Sandwich Kit (151)

I wasn't going to make a bento this morning either because my two devils were giving me complete hell for refusing to give them Goldfish crackers for breakfast. Surround sound screaming with PMS on the side makes me go insane, but then I had a sudden inspiration for a bento and I found that making it really calmed me down.

I call this a sandwich kit, mostly because making it into a sandwich beforehand would have looked rather boring. I cut one slice of bread into two Christmas trees using a cookie cutter then arranged it on top of some chopped Romaine lettuce. To go into the sandwich I have the last of my kim chee crab and some sliced avocado. I added in some black olives and the last of my tomatoes (which I picked this morning) for snacking and to make it look more attractive.

I wish I had more to blog, but I'm still so busy I can't even think! I have to get a lot of stuff done to transition to my new job. Plus I am totally stressing about this weekend's game. GO BOWS!!!

The Peas May Be Doffed

Mr. Pikko and I have come to the conclusion that our daughter is either going to win American Idol 25 or be the next Tori Amos with crazy lyrics that appear like they were read from a finished Scrabble game. After writing such lyrical masterpieces as "Cheese in the Box Doesn't Make No Sense" and "There's a Big Fat Hen", she's come up with something new which she debuted to us last night.

At least 200 times.

On the way home we were treated to her new song "The Peas May Be Doffed", which is a stunning remix of that wonderful Christmas song a couple of you might know, Felis Navidad.

I was putting Buddy to sleep and I could still hear her yelling it in Mr. Pikko's ear as he tried to read something on the computer.

THE PEAS MAY BE DOFFED, I WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
THE PEAS MAY BE DOFFED, I WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
THE PEAS MAY BE DOFFED, I WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
THE PEAS MAY BE DOFFED, I WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
THE PEAS MAY BE DOFFED, I WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
THE PEAS MAY BE DOFFED, I WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
THE PEAS MAY BE DOFFED, I WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
THE PEAS MAY BE DOFFED, I WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
THE PEAS MAY BE DOFFED, I WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

To answer your question, people-without-kids, yes they do this. And sometimes they don't stop until you look at them with fire in your eyes and ask them to please cease for the sake of your sanity. If you're lucky, they're scared enough to listen.

If you want to know how to sing with as much awesome as my daughter, when you sing Jingle Bells, end the song with "In a fun four-horned fin play!" The office people will love it, I swear.

I have no bento today since today is radio show day and I was lazy last night, still working on my 10k ding. I figured this story would be an amusing enough replacement.

Shoyu Chicken (150)

Sorry for the late posting, I've hit 9,999 posts on Allakhazam and I've been busy prepping what I'm revealing for my 10k ding. Today I had a three tier bento but don't let the pictures deceive you, this box is actually really small, maybe 5 inches long or less. It was a plain box that I got at Marukai this summer during E3 and I added a sticker to make it a little cuter.

This is shoyu chicken made by my MIL with some white rice decorated with mixed veggies. If you're thinking to yourself, "Geez I wonder if she placed those vegetables into her bento one by one", the answer is yes I did. I used chopsticks. In Allakhazam IRC yesterday we were all laughing at this guy who doesn't know how to use chopsticks. All in good fun, but I just wanted to mention how awesome chopsticks are. I even eat spaghetti with chopsticks; a habit I picked up from my friend Janis.

I packed more kim chee crab and avocado without lettuce. I found after forgetting the veggies that it's actually not too bad without it, especially if I don't have room in the box. I bought the avocado at Foodland on Sunday and I'm very proud to say that I chose perfectly. The next morning when I cut it open it was beautiful and the best possible texture for slicing. It looks exactly the same as yesterdays just with no tomatoes.

My tomato garden died while I was in Anaheim. Mr. Pikko claims, "Hey! I watered them!" but I have my doubts. The plants are all brown and I think they're unrecoverable. Not too bad though, I must have gotten like 200 tomatoes out of those plants and now I have the pot space to grow edamame!! Weeeee!

