Bento of the Week: Homemade Food Picks

Thank you to everyone who took on the challenge and participated in the Egg Sheet BOTW. This was the most challenging technique this month! Congratulations to Diana of Diana Rambles for getting the most votes for her No Puffin bento. This bento will be displayed for the next week in the featured blog widget on the sidebar and the winner gets a special blog button announcing their win!

This themed bento meme will be posted each Friday and will accept entries through the following Tuesday. Instructions for submitting a link can be found here. At that point voting will be enabled. You can vote on Wednesday & Thursday. Full guidelines for this meme can be found here. Interested in starting your own meme? Read this article on how to host a successful meme.

Week 9 Theme: Homemade Food Picks The theme for Bento of the Week 9 is Homemade Food Picks. Below is a tutorial on making your own food picks. They are easy to make and are an inexpensive alternative to ordering food picks. Please post the direct link to any bentos you've put together that display a food pick that you've created. You can post more than one, but it needs to be your bento. You may post a bento that has been submitted in a previous week as long as it fits the them. Please visit other participants and leave some love!
Next week's theme: Angry Birds

Thank you to Melissa  for providing this week's tutorial. You can read her full post here.

Step 1: Gather your supplies.
You'll need picks.
Regular tooth picks and bamboo forks are really easy to find - I've seen the bamboo forks everywhere from Target to party supply stores. I like the plastic picks because they are washable and sturdy...I found this box at Dollar Tree.

You'll need stickers.
Any small stickers will do. I really like the little plastic stickers that are kind of bubbly and thick. I found cute Halloween ones at Target. The fall stickers are from either Target's Dollar Spot or possibly the cheap bins at Michael's. I got those last year and can't recall exactly.
See the rest of the post here.

Read more...

Bento of the Week: Egg Sheets

Thank you to everyone who took on the challenge and participated in the Onigiri BOTW. Voting was tight since there was one vote each. Congratulations to Rina of Ameriasian-Bento for getting the most votes for her Bear Face Onigiri bento.  This bento will be displayed for the next week in the featured blog widget on the sidebar and the winner gets a special blog button announcing their win!

This themed bento meme will be posted each Friday and will accept entries through the following Tuesday. Instructions for submitting a link can be found here. At that point voting will be enabled. You can vote on Wednesday & Thursday. Full guidelines for this meme can be found here. Interested in starting your own meme? Read this article on how to host a successful meme.

Week 8 Theme: Egg Sheets The theme for Bento of the Week 8 is Egg Sheets. Below is a tutorial on making egg sheets. If you carefully follow these steps they turn out and really aren't hard to make. Please post the direct link to any bentos you've created using egg sheets. You can post more than one, but it needs to be your bento. You may post a bento that has been submitted in a previous week as long as it fits the them. Please visit other participants and leave some love! Due to the technique month there will not be a Thanksgiving meme here at BBN, but you can participate in one here.
Next week's theme: Make Your Own Picks

Thank you to Lia Chen  for providing this week's tutorial. You can read her full post here.
Some of my bento friends asked me on how I made smooth egg sheet a while ago. I'm sorry for the delay of this post but I finally can get all the pictures taken this morning and ready to share it with all of you. Hope this post will be helpful and if there is any other different method to make it, please share it in the comment box. And please note that the ingredients I used for this post were only to make 2 egg sheets.

WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO PREPARE ?

> 3 Chicken Eggs
> 15ml Water
> 1 tsp Cornstarch

> Tamagoyaki Pan (if you don't have it, you can also use your non-stick pan)
> 2 Bowls
> Small Kitchen Strainer
> Egg Whisker or Fork
> Flip Spatula

See the rest of the tutorial at Bentolicious. 

Read more...

Bento of the Week: Onigiri

Thank you to everyone who participated and/or voted in the Sandwich Ball BOTW. The participants did a great job of taking on the challenge. Congratulations to CandyGirl of BentOnBetterLunches for getting the most votes for her Ice Cream Sundae bento. This bento will be displayed for the next week in the featured blog widget on the sidebar and the winner gets a special blog button announcing their win!

This themed bento meme will be posted each Friday and will accept entries through the following Tuesday. Instructions for submitting a link can be found here. At that point voting will be enabled. You can vote on Wednesday & Thursday. Full guidelines for this meme can be found here.

Week 7 Theme: Onigiri The theme for Bento of the Week 7 is Onigiri. Onigiri is defined as Japanese food made from white rice formed into triangular or oval shapes and often wrapped in nori (seaweed). Below is a tutorial on making onigiri into a bento. Please post the direct link to any bentos you've created that contain onigiri. You can post more than one, but it needs to be your bento. You may post a bento that has been submitted in a previous week as long as it fits the them. Please visit other participants and leave some love! 
Next week's theme: Egg Sheets

Thank you to Ming  for providing this week's tutorial. You can read her full post here.

This is a tutorial for the Pikachu bento I posted on Monday. Please note that I'm using mixed grain rice and cheese in this tutorial, instead of sushi rice and egg sheet. If you are doing it, I suggest you try with sushi rice instead, and make the onigiri smaller as cheese is thicker than egg sheet.

First, shape your rice. You can use a rice mold if you have one.

If you do not have a rice mold, you can use a cling wrap to shape the rice.

Cut out a slice of seaweed to wrap round the rice.

You can see the remainder of the tutorial here.

Read more...

Bento of the Week: Sandwich Balls

Thank you to everyone who participated and/or voted in the Halloween BOTW. Participation was outstanding! Congratulations to Sarah of bentoriffic for getting the most votes for her Vampire Bat bento. This bento will be displayed for the next week in the featured blog widget on the sidebar and the winner gets a special blog button announcing their win!

This themed bento meme will be posted each Friday and will accept entries through the following Tuesday. Instructions for submitting a link can be found here. At that point voting will be enabled. You can vote on Wednesday & Thursday. Full guidelines for this meme can be found here.

Week 6 Theme: Sandwich Balls The theme for Bento of the Week 6 is Sandwich Balls. You can see a tutorial of how to make a sandwich ball below. Please post the direct link to any bentos you've created that contain a sandwich ball. You can post more than one, but it needs to be your bento. You may post a bento that has been submitted in a previous week as long as it fits the them. Please visit other participants and leave some love! 
Next week's theme: Onigiri

Thank you to Ludicrous Mama for providing this week's tutorial. You can read her full post here.

Sandwich balls are really easy to make, but work best with solid fillings, like cheese and meat. I used PB and honey and got a lot of goo oozing out the backs! To make them you cut a circle out of your bread (I used biscuit cutters in 3 sizes to get descending-sized balls.) It may help if you roll your bread circle flat, but it may not. It should help to press the middle flatter before adding filling.

Then place the circle on a larger piece of cling wrap (cheapie sandwich baggies work well too!) on your palm, and slowly close your hand, wrapping the bread around the filling until the edges meet.

You can read the rest of the tutorial here.

Read more...

Coloring Rice Tutorial

How do you color rice that can be eaten? It's really an easy process! You just add food coloring to the water before you add the rice.

Here is several drops of yellow food coloring in the water in our rice cooker. Then stir.

 Then you add the rice & cook.

This is how it turns out. This was not super yellow. Of course Saffron rice could have been used for yellow.

Add more drops for darker colors. Here you can see where I added a lot of red food coloring for dark red which I used for Elmo.

Submitted by Diana of Bento Blog Network

Read more...