Mug Bag

Y started working in a new office as of the New Year. He decided that instead of buying tea or coffee after he finished his travel mug of coffee, he should just take a mug to work and make some there. He didn't want the mug to get the inside of his bag dirty, so he asked if I could make him a bag to carry it. I was thinking about the best way to make one, when I remembered that I made a mug bag for K to take his toothbrush, toothpaste and rinsing mug to kindergarten. I tested that bag on a regular mug and it fit. Perfect!

I wasn't too worried about his bag getting dirty, I was more worried about the mug breaking. So, the first thing I did was sew batting to the lining fabric. I left an inch or so at the top with no batting to make the drawstring bit less bulky.

Since I didn't have enough of the main fabric to cut out one long rectangle, I cut two squares and sewed them together at the bottom to make a rectangle.

Then I sewed up the sides on both the lining and outside fabrics, leaving an inch or so at the top, on both sides, unsewn.

Next I squared off the corners on both the lining and outside fabric. They look like little ears - cute!

Then I sewed the top of the side seams down so that the bag won't fray from the drawstring.

Next I put the lining into the outside fabric, with the lining on the outside, wrong sides together. Although I don't think it's necessary, I was super paranoid about not getting the top bit done well, or even worse having it come apart, so I zig zagged the bags together at the top.

Then I folded the top down twice, and sewed it closed.

Finally, I turned the bag right side out, cut two ribbons of equal length and strung them through the top drawstring. The final step was to pop a mug in there and make sure it fit.

Then I took photos and sent them to Y since he was at work when I made it. He loved how it turned out. It was such a simple bag to make, but I think it's super cute! Yay for clean bags and unbroken mugs!

Happy Birthday, Y

Today my wonderful husband, Y, turns 34! Holy moly!! I could gush on and on about what an awesome husband and dad he is, but he knows that already. Instead I will write about his birthday cake.

Ages ago, I saw these strawberry cream-filled Oreos at the grocery store and have wanted to buy them ever since. But, I hate buying sweets because I also make sweets, which means I end up with TONS of sweets in the house and that is probably the last thing I need. If I use them for baking, however, I figure it's okay. Since Y loves cheesecake and I always use Oreos as my base in chocolate cheesecakes, the situation ended up being perfect - I get to buy my strawberry Oreos and Y gets his cheesecake.

I started by crushing up the Oreos. The cream is pink and looks so cute!

Then I mixed up the cream cheese cake batter.

Then my mixer's engine broke.

I had to mix in the eggs by hand. Bakers in the past must have had wicked muscles, because that was not easy.

But, it got done and I popped it in the oven. I knew that I wanted the top to be plain, so I was careful about rotating the cake and also baked it in a water bath. I think I ended up baking it for one hour and 25 minutes, but it might have been slightly longer.

It came out pretty perfect. I poked one hole in the middle to make sure it was done enough. I figured it wouldn't be an issue since I would put candles in it for Y. As it turns out, his birthday cake presentation was pretty lame. While his birthday was today, he leaves on a business trip tomorrow. I woke up, cut a piece of cake for him and put it in a tupperware, along with some whipped cream and strawberries, for him to take to work. No candles or Happy Birthday Song at 7 in the morning. I'll put another piece together for him for dessert, but then the rest is left over. Anyone need some??

Bento Thursday - Just a Triangle

It was bento day again today - wahoo!! K requested the same lunch as last week, but instead of carrots he wanted green peppers. I asked him if he wanted me to make him an animal for his onigiri. Apparently remembering the bear/cat disaster of last week, he looked at me and said, "uhhh, no mama. I'll just have a triangle." Has he lost confidence in my onigiri-making skills!!?? Oh no!!! At first I was a little sad, but then I realized that really, a triangle is way easier and takes about 30 seconds to make - good news because that's about 1 extra minute I get to spend in bed before waking up to deal with lunches.

Y's lunch consisted of carrots with tofu, green peppers with sesame seeds, cucumbers with furikake, green peppers cooked in dashi (fish stock), ground beef, potato and cabbage croquette, and white rice. Yum yum!!

Bento Thursday - It's a bear, not a cat

It's been a while since I've done a bento post. To be honest, it's been a while since I've made a bento. There were a few here and there - all before the holidays - but they weren't all that interesting so it would have been more of a look-at-what-my-kid-had-for-lunch post. Kind of boring, in my opinion. Today, however, was a bento day. Last night I asked K what he wanted in his bento and he requested "an onigiri with sesame seeds, carrots, cucumbers, fried chicken and M&Ms." Luckily I had all of those items on hand - wahoo!! To add a little bit of interest to the bento, I cut the carrots into stars and tried to make the onigiri into a little black and white cat face. I also added in strawberries because six M&Ms for dessert just sounded sad to me.

K got home from school today and was all proud of himself since he ate his entire bento. "Great job, babe! Did you like your cat onigiri?" "Yeah, but Mama, that was a bear, not a cat." Looks like I need to brush up on my animal onigiri making skills.

Y also got a bento today. It's been probably two months since I last made one for him, whoops!! He ended up with rice with salmon furikake, fried chicken, herbed carrots and beans, and broccoli and sausage with parmesan cheese.

