Sharing Pics From Japantown and Today's Bento

Warning!

This blog post is full of out of order pictures!  I apologize.  I don't have time to fix them all.  You will have to just go all over the place with me lol!

I wanted to share our pics from our trip to San Francisco this last weekend.  I took my girls up for the day to Japantown.  It's a 3-3.5 hour drive from us but it was fun to be in the car with them and listen to music and get Starbucks etc.  They had a blast.  The main reason was to go to two Japanease "dollar stores" for some Bento supplies.  I had been shoping online to compare if it was worth the drive and it was.  The outing of a fun day was a bonus as was the fact that my eldest is a big Japan anything lover.  It started with Anime but has developed into an over all cultural admiration. So, this post is going to take us there, and show some Bento from just this morning using some new wares.  At the end of the post, I will put my youtube showing our haul.  The girls got some fun things of their own like Japanease candy, stuff for Halloween and just little things they liked.  Dollar stores are fun as they are but a cultural one was even more fun.  

Can you imagine living in one of these gorgeous San Francisco homes!!?  They are so beautiful.  

The wall going into the East Mall in Japantown is a great colorful backdrop for a picture. 

Skipping all the way to the bagged up bento from this morning.  I hate that these are out of order....

Rick's Bento from this morning.  Asian noodles, shrimp, a sauce (made of soy, sesame oil and infused overnight with fresh ginger), asian pears, rasberries, carrots, mini cookies and Seaweed salad)

Another gorgeous building, and Emma trying to get in the shot. 

Emma at lunch in the West Mall.  She ordered some shrimp tempura that came with a bowl of Miso Soup

Close up of Ricks noodles.  I purposefully fork rolled four sets for presentation.  

While in SF, I saw some amazingly cute onsies that I wanted to get so badly for my friend's baby but they were $22 ea!!! My friend and her husband are our wine and sushi kindreds so she would have loved this. 

Victoria in the Kinokuniya Bookstore looking over all the Manga books!! It was hard to choose just two. 

The second main reason we went, Ichi Ban Kan.  This store is $1.50 to $2 for most things.  I look forward to going back here, they  had the best boxes in my mind. 

Victoria in accessory heaven. 

Okay...skippng to mommy's bento for today.  Seaweed salad may not be something I do again.  Not a fan.  I may have let it soak too long.  The shrimp, noodles and sauce was great though!  I took a very low portion of noodles (one because that's all that was left after making everyone else's but also for carb reasons.  I took the tops of the kids carrots that I'd cut off to make them fit in their bento.  

Japantown flag.  Need a better pic next time. 

Close up of Emma's bento for today.  I love the little berry buckets!  The mini cookies are at Trader Joes and work so well for Bento and portion control. I'm hoping to get better at the carrot flowers :&

Victoria by her Naruto themed Anime. 

I would not let the girls leave SF without seeing the Golden Gate for the first time.  We did not even get out of the car though it was so busy.  They probably have some better pics than me, I was at a traffic stop.  I of course got the usual question: "Why is it red if it's the Golden Gate?" :)

Unfortunately, this lovely Japantown fan is under a bypass and therefore in the dark!

Loved this mini structure inside the mall.

Emma loved the Sanrio (makers of Hello Kitty) store for it's candy.  They both would have loved this store in their Hello Kitty days.  They secretly admitted to still loving her. 

Close up of the new sauce squeezers.  They are so cute.  

Victoria holding one of her favorite Anime characters.  Mommy was documenting for gift ideas. 

Okay, I was in scarf heaven for a moment....I did not buy one but omg...kid in a candy store you know? 

One of our first pictures actually, arriving at Daiso Japan, the main reason for our trip.  Fabulously fun store!!! Amazing deals. 

All the kids Bento for this morning.  Shrimp on the bottom level, others on the top. 

Another great onsie I wanted to snag. 

Rasberry bucket close up.  Using the new food pics.  This is Caedmon's Bento. 

The poo onsies:  "Grumpy Poo", "Stinky Poo", and "Smarty Poo".  All supposed to be actual poo.  Ah, funny. 

Her first sushi lunch out from home.  

Close up of those adorable cookies.  The carrot shows you how mini they are. 

The assembled line up: Emma's, Caed's, and Victoria's .  Remember the bagged picture was further up in the blog post lol?  That should be the next one...oh, well. 

Winding down our day...

It was a blast! 

Hope you enjoyed our sharing.  We look forward to going back.  There is so much to see in life, it's a grand thing. 

Here is my amateur video of our Haul. 

Mama's Got Some Loot!

So I took a few minutes to see if Ross had anything for my culinary passions today. I was not disappointed! (may I say, I love Ross!) Some of the others I picked up in the baking party isle at Walmart.

Character cookie cutters are used in kids Bento for cutting sandwiches or more traditionally on the Japanese end of things, shaping shushi rice.  This is about as far as I'll go into making characters, though later I'd like to get Bento accessories to add cute hats and faces to things, but I don't like all the in depth character making really.  This is simple enough for me.

These have matching cupcake papers and pics that I can use when making themed Bento boxes.  The muffin papers will be for arranging and the pics for skewers or accent decorations.  With One packet, costing me $2.25, I have 24 of each.  That is plenty for the whole school year of every now and then having a Sponge Bob themed lunch for Caed.  The pics can be reused as long as they don't get messy.  Frankly, so could the papers if used for dry goldfish or something but I may not bother.  I think 24 is plenty. 

