What does winter mean to you?

Me:

Winter = Red, runny nose + thick, heavy clothing you can hardly move + dry, itchy, fish-scaled skin. LOL! (Or should I say, Ho Ho Ho!) :P

Daughter:

Winter = Waiting for the snow to come + making lots of snowmen.

Thus, a snowman bento for her ;)

121212 The Funny Snowman

The snowman is made of:

- Japanese rice for the snowman and the ground

- Prune for the hat and the eyes

- Carrot for the nose

- Nori for the smile

- Cheese for the buttons and the stripe on the hat

- Crab stick for the scarf

- Black spaghetti for the arms

Also in the bento:

- Pan-fried salmon

- Yellow cauliflower

- Pomegranate, grapes, and dried persimmon

I also made festive lights mini-sandwiches, which I think I got the idea from Meet the Dubiens during one of my episodes-of-endless-googling-of-fun-food many months ago.

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The sandwiches are made of:
- Bread cut using an egg-shaped cutter
- Egg spread
- Cheese cut using the egg-shaped cutter, and coloured using food-dye
- The crust of the bread, spread with dark chocolate peanut butter
- Black spaghetti

Also in the bento:
- Yellow and red cherry tomatoes
- Mini tomatoes
- Blueberries

This post is part of a Holiday-Ho-Ho-Hop where a group of us bento bloggers are making bentos of the same theme. Click on the hop button below, and get ready to be awe-strucked by the awesomeness of Tiny Princess Lunch Box! Do keep on clicking the hop button to get loads of inspirations for Wintery-themed bentos!!

110212 @ Hokkaido Snow Festival

Fa La La La, La La La La

It is the season to be jolly; it is the season to shop and spend! Japanese do not celebrate Christmas, but you'll see the stores here selling Christmas-related items EVERYWHERE. From Christmas trees of all sizes, to Christmas outfits, to Christmas chocolates, to elaborately-decorated Christmas cakes. Apparently, cutting the cake on Christmas where families gather together is the way they celebrate it here. I myself do not celebrate Christmas. I do enjoy Hershey's Kisses Xmas Limited Edition Dark Chocolate filled with Mint Truffle :D

101212 The daughter was disappointed when she realised the decoration on the tree are picks, not chocolate!

Me love Cookie!

“Sometimes me think what is love. 

And then me think love is what last chocolate cookie is for. 

Me give up the last chocolate cookie for you.”

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Dedicated to my husband

Cookie Monster is made of:

- Cheese for the face, cut with the guide of a sketch on parchment paper, and coloured lightly using blue food-marker.

- India Tree blue sugar sprinkles.

- White chocolate buttons for the white part of the eyes.

- Cheese and Wilton black decorating icing for the black part of the eyes and the mouth.

A sweet welcome back…

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… after not bentoing for what feel like an eternity!

"All Children Are Artists. The Problem is How to Remain an Artist once he Grows up." - Pablo Picasso

My daughter is into drawing right now, so we bought her an easel from Ikea a few days ago. She drew Phineas, Ferb and Perry on it yesterday while watching the show. She is not the best of drawers, but I adore her creativity and all of her drawings. I hope she will remain creative, if not an artist.

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Speaking of creativity, I discovered mine in the form of bentos. I was surprised that this turned out to be my art, as just a year ago, it never entered my mind to make one. Now, it has become a hobby that I truly enjoyed. Some people find joy in dancing, or playing online games, or simply watching TV. This, is how I spend my hours <3 

The watercolour cake set is made of:

- Rice

- White: egg white

- Yellow: pepper

- Orange: pepper

- Red: pepper

- Green: Japanese pickle

- Blue: natural-food-dyed rice

- Purple: Japanese shiba-duke pickle

- Brown: Japanese pickle

- Black: nori

- Asparagus for the brush

Also in the bento are buttermilk chicken, some more peppers, strawberries, rainbow kiwi and a 'painting' made of cheese for the canvas and Betty Crocker Fruit Roll-ups for the coloured drawing.

 From Mommy With Love

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I hope it isn't obvious that I did this bento in a rush >.<

Arigatou Gozaimashta

For our honeymoon, my husband and I chose Tokyo. It was only for less than a week, but I fell in love and vowed to visit again someday somehow. Five years later, here we are . . . .  I swear, in the first 365 days I was here, I had to pinch myself every single day to make sure it wasn't just a dream. So today, let me say that I am truly thankful for this opportunity given to us. The experience is beyond words. 

131112 A tribute to Japan

I started making bentos earlier this year when it struck me that since I am in Japan, it's only natural that I should try making one. Never ever had any idea that it would become my hobby.

This bento is made of:
- Green egg sheet for Mt. Fuji and cheese for the snow cap.
- Red, yellow and orange peppers and cucumber for the momiji leaves.
- Rice coloured with blue natural food-dye.
- Grilled prawn, meatball, broccoli, mini tomatoes, and strawberries.

This post is part of a blog hop where a group of us bento bloggers are making bentos with the same theme. If you keep clicking on the hop button, you will be able to see all the other amazing bentos, so be prepared to be inspired!

Click the hop button below and behold what Rina of Bento School Lunches has created for the theme!

What's black and white, and green and yellow and pink and red and blue?

I am excited to announce that I may have discovered a new bento technique! I was tracing Marty on the parchment paper, my usual technique, which I would later use as a guide to cut nori and shape rice. I was looking at and sighing over all the stripes and the microscopic detailing, and thinking how I would enjoy the work later (not!). I had a white paper on the table, and as I was putting the sketch on it, Marty suddenly came alive. It then occurred to me that I may be able to skip that fun, nori-constructing work after all. 

