Crab Sandwich Bento!

     Hello Everyone! I'm sorry I haven't made any posts lately - I've been busy with all sorts of stuff.

    Today's bento will be a crab croissant sandwich (idea credit pictures on the internet and the Disney Family Fun Magazine). I wanted to make these a while back but never got around to it - until now!

    To start, toast a small, curved croissant and fill it like a sandwich, for the body. This is all of my ingredients for the sandwich - you can never have too much cheese! (:

                   

    For the legs, cut carrots (ideally baby carrots in half but I improvised here because I didn't have any).

    Cut the outer skin of a tomato with a little bit of the fruit, and cut into the claw shapes pictured here.

    For the cutest part, take a small measuring spoon and use it to scoop out cream cheese into little balls. For the face, I used my laughing smileyface Nori puncher (isn't it awesome!) and stuck the eyes onto the cream cheese and the Nori mouth. Don't forget to refrigerate the cream cheese balls if you aren't using them right away!

    Tada! The croissant broke a little because it was too crispy. :(  Difficulty rating: 4.0 (I like saying 4.0) for cream cheese eyes - it's a pretty simple and cute bento! Crabby (I nicknamed him crabby, like the Pokemon) is pictured along with a side of dragon fruit (it tastes like a less sweet but soft version of kiwi and is super tasty).

        I'd love for you to try it out - is there anything you would have done differently? Thank you for reading my blog!

     

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol Bento!!!

Hello Everyone!!

   Today's post is about making a Ghost Protocol Bento!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Yay!!!!!! Personally Ghost Protocol is the best film in the series. Did you know the Burj Khalifa stunt scene is real??!! Yup, Tom Cruise scaled and sat on top of the tallest building in the world. No biggie right? :D

    I decided to do the Burj Khalifa scene (in the movie). Difficulty rating: 9.5 (out of 10) for detail, time (it took me 4.5 hours!), and the fact that it is a complex bento (lots of pieces to put together between Nori, cheese, wax paper pieces etc.).

   On the other hand, difficulty rating for climbing the Burj Khalifa: 11/10.  (;

   Since it's a long step by step process, I am going to post the final product pics first. "No Plan, No Backup, No Choice" refers to the catchphrase for the M:i-4 theatrical release posters. Personally I think it turned out pretty well (the bento - but the movie was incredible).














      

 

          Burj Khalifa scene picture taken from http://insidemovies.ew.com/2011/12/22/box-office-update-mission-impossible/

      

      The pic on the right is my sketch of the bento (I do sketches when its a complex bento like this one). Where it says "legs" pointing to the neck and right arm I mean same as the legs, as in do the Nori outline. If you want that extra detail on your bento, doing limb Nori outlines really helps!

      I started by drawing the blueprint, and making a larger sketch of the body onto wax paper.

      I put the wax paper outline ( I will try to do more pics of the bento process in the future) onto a long slice of cheese  and cut the outline with a knife (I sliced a rectangular block of cheese horizontally-it took a few tries). I left that in the fridge and kept the wax paper outline.

     I cut up all the parts of the outline I wanted to do with Nori (gloves, arms+legs for outlines, pants, black squares as pockets for belt between shirt and top in bento pic, shirt, and shoes).
   
   

     These are the wax paper pieces I wanted to cut from Nori. I took the wooden cutting board (the one below the Betty Crocker) and put the sheet of Nori on it. Then I placed the wax paper pieces and cut them out with an X-Acto knife (this works pretty well). For the limb outlines, I cut the arms and legs out of Nori (the whole thing) and cut the edges off. Here is the finished Nori outline:

   

    

      To do the hair, I cut the head from the cheese outline (I was forced to behead it :(  ), spread cream cheese on it and dipped in cocoa powder - the cream cheese helps it stick, but butter or frosting would also serve the purpose.

      For the building, I took a slice of bread and trimmed of the crust. I sliced cheese to form the borders of the windows, and used food gel to do the blue parts of the windows. If you want evenly blue windows, I would recommend whipping cream cheese and a little butter and then adding food gel for the blue color, so you can spread it like frosting (cream cheese and butter are the essential components of cream cheese frosting, cream cheese makes it dense and butter makes it fluffy, so keep experimenting with them to get the proportions and consistency you want). I didn't realize this until later, otherwise I would have done that instead. 

     The movie was amazing though (an M:i fan - this is my 2nd time watching it). The acting is great (also a Tom Cruise fan - besides Mission Impossible my favorite Tom Cruise movie would be Knight and Day) . He does practically all of his own stunts! Not to mention the music (by Michael Giacchino - especially "A Man, A Plan, A Code, Dubai" and "Mood India" from the soundtrack). In the scene at the end they are actually playing "Ethan and Julia" by Giacchino, from the 3rd film - which makes sense because that's Julia's first appearance. Not sure how they are going to top it as a film in M:i - 5 but that's their own Mission: Impossible right? Which technically means they will, because they always get the mission accomplished! (yay!)

     Thanks for following!

      

First Poll Results!

Hello Everyone!

   The polls are in! I have started a poll asking "Which Kyaraben would you like to see made?"


   This polls choices were
 

    1- Mickey Mouse
    2- Pikachu/Pokemon (my favorite cartoon!)
    3- Matrix (an amazing film)
    4- Iron Man
    5- James Bond
    6- Other (specify in comments)

     And its 50/50 between Pikachu/Pokemon and Iron Man! I guess I'm gonna have to make both (:

   

     For those of you that didn't get to vote, don't worry! I will be posting another poll soon (after I make and post Iron Man and Pokemon).
 

    Thanks for participating and thank you for following this blog! My next bento post is coming soon (hint: it's an action film from 2011). Thanks again!

Owl Bento (breakfast)

Hello Everyone!

     Today's bento is an owl bento, for............. breakfast! That's right! This is my first breakfast bento (usually they are for dinner, and maybe lunch).

     I made the owl eyes with two respective halves of a bagel, covered with cream cheese for the white part and chocolate for the pupils. I left the chocolate to soften outside before I cut it, so it would be soft and easy to slice.

     The beak is made with a slice of peach laid on its side, and the outline is peanuts (I put cream cheese on some peanuts so they would stick to the curves of the plate - its a good trick).


     So you people can start making bentos of your own, I have decided to start putting difficulty ratings on each post. I would recommend starting with the lowest ratings and working your way up.

    On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being really easy and 10 being really hard, I would rate this one as a 3. It's pretty simple and looks super cute (if I say so myself)!

    Tada!

 

Panda Express Bento

Hello Everyone!

  For bento blog network's (http://www.bentoblognetwork.com/) weekly theme, wheels, I am making a Panda Express bento!

   Panda Express as in a train with a panda (not the restaurant, but it is a pun on the name).

   To make the panda head and train, I used the cling-wrap method with sticky rice (same for Mimzy). I used scissors and an Exact - O blade to cut the Nori (I told you it would come in handy).

    I decided to put a bunch of gummy bears since its a panda train. The champagne grape bunch is meant to be a bush.

    For a difficulty rating (1 is really easy, 10 is really hard) I would give this one an 8, since you have to  take measurements into account (train and lettering), start early and refrigerate the cling wrap shapes so they'll stick, cut the panda face freehand, and add more details (see I didn't get it exactly right).

    I mean, what's better than a panda train??!! Well if you said something like Pokemon or Mission Impossible, technically you'd be right. (:

    Tada! It won Bento of the Week!