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！！！♥

Hisashiburi.....

Oh, it's been a while. But here I am living in Japan now. O_O Wild.

Here's some stuff i've been cooking for my dinner, since sadly my school has school lunch for everyone and I generally don't get to make a bento. :(



Chicken and Egg Donburi (dish over white rice) with fresh spinach, cucumber and daikon/carrot tsukemono (pickles made with rice vinegar), and apple juice.



Tamago (egg) Toast. This is a crummy photo, but this dish is sooooo good. It's a slice of thick Japanese style white bread lightly toasted on one side in a frying pan with a small pat of butter, with some mayo (I use the very yummy Kewpie mayo we have here), lettuce, and an egg fried with a little olive oil and salt. SO GOOD. My favorite breakfast here.



Stir Fry with broccoli, carrot and chicken, satsumaimo (sweet potato) fried rice, sweet potato salad, daikon miso shiro (white miso soup with daikon), and daikon-carrot pickles. I really like these sweet potato dishes; the type of potato you get here is much different from the orange kind we have in North America, and just as tasty. The flavor is subtle enough that it makes an awesome potato salad.
The mixed rice is just sliced potato pre-boiled to almost-tender lightly stir-fried in olive oil with cooked white rice and a touch of soy sauce. It's nice to eat when it's so cold out. >_<

Today I am all thrilled and stuff, because i've used my heart-shaped onigiri mold for today's bento.



Onigiri (rice balls) with tuna and mayo inside; two have toasted sesame seeds on top, while the middle one has the salt 'n spice seasoning I use when I fix tuna salad. Some sliced cucumber, sugar snap peas, and carrots (they're dry, yeah.. but I let them get that way cuz I don't like the texture when they're wet --;) with light dill dip (needs refrigeration, and after taking the photo I wrapped the little cup in plastic wrap to avoid disaster), a "spring" oreo, and a cherry-chocolate Andes mint. Also, stretch island fruit leather and a Whips! yogurt (not pictured).

Now I really want more onigiri molds, maybe in less cutesy shapes. ^^; They're insanely helpful, especially when putting in filling. No rice-y hands!

Maybe it's time for a plain old sandwich...

Hmph. Sometimes my job kind of sucks the life out of me. My dishes lately aren't that good to me, even though i'm trying lots of new things.



Ginger pork recipe from my cookbook. Also stir-fried carrots with toasted sesame seeds, rice (spinach and cucumber for garnish), mandarin oranges (in the mini bento), and no-sugar-added rice pudding with cinnamon. Mmm.
The pork came out extremely salty. I think I will use less ginger AND soy sauce next time. A lot of these recipes are painfully salty, and I don't know if that's my own sensitive taste buds or what. But AHHH, salt. :P



Turkey-not-Chicken Dumplings, plain mixed veggies, rice with sesame seeds. Mandarin oranges, and some of those yummy Cadbury mini eggs lurking in next to the main course. >)
Another recipe from the book: Chicken Dumplings. Only these are turkey, because I could not find ground chicken at the supermarket. --; They were kind of okay. Kind of too crisp; maybe I will add more egg and flour next time. And actually use chicken.

Mmmm. Salt.

Teriyaki-stir-fried veggies and chicken, white and teriyaki rice mix (spinach garnish), pickles. Also, a Babybel, and sliced Fuji apple. Mmm.

...This was supposed to start out as onigiri, but I find that reheating rice to make them doesn't work so well. When I went to grill them, they fell apart in the pan. Thus, a mix of regular rice and the stirfried ex-onigiri rice. --;;;; Alas. I wish I could make fresh rice each day but for now, I guess onigiri will have to be had on Tuesday, when I actually cook up the week's batch of rice. Bah.

Soba ni ~~~~

Zarusoba today (cold noodles) with nori on top and dipping sauce in a separate container. With carrots and the most beautiful spinach Tamagoyaki I have ever turned out .. so far. XD Mandarin oranges (in the Nyanko box) for dessert. <3

Scallops in pain!

The above is only amusing when you mistype a filename url AND your head is still fuzzy from being sick for 2.5 days. --;

Ahem.

So today I decided to go ahead and do teriyaki scallops for my bento, since, as I said, the last couple of days i've been home sick from work. I did a test run yesterday, and those buggers do cook up awfully fast, making them a really good item to add when pressed for time (I get up around 10am, because I work 2-midnight, so I sit around being zombie-ish for a good while before I can cook anything and usually run late).



Teriyaki scallops, snow peas, the rest of the pickled cucumber for the week (more than usual cuz I only made 2 bentos this week), and rice with sesame seeds. There was supposed to be spinach omelet in here, but I had an adventure today and discovered that you can't cook egg in the same pan after scallops, at least not well. The pan I was using is all but devoid of its original teflon coating, also, so that did not help me at all. -- It's just as well, though, because I needed to eat up the snow peas.

You also get to see that I own more than one bento box. I need more. >D Right now, it's more about accessories; I got my heart-shaped onigiri mold and my bento okazu cups (little separator cups for holding various food items within a bento box; they're reuseable and not as wasteful as cute paper cupcake wrappers) today, and now have a nice little arsenal of items to use. Soon I should take pics of all my stuff and just throw that up here.

Thought I might include some extra photos this time around. If you ever wondered what my kitchen looks like when i'm in the midst of prepping bento, it's something like this:



Ingredients all over the counter, and the box for the day sits in the midst of it all, ready to recieve the food once it's done. For sticky rice, I usually make a batch on Tuesday and stick it in the fridge. When I put more rice into a bento, I heat it up first, and then it cools to room temp in the (unlidded) bento box. It stays decently edible that way, rather than be all cold and hard as it is when refrigerated. If I lived in a perfect world I could make rice each day and have it fresh, but it won't work that way until I live with people who will eat rice that often. That, and I need a nicer rice cooker.



