Far too much food

Bento #55 (Mine) :

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A really full box of stuff. lol. rice ball(Kodoma) with nori faces, 6 gyoza, narutomaki slices, fried teriyaki tofu, mushroom chunks, daikon pickles, and romaine lettuce. Packed in 1 of 3 tiers from my Korean picnic bento set.

Sidecar: Kiwi butterflies and slices, navel orange segments and the last of my rambutans.

This is waaaay to much food for me. I usually only eat(and really only should eat) about 800ml. This lunch is well over 1000. However, at school, a lot of my friends mooch off of my lunch so I decided to pack a little more and it worked out pretty well. Although, I still had enough left over that my bento tomorrow is going to be a not as nice looking repeat of today. :P

First day of school and the first day of Fall

Hello! I've been gone for so long! Just haven't had time to post. Now that school has started, I'll be making lunch pretty much everyday again. Yay! I missed my bentos.

Bento #52: (mine) First day of Fall

It's hard to see but we have: Turkey and pepperjack on maple leaf shaped skewers, bird shaped onigiri sprikled with umeboshi furikake, maple leaf/acorn shaped mushroom slices, romaine lettuce, and a small bottle of italian salad dressing. Everything packed in a Hello Kitty lock-and-lock style box.

My phone camera pretty much sucks. Even though I got a new and nicer phone. Anyway, although this may look like it took a while, it actually was a speed bento. 10 minutes total. I cut up the mushrooms and put together the skewers while the rice was reheating. The cheese was pre-cut from dinner prep so less work at the time of packing. Score! I threw in a flag with the encouraging word: FIGHT (がんばりましょう) on it because school has been pretty overwhelming. Even on the second day. Mostly because of Japanese class. Oh, I wish I remembered everything from the Spring. D:

Bento #53 (Mine)

Left: Fried rice with tofu, edemame, corn, narutomaki, and mushrooms

Right: Green and red bell pepper slices, rambutans

Tiger container: Fiesta dip for peppers

Brought out my good ol' lock-and-lock set for this lunch. The bag fits in my backpack so nicely! The rabutans are a new thing. just picked them up yesterday at the Great wall mall. They're really tasty! Kinda like Lychees, but not quite as sweet. The fried rice was made with a bunch of leftover vegetables as well as some tofu and Narutomaki (Steamed fishcake). Narutomaki is great because it can be frozen forever. Plus it makes ramen so much better! :D

I sort of got the recipe for the dip online, but I changed a lot. Mostly because there was hardly anything in the house to make it out of. I actually only put a little bit of mayonnaise in this batch. (I had to scrape it from the container.)So I'm not sure how it would be with more of it.

Kaitie's Fiesta Dip

1/4 cup light sour cream

Less than 1/4 of olive oil Mayonnaise

2 Tbsp cayenne

2Tbsp Chili powder

1Tbsp taco seasoning

Mix together and add more of the cayenne, chili powder and taco seasoning until you like the level of spiciness.

Long Delay!

I can't believe how I've been neglecting my poor bento blog. But as I said, I have been making bentos. I think I'm going to just update once a week for now and maybe every now and then put up another too. But for now, let's just expect to see an entry on Friday night with the week's highlight bentos. :)

(I guess I'll still number them even though I've already made well over a hundred.)

Bento #48 (Mine) ARGH!
Here's the breakdown: Hunk of brie, mushrooms, sugar snap peas, quail eggs, and onigiri filled with smoked/peppered salmon with nori faces. There's also some red leaf lettuce around the edges to make it less green. >.>

Backlogged bento #49: (Mine) Chirashi sushi!

(let's see if I remember what's in this. XD) On the left: Blueberries and cheese wheel. Right: Rice with shrimp, avacado, cucumber and hard boiled egg shaped like a car and cut in half.

