Monday, 23 November 2009

Bento Mania

I bought my little brother The Manga Cookbook back in June for his birthday and Cameron had been hinting, lately, that he fancied the book for himself so we bought another copy last week.
I'm having to get over a mental hurdle to really get into bento making. I have a bit of an aversion to foods that have been fiddled around with a lot - one of the many reasons why I tend to cook from scratch. But I'm seeing it as a lesson in letting go and remembering the value in the process as well as the final outcome.
Since then, bento mania has hit our household and Cameron has been doing most of the cooking!
We have learned to perfect sticky steamed rice and have had a lot of fun playing around with ideas from the book.
Cameron particularly likes the shaped and cute things.

In this pic - onigiri with nori stars, on top of chicken and vegetables


Apple teddies and marshmallow treats

Hot dog octopuses/octopi/octopodes on a sea bed of rice


Not sure if you'll be able to make these out from the picture - they are a chick (on the left) and a rabbit (on the right) made from hard boiled eggs.


For bento box inspiration you can't do much better than this flickr group. But be warned - you'll never look at your lunch in the same way again!

6 comments:

  1. hehe...love the octopidususes! I never heard of this before, I looked at the flikr group...would seem a shame to eat some of that stuff after all the effort put into making it look like that! :0)

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  2. You blogged!! Yeah!
    Personally--I think all the Bento stuff is far too much work! I'm a very plain person!

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  3. I like the hotdogs! Hate to say it, but it really does help kids eat. I used to cut their sandwiches into shapes, and one of the girls favourites is potato mice -- a twice baked potatoe decorated as a mouse. Cute!

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  4. looks good. wonder if I could persuade my picky eater to be more adventurous with bentos

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  5. Ohhh... wacky coincidence! I just came across bento as a concept today. I blogged a bento wild thing rumpus that I found accidentally whilst googling for a picture of the Maurice Sendak illustrations.
    I love your bento! Will have to give it a try!
    Have some very keen cooks in our house.
    Also, I love your colourful blog and the little tasters of other posts you can try. I've been looking to change my template because I'm finding it a bit stale. May have to move back to blogger for the gadgets, but the themes seemed too plain. You've just convinced me they don't have to look plain.
    cheers
    Sally

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  6. Thanks for your comments ladies :o)

    Sally - I couldn't get on with any of the other blog hosting sites, blogger just seems to work for me. I like that it's easily personalised.
    Do link me to your blog so I can read yours - there's no link on your name on here.

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Looking forward to hearing from you :o)