One of my friends in the neighborhood recently had a baby, so another friend and I went over to see her and meet her new baby girl. We decided to make our own bentos and take them over so we could all have lunch together with minimum hassle - today was bento day for their older kids as well. My bento contained fried chicken, strawberries, cucumber with furikake, herbed carrots and beans, and (becuase I ran out of white rice making the other bentos) a sekihan (mochi rice with black bean) onigiri. Yum!!

Bento Thursday - The Mother of All Bentos

Every fall, it seems that each school in Japan holds an Undokai (Sports Festival). It is something the kids spend weeks preparing for and if you are like me, the moms spend days working on the bento for. I suppose it really is just like any other bento, except it is for the whole family to enjoy. I ended up making way too much, but just as well.

K's Undokai was meant to be held on a Saturday last month. The whole week, the forcast predicted rain the afternoon. Since this is a morning thing and the school hadn't made any announcements, I figured it should be fine. I started making bits of the bento on Thursday night. I believe I started with the carrots and broccoli, but I don't quite remember. Friday night I did a bit more, and Saturday morning all I had left to do was cut up an apple, make some onigiris, fry up some shrimp and put it all into the bento boxes.

Because T's sleep is weird and he can wake up in any sort of mood, I set my alarm for 5 on Saturday morning. When I woke up it was just barely drizzling, but we were still three hours away from game time. I figured it might stop and the weather at the Undokai would be just glorious. I got the whole bento ready and was packing up the stroller, when Y checked his mail - Undokai cancelled. Are you kidding me!?!! Not to let an entire bento go to waste, we had an indoor picnic on the living room floor.

The Undokai was rescheduled for the following Saturday. Again, starting on Thursday night, I did the veggies. On Friday, K came home from school with a note saying that instead of Saturday (as it was still meant to be raining), the Undokai would be on Sunday. I put off the rest of the prep until Saturday night. Sunday morning rolled around and I did the exact same bento as I had done the previous week - dude, I was all out of ideas.

The big box contained onigiri and proteins. K got a plain onigiri in the shape of a bear. Y got two salmon furikake pig onigiris and I got an umeboshi heart onigiri.

I made fried chicken, Japanese-style omelet, and fried shrimp.

The next layers were the fruit and veggies - apples, grapes, broccoli, carrots and cucumbers. I cut the carrots into bears, flowers and hearts and also decorated with little ham flowers and banners.

The Undokai day was really nice. It was quite chilly in the morning, but as soon as the sun came out, it was nice and warm.

K's class did a few songs and a race - they are two and three years old, it was adorable. In the end, each kid was given a medal from their teacher.

 

The little dude was stoked. Adorable.

 

Bento Thursday - Rockets & Stars

K had school today and as it is Thursday, it was also bento day. He decided yesterday that he wanted a rocket ham and cheese sandwich, carrots, cucumbers and apples. I wanted to cut the veggies into stars, but there was no way I was going to do that by hand again. So, we headed to the 100 yen store and found a small star cookie cutter. Perfect!

T woke up at 4 this morning, which was awesome. Y and I tried and tried to get him to go back to sleep, but it was a lost cause. At 5:50 I admitted defeat and took him to the living room while I got to work on the bento. Since I had so much extra time after making the rocket sandwich and the star carrots and cucumbers, I figured I would cut the apples into stars as well. I have a feeling this cookie cutter is going to get a lot of use - look at those stars!! So cute! Out of the other two rocket bentos, this one is my favorite.

 

Although T was up at 4, which means I have been up since 4, and K was at school I was really hoping for a nap, but alas I had to head to the unemployment office. I am due some unemployment insurance, but I have to go there twice a month for four months. Aye yai! This also means that Y has to take the morning off of work to watch T (and sometimes K) while I go to meetings. He has to be at his office by 1 or it is counted as a vacation day. My meeting ended at 11:30, which gave Y enough time to meet me, walk to the station together, hop on the train, eat his bento and head into the office. It was a busy, busy day and I am beat (and a tad under the weather to boot!). Anyway, Y's bento consisted of rice, teriyaki yellowtail, carrots with sesame (I snuck in a few of the extra stars from K's bento), beef and nagaimo (some kind of potato), spinach with ponzu, and cucumbers with furikake. 

Bento Thursday - Halloween Edition

It was bento day for K today again. Earlier in the week I asked him what bento he wanted and he decided on a Shinkansen bento. Again. But! Yesterday he came from home school and was super jazzed that they were having a Halloween party today. I asked if instead of a Shinkansen bento he would want a Halloween bento and so the ideas started coming. Aside from an onigiri, he wanted asparagus, broccoli, carrots, and nashi. I also threw in some roasted chicken breast.

For the onigiri I started with a ghost cookie cutter and ran it under water so the rice wouldn't stick to it. Then I put it in the bento box and pushed rice into it, then slid the cutter out. I did the face with nori.

Then I put in the greens and chicken where they would fit.

And topped it off with carrots cut to look like Jack-o-lanterns. I LOVE them.

