Sonoma Bento Blogiversary Winner!

Sorry this is a little late in posting, the weekend was jam packed and I am still recovering. Garden tours, food and wine tasting, and a hootenanny - and that was just Saturday!

There ended up being 46 different entries in the contest, so cool!

Without further ado: congrats to WYOWOMAN! Kristin has a fun blog called From My Little Corner filled with scrapbooking, cooking, thoughts, and other fun stuff.

Kristin, you have won this fun prize pack! You can continue your bento adventures with fun picks, chopsticks, a pink bento box, a nori punch, an onigiri mold, and an onigiri felt strap.

Thank you so much for all of the great responses, especially those who shared which bento tools they enjoy the most. Cutters seem really popular, and I can see why. They make cute really easy!

Today's bento uses leftover clove scented jasmine rice with homemade chicken and potato curry which is topped with scallions and garlic scapes from Middleton Farms, a wedge of lime to squeeze on the curry, an apricot from Neufeld Farms, baby carrots, and a few slices of cucumber. I love this round bento I got at Daiso. It's got two containers inside, which work really well to separate saucy stuff like the curry.

Have a great day bento pals!

Friday the 13th Bento

Not sure what is up with Blogger. It seems that it ate yesterday's post, and also deleted a few entries in my contest. So if you entered in the past few days, be sure to check to see if your comments are still there.

There's still time to enter my 1 year blogiversary giveaway! Click here and leave a comment to be entered in the drawing. And the contest is open to everyone on the planet, so if you live outside of the U.S. you can enter too! (If you live on Alpha Centauri, you cannot enter, sorry.) I will stop taking entries at midnight tonight (that's 12:00am Pacific Time May 14th, 2011).

So here's my fun bento for today: Jason from the Friday the 13th movies!

In this bento: fried rice, Jason's mask (made from provolone and nori), tamagoyaki omelette slices, baby carrots, cherries from Neufeld Farms, edamame, and an apricot also from Neufeld Farms.

Here's the spring fruits bento that Blogger ate (hope you enjoyed it, Blogger!!): pork patties from my frozen stash, clove scented jasmine rice topped with slices of garlic scapes from Middleton Farms, half of an apricot from Neufeld Farms, cherries from Neufeld Farms, and edamame.

Here's the goodies you could win in honor of my 1 year blogiversary! A cute bento box with a handmade bento box felt strap (made by me!), animal shaped food picks, chopsticks, an apple shaped nori punch, and an onigiri mold.

Click here to leave a comment and be entered in the drawing. Thanks for following my bento adventures!

Fava Bean Bento

Fava beans are now in season at the farmers markets in Sonoma County. They do take some effort to prepare, but they taste so good that I will usually give it a go a few times each spring.

In the top tier: fava bean and ricotta cheese puree with a fava bean butterfly on top, garlic crostinis, an apple rabbit, and walnuts from the Santa Rosa Original Certified Farmers Market. In the lower tier: pulled pork wrapped in a red lettuce leaf from Triple T Farms, cucumber slices, baby carrots, radishes, and a yakionigiri from Trader Joe's.

Preparing fava beans requires shelling them from their pods, blanching them and quickly cooling them, then removing the outer skin from the bean. Then you still have to cook them. So it's a bit of an effort. But super delish, and the essence of spring! I bought these favas from Triple T, but lots of vendors at the Sonoma farmers markets have favas right now. I also used a garlic scape (another amazing spring veggie) from Middleton Farms in this recipe.

Fava beans in their pods from Triple T.

Garlic scapes from Middleton Farms.

Fava Bean and Ricotta Puree with Garlic Crostini

a little over 1 pound of unshucked fava bean pods

olive oil for sauteeing

1 tablespoon minced shallot

1/2 tsp italian seasoning

2/3 cup whole milk ricotta cheese

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 garlic scape, chopped

salt and pepper to taste

1 baguette, sliced thin

1 garlic clove, sliced in half

2 tablespoons olive oil

fresh goat cheese (optional)

Prepare the favas as described above. Reserve a few fava beans for garnish. In a sautee pan, heat about 1 or 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Sautee the shallots for about 1 minute, then add the fava beans and the italian seasoning. Cook the favas for about 15 to 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. While the favas cook, arrange the sliced baguette on a cookie sheet. Rub each slice with the side of the garlic clove. Discard the clove. Brush each piece of baguette with olive oil, then broil until the edges of the baguette slices just start to turn golden. Remove bread from oven and set aside. Remove the fava beans from the heat and allow to cool for about 2 minutes. In a food processor, combine the favas, ricotta, olive oil, and garlic scape. Pulse to combine. Use a spatula to push the mixture back down (without the blade running!) to make sure the favas and cheese are well mixed. Turn the mixture out into a bowl and season with salt and pepper. Top garlic crostinis with fava mixture and an individual fava bean. You can also put a small bit of goat cheese on each crostini. Makes about 30 crostinis.

