Santa´s Little Helper-Game:Summer Edition™

These days we have another little gear swap game on Nekobento.

Due to my summer vacation is scheduled next week I was able to send and recieve mine some days sooner then most of the paticipants.

(It´s strange, I think my blog transformed from a bentoblog to a pakageblog ;))

So here it is:

Contents:

A japanese reciepe book
Geisha chopsticks
Green Tea noodles
Sakura Pocky
Furikake
Some japanese candies
Panda chocolate cookies
Peach chewing gum
Some tiny little floral bowls

Thanks sooooo much. I´m so happy now. I even stopped playing StarCraft for opening and taking pictures of it. BF and I nomed the sweets away while playing another round ;)

Happy mail is happy!

I recieved my strawberry-fukubukuro from Neko-chan:

What was in?

The natural lunchbox with matching bag, belts and chopsticks, some tiny japanese chocolates, egg formers and sausage-cutter in penguin shape (fun fact: I had ordered the same one for my victim in our Santa´s Little Helper-Game:Summer Edition™)

I´m happy I could resist buying this box for so far, because I always wanted to buy one of these...

*bigbighappydance*

Lucky me: 3rd price in Bento-competition!

I feel so happy because the Nekobento- Competition is finally over. I never thought that there was a chance for me because there were so many great other entries. The voting was totally anonymous and we weren´t alloud to post pictures of our bentos somewhere else. In the first round there where over 60 participating bentoers. But after we entered the second round with only 12 competitioners left I was very sure which bento came from which fellow bentoer ;)

Congratulation to Token (1st) and Murasaki (2nd), too! And big thanks to all voters and critiques!

But finally, here is the bento I entered with:

Left: puff pastries filled with veggies in soy sauce, apple bunnies, grape and banana-skewers, meatballs, tomatoes, veggie and shrimp-tempura, cucumber slices, chinese noodles underneath


Right: Chicken karaage with tonkatsu sauce in the penguin, daigaku imo with sesame, more tomatoes, green asparagus, rice and katsudon


There will be pictures of the winner´s gifts, that were sponsored by Neko-chan, when the delivery-boy finally rings my doorbell (I´m a little bit afraid because the pakage was shipped with Hermes, I do not like those unreliable guys, really).

It´s there!

Last week a member of Nekobento started a selling-of from the things she brought from Japan but realized at home that she bought too much. On her list was a black and white yukata (summer kimono) from Hayashi kimono. I couldn´t resist...It was soo hard for me to wait for the postman to arrive. One hour ago finally the door bell rang and I knew that I had to try it on immediately:

Photo isn´t so great but BF is still at work :(

I´m so happy that I fitted so well because I am surely the opposite of a japanese women´s figure.I think it looks good, but I have to improve my kitsuke-skills. So long I will not show you how this looks from behind, because the hanhaba obi is a mess and the collar doesn´t stand up like it should.

It took some time to realize that there was an additional strap to fix the yukata while tying the obi which was sewed in the right sleeve! There was also a yellow-colored hanhaba obi, but I liked the red one I purchased last year  on a japanese festival better (mostly because it´s wider, so that the bust-line doesn´t look too silly)

In the pakage were some little kompeito-sweets and a totally cute kanzashi-hairband (you can see it in the picture, too:) Thanks a lot you-know-who-you-are!

Anpan and BF´s first bento

Today I started to enjoy my vacations my way. I stayed most time of the day in the kitchen and tried some new reciepes (whem I have to work Ì am too lazy to try new things that may be failures). This is mostly because BF finally accepted my offer of making bento for us both and I had to have something eatable to put into a hungry man´s lunchbox.

I started with a nice  bowl of  "Schnitzel"-chillicream-hotpot with noodles. I´m so glad that BF decided to have a bento for lunch at work yesterday. This way I am able to kill the massive leftovers from my cooking-spree. After that was done I proceeded to cook at pot of "Gulasch".

