Valentine's Day Bentos (181 & 182)

Yesterday I went to go look at the screenshots of the new MMORPG coming out soon, Hello Kitty Online and I about died of anticipation. I realize that people in the Allakhazam community will likely look at HKO with complete revulsion and disgust, but I find myself mysteriously drawn to a world of pink and flowers and Pompompurin houses. You can make farms and grow crops and pick fruit from trees. A virtual gardener such as myself cannot stay away from such a game, especially since it's free! I used to be such a Sanrio freak as a teenager and from looking at these pictures, apparently I still am.

I woke up at 5 am this morning to cook rice and make tamagoyaki for my bento this morning and to make my first ever bento for Mr. Pikko. He usually doesn't eat lunch or just buys food, so I never bothered to make one. But... since the Kokua Festival tickets I had planned on giving are not here yet, I thought maybe a bento would be a nice, thoughful gift to give that wasn't costly.

This is Mr. Pikko's bento, which has 3 little chicken drumsticks and wings. Grandma J made a new recipe last night as a test for some function she is going to and I think these are called "Lip Smackin' Wings". To go with the chicken, I made a round onigiri dyed with red food coloring. I had initially wanted it to be all pink, but then when the coloring didn't mix too well, I thought the haphazard coloring came out really well. I cut out the two hearts from bell peppers and sprinkled black sesame seeds on to add more color.

In the middle is some sliced asparagus and then on the bottom area I have some pink tamagoyaki cut into sakura flowers. I added about 5 drops of red food coloring and then after it was cooked, rolled the egg into a circle shape with my bamboo sushi thing before putting it into the fridge to cool. I sliced it up and used my veggie cutters to get the sakura shape. Next to that I have some imitation crab and then a slice of orange. Behind the onigiri I put a little raspberry too! I was quite happy with the amount of food I was able to cram into this little box! The tradeoff was that I was pissed to find out that 4 of my romaine heart heads were frozen in my crisper drawer. GRRR!! What a waste!!


Here is my matching bento! It's basically identical except I have a grape tomato hiding behind my onigiri, one less chicken piece, and kiwi instead of orange.

We're giving the night off to the in-laws so we're leaving work early to pick up the kids and will probably take them to eat dinner at IHOP. If you're wondering why we're eating at a pancake house for dinner on Valentine's Day, it's because for a mom of two toddlers, I'm still pretty stupid about some things. Tuesday was Free Pancake Day at IHOP and so I stupidly started telling the family about this in front of the kids. Buddy's eyes glazed over and he starts waddling towards me chanting, "CUP CAKE... CUP CAKE... CUP CAKE..." Baby Girl starts in with her broken record repeating, going, "Mommy, I want paaaaaancaaaaake? x500" Yeah, big mistake. Never say any word that contains "cake" in front of toddlers unless you're ready to bust them out right then and there.

It was 9 pm, but I got us all to go there only to find it was dine-in only with a half hour wait. NO CAN DO! So this is sort of a makeup for the other night. An emergency trip to Foodland for frozen pancakes had to be made.

Anyway, Happy Valentine's Day to everyone!

Sushi Bento (118)

Today I'm breaking in a new box, my new Monokuro Boo box! This was one I bought a couple weeks ago but just haven't gotten around to using. It's a pretty small box and since I didn't have too much food to put in it, it seemed like the time was right for its debut.


I used two slices of the tamagoyaki I made yesterday and made me some tamago sushi along with a roll of ume maki to use up the last of my leftover rice. To add color I put in some sliced avocado and carrot sticks.


I forgot to sharpen the image this morning before uploading so the photo is a lil bit fuzzy. I have peeled rambutan and cigar mango in the bottom layer but didn't think it was exciting enough to photograph.

I do believe this is one of my very rare vegetarian bentos. I'll probably end up eating some Smart Pop today to help fill the meat void. I have heard about the whole popcorn lung thing, but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop eating popcorn altogether. What I have decided is that eating a bag 3-4 times a week probably isn't a good idea anymore, so I'm limiting myself to one bag per week.

