O-Bento-Hime!

Hello. I live.
I'm teaching English at elementary schools lately. I eat lunch with the kids, and since our school lunch is kind of ...meh... I bring bento instead. XD It's lovely being able to make and eat bento IN Japan. XD Lately I've been working harder on my cooking, so it's been a bit of a revival with the bento thing lately.

So yeah, went out and spent... well, not too much, actually. And got a new bento set. Also got myself a muchly-needed new frying pan and spatula... in green. XD The joys of non-stick cooking.

The bento is like pink and cutesy. I keep catching myself thinking of it as "Obento-hime." O_O;;; I love it. (;A;)

First, the outside. I got a pale pink bag to put everything in. It's only a matter of time before there's something cutesy hanging off one of the handles. --; Also guest-starring Thermos-sama. Also pink. But I've had the thermos for a while. XD



Next, we have the actual set as it looks all packed up. It's a bit hard to see in the photo but the bento box has slightly-embossed leaves and vines on it. XD My new chopsticks are Kutsushita Nyanko (Socks Kitty, which I love ;_; so cute), and I had to get the white furoshiki cloth printed with black cats to spread everything out on at lunchtime. ♥



And for lunch today...



Scary food is scary. XD
Rice with toasted sesame seeds, penguin hot dogs that didn't come out so good, and my homemade cucumber tsukemono (pickles) in the little heart. ;;_;; I've missed my pickles. ;;;_;;;
Below: Teriyaki chicken with spinach (right), cherry tomatoes and mini fish-cake mochi spears (middle), yakisoba with veggies (left).
Mini bento: Mikan sections with some dried cranberries.

Ate better yesterday, since a lot of it was food I cooked for the sake of my bento. Despite being waist-deep in PMS and in the throngs of a chest cold, I'm doing much better this month. Just goes to show that the more plant life I eat, the better/"cleaner" I feel. I could never be a vegetarian, but the school lunch program has too much refined carb/carb in general and doesn't incorporate enough plants for my liking. And yes, I like to say "plant life" instead of "fruits and veggies." ^^;

Gotta try those hot dogs over again, though. Need to use differently-sized ones and try boiling them. I have three molds.. I am dying to use the fish and crab ones. ;_;

今日から頑張ろう！！！♥