This was never going to be easy but I've wanted to make this bento for a while so this challenge was the perfect motivation.  I am so pleased with my Ood, they came out exactly as I wanted.  They are made of boiled eggs stained with soy sauce, spaghetti tentacles and pickled onion translators.  The Cyberman was always going to be the most difficult bit, especially the sticky out head bits but for a first attempt I'm really pleased with how the head came out even if it doesn't show up so well on camera.  And the Dalek sandwich was just coz I had a cutter already and it fit!!! 

Not an original ideaI fully admit, but none of mine are. 

It's blue rice with cheddar cheese towel and robe, ham skin, avocado facemask, surimi lips and trim, cucumber eye mask and primua pearls.  Underneath it all there are a bunch of scraps of cheese/surimi to make it all the right height. 

This is mum's lunch tomorrow.  I make bento for her every day and she told me that the other women in her office are dead impressed and always sneak a look at her bento in the fridge.  So I thought I'd show off a bit and do something different... plus I was really really bored.  

The "fruit" is made from rice dyed different colours and then moulded using an ice cube tray.  She also has some tuna mayo shaped like fish... not that you can see them, some lindt eggs and a babybel.  Thought this one was worth posting here as well as my usual comm. 

I spent today sitting in the garden enjoying the first day it has been mild enough to do so and so this evening I thought I'd try and be creative and make a spring themed bento.  This is the most ambitious I've ever been with bento so I'm rather proud of myself.  I doubt I'd ever go to quite this much effort for myself but it's for my mum so I'm willing to make the effort for her.  Her colleagues are always dead jealous when they see her lunch!!!

The ground is made of rice with beef furikake, you can see a stray Snoopy shape in there too.  On the left is a marshmallow crispie nest with a mini egg, the rabbit is made of dyed quails eggs and he's got an itty bitty carrot made from a tiny chatenay carrot and a bit of brocolli.  The hen and chicks are also quails eggs and the chicks are sitting in a nest of shredded chicken.  The daffodils are made of egg sheets and baby corn and there's brocolli holding everything in place. 

Although, after all of that I'm still not sure why I decided to make the rabbit pink!!!

Bento for myself and my mother this time. 

This one's for my mum she has a bear and a flower shaped onigiri with tuna mayo for the nose/pollen and a sprinkling of sesame seeds and lettuce to fill the gaps, a small slice of brownie, gyoza with a fishy of soy and a bottle of chilli oil, a boiled egg (supposed to be heart shaped but it went a little wrong) and a little cup of mayo.  Oh and a little packet of salt filched from McD.  Carrot flowers for decoration.


I have a slice of brownie, a boiled egg with a kitty of mayo hiding underneath, a tuna mayo onigiri and gyoza again with a fishy of soy, a bottle of chilli oil and carrot flowers for decoration. 

My egg was supposed to be a star shape but it wasn't big enough so it was magically transformed into two Adipose!!!! 

I made mum a special christmassy bento with a snowman made of onigiri filed with smoked salmon and cream cheese and now I have salmon hands.  I have washed them at least five times but they still smell of bloody salmon!!!  I'm really happy with the bento so it was worth it but, salmon hands!!!  I don't even like salmon. 

 

Why, yes.  I was very very bored.  How did you know?

I went to see the new Bond film this evening and made myself a little snack bento coz I'm broke and I refuse to pay cinema prices for popcorn and cola.  Contents are some cheese cut outs (I did put the big slice of cheese I'd cut it out of in the bottom for snacking on but it got all sweaty and ick), two hotdogs, a hard boiled Bond egg in a tux and some Butterkist popcorn.  There is also another container with more popcorn and some sultanas in it but that wasn't photogenic.  And one of the Hello Kitty sauce containers with spreaders I ordered got its first outing.  It was under the egg so you can't see it but it fulfilled its purpose admirably. 

( Only some itty bitty spoilers for Bond, nothing specific, all very general but if you're a stickler, don't look.  )

And now I am back at home being rather ill with IBS, haven't a clue what triggered it this time, I'm not overly stressed any more than usual, which is my normal trigger.  At least I managed to get home before doubling over in pain, but only just!!!  I shall now spend my evening feeling sorry for myself and may be watching the first Tomb Raider coz I have the urge.  Fun.   