Cooking the scallops. I used a recipe from the Bento Box cookbook John got me for Christmas. It's a fabulous book and already bears post-its with my notes on various recipes. >) The recipe I used includes soy sauce, water, sugar, and calls for sake, but in its place I used a little bit of Mirin (sweet rice wine). Not bad, even for someone who isn't really big on scallops. I hope I don't get food poisoning. ^^;;

Next week's menu must include (HEART-SHAPED!) onigiri at some point. >D As for the rest, I need to plot that out.

Happy V-day!

And it is for me. I woke up to a lovely package from John on the kitchen table. Inside, various adorable things, including some Nyanko mini-bento boxes! I love Nyanko so much and they're perfect as part of my silly bento collection. <3



Hoorah for the crap picture. But since it's V-day I decided to make something nifty, so here's my first attempt at Oyaku (Chicken and Egg) Donburi. :3 I used spinach instead of hornwort, because I have a lot of spinach and can't find honewort anywhere. XD One of the new Nyanko containers is here, holding homemade pickles (sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds).

I was very bad today, and also ordered myself some bento divider cups (in quiet, pastel colors ^^;) and a heart-shaped onigiri mold (!).
I fear for Japan when Julie and I visit, for I am going to buy lots of stuff when we go. XD They will be cleaned out of bento and yarn.

Kosher bento!

Today's bento came out decently well; I was pleased enough with it that I wanted to put up a pic.



Salted cucumber, sweet potato latkes (pancakes) with applesauce (in the little bottles), and hardboiled egg. The garnish is just a few leaves of field greens.

Wai.

I have to say that I absolutely LOVE the Mako-chan's Bento Box site. This is so adorable. XD I even got the book she recommends for Christmas (a lovely little book with lots of bento recipes and general guidelines for making pretty shiny bento XD I will have to write more about that later on).

Meanwhile, one begins to notice the healthy impact bento meals make on oneself when the lack of fresh vegetables in the house makes it hard to prepare your lunch for the day. ^^;;

Rising from the dead, like so much reanimated dead stuff...

I really, really need to write more on this thing. Now that i'm getting into a routine with my new job, I can fit in some blogging.

It's especially important to do more with it, because I have decided that I will be making my third trip to Japan this April. >D This time, I shall be traveling with my pal Jules (of "I like shiny things" fame; see link at right), and it will be swell. Yarn and bento boxes shall be cleaned from every shelf in Kyoto.

Kyoto has these great regional yummies; the one I remember best from when I was there last trip is this little pastry triangle with anko (sweet bean paste) inside it. I wish I knew what it was called so I could try to find a recipe for it. ;_; Anko is the greatest food on earth.

I'm still bringing my beloved bento lunches to work with me most days; recently I got myself some sauce containers (in the shape of fish) to add to the utter joy. XD



As you can see, my bento are looking slightly better than they used to. I still don't give half a hoot about presentation, but I at least attempt to make things look more appetizing when I think to do it.

Finally, an update.

Okay, so it's been a while. I started a new job finally, and it keeps me very busy--so busy that i've had to work hard to create a routine that allows me time to do my cooking and so on. ;_;

A while ago, I did do some experimenting with mochi. Now, if you live in an area like mine, it can be hard to find the ingredients for traditional mochi (with anko or whatever). In Corning, there's enough of a Japanese population to warrant a large asian section at the supermarket. However, the only anko they have is in big, dusty cans... it would go bad before I used it all. ;_; Sadly, they do not sell loose azuki beans for me to make anko from scratch.

So, I improvise.



Here's your garden variety mochi. To go with it, I tried a couple of things most people have banging around: maple syrup and strawberry jam. The jam is fantastic; it turned out to be a good combination. The syrup was okay; however, I would recommend using pancake syrup over the pure stuff, because pure syrup is too thin to stick to the mochi. :/

I bring my lunch to work. Naturally, it's bento. Every. Day. XD It keeps me happy.

A sample bento:



This is mini-pita with peanut butter (I am infatuated with pita), snow peas, cheese (in funny little shapes. Thanks, Sargento :3), and dried apricots. I usually throw in some fruit leather and a bag of carrots for pre-lunch snacking, too.
This is my single-tier bento... I also have one that is two tiers, which works well when I want to put in juicy bits of fruit or a small salad. I haven't yet brought in any strictly-Japanese meals yet (that which requires chopsticks), but eventually I will. When people get used to me. :D There's at least one other person at work who knows Japan very well, so I know i'd have an ally.

The end for now. Next time I will try to show off my zarusoba recipe. :D

Tohru shoes!

Okay, so I just want to add more posts so this thing doesn't look so bare. And since this is cosplay-related, it's perfectly legal. :3



My Tohru shoes! Brown loafers from Born that I won off of Ebay for about $9. XD I love Born shoes; they're so comfortable. These are exactly what I need for Tohru's school uniform, as well as for my regular day-to-day wardrobe (although most of my shoes are black :P). Cute flats are always good.

Tomorrow I will probably try making some sort of Americanized mochi... I have heard that some people like it with maple syrup or cinnamon. Sounds interesting. >D

Hajime~.

Well, here's my first post. I don't think it's going to be anything memorable... more like Oh hey, let's see what the blog looks like with TEXT in it. :P'

I have a blog over at Livejournal already; I've been using that for going on 5 years now. *_* But I have found myself wanting to have some sort of blog dedicated to my Japan-related creativity, so I thought that might be a good excuse to play with blogger a little.

I've been trying some new Japanese dishes lately, to add to my repertoire; something related to that will probably be the first thing I post about. :P' I have some mochi bricks but no anko, booooo... so I have to come up with a substitute. Let's just wait and see how this comes out.