Still Ordinary But Better Than Last Time Bento

I'm apologize for the lack of different bento boxes but as I told you, I'm changing host families and therefore everything is packed away except this one.  For your amusement, I let my pokemon chopstick holder chill right up top there. Inside we have salad with scrambled eggs and spinach alongside a cucumber and a freaking gigantic strawberry.  The strawberry adds nice color. Yes, that would be it.

Today was crappy.  Why? Because it's a freaking Wednesday.  Wednesdays just suck and I'm always busy and have no time to make my bentos look cool.  Just you wait readers, for I will be making amazing bentos in my next house.  You have no idea how much awesome bento making devices I have acquired this last week.  Not only that but I think I found an awesome shop here in town that sells just bento things.  Score!

One thing I want to complain about before I go.  Today was my host parent's 25th anniversary and a couple days ago was my host mom's birthday and before that was Mother's Day and in a little while it will be Father's Day.  Post cards are so freaking expensive here and they're running me dry of cash >:U  Instead of buying an anniversary card for my parents, I bought a happy wedding card and wrote "25 years ago" on it just because it was cheaper. 

Full of Ordinary Food Bento

Holy Jesus, it is so ugly.  Just look at this sinful thing.  Full of boring and my hate.  Yes, that's what it is, my hatred.  You see that green poking out from under the rice?  That would be spinach.  No problem there but for some reason when I put in the rice this morning it decided it wanted to engulf the greens.  I was in a rush as so I said screw it and just left it as it was.  As you can see, I also have two really crapily made tamagoyaki along with some pickled vegetables.  

Can you tell that I had absolutely no produce with which to make bento today?  Also, I'm switching host families this week so I packed away all my supplies to make them look fancy.  Not to mention I didn't have any time in order to make this picture look at all decent.  I just really wanted to be able to put a post up for you guys.  I felt rather guilty because I've been busy and haven't done anything for around a week with the blog but don't fear because soon the site will be all cool looking and I will be in another house where no one nags at me about my food.  Thumbs up for everyone here!

If you have any requests or questions feel free to post them.  I'm willing to try and make anything.  ;D

New Look and New Name

Alrighty, within the next few days I will be changing the site's look, name, and url.  A total overhaul in the very beginning.  It's good to get it all over with.

New Name: Bento Grahamy Cracker 弁当

New URL: bentograhamycrackerbento@blogspot.com

New look: You'll be seeing it soon!

Feedback?  Doesn't matter because I'm changing it no matter what anyone says :D

I haven't gotten to make bentos the past couple days because it's exam week and we only have half days.  Don't worry though, tomorrow I will definitely make a super cool awesome bento for all my readers!

Steamed Veggies with Tamagoyaki

Today's lunch was packed full of veggie goodness.  First, I steamed chopped carrots, corn, peas, broccoli, kabocha (type of pumpkin), and cucumber.  I then made the tamagoyaki (rolled egg).  Tamagoyaki is simple to make.  All you do is basically make an omlete but instead of folding it in half, you roll it and then cut it into sections.  Japanese recipes generally call for making them sweet by adding sugar instead of salt, but I prefer mine plain.  On the side, I added mango jelly and grapes.  Took me all of ten minutes to make this morning.

I had to go hiking today with my exchange program and so I ate a big breakfast, added an onigiri to my lunch, and brought along snacks.  Needless to say I will never add more food to my usual diet just because I think I'm going to need it that day.  I had to accept gifts of crazy amounts of food because if I turn them down it's considered rude.  My stomach feels like its going to explode and I forced myself to run an extra fifteen minutes to try and work all the crap out of my system.  It probably won't work anyway though because takes a lot to get rid of the amount I ate.  The next couple of days will consist of much lower calorie meals to make up for the horribleness that ended up being today.  D:

Before I go, one thing that ticks me off almost as much as people nagging at me about being picky, is when people freaking lose my crap that is so obviously in one place for a reason and almost ruining my future because of it.  I've been having a bad time with testing centers.  Can you tell?  I would totally fly back to the states and rip someone a new one, but I'm poor and so sadly, it will not happen... anytime in the next two months. >:U

Fruity Oatmeal and Salad

Inside this bento we have oatmeal.  It takes a whole minute and a half to make.  You have to love the convenience.  For the bunny I just stuck a cookie cutter on top of the oatmeal and filled it with a thin layer of strawberry jam.  It adds for a little sweeter main dish.  In the pink box we have your normal salad and for some color I added dried clam.  Obviously dried clam isn't for everyone.  Feel free to put whatever you want on top of your salad.  Lastly, we have green pea onigiri.  For those of you who don't know what onigiri is, it's just rice formed in a shape of a triangle.  Nothing to it.

I was lucky to be able to make a bento today.  My host family offered to host two Korean exchange students for a couple of days and so I figured she wouldn't want to eat at home just because it's a hassle for her to make all that food, but she went out and had my host sister make lunch for everyone.  I definitely am thankful.  Whenever we go out for food it's always really greasy and then I get stared at because I'm the only one in the city with blonde hair.  It's usually not too fun of an experience for me.  D: 

Anyways, I'll be able to make bento again tomorrow because I'm going mountain climbing and we have to bring our lunch.  What sucks about it is that I have to leave at 6:45 am.  I'll probably have to get up at around 5:30 am.  I never get to sleep in anymore ;-;

Quick Update 1

I just want to let you know that I haven't been able to make bento the last few days. I sometimes have to attend meetings where lunch is provided and there is no point in making a lunch that you're not going to eat so I haven't made any. Rest assured that there will be one on Saturday and Sunday for sure.