Well, this picture is upside down!!! Sorry.  I found a pie mold set at Ross for $3.49.  Rick is really excited about these!  They come in four sizes.  I can make batches of meat or fruit pies and freeze them!  He can have big ones, the kids can have smaller ones for their Bento lunches or snacks.  I'm really excited about this.  I hate making pie dough but if I made a huge batch I could just get it all done on a sat.  Honestly, I think I could even make dumplings and perogies (I polish dumpling) with these.  I'll have to look into it.  Even ravioli.  The bottom has the perfect circle press to cut out the dough, then you just place it on top, fill it and press it.  OMG.  So excited! 

I was also excited to find my first sandiwch press set at Ross.  These are great because, unlike the cookie cutters, they don't waste much of the sandwich.  My plan with the cookie cutters is to save the pieces to make mini sandwich skewers later, or give the dog a treat! :)  Anyway, I found out that you don't want to put a ton of PB&J on these if you want them to cut right.  Caedmon went off with these in his Bento lunch today.  The picture is further down.  Not going to bother moving it. Blogger is annoying with that. Oh, and know too that if I had wanted I could have added carrot or cheese circles for the extras on these.  Shapes were enough for today!

Ross had some brand new Halloween stuff too!  (May I say, I'm so anxious for Halloween this year!  I have a fun plan for the kids and I'll share later on).  

They also had mini cutters!!!! Yippie!  These are great for shaping small bites of cheese, bread, meat, veggies and some fruits!

Some non-bento loot, my Sushi ware!!! I've been hangin out looking for sushi dishes for a long time.  I was so thrilled and they were so well priced.  Four square plates, two rectangles, five Miso Soup bowls (Trader Joes has awesome Miso Soup packets!) and I grapped the matching bowl from the set to serve extra rice for my kids when we have sushi.  I'm making sushi tonight!  Victoria is having her special friend over for a movie with our fam and sushi is on the menu!  I'm also making the Japanese omelet dish Tamagoyaki.  I'm practicing on those for future Bento so be looking for a post just on that dish!  (See!  This is why I had to do this blog, I'm just so excited about all this...how can I not share!)

So, just the other day, I was thinking to myself that I really hoped to find some shallow gourmet soup bowls.  Soup is just not given its glamour gown often enough!  A nice shallow bowl let's it look glorious and gives a ledge for crostini or other bread sides. These were just $2 each!  I got them all.  Later today I'm posting a soup recipe and used one of these to try out the look.  The soup was amazingly yummy but ugly.  Somehow, it looked better in one of these.  I'm ready for another batch of Gazpacho in these too!

So, lastly, here was today's kid Bento.  Caedmon got the sapped PB&J, animal crackers, string cheese bites, cucumber and a fruit snack.

The girls got a more sophisticated looking version for their age.  Unfortunately, I ran out of cucumber for them.  

Some exciting possibilities ahead!

Everything's A Skew!!!

Welcome first of all to my new blog.  Nuff said...on to business.

With my new dive into the world of Bento, I'm gathering ideas for one very fun element of Bento and that is mini skewers.  I think so far, these are my favorite.  This picture is from Google Images:

I had been looking at ideas but when I saw these, I just made some out loud oohs and awes.  My whole goal with Bento (and this blog actually) is to energize my healthy food making for my family.  These are the epitomy of fun!!!

There are many more ideas on google for skewer ideas.  I'm looking forward to sharing what I come up with   myself as well.

Tool Ideas: 

• Gender Preferences: I'm going to purchase some of these for my son on Amazon.  They are for cupcakes but won't he be just the coolest dude at the lunch table when eating his healthy food reveals his Jedi powers!!!?  There are plenty leaning to boys and girls different tastes.
• Appetizer toothpicks of all kinds:   I'm hoping to do a post JUST ON THESE ideas!  Bento uses some fun stuff of their own but you can make them, purchase them, or just use plain old toothpicks. 
• Cupcake toppers by theme:  I will be sharing these soon, but in the party isle you can find fun sets of cupcake toppers that can be used to skew little bites and follow a theme in your lunch box. 
• DIY!: There are TONS of ideas for making fun skewers.  Some of them are weird, but some are actually clever. 

Food Ideas:

• Mini versions of normal dishes: Like the one above, you could really run with this and do mini hamburgers, mini pizzas, mini PB&J layers...you name it!
• Breakfast skewers:  I'm thinking of doing boiled eggs with bacon or ham and tiny squares of waffle or toast. You could also run with some famous omelets and do a theme from that.  For instance, the Denver omelet skewer would have the egg, ham, small diced onion and green pepper and cheese.  
• Classical:  This would be some real classics like apple chunks and cheese, grapes and cheese, salami and cheese with olives, cherry tomato with basil and sliced string cheese mozzarella. 
• International skewers:  Things together in one bite like pineapple and teriyaki chicken (leftovers are great this way), mini ravioli and mini meatballs (both at Trader Joes!), Curry chicken with raisins and baby corn pieces, or black bean with cherry tomatoes and firm avocado   

I hope this is enough to spark your interest!  Really, anything you like for appetizer skewer ideas will work for ideas.  I'll be sharing putting my ideas into practice as the blog develops.  Know too that I don't intend for this blog to be all Bento type stuff, right now I'm just on a kick with it.  So, hang with me. :)