Bento Inari Hairclip Bears

Today's bento post Inari Bears with Hairclips, is consist of Inari sushi, which is simply made of rice stuffed into tofu pouches, and some cucumber on the side. Sometimes I add cream tuna or corn into the pouch too, but this time  its plain.  I didn't take long to prepare this bento, because its just stuffing the rice into the pouches and slicing cucumbers. Later on I just stick foodpicks (which I bought recently from Bento&Co) near the corners to form ears for the bears. They also look like hairclips for the inari bears. So far this has been my favourite set of food picks because it's quite funny.

Bento Bears with hairclips which are funny looking foodpicks I ordered from Bento&Co

If you see the picture above, they looked like butterfly and clover "hairclips" but there's more to it than meets the eye. Here's how the funny foodpicks look like from the side:

Funny Bento Foodpicks 1 - sideview

Funny Bento Foodpicks 2 - sideview

Hehe, I think this picks will come in handy for cherry tomatoes, little quail eggs or grapes. Using food picks means that dirty fingers will not come in contact with the tomatoes, quail eggs or grapes and it instantly adds some colour to a bento.

Bento Elf Babies - Inari Sushi - Meat-free

These two elf babies are essentially Inari sushis, simply tofu pouches and rice balls.
I made this Bento Elf Babies with some leftover tofu pouches from the Ninja Bento I made for Mr Bear on Friday. Even though I am carnivourous (most of the time), I really will eat meals without meat if its delicious and presented in an appealing way. I guess you can say that I am a big kid in disguise. hahaha!

Bento Elf Babies Inari sushi, shown here with 2 black Ojue compartments

Hope you like this Meat-free Inari sushi Elf Baby Bento!

Bento Ninja Friday Funny - Meatfree

Funny Friday Meatfree Bento Ninja. Its Friday again and today's bento post is about 2 funny ninjas. These 2 funny ninjas are actually inari sushis in disguise. They are made with tofu skin pouches (abura-age) and rice. Since Mr Bear also like to have inari sushi with corn, I placed some corn in a small silicon baking mold as a spacefiller for the bento. Chopped green apples are also included as a healthy dessert.

Friday Funny Bento Ninja

I hope you like this Friday funny Ninja Bento. Now who says meatfree food is boring? :D

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

Rabbits and Elves

Its Boxing Day a few days back. Mr Bear and I just got back to our little apartment after 2 days of over-the-top Christmas binging at his parents' place. On Monday, its back to work for him and back to my books for me. I wanted something that isn't that rich after two days worth of Christmas menus. Yet at the same time, I am still clinging on to that Christmas/ Holiday mood and refused to go back to reality. Thus I made this Rabbit and Elves bento for Mr Bear so that he'll have a nice leisurely lunch the next day. I hope you'll enjoy it too!

Bento Box
-metaphys ojue lunch box

Greens
-rocket leaves

Elves
-inari-sushi (稲荷寿司) *fancy sounding name, but not that difficult*
Grab some abura-age (japanese tofu-skin pouches), you can get this in japanese supermarkets or even oriental supermakets. Carefully open the pouches. Make round clown-nosed sized riceballs and stuff the rice ball into it. Tuck in the raw edges of the pouches and carefully position nori eyes and mouth.

Rabbits
-sliced red apples, soaked in water and lemon juice solution to prevent the apples from turning brown.

Rubies
-red seedless grapes