Edible Flower Crown Bento

Purchased edible flower mix at Seedgeeks a while back.
http://www.seedgeeks.com/store/flowers/edible-flowers/edible-flower-mix/

Planted in spring and it has been blooming non stop lately!
It's really beautiful and inspired me to make this bento. (Curry and Rice)

I wrap with them with wet paper towel, place in a ziplock container and store them in fridge.
It lasted about a week!

More bento idea with edible flowers to come:)

Santa Claus Rice Ball Bento Box

Have you seen these tiny red babies called "Sweety Drops"?
Whole Foods Market sells this cutie at their olive bar.
I don't know what this really is, but they look like micro cherry tomatoes.
I've seen some bento with micro tomatoes before and wanted to try them ever since.
I was so happy when I found this sweety drops at Whole Foods!
Especially Christmas season, these are very useful;
Use 2 pieces and make a ribbon-> See my GINGERBREAD TOFU MEN BENTO
Use as ornaments -> SNOWMAN RICE BALLS BENTO
And like today's post, it can be used as a red nose!!
You could use a cherry tomato too, but I think their sweet and sour taste goes better with rice.

Here is simple steps to make this Santa Claus rice ball.

1. Just place a rice ball in a bento box. (Short grain brown rice)

2. Make white suhi rice into beard, fur trim and a pompom shape in plastic wrap.
Just place on the brown rice ball in the bento box.
Hat: Red pepper
Nose: Sweety drop

Gingerbread Tofu Man Christmas Bento

Made a batch of gingerbread tofu men last night.
Just drained/pressed tofu and cut out with a gingerbread cookie cutter.
Marinated them in bbq sauce and just baked.

Xmas wreath is made with broccoli.
Ornaments are little rice crackers that I introduced on my last post.

I know these gingerbread tofu men will appear on a lot of my bento this man :)

Healthy Christmas Bento with Radish Santa

Made a Christmas bento with leftover mashed sweet potato from thanksgiving!
I roasted a turkey for the first time in my life last week.
It came out really good, but the bird was a little too big for two of us.
We've been eating turkey for about 5 days in a row...

Now time to go back to a healthy eating life.
Today's bento is vegan: tofu and shiitake mushroom dumplings, pickled purple cabbage, rice ball with carrot top furikake inside.
I made xmas tree with a Japanese oba leaf. Ornaments are Japanese rice crackers. I used vegan mayonnaise as glue.
Went to visit my family in Japan early this month and purchased a lot of bento items including this cute colorful rice crackers (bubu arare). They are naturally colored too!

For the santa, I carved radish and added vegan cheese beard. (I love CHAO cheese!)

I added a piece of red rice cracker  to create his nose.

Halloween Curry Bento

Curry for bento! again...
Yes, I made too much curry......

I cut a piece of nori seaweed and cut a ghost shape with a scissors.
Then wrapped a rice ball with the seaweed.

The skeleton is just a round rice ball....
If you have some seaweed puncher, you can make this cute bento really easy and quick!
Otherwise it might take some time to cut out the face parts.

For the Jack O Lantern, I just cooked carrots in a microwave and carved by hands.

Have a happy Halloween!!!!

Pumpkin Curry Bento for Halloween ~Vegan~

Japanese curry is one of my hubby's favorite food.
I make from scratch instead of using store-bought curry roux.

I didn't want to stain my white container into yellow so layered with rice and put curry in the middle.
Made a hole in the middle so that the curry stays in the middle.

The ghost in the picture is vegan chao cheese.
It tastes really good and I really like it:)

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.

Avocado Sesame Cookies

Got a bag of 10 organic avocados for only $3 at a farmers market!
I was searching for avocado recipes and found this one...Avocado Cookies!
Avocado is known as butter fruit... so I thought why not try this...I know it sounds bad, but it turned out good:) My co-workers loved it!

