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Hold the bento for the Zebras! (301)

I’ve updated the final list of entrants for the 200k Bento Contest. If you entered and do not see your name, please contact me immediately. It will take me a couple days to judge and get the poll set up.

Expect to see more animals coming this week since I’ve still got a bunch of blank onigiri sitting in my fridge, feeling dejected and sad that they missed the boat. Today, the zebras are catching up.

Zebras Bento

The zebra on the left is Mr. Zebra and the one on the right is his wife. Mr. Zebra isn’t that happy because Mrs. Zebra took a long time to put on her makeup. That’s why they didn’t make it into Noah’s Bento yesterday. Tsk tsk.

The food in today’s bento is one of my favorites, corned beef hash. I still haven’t asked Grandma Mu what her recipe is, but I need to get that soon so that I can have a corned beef hash patty chicken fight between hers and Grandma J’s. They both taste really good. I forgot to bring ketchup for my hash. Doh!

To make the faces of the onigiri I used ham for the nose area, which I cut with a circle food cutter, then rounded out into an oval using that same cutter. Mrs. Zebra’s mouth is hand cut, as are the stripes and ears. To add the little black mohawk at the top, I cut strips of nori and folded the two edges over to make it sturdy. Using a toothpick, I poked a little area into the top of the onigiri to insert the nori.

Zebras

Here is Mrs. Zebra close up:

Zebras Closeup

I got extremely good response for my last “walkthrough” photo, so I’ve made another one for today. The lighting was horrid this time though, I could actually SEE my head shape in the shadow. I think the background I use makes a difference too. Anyway, good thing the pictures end up being small.

Zebra Onigiri Walkthrough

Two separate problems with this bento worked together to make this look just how I wanted it to. For one, the onigiri were too “shallow” for the box, so I needed something to support them. Two, I could only fit three half slices of hash into the box with the zebra. My solution was to cut the last half slice up into strips and use it as a support base for the onigiri. That’s step one. In step two, I added sushi grass around the top and placed the two onigiri on top of the hash. If you look at the top right of the photos, you’ll see two little pieces of sushi grass. I don’t know why, but my grass has one REALLY long blade at the end, so I pull that off.

In step three, I add the hash slices. There is a little area on the left with an open space where the patties curve, so I added a piece of orange cauliflower (I bought it this color, Foodland also has PURPLE cauliflower!). I took a floret and sliced the stem in half, peeling apart the “tree” area to get a piece that fit just right. I added half of a sugar snap pea to fill another hole on the left of Mr. Zebra. In step four, I add three slices of tamagoyaki left over from yesterday with a food divider to keep it from touching the hash. I added the other half of the pea pod and then tucked little tiny pieces of broccoli into the spaces where you could see to the bottom of the bento.

I did not photo adding the fruits as I figured you guys can see that in the final bento picture. ^_^ I slice the strawberries and then leave a couple “butt” ends out, using two for the outer, visible areas. The grapes are still on the stem and I purposely picked small ones to fit in nicely.

I was so happy with the immense response for yesterday’s 300 bento. I was kinda sad that I didn’t get to do what I originally wanted, but everyone is so tickled about it, I don’t feel that way anymore.