Bentos from thursday and friday

Usually I stay in bed until 6 am, but on thursday I managed to get up a little earlier. I didn't go to work earlier thoug, because I spent too much time on my bento. I sautéd squash, a little more squahs with soy sauce and parsley root and fried a potatoe dumpling. The zucchini and carrot were steamed as usual. The lettuce is homegrown. I seeded it early in august, so it didn't grow much. And this are the last leaves. It is already too cold and rainy.



On friday I wanted to eat mushrooms, but I found a little mould on some of them, so I had to throw them away :(
The bento contains gyoza. They contain glutamate, so I don't like them that much. But I wanted to try gyoza, so I bought them nonetheless. They taste better cold, so I'll use the rest in my nex bentos.
I also made tamagoyaki. The pan was too hot so the last layer didn't stick. I have to make them more often. The first ones I made looked a lot better ^^; These are filled with black and white sesame.
The rest of the box is filled with broccoli, carrots, squash and parsley root and decorated with a parsley root cloud and squash leaves.

Halloween Bento

Halloween bentos wherever you look. So I made one too.
Halloween isn't that popular around here. When I was a child, all I knew about Halloween was, that Charlie Brown is afraid of the great pumpkin. It gets more and more popular, but there are still few people who celebrate it.
The top tier contains a Jack o' Lantern made of hokkaido squash and nori, a nori cat with cream cheese eyes and a parsley root mouth on top of rice.
The bottom tier contains king trumpet mushroom, zucchini, parsley root and a piece of squash which didn't fit in the other tier.

Half of the bento contains things I've never eaten before.
I bought hokkaido squash because I've seen it in other bentos and wanted to try it. It smells a little bit like honeydew melon, which really surprised me. And I like it. Have to try out more.
I also didn't eat king trumpet mushroom before. It isn't sold in stores and you rarely see it at the farmers market also. I actually wanted champignons, but I was late and there weren't many left and they weren't lookking, well, like they would say 'buy me'. I wasn't in the mood to look if another seller hat better ones and the seller also told me that shiitake and king trumpet mushrooms have a special price this week so I took those.I really don't regret it. They taste good ^.^ I just fried them in sesame oil and didn't add any spice to have just the taste of the mushrooms.
Instead of the parsley root I wanted to get parsnip. But it was already sold out (did I mention I was late? ^^;). Parsley root looks the same, just a little bit smaller so I took it instead. I thought it tastes the same, but it doesn't. The inner part of a parsnip is a bit hard and doesn't taste that good (but maybe that's just true for the ones I got last time?). The inner part of parsley root is much bigger (maybe you can see it in the picture) and not ligneous at all. And it was somehow sweet. I like parsnip, but I like parsley root a lot more.

Edit: I almost forgot this month's B.O.M.B.

Birthday breakfast for my colleagues

Yesterday was my birthday. I didn't do anything special though. The day didn't feel anything special. It was really nice weather on saturday, but yesterday was rainy and stormy and cold.
At my company you get a present from your colleagues and you have to make breakfast for them. I thought of making something special, but I don't know if they would like an asian influenced breakfast, so I made something 'normal'. Bread rolls, cheese, cold cuts, Fleischsalat (my dictionary says "salad with strips of bologna-type sausage, gherkins and mayonnaise dressing", so there doesn't seem to be an english word for it), home madered currant jelly and a cucumber. I couldn't help but make it a little bit bentoish, so I used a cookie cutter to make some cucumber flowers. One of my colleagues saw this and said "I would have been disapointed if you didn't make anything like that" *lol*

I got 3 books as a present. I gave them my amazon wishlist, so I knew I would get books, but I was curious what they would choose, because it's a loooong list.
The first one was
  Yum-Yum Bento Box by luckysundae and Pikko
Most of my colleagues think that making (cute) bentos is weird. In a funny way, but I must be crazy to spend that much time just for a lunch. Yes, I am crazy (and not just because of bentos), and I like it *g*
One of the mothers asked for some tipps and if she could borrow that book. Spreading the bento virus, yay.
Other comments were "I don't know if I could eat something that looks at me" and "Is that a piggy hamburger?" "Can I call you mom?" (or whatever babe says in english).

The second book was
Keltische Kochbarkeiten: Mit 60 Rezepten vom "Fünf-Steine-Ko​ch" (would translate to something like "Celctic cookliness: with 60 recipes from a 5 stone cook")
It's a book with old recipes, using stinging nettle and other weeds.