I've also got to somehow get my brain back onto the points system. I've been having difficulties ever since I dropped down past 130 because I guess part of me feels that this is the lightest I've been since 1997 so I'm really still way ahead of myself. I find myself still watching my portions but I no longer pay strict attention to how many points I'm eating. Still, I've been bouncing between 125 and 128 for the last month, so I suppose I haven't been all THAT naughty with my eating habits.

Mochiko Chicken Again! (117)

When it was game time last Saturday I kind of forgot all about my poor mochiko chicken waiting patiently in the freezer, so I took pity on it this morning and nuked a piece for lunch today. It still looks rather burnt, but smelled great. Also, since I fell asleep really early with the kids last night, I woke up at 5 am. With all that time on my hands I decided to try out Harumi's tamagoyaki recipe. I may have misread the directions and added way too much mirin because it came out incredibly sweet and tastes like the kind you eat at sushi bars, which isn't a bad thing, but I'll definitely have to use the rest of it to make me some tamago sushi. Maybe tomorrow!


Miraculously, this round of tamagoyaki cooked rather nicely. I'm not sure if it's something in her recipe, but for once my egg actually looked like a roll by the second round of egg. Could be some kind of magical egg powers her book gives me. I nuked the chicken straight out of the freezer for 1:11 and it turned out just right and good for slicing. I usually microwave things at 1:11 or 2:22 or something like that because Mr. Pikko is a pro at simplicity and efficiency (ie laziness) and taught me to microwave 1/2 of a second faster than I could before! I made some Costco fried rice from leftover rice, leftover rotisserie chicken, olive oil, soy sauce, and Seto Fumi furikake. The edamame as I've mentioned, is the pre-cooked, frozen kind from Costco so I just defrost some in water and it's ready. Baby Girl helped me to string the yellow pick and she was so proud to have helped me make my bento! I added the carrot flowers and parsley for color and garnish.

Square Enix just recently announced the release date for their new expansion Wings of the Goddess and it will ship November 20th, just a few days after the Fan Festival. Content will be released on Thanksgiving Day. AUUUGH. Maybe they thought everyone would be at home and would be happy to play right after they stuff themselves silly, but last year we ended up trying Black Friday shopping. I can't play Wings of the Goddess if I'm camped out at Toys R Us and Office Depot!! *sad*

Hawaii vs. Northern Colorado (103)

Our first football game went reasonably well, I was able to watch at least half of the game successfully, though the kids were a bit alarmed at the noise. Apparently sitting in the staff section means you get put right by the Manoa Maniacs and student section. This means all the crazies go walking up and down the stairs past us. You know, all the guys with painted bodies that make psycho faces for tv down at the bottom. Anyway, the seats are thankfully decent and I lost about a pound carrying one of the kids from Radford to the stadium.

My in laws couldn't make the game so I ended up going with just spam musubi, fishcake, egg, and hotdogs. Even this ended up being too much and sadly, no one ate the tamagoyaki but me. Mr. Pikko says it's cause the egg is a bit gross to eat by hand. The kids didn't like it either for some odd reason. Anyway, I ate maybe half of it myself. I was able to snugly fit in all but one half of my spam musubis into my black and gold lacquer box.


The egg and hotdog I packed into Baby Girl's Hello Kitty box. I added foil so that the soy sauce wouldn't leak into the egg part. The egg gave me a bit of trouble while cooking but seemed to fold much better than last time.


I didn't really care for how the hotdog came out. It's Redondo's Hawaiian Winners and I guess they're best left for bbqs and what not. Maybe we'll use them today as we may have a little pool party for Labor Day.


This is a picture of the top cover of the box I mentioned. I really like this one and I got it at a really good price at Marukai. It's a 3 tier box and the same one that I used for my 100 bento, but I still don't know how big it is. I had thought it was 500 due to the label that was on it, but now that I think about it, it can't be that small.

I have a picture of Colt throwing his first touchdown pass of the season but unfortunately he's so blurry you can't tell his number. You can see the football mid-air though! We won the game 63-6. And now I will take the time to talk about bachi. Anyone who grew up in Hawaii knows what bachi means, which is basically karma coming back to bite you in the ass. Michigan got their bachi by losing to Appalachian State. Those turds got lawyers and threw a hissy fit to get out of their game with us, getting the ball rolling for us to have the crappiest football schedule ever.

