Chick Omelet Rice Bento

Quick and easy omelet rice for cooking in the mornings!

Ketchup Rice
150g Cooked rice
1/4 Onion (diced)
Ketchup to your taste
Salt and pepper
*Optional
Chicken, Corn, Carrots or any vegetables of your choice

Saute onion with oil in a skillet until soft.
Add ketchup (start with 2tbs) and mix with the onion.
Add rice and your choice of meat/vegetables. Saute.
Adjust the flavor with ketchup, salt and peppers.

Shape round ball, using plastic wrap.
Place in a bento box.

Omelet
1 egg
Salt and peppers

Beat egg and add salt and pepper.
Pour into a small egg mini pan and cook both sides.

Place on the rice in the bento box.
(Cut slits on 4 sides to make it easier to cover the rice)

Monkey Curry Bento

Whenever I make curry, I think about monkey ever since I made this curry!
This time, I tried with dry curry, which is popular in Japan.
It's great for lunch box!

Found vegetarian dry curry recipe on a Japanese cooking website.
http://cookpad.com/recipe/2082913
It got good reviews, like "I made this for my husband and he didn't notice that it was tofu!"
So I gave it a try:) Let's see what my husband thinks!


50g Dried tofu (available at Japanese grocery stores)
2 Chili pequin
1 Garlic clove
1/2 onions (diced)
1 Carrot (diced)
3 Green beans (diced)
1tbs Worcester sauce
3tbs Curry powder
1tbs Sake
4tbs Ketchup
1tbs Soy source
1tbs yogurt
salt and pepper


1. Grate dried tofu 
2.Heat oil in a skillet. Saute garlic, chili and onion.
3. Add carrots, onions and green beans and cook.
4. Add ketchup, sauce, soy sauce, sake, yogurt and soy sauce.
5. Adjust the flavor with salt and pepper.


Make monkey's face with seaweed and ears with quail eggs!

Pig Bento☆

Today's lunch bento for my hubby<3

- Pig rice ball
- Eggs and Tomatoes mushrooms
- Ginger pork with carrots
- Vegetable fry balls

I used this mini hot dogs to make the pig.

Slice and poke holes with a cut straw to make a nose.
Cut another slice into two to make ears.
Joint parts with dry pasta. (past will get soften by the time you eat, absorbing the water from the food)
Cut seaweed to make eyes!

 To make the mushrooms, boil quail eggs. ( you can get it at the most of Asian grocery stores)

Cut cherry tomatoes in half and connect with boiled quail eggs using dry pasta.

Poke holes in sliced cheese with straw. Put on tomatoes with mayonnaise.

Silicone side dish cups and leaf shape dividers♪

I got these bento items at Daiso.
They have cute and cheap bento goods! Love the store.

Seared Shiitake Mushroom and Avocado Sushi Roll

Have you  been disappointed by vegan sushi?? Yes, I have!!!!!
I wasn't a big fun of vegan sushi until I had this seared shiitake and avocado sushi roll.
This is SO good!
Even my "meatarian" husband loves this.

I love seared fish sushi, so bought a cooking torch last year to sear fish by myself.
I seared shiitake with it, but if you don't have it, you can just sear it over high heat on the grill:)


Ingredients (for about 4 rolls)

4  Shiitake mushroom
2 Avocado
*Sushi rice (I used 2 cup of uncooked rice)
Olive oil
Salt

*See Sushi Cake post for sushi rice

1. Cut shiitake, drizzle olive oil and sprinkle salt
2. Sear the shiitake (either with torch or on the grill)
3. Just roll it with sliced avocado!!!

See "Make My Sushi", if you are not familiar with sushi roll. I think this website is good.

bear bento

This is the first bento I made for my husband since we got married:)

- Chiken teriyaki
- Deviled Eggs
- bear rice ball (shiitake miso inside)

Hope he likes it!

Baked Crispy Chili Bread

Made too much chili? Then make this crispy bread! 

Well, I wanted to make Japanese curry buns, but I was too lazy to make bread.

This is the easy recipe, using store-bought bread.

It's not soft like Japanese curry buns, but it's nice and crunchy :) 

What you need:

2 serving Chili

1 Potatoes

Bread crumbs

1 Egg

4 slices Store-bought bred

ketchup, curry powder, black peppers to taste

4 tbs Oil

1. Make mushed potatoes. I used 1, but it depends on how much chili you have left.

2. Mix mushed potatoes and chili over medium heat. (use more or less potato to get desired hardness)

3. Add ketchup, curry powder and pepper to taste

4. Roll out bread (spread butter if you want)

5. Put chili mix and fold in half

6. Brush the edges with beaten egg and press with fork to seal.

7. Dip the bread into beaten egg and then bread crumbs

8. Place on a baking pan and drizzle oil

9. Bake for about 20 mins at 400F

Vegetarian Miso Chili and Corn Bread Bear Muffin

Watched the movie "Fork over Knives" with my husband the other day.
I had tried to avoid animal protein before watching this movie, but he LOVEs meat so I cook meat for him sometimes. But this movie makes me worried about his health!
Even though he still doesn't seem to care about it, I've started looking into vegetarian recipes more than ever before.

I found vegetarian chili recipe on food network.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/vegetarian-chili-recipe/index.html

I changed the ingredient as follow;

Ingredients
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 1/2 cups chopped yellow onions
1 cup chopped red bell peppers
2 cloves minced garlic  
2  peppers, stemmed, seeded, and minced, depending upon taste
1 medium zucchini, stem ends trimmed and cut into small dice
2 cups fresh corn kernels (about 3 ears)
2 large portobello mushrooms, stemmed, wiped clean and cubed
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespooon ground cumin
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
3 large tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped 
3 cups cooked black beans, or canned beans, rinsed and drained
1 (15-ounce) can tomato sauce
1 cup vegetable stock, or water
3 tablespoon Miso
Rice cheese

Directions
In a large, heavy pot, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the onions, bell peppers, garlic, and serrano peppers, and cook, stirring, until soft, about 3 minutes. Add the zucchini, corn, and mushrooms, and cook, stirring, until soft and the vegetables give off their liquid and start to brown around the edges, about 6 minutes. Add the chili powder, cumin, salt and cayenne, and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the tomatoes and stir well. Add the beans, tomato sauce, and vegetable stock, stir well, and bring to a boil. Add miso. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes. Add rice cheese.

Remove from the heat and stir in the cilantro. Adjust the seasoning, to taste.


I added 3 tablespoon Miso to this recipe to make it milder. ( I recommend less sodium one)
And rice cheese to get the consistency of a thick soup.

My husband loved this chili!! even though there is no meat in it.

And great cornbread recipe here
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/golden-sweet-cornbread/

I made it look like bear:)
All you need is fried pasta and cookie cutters!

 Fry a pasta noodle.

Cut and put where you want to place the ears and nose.

Make ears and nose using cookie cutters with another cornbread.
Join the parts using the fried pasta.