Bento

As I copied this from my website I did not copy all the video's so there might be some things missing and i will try to fix this soon. 
Bento is a single portion meal that you can carry with you in a container common in Japan. much like our lunch boxes we send with our children to school. Bento's are common for both adults and children in Japan. What makes bentos special is the decorating of the food that is much more common in them then is in American lunches. 

Bento's have been around for a long time in Japan since around the 1100's, but I don't know how long the decorating that is common today has been going on. 

A traditional bento in Japan consists of meat usually fish, rice, and vegetables. 

the rice being the key here is dressed up to often look like a face. however this would be way to simple to describe the pictures going on in peoples lunch boxes.

   

Dressing up rice balls by adding faces is a fun way get kids to eat there lunch there are lots of "nori" or seaweed punches on the market that punch out the little details to form the faces. 

rice balls can be colored by adding food coloring to the rice before steaming but here at The Naturalistic Garden Witchen I like to color the rice with natural things like turmeric for the yellow and beet juice for red. Other facial features can be cut out with other special bento accessory cutter from ham and cheese to name a few to form cheeks, mouths, and other decorations. 

 

Much more elaborate pictures can be formed for older children or adults. 

of course the picture does not have to only be a face on rice. many of the more detailed pictures are made of many different things layed on a bed of rice. 

Not as much rice is served in many homes here in america as is served in asian families so not all bentos need to be made with rice.

not all bento's need to be fun and decorated, and many adults might not want there bento to look like it belonged to a little kid. A bento can also be used to keep portions under control, and help eat right. 

more to follow as I start to build better bento's for my kids and get photo worthy designs made. 

I will also include tips and some step by step instructions. 

note: none of the bentos featured above are of my creation. YET!!! 

Brows through all the cute and fun little video's on you tube that show you some fun creative ways to make decorated food!!!

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Okay lets start to talk about how to make your own cute bento's. 

One of the first things you need to do is to decide if you will be using rice in your bento. I really suggest that you do. it is more versatile, however when eating rice you should not eat white rice that has been polished and bleached. In your most common local grocery store this only leaves you with brown rice which is a great food, but try to find it organic. 

next lets figure out how to color that rice in fun colors for the kids. Not using white rice, and not using artificial food coloring is going to limit what we can do in this area but the over all goal is to have a cute healthy meal not just a cute meal that is not as good as it could be for your child, or you. So we will use natural things like turmeric, paprika and vegetables to color the rice. Our rice is not going to turn out as vibrant in color as it would if we used white rice so don't expect it to look like a rainbow. 

Red- two different methods to try here and see which you like best. 

first try adding some paprika to the cooked rice and see if you like that color that way.

Second take chopped red cabbage and cook it in a boiling pot of water about 12 minutes. This will pull the color out of the cabbbage, keep                        the water by draining it off into a bowl. Measure the amount of this water you would need to cook your rice in that you want colored, put into a     bowl add some vinegar to it, only a few drops at a time, this will change from a blue color to a red color. Use this red colored cabbage water to cook your rice in that you want red.

Purple- Use the right amount of cabbage water from the method above with no vinegar in it. 

Yellow- add some curry powder or turmeric to some cooked rice to get desired color.

Green- you can try adding some baking soda (tiny amounts at a time) to your cabbage water before cooking the rice in it but personally i didnt love this method so that brings us to the next way we are adding color to our rice and that is to add cooked food right into the rice ball. for green you can try pureed green peas or green beans. 

Blue- this is actually a hard color to get the rice to the best way I found was to add pureed blueberries to the rice but not only is this not a vibrant color it can also be a offending flavor for the other things you are adding to your meal. 

Orange- add finely grated carrots to some boiling water cook for only a few minutes and add the cooked carrot to your rice, you could of course try combining methods to blend colors but I wasn't having much success with this. 

Brown- since we are using brown rice don't do anything to it.

Black- this is most commonly covered in nori (seaweed) to make it black but i have stumbled across forbidden rice that is naturally black. i am still looking into this rice to see if it is a good rice or not for healthy consumption. 

The next thing to note is that the rice we are cooking with is not the rice that should be used for shaping into cute little designs and there for might have to be cooked until mush. this does not have as much texture but still tastes just fine. 

Shaping your rice.

there are three ways to do this try all and see what you prefer. 

first one is to line a bowl with plastic wrap add a few scoops of rice and gather up the wrap twisting tightly to form a ball. after this you can squish it into the shape you want.

next is to have a bowl of salt water next to you for you to dip your hands into to ensure that the rice wont stick to you, form the rice into the shape you want with your hands. 

The last is mostly for harder designs and that is to use a rice mold made for this purpose. They come in all sorts of animals but also in just a triangle, and square.

Next Lets look at decorating your rice balls and the rest of your meal. 

You can use different colored soy wrappers along with the normal seaweed to punch out different designs to add to your rice balls and make faces. most of the more common decorations in Japan are different kids of pickled and processed meats and cheeses. 

You can of courses freehand your decorations but i find it so much more simple to just use the many different punches that they make for this. 

watch the video above on decorating the egg and apply the same principle to your rice ball for dressing it up. 

Another fun thing to add is cut vegetables. there are lots of fun shaped cutters for this and you can even get really fancy and learn vegetable and fruit carving to add visual details to the meal. a tomato skin rose is really simple and so is using the cutters to cut out a flower carrot and using vegetable carving tools to add some details. 

You could make a whole field of flowers using different meats, cheeses, and vegetables.  This bento was uploaded to flickr by Sakurako. and shows a great example of different ways to make flowers. 

Another fun thing to add to a child's bento box is a boiled egg shaped like a animal, or dressed up as in the video above. there are fun molds that you can use to shape your boiled egg after it is already cooked. 

Don't forget the all american sandwich, you can cut the sandwich into lots of fun shapes for your child's lunch with cookie cutters or fun little cutters that take off the crust at the same time that it makes it into a cute design. Don't want a premade design? Cut out some ham and cheese to make a design on the top of the bread much like you would on your egg or rice ball. There are so many fun ways to decorate your lunch or your child's not only will you have no problem getting them to eat there vegetables but you might even see them clear there plate and ask for more.