Delish with a nice chianti. Ffftftffftftfftftf....

DON'T FORGET: You still have time to enter to win my fun bento kit in celebration of one year of Sonoma Bento. Enter now by clicking here and leaving a comment! Drawing is on lucky Friday the 13th of May. :-)

Cinco de Mayo Bento

Hola! Happy Cinco de Mayo! I got a bunch of chicken drumsticks from our local hispanic grocery store yesterday (Lola's--I love this place for really great deals!), and simmered them in spices and chili powder, then baked them in a salsa with lots of green onion. They turned out great, and made this bento very flavorful.

In this bento: quesadilla with refried beans, white cheddar cheese, and chicken meat. Also radishes, green onion, navel orange segments, a baby carrot, a dried mission fig, lime flavored cabbage slaw, and walnuts from the Santa Rosa Original Certified Farmers Market. Just for fun, here is the bento I made on Cinco de Mayo last year:

This one had tortillas from La Tortilla Factory, a great company in Sonoma County. I think this one was pretty cute, and I remember that it tasted good. :) Are you doing anything fun to celebrate Cinco de Mayo? Any special meal planned for today?

And remember, you still have time to enter my 1 Year Blogiversary contest, good luck!

Steak and Potato Bento

This is a bento made with leftovers from dinner. Flank steak and baked potato fit well in this round bento box!

In this bento: baby carrots, half of a baked potato with black sesame details and a tiny cilantro leaf, slices of cucumber, green grapes, orange cauliflower, flank steak, and a container of sour cream with green onions. The flank steak was marinated in a combination of soy sauce, rosemary, worchestershire, green garlic from Middleton Farms, red pepper flakes, mirin, and rice vinegar. I broiled it and it made lots of steak for dinner and subsequent bento lunches.

Don't foret to enter my One Year Blogiversary Giveaway! You have until May 13th to enter. Good luck!

Also, this weekend I went on a scooter ride through Sonoma County. Farm Trails organized a great event called Blossoms, Bees and Barnyard Babies, and I went to two different stops along the route. Here's a quick video of my adventures yesterday:

Sonoma Bento One Year Anniversary!

Today marks one year since I started this blog. I am so thankful for all of the support and interest from my bento friends. Some of you make bento, some of you do not, but all of you have been so kind and encouraged me to keep learning and keep improving my bento skills. This has been a great year, and I can't wait to see how my bento lunches will evolve in the next year. So, I thought I would do a before and after kind of a post today. Here is the very first bento I made, back on April 21st, 2010.

The upper tier has a heart shaped onigiri rice ball, steamed broccoli, slices of baked sweet potato, grapes, and a sliced strawberry.

The lower tier is filled with salad greens from Offerings of the Land, carrots, mushrooms, watermelon radish, and half of a hard boiled egg. And now, for my remake of my first ever bento, drumroll please......

The first bento I made was in a GINORMOUS bento box. The only thing you really can fit into that box and not have way too much food, would be a salad. Instead, I used this new black bento box (it's still kind of big at 600ml) and packed everything much tighter. Packing your bento box tightly will not only make sure that things don't roll around and shift, but it will also put enough food into your bento box to fill your tummy at lunch time. In this bento box: I have an onigiri wrapped with a strip of nori that I punched with a flower shaped craft punch. There are a few green grapes, a strawberry from Williamson Farms, a flower shaped slice of purple sweet potato, steamed broccoli rapini from Triple T, a mix of wild arugula from Triple T along with torn romaine lettuce, slices of carrot, a french breakfast radish from Ortiz Farms, a small container of salad dressing, and a tamagoyaki omelette made with slivers of green garlic from Middleton Farms. The only thing I forgot was mushrooms, and I actually did have enoki mushrooms from Bohemian Mushroom Farm, but I spaced and forgot to put them in. You can also see that the lighting is MUCH better in the remake than in the original bento. I take pictures of my bento next to a bright window. I also use scrapbook paper or fabric for a background. The original bento was shot in my office kitchen. Not really conducive to glamorous photo shoots. :)

This is the first bento I posted on Sonoma Bento on April 29th, 2010. As you can see, I was already making some big steps and improvements from my first bento attempt. I actually really like this bento, and I was wondering how I would remake it. In this bento: a pita sandwich with wasabi tunafish salad, baby carrots, radish slices, broccoli, two onigiri with slices of cucumber in them, and half of a boiled egg with black sesame seed details.