Finally I had pomegranate seeds for dessert. Actually I lied, I had some godly pumpkin pie for dessert. George at work brought by some pieces of this pumpkin pie that his wife made and holy omg it was divine. I asked for the recipe and hopefully I'll have that in my grubby little pumpkin pie loving hands soon. Yum yum!

Pork Tofu

As any Hawaii resident knows by now, the University of Hawaii Warriors are the WAC (Western Athletic Conference) Champions!!!! The game against Boise was last Friday and it overtook the Fresno State game I attended years ago as the most adrenaline pumped game I've ever attended at Aloha Stadium. There was a point during the game when the stands were just electric and the shouts and screams were deafening. It was truly magical to be there. This picture will be too big for my blog, but I wanted to put it up anyway:



We started chanting B-C-S and that gave me chicken skin! I feel so good for Colt and so happy that he came back. The season was looking kinda bleak with the injuries and all but now it just seems like this was all he could have hoped for. Baby Girl got into it too. I'd hoist her up and her job was to scream and wave the shredded ti-leaves we had. I can't wait for this week's game. GO BOWS!!!!

Last night I had to make something that I thought Buddy would gobble up because he's sick and hasn't been eating much so I made pork tofu. It was a lil lacking in taste so I think next time I'll use Kikkoman instead of Aloha. I'm also out of onion powder so I need more of that... It's the only way I can sneak the taste of onions into food because Mr. Pikko has the Ultra Onion Detector 3000 built into his tongue.


It looked real plain, so I picked some of my last green onions and cut them up with my scissors. When we had severe rains a couple weeks ago I looked out at my plants to see my poor green onions floating in a pot of water. They're still alive though, miraculously.


A KCCA salad, yay. This was all nice and good until I realized that I forgot to pack LETTUCE. hahahaha! So I guess I'm having this as sides instead of a salad. Good job, me!

Pork Chop!

YaY! Bentos are back! Well, only one for this week like I mentioned, but hey. Better than nothing!

My trip was ten kinds of awesome. I got to meet hundreds of people, signed 3 autographs, took pictures with Square Enix big wigs, and got to watch the UH vs. Nevada football game at the ESPN Zone restaurant in Downtown Disney with some random guy who JUST so happened to be from Mililani. He was even on the same plane ride home as me. Hawaii: too small! I don't know what his name was, but I thank him for being there. Watching those last two kicks wouldn't have been nearly as fun if he hadn't been there pacing around and jumping and screaming with me!


Today I'm having leftover pork chop with cabbage and rice. On the side I have a salad with some fancy pants greens that my MIL says she bought at Sam's Club. They're really yummy!! In the little blue container I have some Catalina Free dressing.

Tomorrow of course, is Thanksgiving. I'm going to try out a recipe for potato salad from the Harumi Kurihara book that I got. We're ordering from Zippy's this year, so I'll let all you Hawaii folks know how that turns out. Last year we ate from The Willows and not sure if I'm remembering right, but I didn't like their sides at all. I don't remember the turkey. That must be bad right? lol

Friday is Black Friday and although I was going to skip it for Wings of the Goddess, the PC version of the game got messed up and won't be here until tomorrow or Friday. I'm going to try my luck at CompUSA tomorrow night. If not, I will brave the BF crowds at Gamestop. I have no idea how their stores are on BF, but I guess I'll learn won't I??

A Quick Hello!

Hi bento fans!!

I'm just writing a quick note to say that I'm back home safe and sound, but haven't had the time to get back into the bento groove yet due to how much work I have left to do. My trip was awesome, I had a great time! If you want to check out my pictures you can do so here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pikkopots/sets/72157603237330925/

I may or may not have a bento tomorrow, but I have the day off Friday for football, so I'll have at the most only one bento this week. Yesterday I called in sick due to exhaustion and today I just didn't have time to do one. Check back soon!

