Non-bento #23: fun with Rabbid #1 – bavarois
April 14, 2010
Posted by AnnaTheRed in bento blog - non bento, bento blog - video game, how-to (all), how-to - characters (Ghibli, video game, Wall-E), how-to - fundamentals Tags: bavarois, dessert, raving rabbids, ubisoft
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This was part of my “wonderful things” post, but I got sidetracked by other wonderful things and events and plush making, so I couldn’t do this until now. So here I go!
A little while ago, I received an email from someone who works at Ubisoft, the company that created the Rayman Raving Rabbids series. She liked my bento, and asked me if I could make a good use of this.
O_O
It’s a silicon mold of a Rabbid!!! Of course, I gladly accepted her offer. She even included their new DS game “Rabbids Go Home.” I was expecting a smaller version of “Rabbids Go Home” for Wii, but they redesigned Rabbids for DS screen and the mini-games were very different from Wii version. While usual Rabbids games are for multi-players or full of party games, Rabbids Go Home for DS is all about puzzle games. I’ll write more about the game later!
Anyway, the very first thing I thought of making was jello type of food. I was told that the mold was oven-safe, but it didn’t come with any instructions explaining how hot the mold could get, so I was worried and didn’t have the courage to try baking something with it.
My boyfriend and I don’t eat sweets at home that much, and the mold was bigger than I expected. So I decided to make fruity jello type dessert “bavarois.” Bavarois is a French desert made with cream, pureed fruit and gelatin, and is a very popular dessert in Japan. Because it has fruit in it, it is quite refreshing. I wasn’t planning on doing a how-to on this, but this is ridiculously easy, so I’m going to do a quick how-to! (I took the pictures of how-to. Sorry about the quality of the pictures.)
Non-bento #23: fun with Rabbid #1
Created and eaten on: 2/17/2010
[Strawberry bavarois]
Strawberries – the recipe says 200g, but I just put as much as I wanted
Milk – 1/2 cup
Whipping cream – 1 cup
Sugar – 1/2 cup and 1 TBS
Flavorless gelatin – 3TBS or 3 packets (if you want it softer, or not using a mold, you can put 2 TBS of gelatin instead of 3 TBS)
Hot water – 3/4 cup (150cc)
Splash of lemon (if you have any)
This recipe makes refreshing not-so-sweet bavarois. If you want it sweeter, add more sugar. (Don’t ask me how much, though. It’s up to you!) Or you can indulge yourself and add some whipped cream!
The best part of this recipe is all you need is a blender and a bowl for gelatin.
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how to prepare shrimp for sushi
March 6, 2010
Posted by AnnaTheRed in how-to (all), how-to - fundamentals Tags: shrimp, sushi
4 comments
As I wrote in a previous post, I made sushi on Valentine’s day. I usually just use salmon and tuna for sushi, but since we were watching District 9, we decided to have shrimp (because they looks like “prawns” 
) as well.
Shrimp is probably easier to get than a good block of salmon and tuna sashimi, and it is also very easy to prepare it for sushi. I’m sure a lot of people cook shrimp at home, and the only difference between regular shrimp and shrimp for sushi is that shrimp for sushi is straight and flattened. I’m not even sure if you can call this a “recipe”, but I thought it’d be nice to know a little trick like this.
[How to prepare shrimp for sushi]
- raw shrimp with shell (not cleaned or cooked)
- salt
– toothpicks
– skewers
*If you’re interested in making sushi rice from scratch, check out “How to make sushi rice.”
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how to make sushi rice
March 6, 2010
Posted by AnnaTheRed in how-to (all), how-to - fundamentals Tags: sushi
6 comments
When I posted about our “sushi night” on my blog before, I mentioned about “Sushi-noko” which was like powdered vinegar to make sushi rice. This time I decided to make sushi rice from scratch with ingredients you can easily get at a regular supermarket. Actually, it’s really not hard to make sushi rice, but the recipe requires you to work really fast. I don’t usually like cooking food that is “time-sensitive” due to my laziness, but freshly cooked sushi rice does taste better than the one made with vinegar powder.
[Vinegar mix for 3 cups of sushi rice] *( ) for 2 cup of sushi
- White vinegar 3 1/2 tbs (2 1/2 tbs)
- Sugar 2tbs (1tbs and 1ts)
- Salt 1 heaping ts (1ts)
EDIT: I forgot to mention a very important thing!
“3 cups of rice” is when measured with a rice measuring cup. (It usually comes with a rice cooker.)
3 cups of rice is 1 cup and a half of uncooked rice with a regular measuring cup.
1 cup of rice measured with a rice measuring cup = roughly a 1/2 cup of rice measure with a regular cup
*I use a regular mixing bowl, but a shallow bowl is ideal for making sushi rice because it’s easier to get the air between the rice and mix.
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non-bento #20 & How to make Slime Marshmallows
December 20, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in bento blog - non bento, how-to (all), how-to - characters (Ghibli, video game, Wall-E) Tags: Dragon Quest, marshmallow, Slime
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My company does a potluck for its Christmas party. It’s fun that you get to taste the dishes cooked by people you know. This year, one of my friends/graphic designer at the company decided to make a recipe book of everyone’s potluck food. I thought of making Totoro cream puffs, Domo-kun chocolate covered marshmallows, but I wanted to make new kyara-sweets. (Kyara-sweets mean “Character themed sweets.”)
Even though I don’t eat sweet stuff that much, I always wanted to make marshmallows. I was going to make some elaborate marshmallows, but since I had to make at least dozens of them I had to pick a simpler character. As I was looking through recipes, the one that looks like Hershey’s kisses reminded me of Slimes from Dragon Quest. (“Dragon Warrior” in English) So I decided to make Slimes! NOTE: Sorry for the quality of the pictures for the How-to. I shot them myself since I made this when my boyfriend wasn’t home. >_<
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Momofuku’s Bossam
December 16, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in how-to (all), how-to - fundamentals Tags: bossam, hungry nation, Momofuku
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Christmas is coming! So I decided to do a post about what I did for Thanksgiving before it’s way too late. 
Since I couldn’t get in touch with my cat sitter this Thanksgiving I stayed at home while my boyfriend was back home in Boston. One night I couldn’t sleep so I was watching non-stop NY at around 4 in the morning. (I don’t have cable) And a program called Hungry Nation came on. One of the segments on Hungry Nation is called “Working class foodies.” It’s about two siblings cooking affordable yummy food. On that particular episode, they were making “Working class Momofuku – Bossam.”
It made me droll, and I had to make it. (sorry for the poor picture quality. I shot them.)
I burned it a little bit, but it was still so moist inside!
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