I think I did well this past wk in the bento dept. I decided to try my hand at making onigiris – over 10 yrs after seeing my Japanese international students make some with a rice cooker out in the hall of our dorm. They came out all right. And mainly b/c I didnt really use my hands except for the ones pictured on the plate. I actually mixed the rice with the tuna + canola mayo I’d prepped and with furikake. Then, I shaped them and put the seaweed on them.

For these others, I used my bento molds, which I mentioned in my last post. I tried them all just to practice, and it was a bit confusing at first. The instructions being all in Japanese did not help. I realized the little flexible plastic was to make the indentation so you could put your filling inside. Aha! And then I sorta had to shake them out. I have pictured here a heart, a star, a triangle and a flower-ish-type thing.

I made two bigger ones with the triangle molds. They are actually two different sizes – the one on the left being the smaller one. I actually filled all of the ones I shaped in the molds with tuna and then just poured some furikake over them. Otherwise the rice would’ve been totally plain.

In the end, I thought: “I cant just have rice for lunch! Even if it does have tuna in it… >_>” So, I decided to use the empty blue compartment for some fruit (apricots and cranberries that I never finished eating), and I added a package of instant miso flavoring so I could have soup with it. It was mm-mm-good!