Furikake, soboro

I had too much time on my hands today so I decided to make bento stuff: furikake and soboro!

I happened to have a bowl of shredded carrot that's been sitting in the fridge for more than a few days now and I figured that I should do something with it before it goes bad.  I remembered that Just Bento had a furikake recipe using carrot, so it seemed like a good idea to try making furikake since I had most of the other ingredients anyway.  I've been meaning to try my hand at making some since it doesn't seem that complicated and it's much more economical to make it myself than buy store-bought.



It came out quite well if I do say so myself :D  I followed the carrot and sesame seed furikake but added bonito flakes and cut up nori to my version. I didn't have any nanami/shichimi togarashi on hand so I used red chili pepper flakes instead.

Later in the day I made salmon soboro from canned salmon.  I didn't plan on making it but when I was looking through furikake recipes on Just Bento I came across the tuna soboro one, and then wondered if a salmon version existed since I had a can of salmon at home but no tuna.  I ended up finding Hapa Bento's salmon soboro recipe so I used that.



It came out pretty well but I would've liked more of the ginger flavour to come through and also for it to taste slightly more sweet/less salty.  Next time I'll make adjustments and also add another stalk of green onion for more colour :)

#6 More tuna patties

Originally Made: Thursday July 14th, 2011
The Box: GIORNO Fine Color Series 510mL

LEFT: Rice with vegetable furikake
RIGHT: Mini tuna patties, blanched carrot

Continuation of Crappy Cellphone Pictures >_>  This one is actually worse than the last lol -_-"  I was in a dimly lit food court and that white bar of light (from one of the ceiling lights) at the bottom left was unavoidable >:|

More tuna patties, again three pictured here with each cut in half.  This box I'm using doesn't have any dividers and I don't usually pack my rice very tightly, so the things inside were slightly shifted since I had this placed in my bag on its side.  But nothing major so no harm done.

I bought some bento supplies online which I've just recently received in the mail, so there'll be a post on that in the near future :)

#3 Pretty carrot, chicken nuggets

Originally Made: Thursday June 23rd, 2011
The Box: Lock & Lock 550mL w/divider cups

I decided to be a little creative with the carrot and use some cutters that I had (which I originally bought to use as cookie cutters).  Of course, I didn't think of it until after I had sliced the carrot so the thickness of the slices weren't exactly even -_-"  But lol it's not that obvious from the photo, right? ^^;;  More greens and chicken nuggets.  Truthfully, I probably could've done with just three nuggets but *shrugs* I like meat lol. That stuff in the bottom right corner is a bit of almond-peanut nut cluster snack thing.

#2 More carrot, pickle, pork...now with chicken

Originally Made: Tuesday June 21st, 2011
The Box: Lock & Lock 550mL w/divider cups

Like with my first bento, more blanched carrot and dill pickle.  There's a certain sweetness that comes out in carrot when blanched that I like.  The meat and the greens were leftovers.  The darker meat is marinated pork cooked with garlic, while the white meat is chicken, also cooked with garlic.

The greens...sorry, I'm not actually sure of what they're called >_>  I have a hard time remembering the names of all those different leafy green vegetables...gotta make an effort to learn the names ^^;;  But they're from my family's garden, I know that lol.  My mom always grows vegetables in the summer months.  I mixed a bit of vegetable furikake (store bought) in the rice for some variety.

I experimented with cupcake liners by putting everything on the right side in their own liner to see if it made packing easier or look nicer...not really lol. I mean, clean up was easy but that's about it. It was a bit fiddly trying to work with more than one paper liner.

#1 My first (photographed) bento

Originally Made: Thursday June 16th, 2011
The Box: Lock & Lock 550mL w/divider cups

So this is my first bento that I've photographed. The carrots are blanched and the pickle in the very top right corner is sliced dill. I actually prefer sweet pickles but dill was all there was at home so I just went with that. Beside the pickle is a bit of leftover ground pork with chives, which I think was leftover from when my mom last made dumplings. The meat in the bottom right is pork that I sliced off baby back ribs leftover from dinner the day before.