Little chick and wooden bridge...

Back to work means bento lunches!! Here's last week's creations :)

A little happy chick...

...and a happy bunch walking across a river, having lots of fun!

When I opened the bento (prepared by my other half :)), I thought
the animals looked like they were sitting on a log, sailing down a river...

Then I was told they were in fact crossing on a bridge :).
It's nice, too!

Thank you again for preparing these lovely bento for me :)

A little word to Origa-me

This is just a little post to say how much I like this blog:
 http://origa-me-origa-meoriga-me.blogspot.com/
The author is a very creative lady who draws beautiful etegami ("picture postcards").

Unfortunatelty I can never manage to add a comment to any of her posts (because of cookie problems...), which has become sooo frustrating that I have decided to write a post especially about what I liked in her recent artwork!

-I loved her ballerina etegami, and as a former ballerina I must say it was very very graceful like any ballerina aspires to be :)!

art by origa-me origa-me

I also loved her gardening scissors etegami, which reminded me of the beautiful film "Edward Scissorhands"! Check it out :)

art by origa-me origa-me

Finally I want to say something about her grapes etegami, which is very colourful (I love the leaves!). I also absolutely love the little red stamp-like symbol (there must be a proper name..) :)

Art by origa-me origa-me

So congratulations origa-me for drawing these beautiful and graceful pictures. I enjoy them regularly even if I can't write it on your blog...

Beach bento

Holidays and summer are approaching so I thought I would make a beach-themed bento. I have other ideas of summer scenes that I will try to make this year!

Quinoa, rice and vegan wiener!

Octopus, crab and fish wiener, first attempt!

I found vegan wiener and tried the octopus cutting for the first time! It didn't go perfectly well but I'm sure I'll get better with a little bit of practice :)

Cooking the rice with the blue food coloring. 

Cooking the quinoa with turmeric and curry powders

The rice can be shaped with a spoon...

...to make a wavy shore!

I found vegan wiener on-line at http://www.veggiestuff.com/
(UK company; they deliver worlwide except for chilled food)

The crab cutter was a little narrow for these wiener...

I boiled the wiener in a little water to make the tentacles
more elastic and less fragile.

The technique of boiling rather than frying the wiener after cutting the tentacles worked better for me. Maybe it's because they're vegan...?

Sunflower seed for the eyes, a pumpkin seed for a sticking tongue.
And a heart pick for a cute octopus!

The rice and quinoa leftovers made a colorful dinner!

I forgot to cook a little bit of white rice to use for frothy waves
so I used vegan mayonnaise, but it looks more like clouds...

Just realized it would have looked nice with little bits of seaweed on the sand, so maybe next time...

By the way, the small bento is my lunch for today, so Itadakimaaaas!!