That was exausting because the kitchen was so foggy ans warm while I was roasting the beef and cutting tons of onions and bell pepper. After 4h at very low heat it was finally done.

To keep myelf busy while waiting for the gulasch I finally tried to make some anpan. I always didn´t dare to bake some of these because I was scared that I wouldn´t like them. But when BF and I visited Düsseldorf we had the chance to grab some of the fluffy goodness at Bakery Taka. I liked the cream that was inside with the anko. I had a recipe from here but added 50ml of whipped cream (not sugared) to the filling. They came out petty good and BF liked them. Next time I will also add some pudding-powder to the filling to get it more firm and to prevent it from flowing out:

And here is BF´s first bento:

Upper tier: "Schnitzel"-chillicream-hotpot with noodles and a flower made from carrot and green onion

Lower tier: Lindt nougat-praline, grapes, tomatoes and the last anpan (there was also a tiny bag of jelly-fruits)

Happy Birthday

I´m back again! Last wednesday BF and me visited Düsseldorf, the german city with the largest japanese population outside of Japan. We wanted to go tomorrow first because it is Japan Day then which is celebrated anualy. But BF is in the middle of his exam so we decided to go there when it is less crowded and stressy.  I spend so much money that I can´t remenber the exact amount ;) So here is the booty (kitteh approved):

 
I like the new tableware most, even if i almost cried when I saw the price-tag... Actually I wanted to buy more things like cooking ingredients. But we ended up with lots of japanese candy, chocolates and snacks that we usually can´t find outside the web for a reasonable price. We brought also concentrated Calpico-Drink, that´s so handy and tastes awesome! And I am glad that I finally found a tamagoyaki-pan ( No ugly-shaped eggrolls anymore, yay!) at DaeYang (15€).

Later we went to Bakery Taka for some fresh choco-cornets, anpan and takoyakipan (sic!). That was so delicious. We wanted to go to dinner in a japanese restaurant, too, but it was literally raining cats and dogs and we didn´t wanted to wait two hours outside until the restaurant opened.

Tomorrow we will eat out at Tokyo-Acacia in Münster again because today is my birthday (and we are both too lazy to go today :)). Maybe I find some time to tell you what´s new on the menue there!

P.S. I´m so nervous about the Nekobento- Bento-Challenge (pics will follow when the challenge is over ;))

Still alive...

I just wanted to let you know, that i´m still here. I stopped bentoing because of the circumstances I have to work in now. It´s very stressy at work so we can´t have a proper lunch break every day. So I think bentoing is too time-consuming when most times you have to take all your food back home or, in the worst case, throw everything away in the end . I hope to start again, when our chief of staff finally realizes that we need more nurses here...

Another aspect is that I feel so sleepy after work that I don´t want to spent all of the little time left for me and the family in the supermarket and in the kitchen...perhaps i will feel more encoured about that when the weather starts to get nicer again and the day will seem a little longer then.

I hope you will visit my site again, when there is some time for me to come back ;)

Tagged!

I recieved this one from Lil´chan from Lilys kleiner Bentoservice, but now I have to work for it! Thank you so much!

"Copy the award image into a post ; List 10 things that make you happy ; Tag 10 bloggers who brighten your day ; Put in a link to their blog ; Notify the award receivers ; Recipients should link back to the sender's blog."

So here are the facts:

1. Sleeping (as long as my back doesn´t start to hurt^^)
2. Reading a good book
3. Relaxing in my bath tub
4. Cooking and bentoing
5. Baking
6. Shopping (i´m addicted to amazon.com)
7. Doing funny things with my boyfriend
8. Video Games
9. Chocolate
10. My cat

I actually start to get problems in tagging new people because almost everyone I know has already recieved this one or is tagged by another person :(

OK...let´s try: Backwahn, Feisty Bento, tatabonita. Judy, LunchbucketBento, Pigs do fly, Playing with my food...uhm..thats all i can tag ;)

Update: I recieved another award from LiaChen of Bentolicious. Thank you so much!