UH Spam Musubis

Since I had no bento today due to the holiday, I'll be posting about my food for Saturday's football game. The Warriors played Fresno State and the stadium was almost sold out due to UH having a "rivalry" with FSU. The game was going really good until the second half when they changed their strategy. Then in the 4th quarter, Colt Brennan was knocked unconscious, which scared 48k people silly for quite some time. We're all still very concerned as preliminary reports had him with a "grade 3 concussion", which everyone was googling and returning back with phrases like "out for 6-8 weeks" and "career over" and "possible permanent brain damage". Colt's concussion has been downgraded to a "mild" concussion, but all UH fans are of course still concerned for his safety. I really do hope that he's as well as the University and Coach Jones say he is.

Me and my MIL got drenched in beer, so that was... interesting.

Okay so onto the food... this is the "something" that I've been mentioning for weeks that I have been trying out for football and finally I ended up giving up on what I'd originally planned, which was green musubis with the Hawaii H logo cut out of nori and put onto a plain triangle musubi. I found out that plain musubis don't taste that great at games. So anyway, this time I just went for the green look in a spam musubi!


I achieved this with simple food coloring added to the rice before cooking. You guys have seen my coloring rice in my 100 bento, but that time I had added the coloring to the rice after it was cooked. I made 10 musubis from 1 can and cooked 3 cups of rice (3 cups raw, 6 cups cooked) with 5 drops of green food coloring. This comes out to the perfect amount of rice for 10 musubis. (at least, the way I make it)

We went to the zoo today and I was wiped out and ready to leave by the time we hit the reptile house. Unfortunately for me we ended up staying there 3 hours. Still, it was fun. I'm packing up the remaining bento orders tonight plus burning the midnight oil finishing some hats for the ZAM people to wear at the festival. I leave in two days!!

Ige's Shoyu Pork (147)

I had another training session this morning and during that I found my first ever white hair!!! Proof that Fan Fest, The Mog House, and bento store orders are totally stressing me out!! lol I'm actually a little excited about it because I could only find one, so I'm going to call it my lucky hair now.


Last night my in-laws bought food from Ige's, something that Mr. Pikko has been wanting to try for forever because Bobby Curran on ESPN advertises their shoyu pork all the time. The taste is really good, but the food wasn't that hot when we got there, so it was a little on the hard side. I'm sure if you eat it at the restaurant it's much softer. To go with it I made two little animal onigiris, one rabbit and one bear. On the side are fresh tomatoes from my plants outside.

For my bottom layer I have persimmon and some jabon along with a tangerine to snack on later. Actually I should speak in past tense because I've already eaten all of these things as I type this. In addition to the training I had another job interview and guess what.

Mrs. Pikko has a brand spanking new job offer!!! :D I got along fabulously with the boss lady and she offered me the position right there. I of course had to discuss things with Mr. Pikko so I will let her know by Tuesday. YaY! I'm so happy because it looks like a really fun place to work with great people and lots to do. Family friendly, flexible schedule, and of course most importantly, a boss who LOVES UH football just as much as I do. LOL!

Gawd that stress off my shoulders is an immense relief. -_- Now I can buckle down, get this festival and expansion past me, and life can finally get back to normal.

Shoyu Chicken (146)

Sorry for the late post folks! My computer at home is out of commission to help repair our poor sick Series 3 TiVo and then this morning I had training to do for work. This is actually a bento that Mr. Pikko packed for me last night!!! OMG OMG OMG! lol

Of course, I had to do some cosmetic rearranging because the corn was sprawled all over the rice and I ate a little bit of it for dinner and all and he put the cover on upside down and stacked the lower tier on top, but overall the food was very nicely packed. What a guy!

Our FFXI radio show debut last night was riddled with audio issues but overall I was happy with how things went. We had a few weird silences here and there but I still got a lot of good feedback and people seemed to enjoy the show. Next week I will only have one bento as I am taking Wednesday-Friday off for Fan Fest and Monday is a holiday.

I might end up working something out with the people that have orders open with me as I have had zero time lately to do the bento store. :(

The Mog House

No bento for me today as I had a job interview (more on that in a bit) and then have to work on learning the broadcasting program for the radio show I'm starting tonight.

So I had a job interview at 10 am at UH. Yeah, had. I'm leaving the house when I slam the door and immediately I'm like OMFG my keys are in the house. *sigh* My MIL had to come drive out here with our spare house key to help me open the house had I rescheduled for tomorrow. Not a very good first impression...

