Love, love, love my wooden boxes. I'm using my two-tiered cedar box here and the furoshiki just folds beautifully around it. Here, the tab peaking through has two frisky little rabbits leaping along. Very joyful and cute!




What has these rabbits so ecstatic is obviously the contents: homemade shrimp stirfry, apples sharing their space with a sirracha pig, and piping hot rice. Yum! My only regret is that the glorious stirfry which I had put up earlier in the week has lost most of its beautiful color. Maybe it was the reheating, or maybe it was the refridgeration process, but as you can see, it's no where near as vibrant as the original pic below (taken shortly after making).

For the longest time, I had been struggling with the plastic taste of modern bento boxes. Every plastic container I could get my hands on (Glad, Lock and Lock, bento boxes, etc...) imparted the taste of plastic to my food, especially unflavored rice. I've tried microwaving them with vinegared water, soaking them in soap, cooling the foods down before putting them in...nothing worked. Actually, Tupperware was the one exception to this but all their containers were waaaay too large for me. So I Here's the latest addition to my collection: a cedar, urushi coated, wooden bento box. It's a little large being double tiered and all, but just beautiful to look at. I received a tons of compliments on it at work, and it just had the most wonderful nostalgic feel to it. So much so that I couldn't bring myself to use the included elastic band and just wrapped it "old school" in a furoshiki.

On the menu today: Korean style tamago (my favorite and a bento staple), steamed sugar snaps, stirfried zuchinni, and two Korean dumplings. Delicious! My only regret was that there was no room for dessert.




Here it is all wrapped and ready to go. Just threaded through a pair of teak chopsticks that have that old-fashioned look about them, and I was ready to go.

This pretty usagi furoshiki depicts a popular Japanese folktale about a rabbit in the moon (to explain what they see as a rabbit shadow on the moon's surface). The rabbit in the story makes a huge act of self-sacrifice and is rewarded by having his image placed on the moon so humans can remember his selfless act forever. My rabbit has a less heroic role: to keep the pieces of my Totoro bento box together.




As seen here, I've filled the bottom container with rice and the middle container with ingredients for Korean bibimbap: seasoned fern braken, pepper leaves, bean sprouts, egg strips, radish kimchee, and spinach. It turned out rather well except that in the future I will be sure and cut the bibim ingredients into smaller pieces as they didn't disperse as evenly as I'd like in the small Totoro bowl. An stainless steel usagi spoon and chopstick set (not pictured) finished out the piece rather nicely.

Last night I made two of my favorite dishes...spicy Korean chicken and stirfried bellflower root. It was the first time I had made the latter, but I thought it turned out really well. Notice my bento "bag." It's the first time I've ever used a furoshiki. It's a little rushed (I got a lot better after I tied and retied a couple of times at work) but I was again satisfied by the outcome. Strawberries round out my little box for today. Not only was the meal delicious, but it was very satisfying not to have to wait behind a long line of co-workers all trying to heat up their Lean Cuisines at the same time...something that can be frustrating when all you have is 20 min. to eat.

I love this chicken recipe. Spicy, savory, with just a touch of sweetness...ah so good! I plan on reserving some of the stew to utilize later in some gyoza...a la Biggie (dedicated webmistress and ultimate Bento queen from Lunch in a Box). I doubt mine will come out as beautiful as hers, but I'm willing to give it a try.