Diane's Fantastic Fall Bentos

Guest blog post

Seasonal Bento Fun

by Diane Verrochi

aka Bento Nurse of http://busynursebento.blogspot.com

Back in May, I did a sort of “bento basics” guest blog post here (http://kitnchi.blogspot.com/2012/05/dianes-beautiful-bento-boxes.html).  I'm pleased to have been invited back to do one on autumn- and Halloween-themed bento-making.  I mentioned in that post that I was interested in kyaraben, though I hadn't done much with it yet.  I still haven't done a whole lot, but I have been getting a bit more adventurous.  Here are some of the things I've tried that may give you some ideas if you're looking for fun ways to do up a lunch or a potluck offering.

The box on the left, my husband's breakfast/snack box (I started making these for him to bring to work and snack on at his desk.  He isn't that patient and ends up having them for breakfast.), has turkey sandwiches cut out to look like ghosts and a jack-o-lantern.  The bread is wheat tortilla, and the faces are drawn on with Wilton edible markers (basically food coloring in a pen).  There are also leaves made of provolone over baby carrots and slightly more mundane tomato-cucumber salad and apple chunks to go with it all.  The one on the right, my dinner, is in a two-tier cat-shaped box and has the same salad, carrots, and apples, plus two silicone cups of sausage, peppers, and onions, and a little cup of pepitas.  The Thermos in the back is lentil-kale soup to go with mine.

It's turning into a Sunday tradition to make a “share with your coworkers” snack tray for my husband that started with this one.

You see, there was this Bento of the Week meme with the prompt “favorite team.” (http://www.bentoblognetwork.com/2012/10/botw-favorite-team.html)  I don't care much about sports, but my husband is a Patriots/Celtics/Red Sox fanatic.  (He doesn't care about hockey, but roots for the Bruins in the same “I'm from Boston, it's what I do” way that I root for the others.)  So, I set out to make a Patriots-themed box.  Then he mentioned that his friend and coworker, who is a fan of the St. Louis Rams, had a birthday coming up in a couple of days, and could I include him too? 

So I did, and the result was some football- and helmet-shaped sandwiches (turkey and muenster for the Pats, roast beef and provolone for the Rams), team jerseys made of Pepper jack with their respective quarterbacks' numbers.  All decorating done freehand with the edible markers and the shapes are courtesy of Wilton's football set of cookie cutters.  The toothpicks kind of spoil it since they're plain old wood and not even colorful, but I had a feeling the sandwiches would fall apart in transit otherwise.  To fill it out, I put the snacks over a bed of popcorn taken from the team tin you can see behind the tray and sent them both bottles of apple cider in Patriots chiller jerseys.

With a little more advance thought put into it, this is what I came up with for a healthier snack-and-share tray this week. 

When not rooting for the Pats, Chuck can often be found rooting against the Jets, and there's plenty of both if they're actually facing off against each other as today, so the Jets got chicken and provolone tombstone sandwiches on wheat tortillas.  I'd had an idea in the grocery store about using spinach tortillas that I just had to try out, and so he also got about a half dozen ham-and-colby Frankenstein's monster sandwiches.  I'd also hit a too-good-to-resist bargain on red, yellow, and orange peppers, so he got some of those along with carrots to dip in some cucumber-dill-feta Greek yogurt dip, plus grapes and apples to fill it out.  I still don't have picks that are other than plain, so I waited until after snapping the pic to stab the sandwich stacks so they stay together en route.

I'm sure you're sensing a tool theme here, and that is, I have to say, the easiest way to do a whatever-themed box: get some cookie cutters and use them on not-cookies.  I had already picked up a box of the Wilton autumn mini-cutters from Michael's and then I ran across a bucket of larger ones that were more Halloweeny for $5 at Ocean State Job Lot.  Edible markers were equally inexpensive at Walmart and are an easy way to add a little detail.  (Get extra-fine tips if you want to add a lot of detail, though.  I only got fine, and when writing/drawing on bread, they're not so easy to control.)  You can also cut out something that is a contrasting color (the traditional would be a sheet of nori, the seaweed used for sushi) and stick it on with whatever ingredient makes sense, but I don't tend to have that kind of time.  Or patience.