We have two away games coming up next so I have a couple weeks to plan what other kinds of food I want to bring. I don't want to end up bringing the same old things over and over and there is no way I'm going to buy food at the stadium this year. It's not like you're supporting the school by buying food and who the hell wants to pay $3.75 for one slice of Papa John's or $4.00 for a regular soda?

Oven Baked Chicken

Just in case the media on the mainland has failed to report that Flossie is now a Wussie, I live on Oahu and am fine. I did not even feel the earthquake. Heck, I didn't even know there was one! It was gusty yesterday morning but it had died down quite a bit by the time I left work. Still, I am very happy we dodged a bullet. How demeaning would it have been to get owned by someone named Flossie??

Yesterday my MIL made us oven baked chicken and it tasted oh so greasy and oh so good! I took a piece along with some white/brown rice and topped it with some kewpie mayo. After I oozed it on I kinda regretted it because I didn't do so well on the design of it. Maybe next time I'll draw a flower. Next to the chicken are two tomato slices and the last two pieces of tamagoyaki.


On my bottom layer I have some hastily pickled cucumbers (chopped and tossed with salt), carrot flowers, grape tomatoes, sliced avocado, and underneath that there is a wedge of Laughing Cow Light Swiss. I estimate this as a 4 point lunch: 1 for the rice, 1 for the cheese, 1 for the mayo, and 1 for the cornflake breading.

As promised, here is my Yeah! Bon Dance video from last Saturday!



That just kills me. Halfway through Mr. Pikko says something like, "Next up is It's Getting Hot in Here." Anyway, enjoy!

Shoyu Chicken Wings

Today I have for lunch the shoyu chicken wings that I forgot to take home the other day. I've only got 1 wing and 1 half piece of something else, I'm not sure what, but obviously I took it so that the point count wasn't so high. If my memory serves me correct, these things are like 3 points each so although my lunch looks quite healthy, I estimate it at a hefty 5.5 points. Sad, because that means that today will probably be another maintenance day and not a 5 point diet day. Unless I can restrain myself properly at dinnertime that is!


On the left side I have two slices of tamagoyaki (it's actually dashimaki tamago), the chicken, some sliced avocado, and two small onigiri (1 point). On the right side is my salad which is made out of romaine lettuce, grape tomatoes, celery, edamame, cucumbers, and carrot flowers. In the Hello Kitty bowl is some Kraft Free Ranch. Everything is Core except the chicken and rice.

Today was day 8 of preschool for Baby Girl and I am one proud mama to announce that it was the first day she did not cry when we dropped her off. She smiled and went to the attendant and then happily waved to us goodbye. *sniff* *tear* Such a good girl.

We leave for Kona tomorrow and I'm pretty excited about seeing my family again, especially since one of my cousins has never met Buddy before! It'll be our first official family vacation, woot!

Tamagoyaki Attempt #3

Last night my mommy in law made her shoyu chicken wings, which are really good, but really high in points. The taste outweighed my points conservation though, so I packed 2 of them to eat for today's lunch. That would have been awesome except I forgot it on her kitchen counter! Very typical of me.

So anyway, I had to come up with something from scratch again, which I seem to be doing rather often. Unfortunately I am nowhere near as fast as the Queen of Speed bentos over at Lunch in a Box. In fact, considering the time it takes me to do these, I'm the polar opposite. I don't consider that a good thing. Okay, so I decided to try some tamagoyaki again with my expensive ass tamagoyaki pan from the local Japanese ripoff store, Shirokiya. I'd seen a cool video on YouTube and that woman's recipe included potato starch to make it roll nicer. Well, I forgot to buy potato starch last time I was at the market, so I ended up trying Biggie's recipe. She's got a super awesome tutorial here.

I read that and thought, well hey now, that's precisely what I needed, a "Tamagoyaki for Dummies" page with pictures. My first attempt came out ok, I'd done it in a frying pan and it tasted good. My second attempt was frustrating because I wasn't aware of the oiling I was supposed to do with a regular pan. I was hoping my third would land me with a standard recipe I'd use all the time. So I started things going and went out to pick (at 11 pm) green onions from my little potted stalks. (I'm running out!!)

