Bento # 121 – Teru Teru Bozu Bento

Teru Teru bozu is something Japanese children will make  out of white cloth/tissue paper and cotton and hang nearby the window when they wish for sunny weather,  which is often before a school picnic day. And nope they are not ghost dolls despite they resemble the ghost dolls made at Halloween. Teru in Japanese means sunshine and bozu is a Budhist monk and literally it means “shine shine monk”, that might explain the bald head ? 🙂

Today bento featuring 2 Teru teru bonzu made out of rice. They both  are still  apprentice ,therefore they are on duty together to ensure today weather is bright and shinny.

Bento # 121 – Teru teru Bozu Bento

I also stuffed the teru teru bozu with ume inside, and for the side dish a piece of home made chicken katsu, steamed broccoli and baby asparagus, cheese and few raspberries.

 

Lotus root/Renkon salad

This is a scheduled post, currently I am away for vacation therefore sorry for any late response on comment.

Since I start doing bento, Lotus root had become a staple in my kitchen however the challenge with this unique ingredient is you can’t buy them in small qty.

A piece of Lotus root is big enough for  several times bento side dish where in most of the case the rest of them are turn into my favorite snack Lotus root chips until a friend of mine told me about this Lotus root salad.  She doesn’t give me the exact measurement of the recipe, it was based on your own sense and taste , I tried to make it and I love it.

This is my result (I am running out of ham, so I only use 1 slice, ideally I will add more ham into the salad)

Lotus root salad

Ingredients :

• 1/4 – 1/2 lotus root depending on the size, slice thinly and immediately soaked them into salted/ vinegar water.
• 1/2 medium size cucumber,   cut into 2 sides, de-seed and sliced thinly and soaked them into cold salted water
• 1-2 slices of ham, cut into small long  pieces
• 1 to 2 table spoon vinegar
• Pinch of Sugar to taste
• Pinch of Salt to taste
• Mayonnaise to taste

Steps

1. Boiled a pot a water  mix with  vinegar inside and cook the lotus root for few minutes, drain and cool under running /ice water, drain and set aside.
2. Wipe the sliced cucumbers and lotus roots with paper towel and toss them into salad bowl, add the sugar and salt and mayonaise, then the ham.
3. Mix well and let them chill in the fridge.
4. Keep the salad in clean container for bento stash or stock – max 3 days

Bento # 98 – Spam bunny bento

This is a late post of last Friday lunch and the bento was one of those where bento picks come in handy to beautify the food.

I cut a spam using rabbit cookie cutter and then add 2 rabbit picks on the rice. Mini size meatballs to fit the drum stick picks , yellow cherry tomato for the leaf pick , a little portion of scramble egg.

And last but not the least plum and few raspberries for vitamin boost.

Bento # 98 – Spam bunny bento

Cheers

Bento # 85 – Rabbit in love bento

Ever try  green vegetable barley noodle?  Well… today is my first time.

I bought a pack of the  dry noodle many weeks ago but since I love the unhealthy food more I had been procrastinating to cook it. So before they reach the expired date I tossed them into bento for lunch, they make a good resemble of green fields. I used fish kamaboko for the rabbits (still need to practice cutting kamaboko as you may see from the photos, my rabbits surface were not smooth enough).

Add few carrots and some kamaboko to add more colors on the green  noodle. Since it was a rather small portion of noodle, I also pack a portion of apple raisin salad.

Bento # 85 – Rabbit in Love Bento

The verdict on the healthy green vegetable barley noodle? Hmm… they have good texture and color, but I have to choose I will still go for egg noodles or any unhealthy type  🙂

Happy Monday all!

Bento # 81 – Inarizushi (Sushi in a bean bag) bento

Well  don’t be mislead by the bean bag description, it was not a real “bean” bag but  fried tofu skin stuffed with sushi rice. I bought  Abura age  from  local Korean mart last weekend. One pack of 2 medium Abura age cost about IDR 9,500 ( approx USD $ 1).

At first I was quite ambitious and would like to re-create cute  bento  from bento book with quail eggs as the characters and have them soaked into the a tub made of Abura age. But upon preparing the Abura age (learning from justhungry)  which require few steps such as blanch and de-oil and then cook them with dashi stock, I started to get hungry so no cute bento today, just a simple Inarizushi.

After processing the Abura age (details on how to please click justhungry  link above), cut the Abura Age into 2 and fold down  the upper part to  hide the edge to make  nice bags. Stuffed the bag with rice sushi (white rice mix with sushi ingredients) and then topped them with Wasabi tobiko and Salmon flake.