091112 And, it was a success!

The sketch laid on top of the rice.

Anybody got the number to the Patent & Trademark Office? Or the Guinness World Records? Or at least Wikipedia? LOL! ;P

Marty is made of:

- A sketch of Marty on parchment paper.

- A layer of rice.

- Chopped long green bean, red and yellow peppers, denbu and blue-colored rice.

The clown egg is made of:

- Boiled egg with circular shapes dug out using a mini circle cutter. 

- Red and yellow peppers, denbu and blue-colored egg bits.

"I'M HAVIN' FISH TONIGHT!!!!!"

071112 Finding Chico

Sorry, it's Finding Fabio. Wait, no, Bingo...

Or was it Harpo..?

Ahhhhh…. It's Finding Elmo!!!

Follow me on . . . . 

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I hate that the quality of my pictures are so poor (because I did this for dinner). Check out the one I did a few months ago - How much do I love Instagram? - where it was much clearer.

Bento-A-Bear

Meet my daughter's teddy, Rosey from Build-A-Bear. 

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Rosey was made of:

- Rice balls coated with denbu (pink fish floss).

- Fish cake and nori for the detail.

I'm Crazy Pooh You, Hunny!

I'm not a big fan of pancakes, so I rarely make it. HOWEVER, sometime last year we discovered Bills restaurant (in Decks, Odaiba) and I swear in the name of Winnie the Pooh, they serve the BEST (<-- in bold and underlined for ultimate emphasis) pancake!! Ever!! 

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This bento consists of:
- Rice mixed with turmeric powder to make Winnie, and crab stick for his shirt.
- Pancakes for the tree trunk and broccoli for the leaves.
- Pancakes for the beehive as well as the honey pot.
- Tamagoyaki for the bee, with crab stick for the wings and nori details.

Kinmokusei

There is a huge sweet olive tree (or kinmokusei in Japanese) right outside our building. It has just started flowering last week and it produces an amazing fragrant, which we could smell from inside the house when the window is open. Every time we go out, my daughter make us pick the flowers into a bucket and she'll 'plant' (sprinkle) them all around the grass or bushes. Here is a picture of the flower I got from Wiki:

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Daughter's bucket full of kinmokusei

The kinmokusei flower is made of:

- Carrot

- Cheese

- Salad leaves

- Rice mixed with purple sweet potato powder

Cheater Cheater Pumpkin Eater

Today's bento looks rather simple, but "EMMERRGAADDDD!!!" it took a long time to do >.< I had to cut many tiny bits of cheese and egg sheets to make the pumpkin costume Hello Kitty is wearing to her party. I also had difficulty applying the food-dye as they were in powder form. (Note to self: Order gel food-dye A.S.A.P.!) I ended up skipping making the face on the pumpkin and photoshopped it instead. All together now - "Boo! Cheater!" 

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Without the photoshopped pumpkin face

Hello Kitty is made of:

- Cheese

- Orange and green-colored egg sheets

- Red, black and yellow food-dye

Haunted House

It has been a rainy week, and when it's cold and dark and rainy outside, do you know what comes out? My laziness! Haha! Who wouldn't love curling up in bed under the warm duvet and dreaming away in such weather?!? LOL! But finally took out my tools and here is today's bento. Boo! 

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The haunted house is made of:
- Rice topped with soboro for the dark background. (See my previous post on Soboro.)
- Scrambled egg for the moon.
- Cheese and nori for the haunted house and all the details, and also the bat.
- Yellow and red food-safe pens for the windows and eyes.
- Japanese umeboshi (pickled plum) snack for the fence.
- Japanese fish cake for the ghost, and a drinking straw to prop it up.

The pumpkin is made of:
- Boiled pumpkin!

Here Is My Secret

Alright. Here it is. I'm letting you guys in on my secret. I'm spilling the beans. Off with the Superman cape. Haha ;D

I have mentioned a few times that I get my inspirations from bento magazines. Indeed they are one of my precious bento 'gears'. I get (a.k.a. steal, LOL!) a lot of ideas and acquired many bento skills from the pages of these magazines. I ADORE them and could spend a good few hours looking through them over and over again ;)

My collection so far >.<

Cute!!

Pretty!!

Ideas!!

Step-by-step guide

Step-by-step guide and the final bento

Anpanman bento step-by-step guide

My Anpanman bento from following the guide

A Chef bento

My version of the Chef bento

I have eight by Akinoichigo  

This is one of the latest one I bought. It came with free Hello Kitty rice mould and nori puncher!!

You know what they say. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery :D

The 5 Shades of Beet Red

No special story about this bento. Just have a stash of blended beet in the fridge :D Found the cute mini apple and that colourful vegetable (which is Swiss chard) at a supermarket in Meguro.

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The lipsticks are made of:
- Rice mixed with blended beet.
- Egg sheet.
- Nori.

Popcorn for Movie Night

Who doesn't love Fridays? It's the start of the weekend, and my daughter especially loves it because it's 'movie night' in our house. After dinner, we'll set up the living room, grab some popcorn, and pop a (Disney or Pixar or Ghibli) movie on :D

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The popcorn is made of:

- Rice hand-shaped to look like the box.

- Cheese and crab stick for the red/white stripy look.

- The word 'Popcorn' made from cheese using alphabet cutters, and coloured black using some food-safe pen.

- Cauliflower with some cheese pressed onto them to make them look like buttered popcorn.

Side-note: I usually make bento for lunch, simply because I need the light to take a good photo. I made this for dinner last night and I was really struggling to take a decent picture :( Really need to learn some photography skill.