Shrimp & Avocado Salad

As I mentioned last week, we took a trip to Kona this weekend. It broke the wallet to be sure, but was definitely worth it to take a vacation and see all the family I haven't seen in forever. It probably would have been nicer if my little Buddy wasn't such a ball of terror at night, but I can't blame him for having what appeared to be a hard time sleeping in a strange place. Plus, I dragged everyone up into the boonies of Kona to go to a bon dance, so that likely didn't help, haha.

Since I wasn't home all weekend I didn't get a chance to shop for food so I ended up making a salad for today. It's just as well since I ate a whole lot of cookies and bad foods over the weekend. (we went to Mrs. Barry's Cookies) I did discover that I sure stock a whole lot of salad foods in my fridge.


On the bottom where you can't see I have finely chopped romaine lettuce, celery, and edamame. On top I have cucumber slices, radish slices, sakura shaped ham, shrimp, avocado, grape tomatoes, and sakura carrots. This is a pretty big bento box so it's a nicely sized salad and with the 3 fruits (1 plum, 1 nectarine, 1 banana) I brought along with a bag of Smart Pop popcorn, that should be more than enough to tide me over for today. All Core salad, so I'm on the right track for this week!

The bon dance we went to was at this temple called Kona Koyasan Daishinji Mission (in Holualoa, up on the mountain, basically) and it was a nice, cute bon dance. We got there when they were taking a break for dinner, which oddly appeared to be free for all attendees. Mr. Pikko says he saw some lamers leaving with plates of food. We had just eaten so we didn't take anything. Their towels were free though, so I took two of those as I like to sort of collect those. They had a small yagura tower and the drummers were at the foot of it rather than inside it. They played some great songs and the drummers usually beat to each one, making them all pretty entertaining.

I took video of a lot of it and it was a good thing too because I was able to capture on camera one of the most hilarious and hip dances I've ever seen. They had a man announcing each song and he goes, "Next up we have "Yeaaaah!" and I thought eh? Then they start up "Yeah!" by Usher and all the old ladies in kimonos are dancing to Usher and saying, "Yeah!" Once I find my Adobe Premiere cd I am so putting that up for people to see. It was their favorite song, they played it three times!

Their last song was Fukushima Ondo and sadly, there was no one there to play the flute for it. Still, I got in and danced (once again carrying Baby Girl). There was a small group of kids there that were trying to get a "betcho" started, but didn't do so well since there weren't too many people. It died out right after the first "Betcho, betcho, betcho! Yo, yo, yokoisho!". Still, I was still happy to hear them trying! My dad says he saw a special on tv about the betcho and I was kinda bummed I missed it. Hopefully I can figure out who made it and find it online somewhere.

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!

Mapo Tofu & Beef Broccoli

I had a very stressful night last night as I had to make my bento for today ahead of time so that we could leave on time today and then I had to pack up the many bento packages for the store. I ended up going to bed at 2 am because my bento was giving me such a hard time! The colors were so drab in one layer yet vibrant in another. Eventually I just gave up and settled on one brown themed layer and one bright layer.


From left to right I have rice, beef broccoli, mapo tofu, and then a boiled egg bear. I soaked him in soy sauce for a bit to make him brown and then gave him a little brother to snuggle with. (more soy sauce)


This layer is thankfully healthier than the top layer, though not by much. I have leftover yakisoba in a food cup, sliced cucumbers (which I will eat with plain salt), carrot flowers, a grape tomato, and then my dessert. The dessert is in the cute little animal cup. There are 3 little strawberry Whoppers hidden in there. Hee!

Yesterday I tried to go down to Satellite City Hall to pay my van registration and I got lost in the Ala Moana parking lot and when I finally got there, lo and behold they'd just closed the door. So typical of me. Not wanting to let that get me down, I drove over to Marukai, heehee. I picked up a bunch of new things for the store but unfortunately, still no new bento boxes. :( I'll probably go to Price Busters today to get some of the Hello Kitty stuff.

Sun, Moon, & Stars Bento

Last night I figured I'd make my bento ahead of time so that we could leave early this morning. Since I wanted to do a low point lunch I decided to make fried rice with brown rice and the leftover Costco chicken from the weekend. I started cooking my rice at 9:45 pm and the darned rice cooker was still puffing away at quarter to midnight. This was for ONE cup of brown rice!! Finally I gave up and went to bed and just as we're falling asleep Mr. Pikko is like, "What was that??" It's the rice cooker beeping. *mumble grumble*

This week's bento challenge is a Space theme, so though when I started making my bento this morning I didn't intend to have a space theme, the ideas for it came into my head as I was arranging things and as a result, I have a Sun, Moon, and Stars bento. They're going to start offering prizes too! I'll have to work harder on my bentos!


