O-bento!

DH's Birthday

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 01:50:23 GMT

Wow, I can't believe it's been nearly a year since my last post!! Where does the time go?

So...for his birthday cake, DH had one request: that it be a model of a nuclear reactor, with Pocky for the fuel rods! Way to appeal to both my love of cooking and my interest in engineering, hon!

So here is what I did: I modeled it loosely after a PWR (pressurized water reactor), which has a relatively simple design that I could modify for baking purposes.

For the cake itself, I made two quarter-sheet devil's food cakes, made with Hershey's Special Dark cocoa. They were nearly black and very moist.

I made a bittersweet ganache, using only the finest ingredients, and used that to both fill and coat the cake. I made a cream custard filling, and colored half greenish-bluey, and half orangeish.

To make the reactor, I first made a template on wax paper, then used that to mark two chambers in the bottom layer. I scooped them out with a serrated grapefruit spoon, spread on the filling, and filled the chambers with the custard filling. One chamber contained the orangey custard, representing the primary coolant loop, and the other contained the bluey custard, representing part of the secondary coolant loop. I then used a chopstick to carve the remainder of the primary coolant loop out of the ganache, then piped some orangey custard into the grooves and over the bluey custard to form a complete loop.

To finish off the interior "workings" of the reactor-cake, I set down some chocolate Pocky as the fuel rods on top of the orangey chamber. DS disposed of the extra fuel rods for me!

To finish the cake, I placed the second layer on top of the first, then iced the top and sides with more ganache. The house was a bit too cool, so it came out kind of rough...but hey, who ever said a nuclear reactor was supposed to be gorgeous?!

The cake came out very tasty--and birthday dude loved it!

Long time, no see

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 20:47:17 GMT

I haven't had time to post in ages, school's just been too busy. And next quarter will be even harder! Yay!

I made this bento for DS's lunch today:

As you can see, it contains one of his favorites--PBJ sushi rolls. To the left are baby carrots, a mini Babybel cheese, yogurt raisins, and a couple of bug-shaped cinnamon graham crackers.

Not very creative, but he was hungry and I was in a hurry. Maybe tomorrow I'll manage something cuter--I have a three day weekend for homework, so I'm a little less rushed (although I have 2 midterms next week....)

Gyu-don

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 02:43:43 GMT

This is the first chance I've had to write a post in a while! I've had these pictures, but just no time to do anything with them.

DH made gyu-don for dinner the other night, and he put DS's in his bento box to encourage him to try it:

Baby carrot sticks, spinach salad, hot short-grain rice with half an umeboshi, gyu-don, and a spinach leaf heart (cause he loves him so much!)

I put some of the leftovers in a bento for the next day:

On the left: fresh pineapple, a strawberry, red grapes, and a "Ginger People Ginger Chew" candy.
On the right: leftover gyu-don over leftover rice.

Unfortunately, I was so busy last week, that I forgot to eat it both Monday and Tuesday! By Wednesday I'd given up on it and tossed it. This quarter is shaping up to be extremely hectic; it's a bad sign when I'm so busy that I forget to eat in only the second week!

Fall Quarter

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 01:33:43 GMT

So it's shaping up to be a busy quarter! I have Engineering Physics + Lab, Organic Chemistry + Lab, and 3rd quarter Calculus. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are all crazy-busy, and I'm planning on packing bentos those days. I'll try to take photos of them, but it depends on how much I oversleep! Thursday and Friday aren't so bad, though sometimes I'll be there later for study groups. Some of those days I'll take bentos, and others I'll come home for lunch (happily, I live near campus!). I plan to use a lot of Biggie's tips (thanks, Biggie!) this year.

