Bento Burrito with Usagi Food Picks

Today's bento post features burrito and some of my favourite bento accessories, the Usagi Food Picks. This bento was made a few days back when I still have some of the carrot kinpira bento time saver left. As for the 4 mini burrito, it was made from 1 large burrito sheet cut into quarters and then rolled up individually to fit the bento box. I have included the usagi food picks (usagi means rabbit in japanese) so that I don't have to pack extra utensils for the carrot and cucumber. This means less washing up to do ^^," I hope you like this burrito bento too!

Bento Burrito with Usagi Picks

Tutorial Bento Miffy Sandwich Free Pattern download

Due to popular request on how I made the Miffy sandwich bento (or some say Nijntje Boterham), I have decided to post a step-by-step tutorial here.

First I drew out the shape of Miffy / Nijntje on a piece of paper and then I cut it around the edges with a pair of scissors. Next I place it on a slice of goat cheese as shown in the picture below.

Tutorial Bento Miffy Sandwich

Using a sharp knife (or a toothpick), I go around the outside edge of the Miffy cutout just like the picture below. It looks a little weird at this stage, but don't worry. It's just the outline.

Miffy twins ?

I went back to the paper cutout and I cut away the pieces just like so:

Next I sliced a piece of carrot and fitted Miffy's clothes on it. Now I use my sharp knife to cut out the shape of Miffy's orange dress.

Here is how my Miffy Sandwich / Nijntje Boterham Bento looks like:

Since I ran out of seaweed, I have used black Supercook Writing Icing (which I managed to find in a bakery supplies store) for Miffy's eyes and mouth. Because it is used only in a small quantity, it doesn't taste obviously sweet.

I have drawn up a copy of the Miffy character I made for this bento here so that you can make this Miffy Sandwich bento too. Simply print this out on a regular A4 size paper and you can use it as a template. I hope you like this tutorial and please feel free to come back often for more goodies :)

Bento Miffy Sandwich Nijntje Boterham

Today's bento features Nijntje, also known as Miffy internationally, which is one of my favourite characters when I was growing up. When I was young, I remember my mom reading the books to me. Sometimes we would go to the library and I would pick out the books by the basket, literally begging her to bring all of them home. hahaha!
Many people might not know, but this little rabbit has Dutch origins and goes by her Dutch name Nijntje. Her creator Dick Bruna created this character in 1955 after telling his grandson stories about a little rabbit they had seen in the woods in Utrecht. Nijntje (pronounced roughly as "NAI-n-je" in the English way) was the typical child's pronunciation for Konijntje which means little rabbit in Dutch.

Although Nijntje is drawn with barely a few lines, it is instantly recognisable as a rabbit. Soon the character Nijntje becomes an instant hit internationally. Dick design his Nijntje books with minimal dialogues (some even without dialogues) because he thinks that the illustrations should speak for themselves and also because the books were also meant for children as learner books. Nijntje's books soon got translated into many languages and exported into many countries in the world, including Japan. But there was a big problem because not many people can pronounce Nijntje's dutch name. Soon, Nijntje got another name that is easier to pronounce, MIFFY. This is why all translations of Nijntje referred to her as Miffy, or at least with a phonetic translation that sounds like Miffy.

Bento Miffy Sandwich Nijntje Boterham

Many think that Miffy is Japanese, because Sanrio's Hello Kitty and friends are drawn using a similar line style. In addition, the Miffy brand is popular in Japan and there is a lot of Japanese-made Miffy merchandise. To complicate things a little more, Hello Kitty found a friend called Cathy in 1976. Just like Miffy, Cathy is also a rabbit who doesn't talk much and is drawned in a similar fashion. Of course Dick Bruna wasn't very happy about it and there was a long love/hate relationship between the company that owns Miffy, namely Mercis BV and Sanrio. On November 2, 2010, a Dutch court ruled against Sanrio and ordered the company to stop marketing Cathy products in Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. Sanrio raised an appeal soon after.