For lunch tomorrow we have salad with a mini Chicken & turkey burger, southern fried chicken dippers (which, frankly, look disgusting) and mini fajitas (to make up for the potential grossness of the dippers), this comes with salsa and creme fraiche.  Mum has a fruit sidecar and I have half a bagel with cream cheese, some apple, strawberries, a raspberry yogurt and some chocolate koala.  And, yeah, I could live without the bagel and it would be much better for me if I did but holiday or no holiday PMT trumps all.  Also I'm weirdly ill at the moment.  My back and neck are killing me and I have stomach ache actually in my stomach... which is unusual for me but mostly my neck is just killing me!!! (and yes I can touch my chin to my chest, it's not meningitis or whatever serious thing you can't do that with is) 

Next week I'm so doing Special K!!!!

Ok, I can't be bothered to post smaller pics too... noone cares, right?

Anywho, my lunch is on the left with Lemon chicken salad leftover from dinner and a spring onion flower  and on the bottom I have half a bagel filled with cream cheese, sausage bits, strawberries and cucumber.  I also have an apple and a Snack biscuit.  

Mum's lunch on the right with brocolli, "upsidedown salmon pie" (which, while delicious is so not a pie.  The recipie is delusional!!  It's basically salmon, egg, potatoes and herbs... damned tasty but not pie.).  A salad on the bottom with a few carrots for decoration and a spring onion flower thing... these were an experiment today coz I saw spring onions... you know what that's just too long to type, I'm going american and calling 'em scallions from now on.  So yeah, saw the scallions in the fridge and thought, why not?  I think they look like baby leeks but what the heck, they're cute!!

Ok, today's bento were made on the fly last night and as such did not merit photographing.  I had Heart and Star ham sandwiches (I am now incapable of eating a normal shaped sandwich), Cucumber chunks and sausage bits... yeah, boring.  I also have major PMT, cramps and am generally not loving life so this was suplemented by a visit to the corner shop for choclate... lots of chocolate.  The bikini diet will happen next week... honest.  

So tomorrow's bento have a little extra effort put into them... not much, it's all what I could find in the fridge, but still, effort.  

I decided to post this week's bento in one go instead of spaming you all with a differen pic every night they're all here.  

  

Left: Brocolli, edamame, chicken bites (Birdseye, Morrison's £1, don't go near 'em!!! They taste of nothing!!), Ham sandwich stars, Hello Kitty egg, Gyoza and sausage bits. (Pocky in the lid)
Middle: BBQ corn on the cob, brocolli, sugar snap peas, cucumber sticks, cheese and pickle stars, cherry tomato, mozerella and basil, Hello Kitty egg, sausage bits, raspberry yogurt. (Pocky in the lid)
Right:  omao/mozerella/basil salad, Hello Kitty egg, Swedish meatballs, raspberry yogurt, prawn cocktail, strawberries, edamame (with star shaped carrot bits for variety... ok, so I lost the ivy leaf and only found it later), brocolli.  (mini Daim in the lid)

I only had bento on Monday, today and tomorrow coz I tried out how I coped with a bowl of cereal for lunch in anicipation of a bikini related meltdown in around 2 weeks.  Turns out that despite the utter unoriginality and boredom of a bowl of cereal compared to bento it did fill me up and so I shall be doing that the week/two weeks before I go on holiday.  I just wish cereal came in savory.  I like savory at lunch, not sweet.  Might suplement it with edamame or something, they're healthy.  

Speaking of healthy, I reccon I got all 5 of my fruit and veg today and tomorrow as well just from bento!!!! (Well, give or take on the quantities but there are def 5 types of fruit or veg in each!!) Monday, well, I was feeling carniverous!!!


In totally unrelated news I am allergic to something but I don't know what.  I've had a differnt funny rash on my legs every day this week.  Today it reached up to my waist and arms so I decided to take it to the doctors tomorrow morning... what's the betting I wake up with nary a mark on me???

