Hola Monday

Yesterday Monstro had Spanish class after school.  It's so cute to have him come home and speak his little kid Spanish :D  I wanted to subtly remind him to stay after school so his katsu is waving an "Hola" banner at him.

He was originally supposed to have "katsushi" but then decided that morning that he didn't want it.  That was a good thing because we are totally out of nori (well, not totally, we have scraps with little faces cut out!) AND out of katsu sauce.  I used an ice cream cone shaped cutter/stamp for the rice.  I just sat the ring in the box and packed the rice in.  Then used the stamp like a plunger to push the rice through.  The cherry is homemade BBQ sauce (that's more there in the little squirrel cup) and I added little strips of carrot for the waffle cone effect.  He's got baby cucumber rings a carrot flowers as usual.

I actually used a method I saw on Facebook for the carrot flowers.  You cut strips from the whole carrot then slice off little flower slices.  Genius!

What kind of cool tricks do you use?

Head Spinning....

For some reason I always wait until I haven't blogged in forever and am completely overwhelmed by the prospect before I decided to post.

I intended to do a round-up of lunches from the past few weeks.  But, blogger has decided to turn nearly all of my pictures sideways and I just can't see putting them up like that!  So, instead, we have 2 lunches here from after our little trip to my Mom's.  The Adventure Time charaben was on Facebook right after making it but I'm so proud of it that I'm posting it again! ;-)

The first lunch has wavy cut carrots and kiwi.  I don't know if you know this, but everything tastes better cut with a wavy cutter!  It's fact.  I scientifically tested it on Monstro's preschool class a few years ago!   Anyway, I tried to keep with the orange and green theme so there are also pistachios, hunks of sharp cheddar cheese and flax seeds hidden inside the little green box.  He loves flax seeds.  Plain.  I dunno about that kid some times.  I also gave him a nice dessert-y vegetable in the left frog cup- roasted acorn squash with butter, brown sugar and cranberries (YUM!).

The charaben was explained on Facebook but, again, super proud!  Monstro dug through the supplies and gave me the different baran to act as extra characters.  There's Tree Trunks with her apple, the Party Bears down covering up some cucumbers and pink grass to look like LSP is floating in Lumpy Space.  Finn is made from a slice of Provolone cheese, bologna face and nori eyes/mouth all propped up on pieces of an everything bagel.  I just free-handed the cheese and bologna but used a nori punch for the rest and trimmed the mouth into a little smirky smile.  LSP is made from a micro-baked purple potato.  I just sliced it until I got an appropriately outlined shape then used a round cutter to make some lumps to layer on top.  Her arms were cut free-hand, the star was a cutter and the face was a nori punch then I trimmed pieces.  Peppermint Butler is a BabyBel but he didn't turn out as well as my first one.  I cut it by hand and used a nori punch for the face.  The carrots were sliced then cut with tiny cookie cutters. 

I'd like to do another Adventure Time charaben with Jake, Lemongrab, Hot Dog Princess and Gunter.  I really want to do Princess Bubblegum but I'm not sure how I'd do that without food dyes.  If you've got ideas let me know!!

Mom lunch - best leftovers lunch ever!

I have been reading so many rave blog reviews about smelt that I decided to grab some at the store.  They were about $5/lb which I paid happily before realizing that I would NEVER pay that much for ANYTHING.  It turned out to be a pretty good deal though because we all got stuffed at dinner and I had these guys left over for lunch the next day!  Plus, they are really, really pretty!  I ended up staring at them in the colander for the longest time, just tipping it from side to side to make them shimmer. 

I used a combination of Steamy Kitchen and Alton Brown recipes (with a few adjustments, of course) for the smelt and they were so good!  To get them ready for this lunch I just tossed theleftovers straight on the rack of the toaster oven for a "light toast" cycle then let them cool.  They stayed nice and crunchy in the muffin papers even with the moist rice next to them. 

The fried rice is just left over rice from the night before stir fried with onions, carrots, yellow squash and a spicy sauce made from sambal, soy sauce, braggs, fish sauce and sriracha.  Once it cooled down I sprinkled it with chopped spicy nori snacks.

Some days I'm so excited to eat what I've packed that I end up taking my lunch break way too early and I'm starving by the end of my shift.  This was one of those days!  I don't think I even made it 2 hours into my shift before I couldn't stand the wait any more!