Now, back to my 20 pages of study problems for Monday's OChem quiz! (o_o;)

Spring Rolls in Autumn

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 02:50:53 GMT

Classes started Monday--it's going to be pretty tiring, I think. I didn't have time to make a bento the first day, and I didn't have time to take pics of yesterday's bento. However, here is today's bento:

Clockwise from the container in the top left of the bento:
A small container of fruit cocktail, Japanese style with peaches, mandarin oranges, pineapple, cherries, and nata de coco. I bought a small (11 oz) can, divided it into three little containers, and froze them, so they also help keep the food cool.
A surprisingly tasty strawberry for the time of year.
2 chicken spring rolls (frozen, Ling-Ling brand) that I baked the night before, cooled, and then tossed in the fridge overnight.
A small fish bottle filled with low-sodium soy sauce.
A yaki-onigiri.
A small cup of red grapes.

It was very tasty and sufficiently filling.

For the record, yesterday's contained 2 yaki onigiri, a cold baked chicken leg, grapes, a strawberry, and a mini-Babybel cheese.

I discovered there is a Daiso nearby--even closer than Uwajimaya. What a great shop! I stocked up on a lot of stuff there. If there is one in your area, and you haven't been yet, be sure to go check it out! Everything I bought there was a buck fifty.

PBJ Sushi

Sun, 16 Sep 2007 23:31:51 GMT

Grandma and cousins came to visit DS today. Today's bento:

PBJ "sushi" rolls, 2 bug-shaped cinnamon graham crackers, baby carrots, diced canned peaches, California olives, and a mini Babybel cheese. The rest of us just ate leftover Chicken Waikiki on rice with steamed veggies.

Taco Bento

Sun, 16 Sep 2007 03:02:58 GMT

DS is going through one of those between-growth-spurt phases where he eats hardly anything, so in order to help pique his appetite, I put his dinner in a bento box.

On the left is a mini taco, using half a large corn tortilla and filled with seasoned ground beef, shredded cheese, sour cream, and mild red sauce.

On the right is some additional shredded cheese, some avocado slices, and a few California olives.

He ate better than he has for several nights!

Bentos for everyone!

Sat, 08 Sep 2007 20:47:18 GMT

Today, I made bentos for DH and myself, as well as for DS. The bento box DH ordered for me came a few days ago, and this is the first chance I've had to use it. It depicts a maneki neko, a lucky cat, on the lid--I love maneki neko!

DS's bento:

On the left is a heart-shaped onigiri filled with peanut butter (sounds strange, but actually really good) and a chicken spring/egg roll (the box says spring rolls, but they're deep-fried--which I associate with egg rolls).
On the right is a hard boiled egg, some more beef Li'l Smokies in a ketchupy sauce, and some red grapes.

DH's bento:

Top left: beef Li'l Smokies in ketchupy sauce, cherry tomatoes, chicken egg/spring roll.
Top right: star-shaped egg, grapes, chicken egg/spring roll.
Bottom: rice with yasai fumi furikake, cherry tomatoes.

And finally, my bento:

On the left is grapes, cherry tomatoes, and beef Li'l Smokies in sauce.
On the right is a sakura-shaped onigiri filled with peanut butter and a chicken egg/spring roll.

Everyone liked theirs, although DS (who had been begging me for eggs all morning) refused to eat his egg!

Saucy Sausages

Fri, 07 Sep 2007 21:31:20 GMT

Today's bento:

Upper left: Li'l Beef Smokies microwaved in a mixture of ketchup, brown sugar, and Worcestershire sauce.
Lower left: mixed cantaloupe and watermelon, cut into toddler-bite-sized pieces.
Upper right: turkey bologna and cheese sandwich on whole-grain white bread, cut into half-moons.
Lower right: Mini Babybel cheese and 2 whole-wheat Fig Newtons.

Surprisingly, he went for the sausages first, not the cookies. He gobbled them down, and I think considered eating the paper liner they were in, too. He ate the cookies next, though--of course! :)

Another aquatic bento

Tue, 04 Sep 2007 20:03:34 GMT

DH had last week off to work on some remodeling, but we did some fun things, too--like visit the aquarium. DS loved the fish and sharks and sea stars! He's still talking about it. And naturally, every single orange and white fish was "Nemo!" to him, and all the brilliant blue ones were "Dory."