So, I didn't make bento last week coz I was only in 2 days and I frankly, couldn't be bothered.  Then for monday's bento I forgot to go shopping so it was made of leftovers and didn't look at all fun so I didn't bother pictures, tuseday I was so traumatised by nearly burning down the house that I forgot... which was a shame as I'd been all creative with stirfry... and today I had leftover risotto, which while delicious, wasn't photogenic.  

So finally I'm back in the game and I celebrated by attempting to make sushi for the first time.  I think it was quite successful!!!



From the top: Tuna mayo onigiri, Hello Kitty shaped egg, sausage bits and chcken bites, tuna cucumber sushi with "chicken wontons" on the left and edamame on the righ, gyoza with a soy fish and a bottle of chilli oil each and brocolli on the bottom with edamame on the left too.  Ta da, lunch.  Mum also has an onigiri in a little sidecar as it wouldn't fit in her box. 

One small fire later the bento are made and packed.  

Oops.  

And, having set fire to my pan of oil, what did I do?  Ran out of the room yelling for my mum, that's what!

In my defense, it was an oil fire and I know that oil fires + water are bad (thank you Roswell High) and in an ordinary fire I'd grab a wet towel, but I didn't know if that would make it worse, being an oil fire.  For future reference a large cast iron pan lid does quite nicely to smother the flames, then a wet tea towel to cut the oxygen over the top.  

Turns out instead of turning the ring in question off while I did something else, I'd turned it up...

I say again, oops. 

Tonight was my first time making bento for my mother as well as myself, I did pretty much the same for both of us except I got a few extra things and mum a few less coz a) I have an extra pretty box to use and b) she eats less than me anyway.  So here they are:

Tomorrow I shall be having:
Brocolli, cheese and pickle star sandwiches (more hidden under the sausage), sausage bits (with one of my new picks, it's a turtle!!!), strawberries (with a fish pick, don't look at me, I wanted the 'Friends of the Forest' picks but they didn't have any so I got 'Friends of the Sea' instead *shrugs*), a fortune cookie, edamame, heart shaped boiled egg with mayo, gyoza with a jaunty sprig of parcely, spring rolls and a soy fish and a bottle of chilli oil and as ever carrot shapes to garnish.  And Pocky sticks are in the lid. 

There is even starting to be some method to my madness now that I'm getting used to this bento thing, I like to pick at my edamame and sweet things after my official 'lunch' has ended so I have now put them in their own box so I can have that on my desk!!  Also I was more in the mood for sweet things today so I've forgone real carbs and put in extra sweet things. 

In my quest for sweet things I also made these this evening:



I had a hell of a time with the buttercream, no matter how much pink colouring I added they won't get past salmon, ah well, c'est la vie!!

Ok, this one's mini eggs, gyoza, a flower shaed boiled egg (with mayo), mini cheddars, chicken bites (hidden under the carrot) Past a salad, edamame, pickled onions, strawberries and peanut butter and peanut butter and jam sandwiches shaped like people.  The jam makes them a bit awkward to cut out in shapes so my people look like they've suffered horrific accidents but I'm sure they'll taste great!!!

I'm home alone for the next day or two and the cat is driving me crazy yeowing coz the parents aren't here and he misses them.  Also while I was making this bento box he decided it would be a great time to throw up all over the kitchen.  Currently I do not like the cat. 

While I was on an internet mooch the other day I stumbled upon quinn222's lj and all the lovely bento-y goodness there.  So I was inspired to start making bento for my lunch rather than a cheese and pickle sandwich (again).

So here are my first two efforts:



Here we have, from the top: 2 tuna mayo onigiri, a boiled egg (shaped like a flower!!!) with some cherry tomatoes and lettuce for gap fillers.  Brocolli and carrots and edamame, pocky sticks, sausage bits (with smiley faces) and a fortune cookie (which read 'Always finish what you st...' well it made me laugh!!)
It was delicious, although for future reference two onigiri were too much for me, one will sufice.  

And tomorrow's:


Mini eggs, edamame, half a peach, brocolli, 3 gyoza with a little soy fish, a heart shaped boiled egg, chicken bites sitting on their mayo and sausage bits on sticks and finally rice.  All shapes are made of lightly cooked carrot.