I've mentioned before that I'm cursed when it comes to cooking eggs. This time was no exception. I followed the tutorial exactly and was getting so upset because the darned eggs were so soft and jelly like that every time I folded it over, it would simply crack and I had 3 layers of egg instead of a rolled egg. It took me a good 40 minutes to finally cook the stupid thing and shockingly, AMAZINGLY, it came out fine. Seriously, what a lot of stress. At least now I know that no matter how much I screw it up, it'll turn out okay as long as I can make it though the entire omelette without chucking it in a furious rage.


I put in more of the leftover brown fried rice. Although it has taste and the chicken is good, the ham stars I had them with previously were really good so this time I added ham flowers with a little cheese center cut out with a straw. In the middle is some microwaved pipi kaula. On the right side is half a boiled egg (though I forgot to pack soy sauce) and two wedges of above-mentioned tamagoyaki. On the left side I put some veggies: three cucumber slices, some carrot chopped into little triangles, and a grape tomato.

My cousin informed me yesterday that when I get to Kona, something totally frakin' amazing will be waiting for me: FOOD FROM Y'S LUNCH SHOP. OMG OMG OMG! To give some background, my parents used to run the family floral shop in downtown Hilo and it was right next door to this holy shrine of good food called Y's Lunch Shop. Whenever I go home and I want okazuya, my mom will take me to Hilo Lunch Shop or something across from the tennis stadium and I'm sorry, but it's just not the same. My old time favorites from Y's:

- Spam musubi!!
- Fried fish!!
- Fishcake (thin little circles, lol)
- Fried chicken!! (to die for, no joke)
- Egg (I used to just call it "egg", obviously I now know it's "tamagoyaki")
- the tiny potato fritters!! (10 cents each back then)
- Okinawan Donut (or as my husband will curtly correct me, "It's called andagi.")

Once in a blue moon Mrs. Miyamoto would cook this pork tofu dish. Broke da mouth just thinking about it. I was lucky enough to eat the food when she was still cooking it, but the recipes are still the same so the only thing that would be missing is the love that she obviously put into her dishes. Needless to say, my mouth is watering over it already. I haven't eaten there in at least 8-10 years or something crazy like that. The only problem with Y's was that they were only open whenever they felt like opening. I remember all too well the many times I ran out the front door of the florist and was greeted with their door, closed. It's probably better now, but since my aunty always refers to "calling Y's to see if they open" I'm guessing not much has changed schedule wise. Hahaha!

Meatball w/ tamagoyaki

My photos today came out terrible. -_- I don't know why but my camera just would not focus properly and I was in a frantic rush because once again I did not make my bento last night like I should have. My aunty commented yesterday that my portions looked huge in some pics and though these bento boxes are actually quite small, she was right about the fried rice portion. I'd had no idea I packed so much in that one box! I ended up only eating half of it and took the rest home for today's bento. I chose my new banana putifresh box and the veggies in the rice had taken on a rather drab color, so I added some carrot flowers.


See what I mean about the picture? I can't stand it!! Grr. Must read camera manual... if I can find it. Feba commented that I should get a lighting box, what is that?? Anyway, here is the other layer:


The tamagoyaki is actually why I was so late. Now I know to cook all my bentos the night before! It's just too stressful in the morning right now!! It was a little rough making the egg because I'd only done it once before and I hadn't done it with my tamagoyaki pan before. (rectangle shape) There are 1.99 pans at Marukai, but the pan I have looks of much higher quality and cost me $25.00 at Shirokiya. The egg wasn't folding too well, but it could be due to using egg substitute rather than real eggs. But my eggs were expired, so I had no choice. The meatballs are actually a teri hamburger patty from MIL's dinner last night cut into small pieces. I stuck in some of my Hello Kitty food picks, which cost me the equivalent of an arm and a leg at Sanrio. >.< I added in a chick soy sauce bottle for the fried rice and another carrot flower for color. Notice the yellow sushi grass? I love it! ^_^

This was only one patty and so I'm counting it as 1 point due to the mostly core ingredients. The only thing in it of concern is the whole wheat bread and though the amount is really small, I feel kinda weird calling it Core, thus the point. The tamagoyaki had 2 tsp of sugar in it, but since 2 tsp of sugar counts as .5 points and I only packed 1/4 of the egg that I cooked, I'm not going to count any points for it.