Underneath on the bottom left is my fried rice which is brown rice, olive oil, green onions (snipped from my garden this morning!), Costco chicken, peas from dinner last night, and some Aloha Hawaiian Honey BBQ sauce. On the right is one diced fishcake, which is 1 point I think. At the top are some sugar snap peas that I lightly blanched. In the Hello Kitty mini bowl I have some Kraft Free Ranch. On top I have ham stars, a mini Babybel sliced in half for a moon, a bell pepper sun, and two grape tomatoes to give some red in the middle. Extreme close-up! Total points: 2!

I would have taken a picture of the box, but I made the mistake of letting the kids play with this box so now I'm missing the little sliding bar that holds in the fork and spoon. It's really a miracle that I still have the utensils!

My bento store has really taken off nicely! I've made 4 rather big sales so far. Hooray! Now I can tell fellow bento nuts that I'm a "bento personal shopper". Bwahaha!

Kim Chee Crab Sandwich

I hope everyone had a great weekend. I sure had a productive one! Folded a pile of laundry backed up since like February or something crazy like that, opened my bento store, went to a bon dance in Waipahu, got Rank 8 in FFXI, and I even managed to do a Pikko Pots update! Go me!

I had bought crab last week but forgot about it so I had a whole 1/2 lb tub in the fridge. I didn't want to just bring a KCCA salad for lunch so I tried something new by making my own "seafood salad" sandwich. It's quite expensive points wise, coming out to 5.5 points, just for a sandwich!! Each slice of Roman Meal Honey Oat bread is 2 points (sob) and I added 1 1/2 Tbsp of Miracle Whip Light, which is 1.5 points. Ouch!

I toasted the bread too much so it was quite frustrating to cut it. I even sharpened my knife before slicing and it was still rock hard. Plus with a sandwich that thick you know I ended up squishing everything all over the place and then shoved it back in. Anyway, I wanted to include the last of my almost dead avocado, so I mashed it up and mixed it up with my thinly sliced lettuce so that it would stay in nicely. If I'd used just plain chopped lettuce it's likely I'd have ended up flinging my sandwich around the kitchen like a wild monkey. That stuff is so hard to handle, especially when you're chopping it like that! I added some sliced bell peppers for color and to eat more veggies.

I mentioned going to a bon dance in Waipahu. It was the Waipahu Soto Zen Temple Taiyoji on Waipahu street and I thought it was a good one. They had a sizable crowd dancing and I even got to dance to Fukushima Ondo this time, though I only did the footwork because I was holding Baby Girl while doing it. That gets pretty tiring after a while obviously, so thankfully she requested we get out of line after one circle of the yagura tower. Buddy was having loads of fun driving Mr. Pikko crazy by running all over the parking lot and ramming people's feet with the stroller. Unfortunately we only stayed an hour because Baby Girl had a stomach ache. Still, first time this season I got to dance! We'll be in Kona next weekend and I'm hoping that I can convince my brother or cousins to go to the one there. It starts at 8 pm so I'm hoping maybe we could go around 10. But I'm there for my cousin's wedding reception so if there's no time, then no big deal. I just can't resist the thought of going to a Big Island one again.

Our tomato garden is really starting to pick up now and our corn plants have sprouted. How exciting!

Re: The store

I added the matching Putifresh bento bags this morning!

Store & Slideshow

Okie dokies people, today I've miraculously managed between Baby Girl's 500 questions and Buddy's 300 requests for various foods to complete a slideshow and a sorry excuse for a store to sell some bento things. It's a PayPal cart and I have the most ghetto shipping policy ever, but I hope it works anyway!

The store can be accessed here. I welcome comments but please keep the laughter about the site layout to a minimum. I was really lazy and pressed for time so I just used a Dreamweaver template.

My slideshow is of my bentos obviously, but I picked out only the ones I like more than the others.

I had more to say, but I've just run my toes across a Fruity Cheerio that I apparently crushed with my chair earlier today and so now I've got to go pull out some hair and slowly count to ten while I pick the little pieces out of the carpet.

Gyoza & Onigiri

I did a count today and excluding salads and fruit bentos, today's bento will be my 83rd lunch!! Wow!! I will have to start planning to see what I will do for my 100th bento! Must go look at e-obento.com for ideas...

Last night we had stew for dinner and though it was good, I didn't feel like coming up with yet another creative way to arrange stew. Though now that I say that, an idea comes to mind, haha! Next time! So anyway, I had to do something from scratch and ended up pulling out my packet of frozen gyoza. This is the Ajinomoto brand pork gyoza, which is by far the best one I've tasted so far. And even better, it's cooked with no oil, just water! Each one is a point, so this lunch comes out to a big 5 points because of the rice I used in the onigiri.

The onigiri is mixed with some furikake and wrapped in a pretty tasty brand of ajitsuke nori I got at Marukai. On the side is some shelled edamame, takuan, and an ume.

