Teddy Bear Bento (340)

Mr. Pikko and I spent the night vegetating on the couch catching up on Celebrity Apprentice until like 1:30 AM, so when I woke up this morning I just tossed stuff together and was able to make this bento in less than 20 minutes.

I’m proud to say that I’m finally using one of the cute teddy bear baking cups Jenn sent me a while back. I’ve had them sitting around moping for months, begging in silence to be used. I’m actually pretty happy with the little joke I managed to put in as well. Notice that he’s filled with stuffing? A teddy bear with stuffing! Heehee!
On the left I have some rice topped with a nori bear cutout. Next to it is a piece of the oven baked chicken I made last night, topped with some grated parmesan cheese this morning. Below the rice is a piece of broccoflower, microwaved for about 30 seconds. Below the chicken I have three slices of mandarin orange. Underneath teddy’s head is a Babybel cheese and some grapes leftover from class on Saturday.

Yesterday I made a shocking discovery about my rice cooker. Well actually, I guess this morning would be when I made the discovery. The rice cooker that I have is the Panasonic SR-NA10 Rice Cooker/Warmerand the one thing that’s always driven me mad about it is the fact that it yellows my rice within a few hours and when I cook small amounts like a single cup of rice, it singes the bottom of the rice and leaves me with a crusty bottom. I’ve always wondered why my in-laws cook the exact same rice but theirs comes out so much whiter than mine.

This problem has apparently been my fault from the beginning… sorta. I always use the Quick Cook setting because to me, rice taking 20 minutes to cook vs 50 minutes is a no brainer. But since I had a lot of time on Saturday morning and it was a huge batch of rice, I just pressed cook instead. When I got home from class, the leftover rice was plugged back in and I hoped to use it for dinner. When I looked at it that night, it still looked white. I was puzzled.

Suspecting the cooking method may have had something to do with the quality of my rice, I used the regular cook button again yesterday when I put the chicken in the oven. This morning the rice was still a nice, pristine white color and there was no crusty bottom. So after 5+ years of owning this rice cooker, I’ve finally solved the Mystery of the Crusty Yellow Rice. Man, what a relief. Sheesh!

Someone suggested to me that I start doing bento podcasts and that got me to thinking about doing some kind of YouTube segment, but I have no idea how I’d film it. The OOT folks at Allakhazam said that one of the Food Network hosts got started that way and I just had to laugh. I’m not nearly as good a cook as people seem to think I am. I mean look at me, it took me five years to figure out how to use my rice cooker. I suppose I could pitch a show where I take recipe challenges and they film me dorking up the recipe before figuring out some way to put it in a bento, but that doesn’t sound like something they’d go for. LOL!

I got my A Shirt for Sawyer bento picture back from Evangeline Lilly!!! Woohoo!!! I’ll post a pic on Wednesday. She sent the autographed bento picture and included something for my awesome Aunty C “for her kindness”, which places Ms. Lilly on my Supremely Cool Actors/Actresses list. How fitting that it arrived on the day I posted my 6th Lost bento! =)