I basically followed the recipe from Chewy & Gooey Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies, but I skipped chocolate chips and replaced Earth Balance with Sesame paste(Tahini) to add a Japanese twist to it;)

Avocado Sesame Cookies

1 3/4 c whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
3 tbsp tahini
1/4 - 1/3 c mashed avocado (no chunks)
3/4 c brown sugar
3 tbsp agave
2 tsp vanilla

-Combine the first 4 ingredients in a bowl
-In a separate bowl combine the tahini and avocado to make a smooth buttery mixture, then add the sugars and vanilla to combine until the ingredients are well incorporated
-Add the dry ingredients and mix well, then refrigerate the cookie dough overnight

Preheat the oven to 350º F

-Scoop the cookie dough and place evenly on a baking sheet, flattening them slightly with your hand
-Bake for 10-15 minutes (more or less) depending on your desired consistency - if you bake them too long, they only stay chewy for a bit before becoming crunchy

Japanese Sweet Potato French Toast

2cups Orange juice
1 Japanese sweet potato
Sugar
Cinnamon
Breads

Blend orange juice, sweet potato, cinnamon in blender and pour mixture into a wide dish. Dip bread slices into the mix, coating both sides. Sprinkle sugar and cinnamon and fry in medium-hot skillet until golden brown. Serve with maple syrup.

Raw Pecan Crusted Cashew Creme Tart

Made with only nuts and dried fruit. Very natural, simple but yummy tart!
Recipe adapted from Whole Living.

Quick Apple Pie

Who says you need nice pie crust to make yummy apple pie?? Not me!
All you need is the filling and....GYOZA SKIN!
You can make it with your frying pan. Can't be easier!


For the filling (for about 10 pies)
1 apple
1/4cup sugar
1TBS lemon juice
Cinnamon

Cut apple into small pieces.
Mix all the ingredients and stir over low heat until the sugar is dissolved.
Bring it to a boil.
Let it cool.

For the pie
The apple filling
20 gyoza skins
Almond oil

Place the filling on the gyoza skin. (double wrap)
Roll it up.
Fry with almond oil.

Vegan cupcake with Cashew frosting

I found a post about the vegan frosting made from cashews on a food blog, Roost and it sounded very interesting! What a clever idea.
I gave it a try and it turned out very good. It's a good alternative to buttercreme.
I followed the recipe below, but replaced coconut oil with Tahini.

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The cashew cream (The recipe from Roost)

2 cups raw cashews, soaked for 3 hours, drained and rinsed
juice from 3 lemons
4 dates, pits removed
1 TBS coconut oil (this does not need to be warmed just scoop it right out of the jar)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt
orange juice

Place all ingredients in a high speed blender (a rinky dink blender will not do the trick!) and blend until you have a very smooth consistency. Add more OJ if you need to thin it out.

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Since the frosting is vegan, I wanted to make some kind of vegan cupcakes.
I was browsing around for it and found this interesting cupcake recipe on a Japanese website!
This recipe requires no egg, no milk(even soy milk)........ but the chemical reaction of baking soda and vinegar to increase the volume!!
I've used this reaction for cleaning......
When those two are combined, it starts bubbling up and breaks down stains.
Well you might say "Seriously? Vinegar for cupcakes?".
But trust me! It doesn't taste vinegar at all.
I changed some ingredients of the original recipe to make it healthier.

Vegan cupcakes

100g Whole what flour
3TBS Cocoa powder
3TBS Brown sugar
1.5tsp Baking Powder
1/2tsp Baking Soda
2TBS Oil
110cc Water
2.5TBS Vinegar

Preheat oven to 350F.
Combine dry ingredients.
Add wet ingredients except vinegar and mix well.
Add vinegar and mix quickly.
Bake for about 25mins.

*Don't try to make many at a time.. You might not be able to get the volume you want.
The softest cupcake I've ever had! Enjoy:)

Japanese Caprese Salad

Put a new spin on a traditional caprese!
Try this Japanese caprese salad, substituting tofu for mozzarella and shiso leaves for basil.
I LOVE the smell and flavor of shiso. So exotic.

For the salad
1pack tofu
1/2tsp salt
2-3 tomatoes
10ish shiso leaves

The most important thing it to drain tofu very well.
1.Sprinkle salt on tofu.
2.Wrap the tofu with a few paper towel.
3.Press with something heavy for more than 3 hours.
*I always use the pickles pressure to drain tofu. Very easy and works very well.
Cut the drained tofu and add between tomato and shiso leaves.


For the shoyu dressing
1tbs shoyu
1/2tbs sesame oil
1tbs vinegar
1/2tbs sugar

In a small bowl, mix all the ingredients.

Sake Cheese Pizza (Non Daily)

Sake lees taste and smell like cheese when mixed with oil and salt.
That's because sake lees are the fermented food like cheese.
I wrote about sake lees before but it's quite nutritious!
It's a good substitute for cheese.

