Princess Bubblegum Sushi Tutorial (Adventure Time)

I was going to make some "Tree Trunks Apple Crepes" today but my crepes didn't turn out as I liked them so I'll probably revise the recipe soon. I woke up early today and decided to use up the last of my white rice and my cooked brown rice in my favorite shapable food - sushi. I hope that you like it - and so I've included a tutorial for it. What would you like to see next from me?

Step 1. Have two tones of WARM rice - one a light pink/purple and the other a bright red, orange or hot pink. You can alternate if you wish but otherwise it wouldn't be Princess Bubblegum.

Step 2. Flatten your darker rice down and use a rubber spatula to make it more rectangular. Make sure that it is even.

Step 3. Make your lighter rice into a cylinder shape as best as you possibly can and place in the middle of the dark rice.

Step 4. Roll half of your dark rice over (make sure that its all still warm) using the plastic wrap and squeeze tightly but gently. Pinch and squeeze the sides together as much as possible so that they form together and pinch to make the hair a bit (however you like).

Step 5. Make sure that your sushi rice colors align together correctly, wet your knife and wipe on a paper towel. Slice your sushi thickly to keep it from falling apart, repeat the wetting and continue. Then you can make the crown. 

How To Make A Crown

Step 1. Start out with a nice yellow mini pepper or large yellow paper and ensure that there are no spots. 





Step 2. Cut your pepper in half lengthwise and (if you wish) you can remove the ribs and seeds.

Step 3. Cut a triangle from one of the pepper slices, cut two triangles from that and carefully carve two little circles into the side for roundness. Try to cut a circular knotch for her gem on top, add a radish slice to the top and then place on top of your sushi.

Decorate your sushi as you like, serve with tempura and enjoy!

How To Make A Finn Sandwich (Adventure Time Tutorial)

This is a very simple and quick way to jazz up your sandwich for the fourth season of Adventure Time! Great for picnics, snack breaks after rescuing princesses or just to enjoy on your own!

 The first step is bread - what's a sandwich without bread? A not-wich it is! And Jake would have nothing to do with it - make sure that your bread is sturdy enough to handle any cutting or slicing but soft enough to imprint on. You can put everything in your sandwich now and cut with it or add your stuff later.

Use a cookie cutter or jar top to lightly press a circle or an oval (pinch the top sides lightly) shape into the bread. Make sure to have both pieces of bread together so that they kind of suction together enough for cutting.

Next, lightly place your top back on and use a knife to cut off the crusts. Use a pair of scissors to snip his hat ears carefully
'

Add some raisins, natural food dye or nori to your sandwich for his eyes and mouth then use cheese, parsnips or radishes for the teeth. Add your fillings and then enjoy!

Making A Better Bento #2 - Don't Follow The Fads

I've noticed that a lot of bentos use highly-processed ingredients such as kamaboko, cheese, pre-cooked food items and other similar things. While there is nothing wrong with this - too much is a bad thing in this case and depending on salty and fatty options for your loved one's lunches isn't the best way to go. But let's say that you come by this amazing bento tutorial that you know just everyone would love but its filled with over-processed, high-fat, high-sodium and low nutrition foods. Well don't worry - you can still make amazing bentos without making you (or the bento-eater) as fluffy and big as the onigiri that you're making! ^^

When I first started, I was a bit in the middle with the foods I was making my bento with. For example, in this little darling I had about two servings of plain white rice with chickpeas and barely any vegetables. While it did not have much salt in it - the salted white rice gave it a lot of sugar and isn't healthy at all. Oddly, I had rarely ever eaten white rice when I became vegan (before making bentos) unless it was accompanying delicious Chinese food and even then that wasn't very common. A lot of bento makers happen to live in Japan and/or have attachments to it or another Asian country that eats large amounts of rice which means that it tends to be asserted within their cooking and lunch, especially if the bento box itself is small - meaning that you have to include a lot of filling (read; carbs) within the lunchbox. While I was raised with a pretty substantial amount of rice in my diet I came to realize that just eating rice with a few sprigs of chives was not healthy even if it was filling. The best way to get filled with rice without having to worry about the rise in blood sugar is to eat the whole and beautiful brown rice (or millet, barley or other ancient grains). If you're ever worried about not being able to shape your onigiri properly without having them be mushy with the brown rice you can either use California Grain brown rice or use a small mixture of white and brown rice for texture and health. Honestly, you shouldn't ever be dependant on rice or just one thing unless you really like it - bentos are about variety. Have pizza, pasta or sandwiches one day with a nice salad and some fresh fruit and maybe the next bento you will want to have some beet or tofu poke with brown rice onigiri. Think fresh and buy fresh!