If you don't want to go the sandwich route, it's a bit harder.  I tried making some sweet potato oyaki (http://justbento.com/handbook/recipe-collection-mains/potato-oyaki-and-sweet-potato-and-carrot-oyaki) shaped like pumpkins, and they came out great … until I put them into the frying pan and turned them back into little blobs.  I think maybe I was supposed to cook them first, then cut them.  For a not-sandwich example that worked, though, I made this dish for a potluck autumn festival.

The grass is made of zucchini, the leaves on the ground are summer squash and red bell pepper, the trunk of the tree is cinnamon sweet potatoes, and the leaves on the tree are variously colored apple chunks, all over a bed of rosemary-oregano rice.  I'd been so focused on how it looked, though, I worried when it came time to serve it that the flavors wouldn't go together well, but they did.

There are many, many other things you can do, of course.  I hope this has given you some fun ideas to try!

random stuff

 This is as political as I want to get these days. It is a picture of a record album, I mentioned in an earlier blog that I collect them. In reality, this is a comedy record spoofing the Kennedy Family. They have Jackie Os famous house tour and lots of poorly done Boston accents. The album is mostly making fun of the Boston accent with corny jokes here and there. This album would not make any sense to anyone listening today, unless you had some prior knowledge of history. I think the record is kind of cool because at the time, the actors had no idea that JFK would have such a tragic death. To me, even the picture shows the idealism of the times, even though it was suppose to be a spoof. Everything changed after that. Bring back the Pill Box Hat!

 More albums, all for children. I remember being so enchanted as a child , when I would listen to records. I would sit on the floor and look at every detail on the album cover. If you were lucky, sometimes there was a little booklet attached to the inside.

 Who wasn't inspired by the Little Engine? My mother would often refer to this can-do attitude when we would complain about cleaning our rooms. Actually, it made me hate the Little Engine.

 Disney....They had the best records. The great thing about these albums is they got the original voices of the characters from the movies.  Records were a big business so even kids albums were done well.

 Tubby.........Cute picture, annoying tuba. Not a favorite.

 I have put on these records for my children and they were bored out of their minds. They cried. My son Conrad said, "Do we have to keep listening to this...I am getting a headache." That hurts coming from a six year old. Maybe our standards were lower in the seventies. Maybe we were simple folk but I have to think classical music is always inspiring to children of all ages. Hall of the Mountain King, Peter and the Wolf, they still excite me. I guess I am just old.

On a different note. Here is my stained, ancient bathroom floor. Circa 1930. I have thought about tearing it up so many times but there is something about living in an old house that makes you want to respect who it is. Maybe that is just my weirdness shining through. My home was built in 1870 and there are a ton of things I would like to do to bring it up to date but I feel like it wouldn't be right. I like the way it is. I did a major addition to add onto the house and that was good enough for me. The funny thing is, when digging up the back yard we found huge pieces of broken white marble from the original bathroom sinks. How I wish the homeowners back in the thirties had the foresight not to update for cheap linoleum. 

Anyway, I covered the floor with gold and pink glitter and polyurethane. It came out really cool. Sure, there is glitter here and there, on the rugs and scattered about the house but I am cool with that. My husband not so much. The man is a saint.

Richard Scarry not scary!

 I love Richard Scarry!!! This well loved author/ illustrator was born right here in Boston.  He was a business school drop out who decided to do things his own way after the war. He was a veteran as well. He had a real love for details. He put so much detail into every little picture. His books entertained me for hours as a child.  There was always something I didn't notice before. He got his big break with Busy Town through another love of mine, Golden Books and the rest was history.  I swear, even today, if I flip through one of his books, I can't help but smile.