The supposedly cute quail eggs were rolled with thin sliced pork and fry with Teriyaki sauce.

Bento # 81 – Inarizushi Bento

Summary of what’s in the box :

• 4 pieces Inarizushi topped with wasabi tobiko and salmon flake
• Teriyaki quail eggs with sliced pork
• Strawberries, Zucchini, lettuce.

Taiyaki (Japanases fish shape cake)

I love eating Taiyaki, the hot waffle- like pastry stuffed with various ingredients such as azuki read bean paste,chocolate, cheese, or others. Been wanting to try making taiyaki ever since I saw a tutorial from Youtube,  but the challenge is to find the pan because using other similar pan in different shape  will lose the meaning of the name and won’t feel like Taiyaki, so when I spotted the fish shape pan at the least expected place, which is hardware store, I immediately add it to my cart.,

So today Taiyaki  was based on the recipe and how to from cookingwithdog. I always love the recipe from cookingwithdog, because the portion is just right for 1-2 person and the how to make video was really good quality and with clear cooking details.

Japanese Taiyaki

I substitute the red/white beans  filling with Kaya and peanut butter sauce and made my own cake flour (referred to information from internet )

Useful tips from my experience  :

1. not to put too much filling into the batter, I try to put as much as the one I saw in the video, but the filling leaked out and ruin the fish shape (guess that my taiyaki pan might be in smaller size than the cookingwithdog).
2. to make 1 cup cake flour : measure 1 cup all purpose flour then take out 2 tablespoon flour. Replace the 2 tablespoon flour  with  2 table spoon  cornstarch flour. Shift the flour and cornstarch together.

Below please find the copy paste of the recipe from cookingwithdog Youtube

Taiyaki batter :

• 100 g cake flour
• 2/3 tsp baking soda
• 2 tbsp Sugar
• 1/2 egg (30g)
• 100 ml water

Other details, please check the link above. Thanks.

Spinach Ohitashi (Japanese Spinach Salad with Bonito Flakes)

Spinach is one of my favorite vegetable, thanks to Popeye the sailor man cartoon.

Me and brothers love this cartoon and mum smartly used it as educational tool to encourage us to eat spinach so we can grow as strong as Popeye. The result? none of us ever turn to be as strong as the heroic sailor man nor able to send someone flying with our punches, but we grown to love spinach forever. Spinach had becoming a must to have dish in the family, looking back to childhood or even now, mum  always have spinach in the menu at least twice or three times in a week, be it as soup or just simple stir fry.

Today  Spinach Ohitashi is another Japanese dish, spinach salad with bonito flakes.

Below photo was my cooking result, based on recipe adapated from justonecookbook.com

Spinach Ohitashi

I love bonito flakes a lot , you can tell by the amount of the flakes that I placed on the spinach 🙂

Below is the copy paste recipe from justonecookbook.com.

Details and step by step photos also available, please click  http://justonecookbook.com/blog/recipes/spinach-ohitashi-japanese-spinach-salad-with-bonito-flakes/

Ingredients:

• 1 bunch of spinach
• A pinch of salt

Seasonings

• 1 Tbsp. mirin
• 1 Tbsp. usukuchi (light colored) soy sauce
• 1/2 cup dashi stock
• Bonito flakes (Katsuobushi)

Instructions:

1. Wash the spinach and boil lots of water in a large pot.
2. When water is boiling, add a pinch of salt into boiling water. Put spinach in the pot starting from the stem first because they take longer to cook. Push all of the spinach into the water. Cook for 1 minute. Note: American spinach is very soft and we can eat it raw unlike Japanese spinach; therefore, 1 minute is enough for the US spinach.
3. Drain and soak the spinach in cold water until cool.
4. Collect spinach from the bowl and squeeze water out of the spinach.
5. Cut the spinach into 1 1/2 inch lengths and put it in air tight container.
6. In a saucepan, heat mirin on medium high and evaporate alcohol for a few minutes. Let it cool down.
7. Add usukuchi soy sauce and dashi stock and mix all together.
8. Pour over spinach and soak for 3-4 hours (1 hour minimum).
9. Serve with sauce and sprinkle dried bonito flakes over the spinach.

Pepper Steak with Potatoes

Today dish is a stir fry Chinese Japanese version of pepper steak , recipe was adapted  from http://justonecookbook.com/blog/recipes/pepper-steak-with-potatoes/

I substitute the sliced beef with sliced pork bacon and omit the doubanjiang (don’t have this sauce in my stock) and below is the result.