Following the 2011 March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, Sanrio and Mercis BV settled the lawsuit out of court under the condition that Sanrio must stop worldwide production of merchandise that feature Cathy. Instead of continuing the court battle like most big companies are likely to do, the two companies will donate the legal fees to help the earthquake victims, which I thought was rather sweet of both of them.

Ok, I think this post is getting rather long. Sorry I got carried away, hahaha, because I really love Nijntje / Miffy a lot and she reminds me a lot of my childhood. I hope you like this Miffy Sandwich Bento or should I say Nijntje Boterham Bento as much as I do :)

Tutorial Bento Time Saver Carrot Kinpira Meatfree

Today I will share with you how I make a bento space filler that also happens to be a bento time saver, my own Carrot Kinpira. Many people have asked me recently, how on earth do you find time to make all these bentos. Well, let's say that making bentos does take a bit of effort. BUT sometimes I do get lazy, that's why I have to devise ways and means to make things more efficient. hehehe!

Kinpira 金平, きんぴら is a japanese style of cooking that can be roughly translated as "sauté and simmer". This technique can be used with many different types of root vegetable, such as carrot, burdock and lotus root. Sometimes the kinpira technique is also used on other foods such as tofu, wheat gluten and also meats like chicken, pork and beef. So in a way, I guess you can also call it Japanese stir-fry.

Carrot Kinpira Bento Time saver and Bento Filler

Ingredients
Half a carrot (julienne into strips about the size of matchsticks)
1 tablespoon Sugar
1 tablespoon Mirin
1 tablespoon Soy sauce
1 teaspoon of sesame oil
Dash of ketchup (you'll be surprise what this can do)
Sesame seed (optional)


Here's what I usually do

Carrot Kinpira - Julienne carrot

Carrot Kinpira - heat the sesame oil

Heat the sesame oil in a frying pan for less than 1 minute over moderate fire. Take care that the temperature does not get too hot, else the sesame oil will burn a little and it will taste bitter.

Carrot Kinpira - Quick saute and simmer

Add in the carrot strips and quickly toss it around a few times to make sure that they get evenly coated with the sesame oil.

Add in the sugar and give it a quick toss. If you like you can wait a little for the sugar and the sugar to caramalize a little.

Next add in the mirin and toss. At this stage, I will also add in a dash of ketchup. You will be surprised that an American invention such as the ketchup has made its way to a normal japanese kitchen (think omurice and spagetti Napolitan). The reason why I like to use a bit of ketchup here is that the tartness (sour-ness) of the vinegar and the tomato puree in the ketchup actually gives another dimension to the otherwise just sweet taste of the dish and it makes the carrot look good too!

Finally, I add in the soy sauce. I always add soy sauce the last because overcooking soy sauce changes the chemical content and also the taste of the soy sauce. Give it a quick stir and sprinkle a few sesame seeds and you are done!

This carrot kinpira recipe gives me about 4 side portions. I portion them out and place them all in a couple of silicon cake molds. This can be stored in the refridgerator for a few days and it means that everytime I want to make a bento with it, I can just take whatever I need and place it in the bento immediately. This is also great on the days when I run out of bento ideas and makes a great bento space filler too. I hope you like this bento time saver tutorial the meatfree Carrot Kinpira.

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 White Fish, potato, spinach and dessert

On the previous day Mr Bear and I had pan fried White Fish for dinner. There was potatoes and spinach as well. Haha, don't you think that the carrot stars and celery leaves look familiar? Well, they were from one of my posts yesterday as well. So far carrots and celeries have been some of my favourite bento garnishes because they are usually quite hardy and can last for a few days if drizzled with lemon juice and stored in an airtight container in the refridgerator. And the colours look so bright and cheerful!!

The dessert is stored in that yellow looking box. Well, actually its not exactly a real bento box. When I bought it in Xenos (dutch chain store that sells all sorts of cheap and strange stuffs) it said "Lemon Holder" on the tag. And its shaped like a real lemon!

Bento with white fish, potatoes, spinach

Here's the dessert: Honey Dew and Sago.

