bento #56: Moving day Totoro

Like I mentioned in my previous blog post, my company has been in the process of moving for the past week, and because of this we had July 1st off. I knew I wouldn’t be able to make bento until next week, so I decided to try making a “stay-home” bento. When I decided to make a bento to eat at home, I realized something. “I don’t have to close the lid of the bento box!”

Bento #56: Moving day Totoro
Created and eaten on: 7/1/2009

I’d been thinking about making a moving-themed Totoro bento and even did a sketch of it, but it looked very similar to “Totoro Parade.” But I realized that I could do some crazy stuff with this “stay-home” bento, I decided to make the bento completely 3-D.

First I put rice for the road, and sprinkled shiso leaf seasoning over it. Then I put sauteed renkon on the rice, and put boiled broccoli (sprinkled with a bit of salt and dashino-moto) in the spaces on the two corners of bento. To make grass I cut snowpeas with a diamond shaped cutter and put it between the broccoli and the road.
I was going to put meatballs in the bento, but I didn’t think there would be enough meat, so I made asparagus wrapped with bacon, and stuck it in broccoli.

Then I started making Totoro. I mixed rice with black sesame seed and salt, and just shaped it like Totoro using plastic wrap. To make Totoro’s body hollow I put my finger inside from the bottom, and put tarako (cod roe) inside to make Totoro a big rice ball. Then I made the white part of the stomach with plain rice and put it on his body.

I wrapped potato salad with microwaved lettuce and made chu-Totoro (medium Totoro), and made chibi-Totoro (small Totoro) with a boiled quail egg. (see “how to make mini-Totoro”)

I wanted Totoro to be pulling a wagon, so I cut potato for the sides and bottom of a wagon and fried them. This didn’t turn out to be as crispy as I wanted… I had a very hard time trying to make this side stand up. I made Totoro’s hands with a small piece of rice, and made him hold the wagon handle. For the wheels, I sliced carrot, made holes with a straw, and put them on the side of the wagon. I also made a bunch of sausage flowers and put them in the wagon with radish mushrooms. (see “how to make a radish mushroom “)

I took out the mini-meatballs from the freezer and carrot flowers I had made and frozen before, and microwaved them, then I put them around the bento. (see “how to freeze carrot flowers”)

Then I started making face pieces. This is where things get really tedious. I didn’t want to make eyes in different sizes for all the different characters, so I decided to make them all the same size. I sliced kamaboko (fish cake) into circles with a plastic bottle cap. Then I took a small piece of uncooked pasta, and pinned each kamaboko onto each Makkurokurosuke, chibi-Totoro, chu-Totoro, and Totoro. I usually don’t have to do this for a regular bento, but since the characters were standing up, I had to make sure the eyes wouldn’t fall off. I also made sweat drops with kamaboko, and put them on Totoro and chu-Totoro.

After the eyes were on everyone, I cut out seaweed using a hole puncher for the pupils, and konbu (dried kelp) for Totoro’s ears and whiskers. Then I started putting seaweed onto the eyes. This was a battle against time. The seaweed was getting all wrinkly faster than I expected. I think because it was a very humid day, and seaweed was not put onto horizontally. This drove me nuts! When I was done putting the last pupil on eye, the first one I put on was getting wrinkly! T_T

Even while my boyfriend was taking pictures, I had to replace some eyes because they got very wrinkly. Also, chibi-Totoro on the wagon didn’t want to stay still, and fell off the wagon.

I like how the bento turned out overall, but I wish I didn’t have to rush my boyfriend to take pictures. I guess the Katamari Damacy bento was kind of similar to this one. But this was waaaaay more difficult and stressful compared to the Katamari Damacy bento. I had fun and learned some stuff making this completely 3-D bento, but I don’t think I’d be making another one anytime soon.

Totoro:
- rice mixed with black sesame seed and salt, and tarako inside
- kamaboko, seaweed and konbu

Chu-Totoro:
- potato salad wrapped with lettuce
- kamaboko, seaweed and konbu

Chibi-Totoro:
- quail egg
- kamaboko and seaweed

Makkurokurosuke:
- meatball
- kamaboko and seaweed

Wagon:
- potato

Mushroom:
- radish

Flowers:
- sausage and carrot
- carrot

Other food:
- rice with shiso seasoning
- renkon
- broccoli
- snowpeas

For more pictures of my bento, visit Bento! set and Bento details! set on my flickr page.

Tagged as: asparagus, bacon, beef, broccoli, carrot, chu-totoro, makkurokurosuke, meatballs, mini-totoro, mushroom, potato, quail egg, radish, renkon, sausage, string beans, studio ghibli, totoro