I bought this box at the Windward Mall Marukai and though the cover isn't the greatest, when I saw the partitions inside I had to have it. Plus, it was calling my name having a $1.49 price tag. I took stock yesterday while being bored at home and my bento box collection has reached an alarming count of 50. I'm going to have to look into alternative storage methods in another area of the house soon. One that my rascal son cannot unpack every morning like he does with my dry oriental foods drawer. >.<

Ebi Curry Spaghetti

I'm at home sick today but since I will be venturing out to get a safety check on my van at a place nearby, I decided to go during lunchtime so that I can still do a bento today. This morning Baby Girl was really whimpery and sad about going back to school for some reason, so I took her in to school instead of her going with Daddy. She started screaming as soon as we got to the classroom and the aide had to pry her off my leg. Hopefully it really is just the dropping off part she doesn't like and this afternoon she'll be all smiles again.

I mentioned that I'd bought some packet to make Ebi Curry Spaghetti (ebi meaning shrimp) and I tried it out today. I ate what didn't fit in the box and it was pretty good!

The whole package according to the back is 2 servings at 140 calories and 1 gram of fat, which strikes me as a little odd but I guess since the serving of noodles is so small, that would be why. Whatever, something that low fat I can definitely live with!! Still, it comes out to 4 points for lunch. Not too bad, but it means I'll have to eat a pretty strict Core dinner tonight.

It was pretty easy to make, took about I dunno 10 minutes? That was probably because I sliced and cut the carrot flowers though. As you can see, there's broccoli to go with it. It looked pretty plain so I chopped up some carrot really fine to sprinkle on top. I have one more package in the fridge along with the rest of the shrimp, so maybe I'll try it out on the kids this weekend. ^_^

Tonkatsu w/ Chicken salad

The preschool drop-off today went ok with no tears while we were there! Whew! We'll see how things are tomorrow when she has to go back, heh.

As I mentioned yesterday, with 10k I wanted to reward myself so I went to Marukai. Mr. Pikko had taken the day off and I had a splitting headache by afternoon so I left about an hour early. Of course, headaches at work suck but headaches while shopping for bento things suck a bit less, so I went anyway. The only bad part about it was that while I was in the dollar store they had this horrifying music playing on their telephone speakers throughout the store. It did not help my pounding head.

Still, I found some great accessories! There were no new boxes and as usual the place looked like a ransacked trinket store, but I got a lot of cute paper food cups, some cute seafood food dividers, some animal food cups with covers, and some other animal food cups (which I have used today). I bought two of the plastic animal food cups thinking I could sell one but then later I discovered that the two packages, though identical in shapes and animals, had different colors for different shapes (meaning the triangle one was blue in one and green in another) so of course I had to keep both. Haha! I picked up a couple other things to sell as well. I hope to have a PayPal cart of extra items up soon, keep an eye out for that if you're looking to get started!

When I was up in LA my cousin and I were joking around about how we'd buy Marukai subscriptions and then by the next time we go back, it's been well over a year and the subscription is expired so basically we pay $10 a year to shop there once. Well, I am determined to change that! After the dollar store I stopped by the Marketplace next door and picked up a few things. One of the things I was excited to get was what I've seen called "kewpie mayo" on several other blogs. It was a bit hard to find and was labeled "QP Mayo" instead, but I finally have one in stock at home! I also bought two packets of noodles to make "Ebi Curry Spaghetti". Once I buy me some shrimp I will have to try that. The calorie/fat info on the back was surprisingly low! It was a bit odd. I couldn't find the front door for some reason. There was only one door that said EXIT EXIT EXIT DO NOT ENTER all over it. Finally it ended up being all the way down where it looked like a different store. And then when I checked out, they didn't bag my stuff, just put it back into a basket and shoved the bags in there! I didn't mind, it was just odd since I didn't know that's how they do it!

Today for lunch I have leftover tonkatsu along with furikake rice, veggies in the food cup I mentioned above, sliced fishcake, and romaine lettuce with cukes, tomatoes, and rotisserie chicken. I count this as 3 points: 1 for rice (since it's mixed w/ brown), 1 for the flour on the tonkatsu (fried in olive oil, pork and egg are Core), and 1 for the fishcake. I'm just guessing on the flour though. I figure it's better to overestimate. Inside the little thermos bottle is some Catalina Free salad dressing, also Core.


Lunch is packed in a new bento box that I found at Price Busters. They had the same box in three colors so of course I had to get them all... They each have different pictures and at $1.99 I can't resist. And bonus, they all have food dividers! I love boxes that come with those! :D I've found that most of these really cheap boxes are old ones as the copyright date is around 2003 or so. But I don't care if they're from the 90s. If it's cheap, I'm there!

Today is August 1st, which marks 1 month until what will be the greatest season in UH Football history. Can. Not. Wait.