Pig Bento☆

Today's lunch bento for my hubby<3

- Pig rice ball
- Eggs and Tomatoes mushrooms
- Ginger pork with carrots
- Vegetable fry balls

I used this mini hot dogs to make the pig.

Slice and poke holes with a cut straw to make a nose.
Cut another slice into two to make ears.
Joint parts with dry pasta. (past will get soften by the time you eat, absorbing the water from the food)
Cut seaweed to make eyes!

 To make the mushrooms, boil quail eggs. ( you can get it at the most of Asian grocery stores)

Cut cherry tomatoes in half and connect with boiled quail eggs using dry pasta.

Poke holes in sliced cheese with straw. Put on tomatoes with mayonnaise.

Silicone side dish cups and leaf shape dividers♪

I got these bento items at Daiso.
They have cute and cheap bento goods! Love the store.

Seared Shiitake Mushroom and Avocado Sushi Roll

Have you  been disappointed by vegan sushi?? Yes, I have!!!!!
I wasn't a big fun of vegan sushi until I had this seared shiitake and avocado sushi roll.
This is SO good!
Even my "meatarian" husband loves this.

I love seared fish sushi, so bought a cooking torch last year to sear fish by myself.
I seared shiitake with it, but if you don't have it, you can just sear it over high heat on the grill:)


Ingredients (for about 4 rolls)

4  Shiitake mushroom
2 Avocado
*Sushi rice (I used 2 cup of uncooked rice)
Olive oil
Salt

*See Sushi Cake post for sushi rice

1. Cut shiitake, drizzle olive oil and sprinkle salt
2. Sear the shiitake (either with torch or on the grill)
3. Just roll it with sliced avocado!!!

See "Make My Sushi", if you are not familiar with sushi roll. I think this website is good.

bear bento

This is the first bento I made for my husband since we got married:)

- Chiken teriyaki
- Deviled Eggs
- bear rice ball (shiitake miso inside)

Hope he likes it!

Baked Crispy Chili Bread

Made too much chili? Then make this crispy bread! 

Well, I wanted to make Japanese curry buns, but I was too lazy to make bread.

This is the easy recipe, using store-bought bread.

It's not soft like Japanese curry buns, but it's nice and crunchy :) 

What you need:

2 serving Chili

1 Potatoes

Bread crumbs

1 Egg

4 slices Store-bought bred

ketchup, curry powder, black peppers to taste

4 tbs Oil

1. Make mushed potatoes. I used 1, but it depends on how much chili you have left.

2. Mix mushed potatoes and chili over medium heat. (use more or less potato to get desired hardness)

3. Add ketchup, curry powder and pepper to taste

4. Roll out bread (spread butter if you want)

5. Put chili mix and fold in half

6. Brush the edges with beaten egg and press with fork to seal.

7. Dip the bread into beaten egg and then bread crumbs

8. Place on a baking pan and drizzle oil

9. Bake for about 20 mins at 400F

Vegetarian Miso Chili and Corn Bread Bear Muffin

Watched the movie "Fork over Knives" with my husband the other day.
I had tried to avoid animal protein before watching this movie, but he LOVEs meat so I cook meat for him sometimes. But this movie makes me worried about his health!
Even though he still doesn't seem to care about it, I've started looking into vegetarian recipes more than ever before.

I found vegetarian chili recipe on food network.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/vegetarian-chili-recipe/index.html

I changed the ingredient as follow;

Ingredients
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 1/2 cups chopped yellow onions
1 cup chopped red bell peppers
2 cloves minced garlic  
2  peppers, stemmed, seeded, and minced, depending upon taste
1 medium zucchini, stem ends trimmed and cut into small dice
2 cups fresh corn kernels (about 3 ears)
2 large portobello mushrooms, stemmed, wiped clean and cubed
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespooon ground cumin
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
3 large tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped 
3 cups cooked black beans, or canned beans, rinsed and drained
1 (15-ounce) can tomato sauce
1 cup vegetable stock, or water
3 tablespoon Miso
Rice cheese

Directions
In a large, heavy pot, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the onions, bell peppers, garlic, and serrano peppers, and cook, stirring, until soft, about 3 minutes. Add the zucchini, corn, and mushrooms, and cook, stirring, until soft and the vegetables give off their liquid and start to brown around the edges, about 6 minutes. Add the chili powder, cumin, salt and cayenne, and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the tomatoes and stir well. Add the beans, tomato sauce, and vegetable stock, stir well, and bring to a boil. Add miso. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes. Add rice cheese.

Remove from the heat and stir in the cilantro. Adjust the seasoning, to taste.


I added 3 tablespoon Miso to this recipe to make it milder. ( I recommend less sodium one)
And rice cheese to get the consistency of a thick soup.

My husband loved this chili!! even though there is no meat in it.

And great cornbread recipe here
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/golden-sweet-cornbread/

I made it look like bear:)
All you need is fried pasta and cookie cutters!

 Fry a pasta noodle.

Cut and put where you want to place the ears and nose.

Make ears and nose using cookie cutters with another cornbread.
Join the parts using the fried pasta.

Pumpkin whiPOOHed 3D cake

 

 

 

 

Saw this cake on CookPad, a popular Japanese cooking website and fell in love!

Changed a recipe and direction to make it easier and healthier!!

 

 

What you need....

(cake size of Japanese rice bowl )

 

Base cake (12cm size)



Your favorite cream ( I used homemade black bean cream)

100g ish Mashed and strained pumpkin

1p Very firm vacuumed tofu (or heavy whipping cream)

5 Tbs Maple syrup

 

 



 

 

1. Cut the cake in 3 layers. Cut 1 of them into 4 and line a rice bowl with it. (picture top on right)

2. Put the cream in a rice bowl

3. Cut another layer of the cake to make the lid. (picture 3rd from top on right)

4. move it over to a large plate

 

 

 

 

5. Make ears with the last layer, using a heart shaped cookie cutter

6.Put the ears with toothpicks or fried pasta.

7. puree the tofu and maple syrup with FP and strain. Or whisk heavy whipping cream.

8. mix with pumpkin

9. just decorate the cake! (nose part is just creme)

10. make eyes and eyebrows with chocolate:)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

Cheese pumpkin hamburger with ghost mashed potato

Had a great Halloween dinner with my bf last weekend!
I moved to SF from LA recently..so now we are doing a long distance thing.
It's much harder than I thought, but he is trying his best to make this work.
So thanks to him, I think we've gotten much close than before:)

Here is a dinner idea for happy Halloween!
To make a cheese pumpkin burger, cut cheddar cheese into pumpkin shape and make eyes and a mouth by using a knife.
Use seaweed to make eyes and a mouth for a ghost.
How easy it is to make a dinner cuter!

Want to have a healthy Halloween?
Here is the hamburger recipe made with TOFU!!

1lb  ground meat
1pk(about 300g)  silken tofu
1cup Japanese Panko
1/2  onion
1  egg
1/2p  consomme cube
1/4tsp nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste

Place tofu into a blender and make it smooth.
Add panko and let it absorb the water of tofu (about 5mins)
Add meat, egg, nutmeg, salt and pepper and mix well by hand.
Add minced onion and minced consomme cube.
Form into 4-6 patties.
Cook on the preheated skillet over high heat until nice brown. (both side)
Add 1/2 cup of water and place a lid. Steam over medium heat until you don't see water.