Bento Apple Cucumber Lettuce meat-free

Its Monday again and for many people it's either another back-to-work or back-to-school day. After a weekend of eating a lot (of junk), I thought maybe making a healthy meat-free bento is a good idea, just to kind of detox a bit. This is what I have for lunch today: Bento Apple, Cucumber and Lettuce

Hope you like this Meat Free Monday bento!

Bento Sandwich Naked Baby Salami Star

Its been a long time since I made bentos that doesn't require any cooking. Today I have decided to wake up at 0700hr to make what I call a Cook-Free bento for Mr Bear.

Bento Sandwich Salami Star and Naked Cheese Baby

Close up : Bento Naked Cheese Baby and Salami Star

This is what I did while Mr Bear was getting ready to work:

- Cut of the crust of bread.
- Spread butter on 1 side of bread and lay the cheese and salami.
- Cut the bread neatly into half and squeeze them into the bento box.
- Add the salami star and cheese baby which I had prepared last night.
- Fill up the rest of the bentos with fresh strawberries.
- @ 0715hr BENTO FINISHED!

For this Naked Baby Sandwich Bento, I had used a black bento box from Daiso. I guess its meant for  men because of some funny words printed on the lid. It says, "THE KING OF KINGS the king wore a crown. he is the king of kings" :D :D :D I bought both sizes and this is the larger one.

For the cheese, I chose to use sliced young Dutch Gouda cheese ( Goudse kaas - Jong belegen) instead of the usual cheddar cheese because Mr Bear doesn't like cheddar and also because it doesn't go all floppy so soon. For the nori bits, I used a nori punch for the mouth and the leaf piece. The leaf shaped nori punch I had does not have the jagged edges, so I add them in myself. This is how I made this Naked Baby Salami Star Sandwich Bento. Hope you like it!

Bento Honeydew Bunnies Mapo Tofu Tutorial

Yesterday, I have written a post on one of the bentos I made some time back but forgot to mention here. This is a step-by-step tutorial on how I arrange the Bento. Enjoy!

Bento Mapo Tofu with Honeydew Bunnies and Nectarine

Step 1: Mold the rice into some sort of semi-circle. I used an ordinary rice paddle here.

Cat Face Bento Step 1

Step 2: Fry the tofu with Mapo paste and fry the omelette in a seperate pan if possible.

Stir-fry the tofu in Mapo paste

Step 3: Place the omelette around the rice and pour in the tofu mixture into the rest of the space.
Add in a few pieces of nori seaweed and viola!

Cat Face Bento Mapo Tofu with Omelette

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Since I know that I'll be adding in the top tier of the bento box, I did an additional step. I felt as though I was a little neurotic doing it, but I guess I was just lazy and didn't want to do so much cleaning around the bottom groves of the upper tier.

Pressing the Bento with a piece of Gladwrap underneath

This is how I made the Cat Face bento with simple ingredients like rice, tofu and omelette. Hope you like it!

Bento Honeydew Bunnies Mapo Tofu

Over the next few days, I will be featuring some of the bento's I have made before but forgot to mention here in Adventures of Bento Cat. Today's Past Bento is Mapo Tofu with Honeydew Bunnies and slices of Nectarine. I had made this shortly after I came back from my summer vacation and accidental Bento equipment haul (^^,)

Bento Mapo Tofu with Omelette

This photo above shows the bottom layer of Bento Mapo Tofu. The egg omelette serves an aesthetic purpose and also acts as a edible seperator (baran). This prevents the rice from soaking up too much of the liquid from the spicy Tofu. Honeydew Bunnies and sliced nectarines are stored on the upper deck of the bento box.

Bento Honeydew Bunnies with sliced Nectarine

Tomorrow I'll write a post on a step by step tutorial on how I made Bento Honeydew Bunnies Mapo Tofu! So Stay Tuned!

Bento Mushroom with Jus and Cod Roe Sprinkles

This is a bento with some quick and easy left overs from the dinner the night before. I sliced some mushroom and gave them a quick stir fry with the meat sauce from the previous night. Then I pack in the rice and sprinkle some Tarako Furikake, which is a Japanese Sprinkle made from Cod Roe. I had used a plastic strip cut from a soda bottle as a sort of stencil for the Japanese Sprinkle. My only mistake was that I pushed the strip too far into the rice and it looked a little messier than what I had in mind. If you are trying this out with the round strip from the soda bottle, try to make sure that you have about 2cm of it sticking out above the rice. Try to pour the sprinkle from as close to the surface of the rice as possible, it helps!

Bento with Mushroom and Tarako Furikake