Bunny Bento

Whew, I sure missed making bento this past week! I was bunny sitting/house sitting for a coworker and I just did not feel comfortable making bentos. I didn't have my bento gear, and I didn't have the ingredients I am comfortable with on hand. Strange how we get stuck in patterns and when we aren't in that groove, it's just harder to do what we normally do.

In this bento: leftover spaghetti carbonara with a jack cheese bunny on top, slices of blood orange from Twin Peaks with a pink bunny pick, a bit of broccoli, and baby carrots. I made the spaghetti carbonara using a James Beard recipe from his book, James Beard's Beard On Pasta (James Beard Library of Great American Cooking). The eggs I used were from my friend and coworker Gwen who has her own chickens. It really turned out delicious, but it was somewhat difficult to make. Picture me tossing the hot pasta while my hubby slowly pours the egg mixture into the pan, blocking my view and dribbling some egg onto the stovetop, the pan is moving all over the place, and I am telling him to add a bit of the pasta water, and then some cheese, and now my arms are tired... whew!

Here's the little bun bun I was watching the past week. His name is Luigi, and he is just super darling. He loves broccoli, carrots and grapes. Maybe I should have added some grapes to this bento and it would have been perfect for Luigi. ('.,.')

Have a great weekend, and enjoy the official beginning of the Year of the Rabbit tomorrow!

Wish You Were Here!

I crack myself up! Today a bunch of bento buddies on Twitter are having a #twitterfoodparty in which we share our creations on Flickr, twitter, Facebook, and on our blogs. Our theme this month is PASTA! And since we are just days away from Halloween, I had to do a scary pasta bento. It's THE SHINING!

I used spaghetti and tossed it with Pasta Etc.'s delicious marinara sauce. On top of this I placed a few alphabet pasta letters to spell out "REDRUM", which little Danny Torrance says in the film. Or rather, his finger says it in the film.

I fashioned Danny out of provolone and fresh mozzarella cheese, with nori eyes, mouth, and hair. I used food color markers to make his baseball t-shirt.

On the other side of the bento is steamed broccoli with slices of white radish on top. This is supposed to represent the snow covered maze at the end of the film. My hubby says it doesn't look like that, but I don't think he was into the spirit of the bento.

I had planned on watching the movie again for reference, but honestly, the movie scared the heebie jeebies out of me when I first saw it, and I really don't want to watch it again. Yikes! And the name of the bento (Wish You Were Here!) is a reference to the last scene of the movie, (SPOILER) where Jack ends up in the photo of the party guests.

You can check out the other Twitter Pasta Party entries by heading to twitter.com and searching for #twitterpastaparty and #twitterfoodparty. Enjoy!