I keep telling myself I need to update here but I don't. As they say quite often in Korean dramas, How frustrating! Especially since I have been making bentos. Oh well, anyway. Biggie, over at Lunchinabox just finished up a bento gear organization contest. Check out the results! Such wonderful ideas! I considered entering, but I have no great ways to organize and I already bought the prize (A copy of the book Face Food.). In fact, it's shipping out in 2 more days! :D

We went to see "The Hundred Dresses" at the Seattle Children's theater last thursday and since we got picked up 10am and the play ran until about 1 we had to pack lunch and eat it on the way. I wish I had gotten a picture of my younger brother's lunch because he made it himself and it looked great! but he ate it before I had the chance. (Boys. :P)
Bento #38 (Mine)

Top tier: steamed broccoli, turkey meatballs, hardboiled quail eggs, apple rabbits, cherry tomatos and a raddish. Bottom tier: White rice and a piece of nori dipped in soy sauce.

This took no longer then 20 minutes (Because I made fresh rice. the other stuff took me 10 minutes.). I already had boiled quail eggs in the fridge, the meatballs were leftover gyoza filling, and I cut up that piece of nori ages ago. (It says Shitai which means "I want to try it" in Japanese.) So in the morning all I had to do was steam the broccoli, peel the eggs, microwave the meatballs, and cook the rice. Both lunches in this post were packed in a 738ml Hello Kitty box that I got for $1 at Dollar Tree.

Bento #39 (Mine)

In the top tier: cucumber, tomato/pepperjack kabobs, edemame, babybel cheese and an apple rabbit. Bottom: Tamagoyaki and kamaboko fried rice.

This lunch took me 10 minutes. (That was all the time I had. Phew!) I made the 2 egg omelet in my handy tamagoyaki pan and while I was waiting for it to cook I peeled and sliced the cucumber, heated up the rice and edemame, and started packing the top tier. The fried rice was leftovers from lunch yesterday when I had it inside a crepe style omelet.(Yum!) Here's the recipe, although I'm sure it will be different next time I make it and I don't have exact measurements because that's not how I cook. :P

Kamaboko fried rice

• 2 half-inch slices of kamaboko - cut into cubes
• 3 mushrooms (I can't recall what kind I used. Something from the asian market.) - cut up
• 1 green onion - sliced
• less then 1/4 corn (I used frozen)
• 1 tsp ketchup
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 cup of cooked rice (Any kind will do. I used pollished white rice)

Tuna Fish Onigiri

A friend of mine came over today and we had a Japanese day without even trying. Started off with Onigiri for lunch, watched Grave of the Fireflies and then spent the afternoon happily making origami cranes and shurikens. It was a gooood day. :D

Bento (Ok, so it's not in a box.) #33


I had tuna-stuffed onigiri, enoki mushrooms with water chesnuts and some broccoli.

A very quick lunch for 5. My friend helped make the onigiri while I cooked the enoki and chesnuts in a pan with some butter, salt, sugar, pepper and a little soy sauce. I threw the frozen broccoli in the microwave and we were all set. The onigiri were a huge success with my family. Everyone declares that it's a new favorite for lunch. I will for sure be making these again. Infact, Dad has some in his lunch for tomorrow that I didn't get a picture of.

Golden Curry

Daiso is my new favorite store. They have everything there. and mostly under $2! Just look at these spoils. :D

2 sizes of onigiri molds, assorted sauce bottles, fun food picks and a lunch box. (I also got a thermal lunch bag.)

They didn't have any egg molds and niether did H Mart so I'm going to have to find them online. But I was very happy with what I did find. My lunch box has four compartments and is microwavable and the picks are super cute. I can tell you I'll be going to Daiso a lot now. :)

On to the Bentos!

Bento #20 (Josh)

Rice with furikake, chicken and veggie curry*, granola, dried apple slices, and 2 hello panda cookies.

Josh's bentos usually don't take more then a few minutes to put together. The rice and curry were leftovers from dinner (So yummy!). I threw it in the box while it was still hot since his box is thermal and I didn't have to put as much food away.

Bento #21 (Dad)

Apple chunks sprinkled with lemon juice to reduce browning, cheese kabobs and a hard boiled egg, brown rice and chicken curry.

Another really fast one, except that I had to defrost the rice as I had frozen it about a week ago. I didn't want the cheese or egg to get soggy so I put the apple in a disposable muffin tin(pack of 20 for under $1) and left peeling the egg to him.

