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

Recipe: Easy Peasy sour cucumber salad

This afternoon I made myself an easy peasy cucumber salad because I realised that I probably gorged myself with too much food during dinner yesterday. Unfortunately I totally forgot to take any photos, so I guess you might have to wait till I make my next batch. Here's how I make them.

Ingredients:
cucumbers
1/4 cup white vinegar (make sure its meant for food, not your kitchen table!)
1 tbs soya sauce
1 tbs sugar
1 tbs salt
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Optional items (choose 1 out of these ingredients below)
- black sesame seed OR
- white sesame seed OR
- sliced spicy red chilli

Directions:
Slice the cucumbers into stripes. Pat them lightly to remove excess moisture. Put cucumbers in a jar, add in the rest of the ingredients. If you like, you can also add in one of the optional ingredients. Close the lid and give the jar a good shake. Ready to serve!

Bento Idea: Mini babybel belles!

Yesterday there was a sale on mini babybel cheese in one of the neighbourhood supermarkets. I thought that they make a great addition to my bento food stash, since they are:
-small (thus high in "cute factor")
-keep well
-individually packed (means I can portion it to exactly what I need = less food wastage)

I think I came across this sometime back from a taiwanese bento mom Tiffany Yang's blog and thought its pretty cute, so I improvise it a little to make it truly my own. At this point, there's no instructions for this on her site, so I reckon I'll just share with you my methods:

Basically I unwrapped the mini babybel and started cutting the shapes I want with a tiny sharp knife. If you are not comfortable with cutting out the shapes with the knife straightaway, you can lightly sketch the design you want with a sharp toothpick before you really start cutting. This way, its less likely for a mistake to be made.

From the discarded red portions, I carved a little shallow "u" shape to form the mouths. Using a toothpick, I place them at a desired position. *if your bento is intended for small children, use maraschino cherries or surimi stick skins instead of discarded wax!*

Next I used a food writer to dot on the eyes. Not exactly the best option I found out, because they tend to smudge. If black sesame seed is available to you, use them!!! Just 1 tiny black sesame seed for each eye. They work far better than the food writer because they give a "cleaner" look and those ever so cute tear-drop shaped eyes. Else a tiny tiny little round piece of nori will do fine as well. If you happen to have a musical note nori puncher on hand, use them!!! you can simply cut off the round part of the musical note and use them as eyes!

Other ingredients for this bento are:
- mash potato (decorated with leaf picks)(click here for mash potato recipe )
- green grapes (lying right under the mini baby bel belles)
- cut banana (instructions on how to cut them decoratively can be found here.)

In case you know someone who is crazy about mini babybel, you might want to check this out this out. Its fast and convenient and you won't have to rush out to the supermarket and then go to the post office to send it out, just to realise to that the postage for cheeses is already way more expensive than the cheese itself.