Y's bento was pretty standard - rice with furikake, roasted root veggies, a boiled egg, spinach with tofu, chicken "burgers" with ginger and komatsuna. After finishing K's bento, I still had one Jack-o-lantern left, which I totally could have put into Y's bento. But, I ate it before thinking of that. Sorry babe. Instead I put in heart cut-out carrots that were left over from bento preparation for K's undoukai (Sports Festival) this weekend. The undokai bento is the mother of all bentos and I am stoked for it!!

K got home from school today and as expected he was super excited about the Halloween party. They made black cat costumes, i.e. little ears, and went trick-or-treating, or as K says, "tow rick o tow ree tow," the Japanese version. So cute!

Then he drew a face on two pumpkins and took that around trick-or-treating.

It was full of snacks that the teacher said they could eat at home. He was so happy, which is great because this morning he definitely did not want to go to school. When he came home, however, he declared that "school is fantastic!" That made my day.

Bento Thursday - Dr. Yellow...again

This month, K's school schedule has been a bit mixed up and he only went to school one day last week, same for next week. Today, however, was a school day and bento day at that! He decided that he wanted a cheeseburger and an onigiri. I asked him what veggies and he said, "Whatever. Anything that will fit is fine." I went with what we had in the fridge - broccoli and carrots, and apple for dessert. After looking at my bento books for onigiri ideas, he told me that he wanted a Shinkansen onigiri; mind you there is no Shinkansen onigiri in the book. There was not one other onigiri idea that he liked. Seriously, this kid likes his Shinkansens. He told me he wanted Dr. Yellow again, but the past few times I used egg he didn't eat it (even though I know he likes eggs). I told him that I would only make him a Dr. Yellow bento if he promised to eat the egg. He did! He was so proud of himself and that he ate his WHOLE bento that as soon as we walked in the house, he ripped open his backpack and took out his empty bento box. He's adorable.

 

Since I was making a cheeseburger for K, I decided to just make a few more for Y. He also got some leftover veggies - asparagus and burdock/carrot stir fry. I also cut two sausages in half on an angle and stuck them together with toothpicks to make little hearts. Awwww... 

Bento Thursday - Bears

It's bento day today!! K requested broccoli, asparagus, carrots, fried fish, an onigiri and apples, so that's what he got. I asked him what kind of onigiri he wanted, as in what shape, but he said he didn't know. Since K was a baby, I have often called him, "bear." He used to just snuggle up so close in my arms and it just seemed fitting. To honor my little nickname for him, I thought a bear onigiri would be cute. I also used bear cookie cutters for the carrots to add a bit more cuteness. I loved how the onigiri turned out - I think it's adorable, but I didn't like the space between the bear and the carrots at the bottom.

So, I remedied it with a little bear paw. I think this is one of my favorite bentos for K. I was a bit unsure of how he would react. He generally likes his trains, cars, rockets, etc. and while he likes his stuffed animals, they aren't his go-to toys. I showed it to him and he said, "Mama! It's so cute!! I want to show it to sensei (his teacher)." I was so happy!! Maybe he is still little enough that I can work out a few more cute bentos...

Y's bento was so plain - rice, Japanese-style omelet, fried fish, carrots and burdock root, komatsuna (like spinach) and tofu.

But!! Just as I was wrapping it up, I figured since I had a few carrot bears left over from K's lunch, I would sneak in a few of those little guys. Hehe. Y called me during lunch and said the bento was delicious. He also commented on the bears. I asked if he was embarrassed, but he said he wasn't. Yay for cute bentos!!

 

This is not really related to today's bento, but I got these little food picks for K's bentos that have little sphere heads/faces on the ends of them. I thought they could be cute to stick in cars or trains so it looks like people are actually riding in them. I used one the other night for K's dinner and he loved it. After putting K and T to sleep, I watched a really old episode of Breaking Bad - if you watch the show, it was the episode where the dude's head is stuck to the turtle. Then I washed up the dishes. I started the garbage disposal when all of a sudden a tiny head popped out of the sink. It scared the bejesuses out of me!! The timing could not have been better. Guess I have to be a bit more careful about not letting things get into the disposal. RIP little food pick. 

Bento Thursday - Quesadillas & Cars

Monday was a public holiday here in Japan, so K went to school on Wednesday instead of Monday. As a result, it was the first time for him to go to school two days in a row. I was half expecting it to be a complete disaster, but I actually think it was easier. The only (minor) challenge was that we had to plan the bento on Tuesday even though he didn't eat it until today. He hates school lunch, so he was a bit bummed about having that on Wednesday instead of his bento. Oh well.

I asked him what he wanted and he requested corn, cucumbers, sausage and circle quesadillas. I had no idea what he meant by circle quesadillas, so I asked. He responded that they are quesadillas that are in the shape of a circle. Still slightly confused, "have you ever eaten a circle quesadilla before?" "No." So, I made a quesadilla and then used circle cookie cutters to cut them up. Whatevs. Since it was a pretty lame looking bento, I made the sausage into a little car. I also added some pineapple for good measure.

 

As per usual, Y's was pretty boring - rice with salmon flakes, corn, cucumber, octopus-shaped sausages and pork and veggies in a sweet and sour sauce of sorts. Boring!