Today he requested "green 'sghetti" for his bento.

So we have green noodles, which are Ichiban Original ramen noodles, cooked in the flavoring, rinsed, drained, and colored. On top are carrot starfish, a sea star cut from a mini Babybel cheese, and a hard boiled egg molded into a fish shape (which you can't see very well thanks to the flash). On the right are muffin cups with rainbow fish crackers and shark-shaped fruit snacks.

DS didn't care for the egg. I'll have to find some way to make boiled eggs more palatable to him, since they are a good source of protein. Some kind of sauce, maybe?

Stella is doing much better. I need to leave in a few minutes to take her back to the vet, but she's looking much better. She's got her appetite back, and she's almost back to her grumpy old self.

[UPDATE] Well, the vet took a blood sample and will let me know if her blood cell counts are improving. If so, she may be well enough to get her vaccines, and then we can talk about the surgery to remove her tumor. Poor thing!

Neko-chan

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 01:35:28 GMT

I took my kitty to the vet today. Her tumor isn't lipoma, it's cancer--but we don't know if it's benign or malignant yet. Her heart and breathing are abnormal, so she's not currently a good candidate for surgery. She's staying overnight at the vet's for some testing, and so far they've found that while her kidney and liver chemistry are normal, she's anemic (red blood cell count is 1/3 what it should be) and that she has an infection somewhere (white blood cell count is 4 times what it should be). They've got her on antibiotics, and we'll see how she is tomorrow. Poor baby!

Under the Sea

Sun, 26 Aug 2007 23:31:43 GMT

My third bento, with an aquatic theme.

On the left, ramen noodles, cooked with the chicken flavor packet, rinsed in cold water, drained, and tossed with green food coloring (for seaweed), octopi made from boiled hot dogs, and cheese starfish.
On the right, the upper cup contains fruit snacks shaped like sharks and multi-colored fish crackers. The lower cup has some baby carrots and seedless green grapes (couldn't think how to make those fishy!).

My kitty is doing poorly. I don't think she will be with us much longer. It's hard, because I've had her most of my adult life--she was born about 7 months after DH and I were married, so she was 14 last month. She's certainly no spring chicken, but it's hard to see her getting old and weak and sickly. She's not eating well--not even her favorite, canned tuna--and that's not a good sign. She goes to see the vet tomorrow, so we'll see what he has to say about her. Hopefully I'm just being morbid and overreacting, and really she's fine....

The little things in life...

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 11:04:56 GMT

Is there anything as sweet as hearing your little one giggle in his sleep? I hope it means he is having lovely dreams!

Apple puss!

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 21:12:27 GMT

After he polished off his bento, I offered DS a (storebought) cupcake. He responded by excitedly shouting for "apple puss!" several times. After a lot of trial and error, I figured out that this is what he meant:

So it seems that "apple puss" = octopus!

Kid sushi

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 19:59:28 GMT

Today's bento includes:
peanut butter and raspberry jam (homemade, even!) "sushi" rolls
fruit kebabs--cantaloupe and seedless green grapes
cubes of cheddar cheese

Since DS is only 3, these are just for fun and practice, for him to eat here at home. So far we haven't had to take actual portability into account. But that's okay, I'm having fun making them, and he's having fun eating them!

This was simpler than I'd originally planned--I'm still recouperating from a full year of college classes. Summer quarter just ended last week, and I'm still drained!

My first bento!

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 01:10:06 GMT

My DH bought a little Pixar Cars bento off of Ebay for our DS, and it arrived yesterday! DS loved it so much, I had a hard time getting him to relinquish it so I could wash it up. Today I made him a bento, although the components were pretty American.

It contained:
2 little homemade pizza rolls
bug-shaped cinnamon graham crackers
seedless green grapes
baby carrots
2 cheddar cheese stars

He loved it!