Pepper Steak with Potatoes

Below please find the copy paste of the Original recipe from justonecookbook

Ingredients:

• 3 Tbsp. sesame oil
• 1 russet potato, cut into strips, peeled and cut into strips
• 1 green bell pepper, discarded seeds and cut into strips
• Sea salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1 pkg sliced beef (“Komagire” or “Shabu Shabu” from Japanese market, or flank steak and sirloin steak would work too), cut into strips

Seasonings

• 2 Tbsp. oyster sauce
• 1 Tbsp. cooking sake
• 2 tsp. soy sauce
• 1 tsp. doubanjiang
• ½ tsp. sugar

Instructions:

1. In a wok, heat 1 ½ Tbsp. sesame oil over medium high heat. Stir fry potatoes first. When they are wilted, add green peppers and stir fry. Sprinkle salt and pepper. When they are cooked, transfer to a plate.
2. In the same wok, add 1 ½ Tbsp. sesame oil and stir fry the meat.
3. When the meat changed color, put the potatoes and green peppers back in the wok.
4. Add seasonings and mix well to coat with the sauce. Serve immediately.

Bento # 71 – Ultraman Bento (Superhero series)

I was  wondering what are the next superhero to add into the series when I saw the cute Ultraman stationary holder that I received from friend as Xmas present many many years ago and it bring back the memory of the forgotten Ultraman movie at my younger age, me and my elder brother really enjoy watching those movies, the pose, the transformation of the Hayate (the name of Ultraman in human form, if I am not mistaken) to Ultraman, the Ultra punch, the Ultra kick, the Ultra teleportation, the Monster from outerspace, the fake building as the background for the city (no digitalization yet at the era) and so on… Ooh I really miss the series, should search and download them for my next weekend movie marathon 😀

In the meanwhile, today I present you the Ultraman bento.

I notice there is another character , Ultraman saga which is kind of evolved version of the classic Ultraman (will put him in my list of bento theme)
This is the cute mini Ultraman I had for breakfast.

Bento # 71 – Ultraman breakfast bento

And this is for today lunch.

Bento # 71 – Ultraman  lunch Bento

See the Ultraman stationary that I mentioned above? I put a small pot of flower to beautify him, he is a bit dusty as he had been sitting on the shelf for years, nevertheless it is cute, right? Love it!

The Ultraman bento actually pretty simple and easy to make. I shape the rice to the oval shape then decorated them with red pepper, egg sheet and turnip.

I do find that the mouth was too thick, for future reference, need to cut thinner slice and mold the mouth together with he face instead of putting it on top of rice.

Summary of what’s in the box :

• A portion of rice
• Few slice of turnip – cut into shapes for the ears and mouth
• 1 piece of egg sheet – use cookie cutter to cut the oval shape for eyes
• A slice of red pepper – for the …well I don’t know how to describe it, see the red line on the face? well that’s what I meant
• For side dish : a small portion of veggies and spicy fermented soya cake
• 3 slices of steamed purple sweet potato

Hmmm… now I wonder who should I make for the next superhero, any idea and suggestion?

Fried Lotus Root with Japanese Mushrooms

Today recipe was adapted from  http://www.cookingjapanesestyle.com.  The author of this recipe said that this is the type of snack to drink with beer at Tachinomiya (stand-up bar).

The recipe is so simple yet delicious, it did not require a lot of seasoning, hence bring out the natural taste of the ingredients. Below is my version of fried lotus root with japanese mushroom.

Itadakimasu…

Fried lotus root with mushroom

Below is the copy paste recipe and how to from http://www.cookingjapanesestyle.com/2012/06/07/japanese-recipe-fried-lotus-root-with-japanese-mushrooms/comment-page-1/

Youtube on how to is also available.

Ingredients

• 8 in long loot root
• 1 bunch of shimeji mushrooms
• 2 pieces of shiitake mushrooms
• 1 tbsp of shoyu sauce
• 2 strips of ham
• 1/4 of salt
• 1/4 of pepper
• 2 tbsp olive oil

Instructions
1.    First we need to peel the lotus root skin off and cut the lotus root into thin slices.

2.    Now we need to take the shiitake mushroom cut the stem off at the base and cut into thin slices.

3.    Next we need to cut the ham into slices.

4.    Now for the cooking part, turn your stove on to a medium heat. Add the lotus root, shiitake mushrooms, shimeji mushrooms, and ham to the frying pan. Then add you salt, pepper, and shoyu. Mix and let it cook for about 5 ~ 6 minutes.

5.    Done and serve.