*The curry had chicken, green bell pepper, enoki mushrooms, carrots, onions, and golden curry mix.

Shopping Trip and Dino and Pac-man Bentos

I was at Ross this week and I was snooping around the toys section when these caught my eye. I ended up buying the one with a built in fork and it came with a 600ML bottle for $1.99USD. All of the boxes there are packed in sets of 2 for $2-3USD. I packed a Bento in my new box today but didn't get a picture.

Bento #18 Ice age Dino (Mine) :

I wasn't going anywhere that day but I find it easier to make lunch in my boxes.
Top Tier: Soy sauce fried onigiri, dino nuggets, mushroom slices and an egg roll.
Bottom: Cucumbers, mushrooms and cheese cubes.

This lunch took about 5 minutes to make. The onigiri was frozen as were the nuggets and egg roll. While they cooked in the micro I cut the veggies and cheese.

Bento #19 Pac-Man (Mine) :

(Not a very good picture. I need to work on that.)
Another super easy 5 minute lunch. While putting the cucumbers in the box I thought they looked like Pac-Man so decided to go with it. I put the mushrooms in between so the cheese wouldn't get soft from teh cucumbers.
Top: Roast beef and chedder on wheat bread, cheese cubes.
Bottom: Cucumber slice Pac-Man, mushroom slices and cheese "dots".

Skipping some

I haven't had a chance to update in a while and I'm not going to post 2 weeks worth of bentos here tonight so we'll just go with my favorites. (Both of Josh's lunches here are Vegetarian.)

Josh recently bought a thermal lunch box near the hispanic food at Winco that I jokingly call his "Ms. Bento". :D But seriously it has lots of space and mostly keeps the food warm. Not bad for $9.

Bento #12 (Josh)


Left:Homemade california rolls and green tea marshmallow. Middle:Instant udon soup. Right:Napa cabbage, mushrooms and cucumbers for the soup.

Bento #15 (Me and Mom)


This picture is kinda funny because I got really hungry and started eating and then I was like. Oops, forgot to take a photo. It was kind of annoying because it looked really nice when it was full. :(

Roast beef and cheddar on dinner rolls, cucumber wall and homemade california rolls.
Slightly pictured: Wheat thins, cheese cubes and green tea marshmallows.

Bento #16 (Josh)

Left: Avacado and cucumber stuffed onigiri and button mushrooms. Middle: cucumbers, cheese, avacado and hard boiled eggs. Right: Wheat thins and dried apple rings.

Mr. Face was fun to make! ^_^

First Bento and box

I don't have a photo of my very first Bento, because my dad took it to work before I thought of it. But it was 3 egg onigiri (Riceballs), carrot and celery sticks, and 2 button mushrooms. Not the fanciest, but he enjoyed it.

As the posts move on I will have photos and more indepth info on what's in the Bento.


Today my mom and I went to the 99 Ranch Asian Market and the Great Wall Mall to shop for dinner. I love that place! We picked up some veggies, seaweed, some frozen dumplings, and fresh catfish. On the way home I asked if we could stop at the Anime store and mom said yes because she had to get something at Staples too. So I go in and am looking around for a Bento box and I find this pencil case:





I asked the woman at the counter if it would work for a Bento box and her eyes got really wide. She grinned and told me, "What a great idea! So creative. I should buy one too!" I told her that I was just starting to make Bentos and how I really enjoyed Onigiri and she told me that she makes Bento boxes for her daughter. We chatted for a while and she kept saying that she thought it was such a good idea. She was so sweet! I need to hang out over there more. ^_^

So tonight I took the leftovers from dinner and put together a Bento for my brother.

Maybe it doesn't look incredibly good, but it tastes good. When I make them for my self and my mom they'll be cuter. :D (The lighting is kinda bad too. I'll try to get better pictures next time.)

The contents are: A Catfish steak, bok choi and enoki mushrooms in a ginger, sesame and soy sauce and raw carrot half circles.

I then took the leftover rice and added golden raisins, cinnamon, and sugar and made sweet dessert Onigiri. They were delicious!


Sorry about so many pictures. There will be less in the posts to come.