Here's how the "Lemon Holder" looks like

Bento box with White Fish, Potatoes, Spinach and honeydew sago dessert

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Bento Spagetti Nectarine Cat

Here is a bento I made shortly after coming back from Dubai. Yes, I have given in and bought (another) bento box.The excuse I gave myself was that it really looks like a cat, and that Bento + Cat = Bentocat. hahahaha very corny, very me.

This bento is pretty easier to make than it seems. The only 2 things that needed to be cooked is the spagetti and the spagetti sauce, that's all.

On the bottom tier is Spagetti, carrot, celery leaves and celery stem. Oh yes, and not forgetting that tiny bit of nectarine for the mouth. On the top tier is the spagetti sauce, more carrots and celeries and a big fat juicy nectarine. Do you like this?

Bento box bottom tier: Spagetti, carrots, celery and a wee bit of nectarine

Bento box top tier: Spagetti sauce, carrots, celery and lots of nectarine

Bento box: haha they looked like a cat and a frog from here.

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Bento for myself

  

04/01/11

I woke up a little later today and couldn't rush out a pretty bento for Mr Bear this morning. There was still quite a number of tofu skins in the opened inari package and I had to rush to the library to study for the coming exams. 

I quickly cooked some rice in the rice cooker and let it do what it's supposed to do. In the meantime, I started chopping up a carrot into little thin 5 cm (2 inch) strips. Next. I heat a little cooking oil in the pan and threw in the carrot strips, letting the natural sugars in the carrot caramalize a little in the pan. I add some soya sauce for taste and add in a little more brown sugar just so to give it an even more caramel-y taste. If you happen to have some white sesame seeds in the kitchen, you can sprinkle some on top of the carrot too. It gives the carrot some extra "umphh!". I realised I didn't have any sesame seeds so I just went without them. So I set some aside the carrot to cool one of my trusty green sillicon molds and started munching on the rest as breakfast.

A few minutes later, the rice is cooked. I spread it out in a big flat container, fanning the rice so that it will cool down faster. Next I mixed about 2 teaspoon of rice vinegar and sugar together and sprinkle it all over the rice, mixing it and fanning it all at the same time. Adding this "rice vinegar + sugar" solution will give the rice a nice shine and add some flavour to the rice as well.

I mold the rice with my hands into little round balls (about 3-4cm in diameter) and stuff the rice balls into the tofu skin (inari). Since everything is still a little warm, I decided that I should get dressed to go out in the meantime.

By the time I was done, the foods are cooled enough to be placed into the bento boxes. So I did that, and realised that I forgot to add a piece of fruit. I grabbed a banana and tried to stuff it in. Alas, it didn't fit at all and I had to improvise: I ate half of the banana there and then and stuff the rest into the box. haha!

As for the eyes and mouth, there are made from nori strips that I had cut last night, with a pair of scissors. In fact I had a whole bunch of simple basic shapes that I like to always keep aside. My favourite is long nori strips thats cut about 1mm wide. When I need them, I'll just cut them into suitable lengths for slitty, winky eyes, chicken feet, chicken footprints, or even hair.

- rice

- tofu skin ( inari )

- nori

- carrot

- banana

Bento: 2011 First Bento - meat balls and potatoes

01/01/2010
This is the first bento I made for this new year of 201. Ironically the ingredients are all made from leftovers from the potato and carrot stew Mr Bear and I had last night, or should I say "last year". hahaha!

Not that proud of it, cos it looked a little strange. But who cares, I made it for myself, since I couldn't wake up in time thanks to the iphone glitch on 20101 New Year's day. Here's something to pat myself on my back though, it was done in a record time of 10 minutes. Hahahahaha, fastest bento I have ever assembled so far. (and also one of most embarrassingly ugly ones ^..^! )

Rocket Leaves
Potatoes
Carrots
Meat Balls
Grapes
Full-cream yoghurt
nori strips (cut out with a pair of scissors - free hand)

The blue stuff you see on the yogurt is candied sugar (basically sugar laced with food colours, stumbled upon it in a bakery supply store)

Gonna practice more on speed and aesthetics!