is how I made this Naked Baby Salami Star Sandwich Bento. Hope you like it!

emergency DIY bento accessories - Stencil and sandwich cutter - Circle and Grass

Due to popular requests, I have decided to do a quick post on a DIY bento accessory. This time round, its a sandwich cutter that can also be used as a stencil for powdered sprinkles and dutch chocolate rice (hagelslag).

DIY bento accessories - round sandwich cutter and stencil

Cut the plastic soda bottle as shown above and you will have a round sandwich cutter. To use it as a stencil, simply push the sandwich cutter into the rice, leaving about 2cm of the plastic sticking out. Pour in the sprinkles.

---------------------------------

Sandwich Cutter / Stencil for Grass or Mountains:

Follow the same steps as the round shaped sandwich cutter and cut across the plastic as shown above. Now you have a open strip of plastic.

Next I fold it like an accordian. The folds do not have to be all straight and equal. This DIY bento accessory can now be used to cut slices of cheese, ham, bread, leafy vegetables, etc to make grass or mountains. Try it out and let me know how it goes! :)

Daiso Bento accessories - Sandwich Cutter Transport

I had managed to lay my hands on this and was absolutely happy about it. This is a sandwich cutter that I bought from Daiso in Dubai. I think Daiso is fantastic! They have the most wonderful bento accessories ever! and at a really good price as well! This cost 6 AED, which is about 1,15 euros. Needless to say, I bought this sandwich cutter together with a whole bunch of other bento related stuffs.

This sandwich cutter works with most pre-sliced square breads that are available in most supermarkets. (I usually get the Casino Wit ones from Albert Heijn) and the best part is there is absolutely minimal wastage since the shapes are designed in fit within the square form. The downside is that it does require some care when cleaning though. A sharp toothpick usually does the trick for those hard to reach corners.

Click on the tag bento accessories to read more about what other bento tools I keep in my stash.

Follow me on Twitter! @bentokato

Bento accesories: Sandwich Cutter - Transportation

Bento Accessories - Hello Kitty Sandwich Cutter review

This is a sandwich maker mold I bought from one of the Hello Kitty licensing stores in Dubai last year. I was pretty surprised to even see it in a store! Heh, shortly after coming back to Amsterdam, I tried it out.

Below are the instructions found within the packaging.

Pretty straight forward, I thought, so I just ran to the nearest Albert Heijn (*thats one of the largest Dutch supermarket chains) and grab some square bread to test it out.

Unfortunately, my end result was nowhere as good as the ones on the packaging! It was pretty disastrous. I made them in the morning, and by the afternoon, the edges of Hello Kitty's face was all dry, jagged and loose. Nothing like it wassupposed to be "sealed" at all!

Later on, I tried it again, with the same type of plain square-type sandwich breads. The only difference is:
I sprinkled some water on the bread to make it a little damp and put it in the microwave to warm it up a little, just before I put it into the mold in step 1.

and it worked!

So in short, whether this mold works or not, depends on the white bread you are using. To test it out, take a piece of the bread and fold it in half. Pinch it real hard with your thumb and index finger. If it makes a good finger impression on the bread and it hardly looks like its going to spring open, I guess its pretty suitable.

If it springs open like a mousetrap, the bread is probably too dry, just sprinkle some water and nuke it a little before proceeding to Step 1 :)

All in all, I still have not regretting buying this mold. The sandwich, being sealed, prevents nasty accidents like having the top slice of bread sliding off, jams leaking all over and all that.

Cute factor: 8/10
Ease of cleaning: 9/10
Wastage: about 15% ( this means that after making the sealed sandwich, there's about 15% of the bread remaining, like the brown hard skin, surrounding areas being cut off, etc)

End result of the hello kitty sandwich measures about 11.5cm x 9cm, so you might want to make sure that you don't try squeezing it into one of those bento boxes thats too skinny.