Once again, tonight we're debuting our FFXI radio show, The Mog House, on Online Gaming Radio. To tune in simply go to the website at 6 PM PST and click on Listen Live! It's recommended you also join our chat as we tend to discuss what's going on in there during the broadcast. Wish us luck!

Tonkatsu (145)

Last night as predicted, I didn't feel like making a pumpkin pie. The good news though, is that I now have ground ginger! My mother in law lent me her bottle. I'm told I have two days to use the pumpkin before it goes bad, so we'll see what happens tonight.

We had tonkatsu for dinner and I took home two pieces for Mr. Pikko, who was home sick again. He didn't eat all of the second piece so I sliced it up and took his leftover rice as well.


In the little green container (which was a gift from one of my bento customers!!) is some tonkatsu sauce. I included the three tomatoes for color. I should have added some carrots too or used the orange sauce container instead, but I was in a hurry. I peeled some sections off the cucumber before I sliced it to give it that look.


In my second layer I have some sliced persimmon on the left. On the right side is a mixture of pomegranate seeds and blueberries. A very healthy fruit layer!! :D

Tomorrow I start off hosting a gaming radio show on the net at Online Gaming Radio. Yet another reason why I've been going cuckoo lately. The show is about Final Fantasy XI and is called "The Mog House". It will air live every Wednesday from 6 to 9 PM PST. My co-hosts are two of my fellow administrators at Allakhazam, ImperialNinja and Exodus. If you're into FFXI and are bored around this time, please tune in! Shows are available later as podcasts. To listen in just go to the Online Gaming Radio website and click on "Listen Live" at the specified time.

Teriyaki Pork and Pomegranate Salad (144)

Me and Baby Girl went to Costco on Saturday before the reeeeally soggy weekend kicked off and boy did me and her go fruit crazy. We bought a huge tub of big blueberries, persimmons (which we tried in store), a set of 4 pommelos, and a tray of gigantor pomegranates. Pomegranates are one of my favorite fruits to eat and each tray had 6 mega big ones. I was scared I'd waste a couple, but I ended up eating 3 this weekend alone, hahaha!! No need to worry about fiber now!

I'd seen a recipe by Nigella Lawson where she combined pulled pork and pomegranate seeds, so I thought I'd try something similar with the leftover teriyaki pork chop from last night's dinner.


I sliced up the chop cold this morning and arranged it on top of an entire romaine heart head of lettuce. I added some of my tomatoes (which are backing up) and then sprinkled pomegranate seeds on top. It added a nice bit of color and I was pretty happy with the way it looks. I didn't pack any dressing as I don't think it'll be necessary.

It rained and rained and rained and on Saturday night it was thundering like crazy. I just so happened to peek out at my plants and saw that the rain was coming down so hard that my green onions had been uprooted and were floating around in rain water 3 inches thick. lol I'll have to make some tamagoyaki to save them from being wasted.

Being rained in, we decided to clean house, which meant I had finally run out of excuses to start folding the laundry in the crib, where we have been dumping clean clothes for the last 3 months or so. After at least an hour, I still hadn't dented it, probably because I was folding like 200 little shirts and onesies which took up very little space. I did learn that we could forget to do laundry for the kids for a month and they'd still have enough clothes to wear.

I also baked two pumpkins in order to make fresh pumpkin pie. I went to Foodland to buy some pie crusts, came home, baked the pumpkins, then realized that I did not have ground ginger. Cursing myself, I put the pumpkin pulp away where it will probably rot before I have the motivation to make it into a pie again. I had used another Allakhazam admin's blog post about roasting the pumpkin and there's this one part where she mentions that cutting the pumpkin in half is "hard". This is apparently the way Alaskan people say, "You need a freakin' AXE to get this pumpkin open." Really, I'm surprised I have all my fingers today.

