Bento #74: Oruchuban Ebichu
February 23, 2010
Posted by AnnaTheRed in bento blog (all), bento blog - anime Tags: heart shape, oruchuban ebichu
4 comments
I actually wanted to make this bento on Valentine’s day, but Valentine’s day being on Sunday, and we because had to go to IKEA, I couldn’t make bento on the 14th. It didn’t feel like it was appropriate to make this one after Valentine’s day, but oh what the heck. No man would mind a bento filled with heart shapes, right?
Bento #74: Oruchuban Ebichu
Created and eaten on: 2/18/2010
Oruchuban Ebichu was an anime show, originally aired in 1999, based on a manga. Ebichu is a housekeeping hamster. She may look dangerously similar to the hamster from the kid’s show, Hamtaro, but this seemingly innocent and adorable show is probably the cutest, funniest, dirtiest show I’ve ever seen.
Ebichu always tries her best to make her master happy but almost always ends up painfully embarrassing her in front of other people. So I decided to make a super love-love bento to hopefully to embarrass my boyfriend a little when he goes around to show the bento to the co-workers at work.
I put sauteed renkon at the bottom of the bento first, and made rice into the shape of Ebichu. For orange part of her ears I mixed a little bit of rice with ketchup. I cut ham for her mouth and apron, and kamaboko (fish cake) for her hand and one of her legs. I also used the pink part of kamaboko for her trademark pink cheeks.
The ham apron wasn't as easy as I thought. I should've made her arms and legs with rice too.
My idea was to make the right side of the bento look like a bento made by Ebichu so I made three small rice balls and put them in.
I thought about making rice balls into heart shapes, but I actually liked these tiny rice balls.
I searched for recipes for any “heart shaped” food, and picked the easiest ones to fill the rest of the bento. First I cooked hotdog, cut it at an angle, put two pieces together, put them together with a piece of pasta to make a heart shape. This is a very popular food item for kyaraben in Japan. No cooking skill is involved and this looks still adorable in any bento!
People usually use cute bento picks to hold hot dog pieces together.
I had cooked tamagoyaki (it’s like a rolled omelette) the night before, so I cut it in the same way I cut sausage and put them together to make a heart shape. I didn’t do a good job on this tamagoyaki though. I didn’t use enough oil and egg. So I put ketchup to draw another heart shape on the tamagoyaki to hide the mess. 
"Good tamagoyaki" doesn't have any spaces between each layer. >_<
I wrapped five pieces of asparagus and carrot in the middle with bacon, pinned it with toothpicks, and cooked it. When you cut it, it looks like cute flower, doesn’t it? I put a couple of them in the bento to fill the empty space.
I like putting carrot inside asparagus wrapped with bacon now. It's so easy, yet it adds a color and nice touch.
Then I cut the surface of a hot dog like to look like a flower/heart shape and I put cooked broccoli to fill the rest of empty space.
The hot dog at the bottom is also very easy. It does look like four heart shapes, don't they?
After everything was set in the bento box, I cut seaweed for her eyes and eyebrows. For the sparkle in her eyes I cut cheese.
Ebichu's eyes are always very sparkly.
When it was done, it didn’t look that “love-love”… so I just use a heart shaped cutter to cut out carrots and sprinkled them all over the bento.
I think I could've made bigger heart shaped carrots.
I really thought this would be easier to make than it was… The apron was hard to make, and it still didn’t turn out good. I probably should’ve used something redder for her mouth.
As for my boyfriend, he didn’t get embarrassed by this bento at all. (as I expected) After all, I’ve been making him kyaraben for more than an year. He wouldn’t have been showing off his bento if bunch of heart shaped food would embarrass him.
Ebichu:
- rice, rice mixed with ketchup, kamaboko, seaweed, cheese, ham
Heart:
- sausage
- egg (tamagoyaki)
- cheese, carrot
Other food:
- asparagus and carrot wrapped with bacon
- renkon
- lettuce
- broccoli
For more pictures of my bento, visit Bento! set and Bento details! set on my flickr page.
bento #60: Domo-kun
August 4, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in bento blog (all), bento blog - anime Tags: croquette, domo-kun
4 comments
I was going to do a how-to on this and did a photo shoot on Sunday night, but it was getting late, and I was very sleepy & sloppy…
The croquettes didn’t look very good in the photos, so I decided to re-shoot some stuff again. I’ll post a how-to sometimes this week. But since I had already made them, I decided to use them for a quick regular-ish bento.
Bento #60: Domo-kun
Created and eaten on: 8/3/2009
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bento #51: PenPen and Lilith from Evangelion
June 2, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in bento blog (all), bento blog - anime Tags: angel, evangelion, lilith, pen pen, penguin, penpen
7 comments
While I was making Prinny bento, very naturally, as an otaku, I thought of this.
