bento#31 Totoro snowman

After I posted “how to make a Wall-E sandwich” on December 21, I started getting a lot of traffic to my blog, my flickr and my boyfriend’s flickr. At the time, I was still writing about my older bento on my blog and using my flickr to post pictures for my blog, so I decided to make a bento for people who were visiting my boyfriend’s flickr blog to see my latest bento. My boyfriend and I were on a vacation this day, but it was a Christmas eve, and I wanted to make something special. Which character did I pick?

Bento #31: Totoro snowman
Created and eaten on: 12/24/2008

I wanted to make a winter themed bento, so I made Totoro, medium-Totoro and mini-Totoro making a Totoro snowman! I’ve made Totoro with rice and mini-Totoro before, but I’ve never made medium-Totoro before because he was blue… But since this was a special occasion, I really wanted to make all three Totoros. So I gave up trying to make medium-Totoro in blue, and made it in green (with lettuce).

To let it snow in my bento, I made an egg sheet (see “how to make an egg sheet”) and put it in a bento box so snow would stand up. I put soboro (ground beef cooked with soy sauce and sugar) at the bottom of the bento box to for ground, and broccoli over it.

Then I made Totoro out of rice with black sesame seeds and cheese. (see “how to make Totoro”) I used kamaboko (fish cake) and seaweed for his eyes and mouth, and cheese for his stomach instead of rice for this one, because this Totoro was a lot smaller than the other Totoro I made with rice. I made snowman Totoro with rice, seaweed and carrot. For its arms I cut a potato and fried it.

I made mini-Totoro with a quail egg, seaweed and kamaboko as usual. (see “how to make mini-Totoro”) Then I shaped potato salad I had made the night before into a ball, wrapped it with a microwaved lettuce leaf, and stuck small pieces of broccoli on as his ears. Lastly I put cheese and seaweed for its stomach and mouth, kamaboko and black sesame seed for its eyes.

I cut cheese with a circle cookie cutter and straw for the snowflakes. (see “how to make a snowflake” ) But the cheese was too thin and weak for itself, so I put ham underneath. (I even used the little cheese circle pieces I got from making the snowflakes in the bento!)

Maybe because I had made rice ball Totoro and mini-Totoro so many times before this bento, I could just focus on finishing the bento. I didn’t try anything new for this bento except snowflakes, but I still had good time making this one. I love how everyone is looking at the snowman Totoro! (Funny what tiny black circles can do :D)

Totoro: (see “how to make Totoro”)
– rice with black sesame seed and salt
– kamaboko (fish cake), cheese and seaweed

Medium-Totoro:
– potato salad wrapped with lettuce
– cheese and seaweed for his stomach and nose
– kamaboko and black sesame seed for his eyes

Mini-Totoro: (see “how to make mini-Totoro”)
– quail egg
– kamaboko and black sesame seed for his eyes

Snowflakes: (see “how to make a snowflake” )
– cheese on ham

Snowball Totoro:
– rice
– seaweed for its face
– carrot for its ears and nose

Other food:
– egg sheet (see “how to make an egg sheet”)
– soboro (ground beef cooked with soy sauce ad sugar)
– broccoli

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