 Top picture is from his book on color. Red and yellow makes jack-o-lantern.

 Page about the changes in the seasons.

This one is a bit tattered but is all about the months. Love the rocket cat.

Above, I have posted another love of mine, the Junior Deluxe Editions. These books are still very much sought after today. They are from the late fifties and early sixties.  They were much like the Readers Digest Hard Cover Library, but for children. The illustrations are so whimsical. Lots of faeries, brownies and beautiful black and white prints of children in Victorian clothing. I will be hanging onto these classics.

This talk of books is making me hungry for a little comfort food. Nothing fancy. Take some cubed, turkey ham and a chopped onion and fry it with a little olive oil.

Mix in a four eggs and a quarter cup of milk that has been mixed. Stir it around until cooked, be careful to not let the eggs get too dry.

 Throw it all on a toasted roll with some sliced cheese. I like sliced, sandwich, Muenster cheese because the hot eggs melt it, so it is nice and gooey. I love gooey, not sticky or runny, just gooey. Yep, Western Sandwiches are the perfect, easy, brunchy comfort food. Sorry, the picture is blurry because I was too impatient to let the camera focus. I was really hungry. Have a good day!!!

Sort of out and about.

Hi there! I am really enjoying this beautiful New England Fall.  This weekend would have been a perfect time to pick apples. However, I was reminded about last years fiasco. I spent several hours at a local orchard with the kids.  There were long waits between the little train rides to take us to the designated picking areas. The available picking location we were dropped at, was basically picked clean of apples. There were plenty of cores on the ground, which attracted tons of bees. The kids were crying because they only had hard, sour granny smith type apples to choose from. The train did finally come around and brought us to the barn. There was no getting out of it, you had to walk through there to pay for the apples. I could see the baked goods as we entered and knew I was going to be in trouble. First, I ended up buying the Mackintosh apples. To me, they are the most versatile apple because you can eat them plain or cook with them. However, then the kids saw the cookies and candy.Five chocolate chip cookies cost eight dollars. Crazy, it was not like they were organic or even made at the farm.  I settled on buying some M&Ms. The whole thing cost about seventy bucks. I realized, in reality,I paid the farm, to force my children to do slave labor with dangerous bees in the hot sun.  This year, I will buy a big bag of M&Ms and go hang out a a park and look at the foliage. I will let you know how it goes.

 Being the hypocrite I am, I did stop at a farm stand because I needed to get some seasonal decorations. I came across cake pops. They  tasted as if they needed about ten more minutes in the oven. A little doughy. I am going to make my own with this mold set that I bought. If they come out pretty I will post them. I will let you in on a secret. I plan to use brownie batter with chocolate chips. Why play games with drippy cake batter? I even thought of baking the brownies in a pan and rolling them into balls without using the silly molds. Maybe I am missing the point.

Indian corn.......reminds me of being a little kid and having the squirrels eat it off the front door of our home.  I am wondering if I popped it in oil, could I eat it?  I think it is only ornamental. Something to look into.

My friend Heather always has the prettiest Fall displays for her home. This is just a little corner of her porch. I love the white pumpkin.

On a different note, I went to an English sports car show on Sunday. It was a nice day and I saw the crowds and decided to pop in.  Wow! The vintage English motor cars were adorable and cool. I didn't realize how much I needed one until I started snooping around.

This old beauty had a nice display in front. The cute English Teddy Bears having their tea and biscuits. Several of the cars had a special rack on the back for a picnic hamper.  I could imagine enjoying a romantic lunch on the English countryside with James Bond or better yet, Doctor Who.

This little white one would be perfect for a day at the beach.

 Sporty stuff. I kept looking under the hood with the other car enthusiasts. I wondered to myself if they knew what they were looking at. Maybe they saw the crowd and dropped in like I did.

 This car below reminded me of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.  The flying car from the classic Disney movie starring Dick Van Dyke. You can see some guys hand in the picture.  He is telling me something technical about the car...I wish I knew what he was talking about.