In my re-do: a magic round bento to the rescue! I have basically the same wasabi tunafish sandwich in a pita, but I put black sesame seeds on the outsides. Also in this bento: steamed broccoli rapini from Triple T, green grapes, a bear onigiri with nori eyes and a pickled ginger red mouth, radishes from Bernier Farms, cucumber slices, baby carrots, and a little hard boiled quail egg from Triple T with nori eyes and a carrot beak. The original bento was pretty cute as it was, so this is just a different spin on the ingredients in a different shaped bento box. I was a little puzzled about why I put both bread and rice in the same bento, which I don't do now. Ah well, this did come out pretty tasty.

Beverage Pairing Suggestion: J Vineyards & Winery Cuvee 20 Brut. A great and affordable sparkling wine to toast one year as a bento blogger! YAY!

Something you may have noticed in my newer bento photos: a watermark. As my photos have improved, I decided I should brand them so that they are credited to me. I place the words "Sonoma Bento" in my photos, using background or foreground colors and placing them in fun spots. Many bento bloggers do this, and it is probably a good practice to use if you are uploading your own bento photos. Credit should always be given where it is due, and you don't want someone to steal your photos and claim it as his/her own.

A few words about how my style and approach to bento has changed: I used to think that I needed tons of picks and cupcake liners to make my bento kawaii (or cute). I find that I rarely use food picks. A sharp knife is the tool I use the most in making my bento. I do like to use small food cutters for a quick cute element. Tweezers are important for placing details. Probably the most important part of my bento making style, however, is the farmers market! Seasonal, fresh food is what I like to build my bento around. Not everything comes from the farmers market, but I try to feature at least one local item in every lunch.

Now for the celebration! In honor of my one year blogiversary, I am giving away a fun set of bento items. It's a starter kit of sorts! Here's what I am giving away:

A set of colorful chopsticks.

An onigiri mold, so you can make hearts, stars, and bears.

A nori punch shaped like an apple.

A set of 12 food picks.

And finally, this cute three tiered pink bento box, and my handmade onigiri bento box strap. The band is pink felt with an elastic section, and a felt onigiri face on top. The bento box itself is brand new, and has a shallow upper tier to hold chopsticks or utensils (maybe a slim sauce pack), and then two tiers for food.

There are 4 ways you can win this awesome bento prize pack. Please leave each entry as a separate comment:

1. MANDATORY: You must be a follower of this blog, Sonoma Bento.

2. Tweet about the contest. Please let me know if you tweeted about the contest, and if possible include the link to your tweet.

3. Mention this contest on your blog. Please let me know about your blog post and include the link to your blog post.

4. Tell me what your favorite bento tool is and why, or if you don't make bento box lunches yet, which bento tool you would really like to have.

I will randomly select one entry as the winner on lucky Friday the 13th of May. :-)

GOOD LUCK! And thank you, thank you, thank you for being a part of my bento adventures. :)

Cauliflower Hugs a Bao Bento

Tee hee!! After I made this bento it totally looked like the cauliflower was giving a hug to the bao in the bento. I should have put eyes on the tangerine. :) Oh well.

In this bento: leftover marinated flank steak, a few kalamata olives, a tangerine from Schletewitz Family, steamed orange cauliflower, and a char sui bao from Trader Joe's.

I also finally did a new nail polish design. This was suggested by a friend of mine a while ago. I love to paint my nails with fun designs, and I love bento, so he thought I should combine the two. Here's what I painted on each nail: thumb: an edamame pod on a blue background; index: a tamagoyaki omelette; middle: a smiling onigiri rice ball; ring: a strawberry; and pinkie: an apple rabbit. Nom, nom, nom! :)

My one year blog-iversary is coming up this Friday! Check in to see a re-do bento, tips on what I consider my bento essentials after one year of bentoing, and a fun prize package. I'm so excited!!!!