Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day everyone! Sorry, no recipe today (I'm making my mom breakfast!), but wishing all the moms a happy mother's day!

Cute Totoro Themed Bento ^_^

Isn't it cute!? It's a Totoro themed bento! This was actually a project for my Japanese class (we were learning about Japanese food). The assignment was to first choose a theme, then design and make an authentic Japanese bento. My friend and I teamed up to create this cute Totoro bento.

We spent two hours cutting and shaping food, and then trashing our funny looking shapes. It was horrible :( We probably wasted a huge amount of food. For example, do you see that flower? Well it's made out of tamago (egg), which we bought due to convenience, and a scored hot dog. I bet we threw away/ate over half the package of tamago before getting the petals to spread apart without breaking. Such a waste!! I don't know how those Japanese mom's make their kid's bento so cute!? Well I guess if you did this everyday you'd become pretty fast, but still....

See those meatballs with eyes? They're supposed to be susuwatari, you know little fuzzy black spirits that floated around the attic in the movie? And the eggs with sesame seeds for eyes are supposed to be chibi totoros (mini totoro).

So, what do you think? Is it as good as the Japanese bentos?

For tips on making bentos similar to this own or other cute bentos, click here

Kinako Ice Cream Balls for Boy's Day...Er, Children's Day?

Happy boy's day everyone! Er, or should I say children's day? I'm not sure what to call today anymore. I feel like since girls have they own day (March 3rd), guys should too. When it was boy's day, do you remember doing something nice for the guys? Or if you're a guy do you remember the girls doing something nice for you? Throughout grade school, every Boy's day the girls put up all of the boy's chair on their desk at the end of the day, and on Girl's day, the guys put up our chairs.  Do you celebrate Boy's Day?

No? Yes? Well anyways, how about some kinako powder covered ice cream balls? Yes, it's exactly what the name says it is. A small scoop of vanilla ice cream rolled in kinako powder (aka soybean flour or the-best-powder-in-the-world-that-taste-like-peanut-butter!). I don't often work with ice cream (photographing, I mean. Definitely not eating...) because it melts so quickly. While I was making these balls, for example, after the first few I was having trouble scooping the ice cream in to round balls. It just began to melt! I think I should have frozen a long slab of ice cream, cut it in to cubes, and then rolled them in kinako. They could've been the ice cream version of melty blends(ganache-like-chocolate in cube form rolled in cocoa powder)! Once I scooped them in to small balls, I rolled them in kinako powder, and refroze them in mini muffin tin cups!

These could be for Boy's day, right? They have kinako powder! And kinako powder is Japanese.... Plus, it tastes oishii (yummy)!^_^!

Vegan Brownies #2...

After making my first batch of vegan brownies, I was excited to try another recipe, but this time without the espresso powder. (Maybe this was what made them a wee bit too dark for some?) I found a delicious sounding cocoa brownie in the Vegan Cookie cookbook,  but it called for firm tofu, which I did not have on hand. But no fear, there is always the internet, right? So I looked up 'vegan brownie', and one of the first results was this recipe, from All Recipes. I'm not sure if it was me, but for some reason there was something quite off about these brownies. I had my mom try them, and well, let's just say her face spoke for her. I found them quite dry (I don't think I over baked them, as I took it out a several minutes early), and devoid of a chocolate flavor. I think next time I'll just bike to the store for some firm tofu!

If you would like to see the recipe, it's from here.

Japanese Sponge Cake Mix...Made In The Microwave :)

I bet you've probably heard of microwave cakes, but have you heard of a microwave vanilla sponge cake? Well now you have! I was recently at Nijiya, a Japanese supermarket, when I spotted this little container. Isn't it the cutest thing? What really caught my eye was the characters saying moko moko (In red in the top left hand corner) which means fluffy and soft. I actually learned this word from my host sister. While I was shopping with my host sister in Japan, I came across the softest, fluffiest sweater, and she immediately said "moko moko!".

 Not only did it say "fluffy", but also very easy to make(totemo kantan). Plus, I could say I practiced my Japanese by reading the directions, which of course, were only in Japanese, but at least there were pictures just in case I messed up. Surprisingly, even if I did not read Japanese, I think I would have been able to make the cake just fine. All I needed to do was whisk and egg, add the cake mix, mix, then microwave for 1 1/2 minutes. Easy peasy! But of course, sometimes the simplest things need tons of pictures, right? So...here are some step by step pictures on making the easiest microwave sponge cake mix cake ever:

Ingredients: Vanilla cake mix and egg

 Step 1: Whisk egg

 Step 2: Add in cake mix

 Step 3: Whisk until combined

 Step 4: Microwave for 1 1/2 minute

 Enjoy!

 Yummy! ... and fluffy!