Bento #51: Evangelion PenPen & Lilith
Created and eaten on: 6/2/2009
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bento #47: Ano niku (manga meat)
May 2, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in bento blog (all), bento blog - anime Tags: ano niku, manga meat
7 comments
While I was making my Totoro with cherry blossoms bento, I was trying to figure out how to use all of the Inari-zushi skins. I usually buy canned Inari-zushi skins, and a can contains about 15 skins. I wanted to use them in a bento again, but I’ve already made Totoro and Nekobus… In the meantime, I’ve been working on a new bento idea, but I wasn’t too happy about it. Then I had an epiphany.
Bento #47: Ano Niku (Manga Meat)
Created and eaten on: 4/30/2009
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bento #41: Ryuk from Death Note
March 14, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in bento blog (all), bento blog - anime Tags: death note, ryuk
11 comments
When I made the Braid bento, I had some extra quail eggs left over from the bunny, so I put them in my bento. Later on the pinkish color on the egg has turned to blue-ish purple. As I was eating the egg, I remembered something…
Bento #41: Ryuk from Death Note
Created and eaten on: 3/13/2009
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non-bento #7: Doraemon onigiri
March 3, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in bento blog (all), bento blog - anime, bento blog - non bento Tags: doraemon, onigiri, rice ball
9 comments
Last night, I made “salmon dish for super lazy people” to clean out my fridge (this is another amazingly simple and easy recipe. I’ll post it someday), so we had enough food for bento. So I decided to make onigiri (rice ball) for breakfast for both of us. But just making plain onigiri would be boring,,, so I decided to make one of his favorite anime characters since he was little.
Non-bento #5: Doraemon onigiri (rice ball)
Created and eaten on: 3/3/2009
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bento #39: Mechazawa of Cromartie High Schoo
February 26, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in bento blog (all), bento blog - anime Tags: Cromartie High, Mechazawa
2 comments
My gods! My blog has finally caught up with my current bento!! I was wondering when it’d happen when I started the blog about 3 months ago. It’s sooner than I thought.. probably due to lack of bento-ing the past month or two. I’d like to keep my bento blog 3 times a week with a how-to on Sunday, but I’m only human. So if I don’t have any bento to blog, I’ll probably blog about random stuff like my other hobbies, such as making plush, crafts and such.
When I was writing a post about Bento #36: Penny Arcade robot bento, I realized something. It was so strange that I’ve never even thought of this before, but Penny Arcade robot has a striking resemblance to a character from an anime/manga/live action show which my boyfriend also liked.
Bento #39: Mechazawa from Cromartie High
Created and eaten on: 2/26/2009
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bento#38 Paya-tan from Dai Mahou Touge
February 24, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in bento blog (all), bento blog - anime, stuffed stuff Tags: dai mahou touge, paya-tan, plush toy
2 comments
“Dai Mahou Touge” aka “Magical Witch Punie-chan”, is an anime show made by and for super anime nerds, yet even if you aren’t an anime nerd, you’ll still enjoy it. My boyfriend likes this show so much that he even did a review on this show before.
His favorite character in this show is Paya-tan. Looks like a cute mascot in any magical girl anime shows, but so NOT.
I’ve always wanted to make a Paya-tan bento, but I couldn’t think of any good way to make it because Paya-tan was the only non-human character in Dai Mahou Touge.
I think I’ve mentioned this before but, there are so many characters I want to make bento of including Paya-tan. Coming up with a character I want to make isn’t that hard, but finding something to go with the main character is. Then I remembered my favorite episode, about curry at a food stand at a school festival. This particular episode was about a school festival, like any other anime. But instead of showing the drama or trouble between students, the majority of the episode was focused on curry at a particular food stand. The curry at the stand was so popular that Punie-chan’s rival and her gang went to find out what the secret was. There they witnessed a horrifying ceremony held by the vegetables for the curry.
Bento #38: Paya-tan from DaiMahouTouge
Created and eaten on: 2/11/2009
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bento #29: Moyashimon
January 24, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in bento blog (all), bento blog - anime Tags: Moyashimon
5 comments
My boyfriend and I watch anime at home regularly. Sometimes it’s new, sometimes it’s old. There was this one anime that came out in Japan two years ago, and I had always wondered about what it was about. Well, I knew what it was about, because the title explained it all, but I wasn’t quiet sure how they did it, and why it was so popular in Japan.
The anime show is called “Moyashimon: Tales of Agriculture.” It’s a story about a first year college student at an agriculture university who has an ability to see and communicate with bacteria and microbes. No ninja or robots. It’s a very average looking anime show with,,, AMAZINGLY CUTE BACTERIA and MICROBES!!!
Bento#29: Moyashimon
Created and eaten on: 12/12/2008