The third one (whoa, so many, they are crazy) was
  Magic - Gärtnern mit der Kraft der vier Elemente (Magic - gardening with the power of the four elements)
I just skimmed over it. There are a lot of topics. Some seem a little strange, what has atrology to do with gardening? But I'll see.

Makkukurosuke Bento

I love Ghibli movies, especially Totoro. I found the "How to make Makkukurosuke"-Tutorial at Anna the red's page a while ago and alway wanted to make them. They look so cute ^^ I just wish there was better light in my kitchen. You can see the flash too much. But without flash the pictures aren't sharp :(
The Makkukurosu are onigiri (filled with cream cheese), covered with nori. The eyes are made of cream cheese and black sesame.
Left tier hast brussel sprouts, green beans and broccoli. Right tier has carrots, bean sprouts and tamagoyaki. The tamagoyaki are made with salt, turmeric and lemon grass.
Makkukurosuke are called Rußmännchen (little soot men) in German. As I went to work, I heard that today is chimney sweep day. So my bento somehow really fits today *g*

Pasta Bento

This is a bento for this week's bento challenge at Livejournal. I read the theme and thought, yes, something easy this time. I'll make ramson noodles. Or udon? And teddy pasta as decoration.Hm... or all 3. And whatever I find in our noodle drawer.
I found two other open packages that I could use some noodles from. There were some soup noodles, too, but they would have been to small, so I just took those 5 types.
Top tier: cauliflower, carrots, spaghetti, teddy pasta and sesame
Bottom tier: ramson noodles, spiral noodles (without a name on the package), wholemeal noodles called cornetti rigati, broccoli, green beans, udon noodles and black sesame.
I didn't have a sauce (any suggestions?), but the variety made up for this.

I wanted to post my last bentos on the weekend, but I'm a little obsessed with Glee and Juuni Kokki at the moment, so I spend most time watching. ^^; Have to get better. 

Last two bentos

I miscalculated both bentos. For monday's bento I took too few vegetables out, for today's bento I had too much. It wasn't a big problem, because I could fill yesterday's up with corn and peas and ate the left over carrot and parsnip as breakfast, but it still is annoying.

Monday:

Probably my last evening primrose blossom this year. The plants still have buds, but most didn't blossom in the last week and it started to freeze at night. I collected seeds and seeded some for the year after next year (they blossom in the second year). I hope, the birds didn't eat them.
The bento contains leftover potatoes from sunday lunch, peas and corn because there was a lot of space left, cauliflower, bean sprouts, green beans, kidney beans, prawns, brussel sprouts and tamagoyaki, coloured with paprika and filled with sesame.


Today:

Rice, more coloured than flavoured with curry, green beans, zucchini, carrot, parsnip, fish burger, and brussel sprouts. The zucchini and parsnip were the last I had. My favourite seller at the farmers market is on holidays until next saturday, so no zucchinis for the next 1,5 weeks :(

Tomorrow I wont make a bento. I will be on a workshop with customers and we will go out for lunch. In the evening I will go to a concert by Michael Bublé with them (I was so surprised when they asked me O.O). There wont be enough time to go home between work and the concert, so maybe I can go to an asia market. I need anko, I want to eat daifuku.

Octopus bento

Another bento with nothing from the freezer, except for the rice. Steamed mushrooms, zucchini, carrots and spinach. The zucchini are from a local organic farmer. Zucchinis bought in store taste like nothing compared to these ♥.♥
They also had parsnips this time. I had never eaten them before, so I took two with me. I sautéd half of one with a little bit of soy sauce. They look and taste a little bit like potatoes. And a little bit different. I'll definetily buy them again :)
The protein part of the bento is a wiener. And what are wieners usually made of in bentos? Yes, octopusses *g* I just wish their legs would stay curled when they cool.
My colleague saw them and asked "what's that, fingers?" "No octopusses. They even have faces" She couldn't help grinning back at them.

Smiling Bento

My bentos have been pretty boring the last weeks. Maybe I just spend too much time reading and then there's no time left for decorating. Maybe I should plan my bentos beforehand and not decide most of it in the morning.
This isn't a charaben, but at least, it has a face. And there's nothing from the freezer in it. The bottom tier has carrots, mushrooms, spinach and cauliflower, the top tier has ramson noodles, carrot eyes with black sesame pupils, sesame hair and a cheese mouth.
Ramson is quite popular here for some years now. Especially in noodles and bread rolls. I'd love to try it as a vegetable, but it doesn't grow in my garden (yet, I bought seeds) and I didn't dare to look for it in the woods, because it is easily mistaken for poisonous plants :(