Another sake lees recipe↓
http://taste-of-japan.blogspot.com/2011/01/sake-white-sauce-seafood-gratin.html

Sake cheese creme

Tofu 1/2pack
Sake lees 1tbs
Salt 1/3tsp
Plum vinegar 2tsp
Thini 2tsp
Basil paste 1tsp

Mix all together with a blender.
Use as a substitute for cheese.

Sake white sauce seafood gratin

I've seen a lot of Sake lees recipes on a Japanese cooking website, cookpad lately.
I found out why by reading this article about sake lees in Japan Times.
A popular Japanese science TV program introduced the health benefit of sake lees.

So I bought a bag of sake lees at a Japanese grocery store to try some of them.
Sake lees are the leftover from sake production and quite nutritious!
The most popular dish using sake lees is "kasuzuke" which is made by pickling fish in the lees. But today, I made sake white sauce for the gratin.

Sake white sauce

2tsp sake lees
1cup soy milk
1tbs miso
1tbs tahini
1tbs soy source
1tbs vinegar

Put the sake lees in a pot with soy milk and stir while heating over a medium low heat until the lees melt. Add the other ingredients and use as white source for gratin.

Tofu Nama Chocolate (ganache)

In Japan, women give chocolate to men on Valentine's day.
This article is about Valentine's day in Japan!
http://japanese.about.com/od/japanesecultur1/a/Valentines-Day-In-Japan.htm

Nama chocolate is one of the most popular valentine's chocolate.
Nama means raw in Japan, but it's not raw food. In this case, nama means "melt in your mouth".

I used tofu instead of creme so it's much healthier than regular nama chocolate!


150g chocolate
100g silken tofu
cocoa powder

1.Drain tofu between paper towels with a heavy weight on top for about 1 hour.
2.Add to a blender and blend for about 3mins
3.Melt the chocolate in a double boiler over hot water.
4.Add the tofu using a mesh sieve.
5.Line a container with plastic wrap and pour the chocolate. Refrigerate well.
6.Cut and dust with cocoa powder.

Non Daily Pumpkin Puddings

For caramel source
2tbs sugar
3.5tbs water

1.Place the sugar and water in a souecepan.(dont't stir now)
2.Bring it to a boil and then swirl. Shift this caramel souece into puddings cups and cool it down in a fridge.

For puddings
2tsp agar
1/4 pumpkin
2cups soymilk
1/2cup agave

1.Place pumpkin chunks into water and bring it to a boil.Cook until tender.
2.Remove the pieces and let cool.
3.Push pumokin through a mesh sieve.
4.Add the other ingridients and mix together.
5.Shift 4 into a bowl and bring it to a boil.
6.Place into the pudding cups.

Sesame cookies

Here is my favorite sesame soft cookies' recipes.

★2tbs canola oil
★2tbs tahini
★3tbs apple source
★1/2tsp vanilla extract
☆3tbs beet sugar
☆1/2cup brown rice flour
☆1/2cup whole wheat flour
☆1/4cup oatmeal
☆1/2tsp baking powder
☆1/3tsp salt
☆dry fruits

Preheat oven to 320F.
Shift ☆　into a mixing bowl. Stir the mixture to blend evenly.
Place ★ into the mixing bowl.
Bake in a preheated oven for about 20 mins.

My favorite pickles

Best pickles ever! My friends love this recipe too.

1cup vinegar
1cup water
6tablespoons sugar
2teaspoons salt
2 red peppers
1 baby leaf
3 cloves
2 peppercorns
1 garlic clove

Remove seeds from red peppers and mix all the ingredients in a pot. Bring it to boil. Cool it down and then pour in a jar. Put your favorite vegetables in it.

Sweet Potato & Rice Potage

Rice makes soup thicker so you don't need to use creme, which makes the soup healthier.

1 large sweet potato
2 tablespoon rice
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 baby leaf
2 cup vegetable stock
1/2 cup soy milk
1 tablespoon sugar

1. Heat olive oil in a soup pot over medium heat and add the peeled and cut sweet potato. Cook until tender.
2. Add the rice, water, baby leaf and sugar. Bring to a boil until rice is tender.
3. Blend the soup with a blender and return to the pot.
4. Add soy milk and bring to a boil.
5. Add salt and pepper to taste.