Hey look - chopsticks! And cake...and white rice...and bread nuggets with few fresh veggies.

As in the first installation of "Making A Better Bento" you need to know about balance. If you're ever worried about not getting enough food then the first step is to check a national nutritional guide and build your bento off of that until you're confident. To fill yourself or others up then you can include an additional bento or tiny box filled with fruits, vegetables or extra beans and if it is a special treat for the day then you can splurge a bit and add some sort of sweet other than fruits...just make sure that the whole bento isn't made of cakes and candy!

Getting back to the processed foods - while you will often see me adding soy or rice cheese to my bentos I've found that it doesn't always taste the best and most of the time I simply need to get to my culinary vegan roots and make my own "cheese". If you don't feel confident enough in making your food it, then you can easily find alternatives to the cheese such as radishes, parsnips, bread, tofu, or even just plain nori! Want some vegan SPAM? Make your own with beans, tofu or whatever your heart desires - just know that when it comes to bentos you need to think OUT of the box but still work with what makes you happy.



A brown rice bento with radish eyes and lots of fresh veggies - no cheese!

You don't even have to use the boxed dyes - you can easily make your own or buy organic, plant-based dyes that are easy to process and that you don't have to worry about. For example, a little research on the wonders of fruits, dark greens, turmeric, annato, beets and red cabbage will provide you with a surplus of things to dye your bento with.


 Your "Homework": 

Vegan Kyaraben Color Chart by Disposable-Aardvarks

Delicious Brown Rice Onigiri by one hundred eggs

Natural Ways to Make Your Bento Colorful by Just Bento

Healthy Hello Kitty Kyaraben (With White Rice and veggies)

Vegan Spam

*If you have anything that you want me to add to the list or have a new topic to discuss for the next MABB then feel free to comment!

How To Make Cheese Characters (Tutorial) The Lorax



Cutout drawing, cheese, knife, toasted nori, whole puncher and tweezers are needed.



Lie your picture onto main cheese color and slowly "chop" around the picture.

Cut mustache and eyebrows off from picture and trace onto white cheese then cut out eyes, nose and mouth with straw. Use tweezers to place them onto the character and then punch out three circles, snip one in half and put them in their respective places.

You can do this with any character - but just remember that you need to toast your own nori over the stove (no matter what it says) and it should be placed on later so that it won't become soggy. Using your cheese as a base is what keeps this all together - but feel free to experiment and enjoy!





Making A Better Bento (Part One)

This is assuming that you've either read my guest post on Bento Anarchy or know about some of the bento basics. The first step in improving your bento is to draw it out - its kind of like a great movie scene. What is your bento going to be based on, what will be in it and when are you going to eat it are great factors to consider. Other factors are the healthiness and balance of the bentos - for example my first bentos were total messes with just about everything being made out of either bread, rice or both as well as a lot of processed foods. Not only will you save time when keeping everything basic such as fruits and vegetables as bulk with a small serving of carbs, your choice of protein and whatever you're using to make it special (is it kyara/charaben? Will it use anything that can melt?)



Bad bento example.

My favorite way of making sure that my bentos are balanced is to do a color check. If you have all of the colors of the rainbow (including white, black, pink and purple) in the correct serving sizes then you're doing great! But if all of those items also happen to be corn chips...not so great. My next favorite way is to doodle it out - it doesn't have to be pretty or sophisticated looking, again, think of it as a movie - you always have a storyboard and things to work off of. I like to doodle in the vegetables and characters and then write them down just in case I forget or my drawing doesn't come out as expected.


See the picture below? Just having a basic plan can make everything go right! Hopefully you take all of these tips and tricks into mind when making your next bento - and don't forget to comment and tell me what you think about this! Feel free to ask any questions and I hope that you enjoyed this post! ^^