I'm definitely not one of those people who will start a blog and just leave it sitting there and I apologize for not posting anything like this sooner to fill everyone in.

Hope to see comments on my next bento box! All I'm seeing right now is my mother and her boyfriend flirting it up in my comments section D: Please note that e-mails should be used for lovey weirdo talk. Thank you.

Cold Soba and Tofu Bento

This turned out so much better than my last bento did.  I just cooked up some soba noodles (about 60g) and layed them over top of tofu chunks.  For decoration I added a tofu bird, cabbage, and pickled ginger.  It was super easy and because I had such a big breakfast, I wanted a smaller sized lunch.  On the side, I plan to have a fruit jelly carton.  Sadly, I think you can only get the jelly cartons in Japan.  It's going to be terrible when I go back to the States because I've gotten myself hooked on those things.

Bonus: For those of you who are on a diet, it's only a little over 350 calories.

Today I was super excited that I could make my own meals.  Usually, my host mom won't let me and I have to try and swallow down crazy amounts of fried foods which I'm not a big fan of.  Believe me, if you decide on moving to an Asian country and just expect to lose weight because everyone in Asia seems to eat nothing but vegetables and rice, it won't happen.  You'd be surprised at how they actually eat here.  Our stereotypes are so off it's not even funny sometimes. ;-;

Anyways, on the bright side of things, it's Mother's Day!  I used to always make my mom breakfast in bed but then she finally told me to stop because they tasted terrible.  In my defense, I couldn't cook and I would just throw together leftovers from in the fridge so it was actually her cooking that she was complaining about.  Take that, Mom! :P 

Oh, and because my mom is my only reader right now I should probably take the time to say it.  Happy Mother's Day, Mom!  I would totally go online and order flowers for you but they're way too expensive so I hope this blog post will suffice.

Another Children's Day Inspired Lunch

I really really really did not want to put this one up.  It was one of those days were despite the fact I wanted to make an amazing bento for my host sister, I was being nagged at by someone and I was too tired to really give much of a darn about anything and so it turned out like this.  It looks rather wretched but I believe that I need to put up every one that I make to show myself that I'm making some kind of progress.  Anyway, on to what's inside.

First, we have bamboo rice sprinkled with carrot chunks and a decorative samurai hat made out of cheese and salami.  In the middle, there is a fish paste roll with fish shaped hot dogs, a heart carrot, and a simple grape.  On the far right we have steamed vegetables covered in what I believe to be soy sauce (my host mother made those last night so I'm not quite sure how she made it.)

Okay, so it looks bad but my sister told me that it tasted sublime.  I would have been thrilled but I was forced to eat a school lunch because we had baking class and they made us eat every last bite.  It's pretty safe to say that I'm a really light eater these days and eating too much makes me feel like I'm going to vomit.  It may be partially because I can't stomach a lot of Japanese food, they like to use a butt ton of mayo (which I hate) and I despise sweets.  Since coming to Japan I've become a really picky eater.

Hopefully the next one will be better.  I'm thinking that I should stick to some simple bentos before I start tackling the more elaborate.  If you have any suggestions please feel free to comment!

Oh, and on a side note, I got my first follower today.  Let us rejoice... or not because I'm not sure if one's mom can really count as a serious follower.  Either way, yay!

Easy Children's Day Inspired Bento

I really really wanted to make a super neat bento for Children's day but at the last minute my host mom asked me to make them for everyone when I had to be at a Rotary meeting in fifteen minutes.  Needless to say that I had to make something overly simple.  Sadly, I was mistaken and rode my bike all the way to the usual location for my meeting and it was canceled.  I love my life so much!

On the right side of this bento we have a deconstructed salami and cheddar sandwich along with a carrot heart and watermelon.  I quickly discovered that neither watermelon nor cheese enjoy cookie cutters as much as I do.  If you look close enough you may be able to see that the watermelon has a fish face and scales and well, the cheese obviously has a kid shaped hole in it.

If you look to your left in this picture you can see that we have a simple onigiri with a pikachu nori face and three grapes.  Grapes seem to work much better in bento boxes than bananas.

All in all, the lunch actually tasted like it was supposed to this time.  It's definitely not as pretty as I had originally planned it to be though.  Hopefully, tomorrows bento will be much better.  Because I actually have school I plan on working on it tonight so that I have more time to finish it.  Wish me luck!

Rice with Ham Lettuce and Egg Rolls Obento

To start off the obento making experience, I created a super simple lunch that was finished with in fifteen minutes.  It probably would have been much faster if I hadn't screwed up when using a stencil to make the furikake (rice seasoning) look like a cute banana.  Because I encounter a lot of failures within a given day I always know how to cover them up.  In this case I just cut nori in the shape of a pokemon and placed it over the disaster zone.  With that problem solved I moved on to the ham, lettuce, and egg rolls.  I have found that they're one of the easiest things you can make in a pinch without tasting too shabby.  After that I added mixed vegetables and sliced bananas.

Warning: I suggest not using bananas in a bento lunch unless you take them in a separate container that contains only bananas and/or other fruit.  The taste of the bananas seem to seep into the rice and eggs making your lunch taste like utter failure and failure isn't good for the appetite.  If you don't have another container handy I suggest replacing the bananas with grapes.


After school I discovered that my host sister doesn't even like bananas, just the shape.  She told me that banana flavored rice was really nasty but in my defense I didn't know the taste would run and honestly, I think its really weird to like the shape of a fruit.  Are bananas really cute?  When I look at them all I see is a yellow fruit or dong depending on my perversion level.