Fan Fest is next. freakin'. week. After working all day Sunday on my costume, I realized that I wasn't going to have enough time to finish it. *SIGH* I have to work on something else for everyone and the briault is just not going very well, so I have to abandon it. *sob*

Chicken Tofu (143)

The highlight of my day came this morning. I was just about to lie back and fall asleep on the way in to work when Kanoa Leahey (we listen to Leahey and Leahey on Mondays and Fridays) says, "Soon we'll be joined by Dana White, president of the UFC!" and both me and Mr. Pikko were like, "WHAAAT!" lol

It was a cool interview and Mr. Pikko had me call the show people (I talked to a screener) to ask them to ask Dana White if he was ever going to bring UFC to Hawaii. They did ask, whether it was because of my call, I'll never know, but he did say that perhaps in 2009 there would be a Hawaii UFC card. But yeah, possible third hand phone call question to Dana White was pretty amusing, haha!

Yesterday was a very rainy, gloomy, and chilly day so it was really cool to be greeted with the nice smell of hot miso soup yesterday evening. My MIL's chicken tofu is a really good rainy weather comfort food and though I wanted to make more miso soup and bring it in today, I ended up deciding I didn't feel like going through the hassle of making it this morning. There was a lot left over, so I took what I thought was a really small portion, but when I put it into the box it looked like a lot of food!


I cooked rice this morning for this, meaning it will probably go to waste. I always tell myself I should freeze onigiri, but I always forget cause my brain is so muddled lately. On the left side I have cucumber slices, some kamaboko, and okinawan sweet potato.

!!!SURVIVOR SPOILERS!!!




Two weeks ago I was fuming at the tv and cussing at the pompous and cocky attitude of Jaime, who thought she was so funny and clever to be throwing a challenge to vote off one of their new tribemates that she couldn't help snickering at the thrown challenge AND could not help laughing at tribal council. I was just like, what a freakin' bean!!! I hated her!! Things started to look up last week when Todd gave the hidden immunity idol to James with a plan to get rid of Jaime. That didn't go well since they didn't win immunity, so I was let down.

BUT THEN! Oh this week was such sweet television watching. I finally got to watch that snide chick get her bachi. She has in her possession what is a "fake" immunity idol, so she plays it before the votes are read. Jeff Probst says that if she has immunity, then all votes for her do not count, then he announces that it's NOT the idol and then throws her idol into the fire. HAHAHAHAHA! And then she gets voted off! Oh my gawd. Picture me on the couch rolling, dying, crying. lol

Man I <3 Survivor.

Veggies Bento (142)

Last night's trick or treating was so much fun! We left work early to take the kids out and it was still pouring rain all the way home, but when we got to MIL's house, the rain was just drizzling here and there. We ate dinner and got the kiddos dressed. Buddy was very resistant, protesting the entire time I took off his clothes and then finally took off running in just his diaper and I had to chase him around for a bit. He had some serious issues with wearing his costume and kept crying, "Nooooo! Nooooo!" whenever I tried to put it on until finally I said, "You want puffs??" (those star shaped Gerber things) and his eyes glazed over and he said, "Puff." He let me put it on no problem! Yay, problem solved right?

Everyone is dressed and standing against the wall except him, who his looking at the camera going, "Nooooo! Nooooo!", going limp, etc. I tell him, "Please just stand by your sister!" He is fussing fussing fussing then suddenly goes, "Puff?" As soon as the word "yes" escaped my lips he stood over by them and grinned ear to ear saying, "Eez!" Not even two and a negotiator already. :(

I had nothing but fruits and vegetables to put into a bento today, so that's what I ended up with. I've got a bunch of cucumber slices, which I will sprinkle with salt before I eat, then three colors of bell peppers with some fat free Ranch dressing in the little cup. It's oh so healthy, no??


Hahaha!! Second layer: NOT! I've got some Halloween munching to do and so I picked out one of my favorites, peanut M&Ms! I figure this is a much better portion than if I were to go buy a regular sized bag from the vending machine. I've also got this lil packet of sour apples and then some sakura shaped banana slices. There's also a little hidden Laughing Cow Light Swiss wedge in there.


Today is November 1st, I leave for Fan Fest in less than two weeks! Ahhhhh!! Panic panic panic!!!