Onigiri Treats
Most people new to bento eventually read about a mysteriously named, popular food item called ‘onigiri’. It’s a bit of an odd word, don’t you think? How do you pronounce it? Japanese would say oh-neegeeree. I’ve heard others say oh-nee-gear-ee, but if you say it that way, I’m going to bet you also say sam-er-eye and carry-oh-kee, both of which make my ears shrivel up and die.
Don’t be offended. I am simply a pronunciation snob at times. For instance, I have an intense hatred for the word ‘doily’, but only because of the way it sounds, not by how they look. If anyone ever introduced me to someone named Doily I’d probably run away screaming.
Anyway, onigiri is of course, a ball of rice. However, bento maniacs like me sometimes like to change things up.
Quit shaking your head! Or laughing at me! Or whatever it is you’re doing! Yes, I have issues with bento addiction. Yes, those are onigiri made out of Rice Krispies.
I don’t know if other people out there share my sentiment, but I despise the pre-made, packaged Rice Krispies treats. To me, they taste too sweet and just don’t have that magical taste that’s abundantly clear as soon as you bite into a homemade one. I’m guessing that’s due to the butter.
As I mentioned yesterday, I bought a double boiler to prevent me from going on a murderous rampage and doing something stupid, like giving up chocolate. I also happened to buy an enameled cast iron pot
Here are the marshmallows, taking a nice butter bath. That’s another thing I hate. Marshmallow creme. YECH! I refuse to eat it and I actually can’t stand eating marshmallows uncooked either. I’ll eat them toasted (which I dangerously do over a stove burner when desperate) or melted in butter and crammed between cereal.
Which reminds me, the box of Rice Krispies I bought DID NOT CONTAIN THE RECIPE ON THE BOX. Instead, they dedicated the entire back of the box to telling me how Rice Krispies now boosts my child’s immunity by giving them blah blah blah essential vitamins and minerals. Then on the side they had some stupid cartoon thing showing a kid and mother happily shopping for Rice Krispies.
Here’s a clue, Kellogg’s: I don’t care.
Yes, I know I can find the recipe anywhere online, but the recipe being on the box is just one of those things I’ve counted on for my entire life. I buy a bag of marshmallows, a box of cereal, and butter then go home and read the box. It’s like getting in my car and finding the gas pedal missing. It just doesn’t make sense.
Neither do my analogies.
Anyway, after an official website visit and Twitter/Facebook ranting, I proceeded to make the pot of gold. The really stupid part is that after all my ranting about the recipe, I ended up adding more cereal than the recipe called for just cause it didn’t look like there was enough.
And now for the moment I’d been waiting for……
YESSSSSS! Victory!!!!! SUCCESS!!!!
At first, I didn’t think it was going to happen. I’d chopped up the chocolate and was dumping it into the pot when a drop of water from underneath my cutting board fell in. I barked a bad word, to which Mr. Pikko alarmingly asked, “What?!”. Used to this kind of ridiculous accident, I wiped it up with a piece of paper towel and hoped for the best.
While I melted the chocolate, I formed the treats into onigiri shapes. It should be noted that I only made nine because they were exceptionally huge, something I’ll have to avoid next time. I really should have used only about half the amount to make small ones. Learning curve! I’ll eat the mistakes. Dirty job, etc.
If you’re thinking they look exceptionally shiny, they are. It also meant they didn’t dry even after an hour. I ended up putting them away in a big Ziploc container overnight and when I got home yesterday they still weren’t dry, so I stuck them in the fridge. How typical that when I finally get my chocolate to melt, I can’t get it to harden. The fridge did the trick and I had to pry my six chocolate ones apart with two hands.
As you can see, I have “nori wrapped” onigiri and plain onigiri. Maybe next time I can try squeezing some red icing into the middle to have “ume” filled onigiri, haha!
I came up with this idea on Saturday, when I busted out a Rice Krispies House Decorating Kit
These would make a great bento party dessert!
Now that I’m done with that… on to my bento.
You’ll have to excuse the gross photo, but I had no time to get the lamp set up and took this in the kitchen instead. I used my donburi bento box (you can find a similar one on J-List) to pack up leftover hamburger stew. I was going to just leave the hearts and flowers as-is, but then decided I had some time to put some nori faces on. The Gen-ji Mai rice is leftover from the freezer and I ended up only eating half, so I should have packed veggies in the other side.
Cuting up your stew is pretty easy. All you need is mini cutters and pieces of potato. I fish them out and rinse the stew off of them before slicing them and cutting them. I hide the scraps at the bottom of the stew and place the clean shapes on top.
As for my Twelve Days of Bento contest, here are the winners and the song!
The Twelve Days of Bento
On the first day of bento, Santa gave to me… one teri chicken bento fo-or me. (Kimi)
On the second day of bento, Santa gave to me… two Babybels, (Dana)
and a teri chicken bento fo-or me.
On the third day of bento, Santa gave to me… three quail eggs, (Carrot Leaves)
two Babybels,
and a teri chicken bento fo-or me.
On the fourth day of bento, Santa gave to me… four cheese snowmen, (Sandra)
three quail eggs,
two Babybels,
and a teri chicken bento fo-or me.
On the fifth day of bento, Santa gave to me… five MU-SU-BIS! (Kimi)
four cheese snowmen,
three quail eggs,
two Babybels,
and a teri chicken bento fo-or me.
On the sixth day of bento, Santa gave to me… six checkered apples, (Sheri)
five MU-SU-BIS!
four cheese snowmen,
three quail eggs,
two Babybels,
and a teri chicken bento fo-or me.
On the seventh day of bento, Santa gave to me… seven edamame, (Leslie Carter)
six checkered apples,
five MU-SU-BIS!
four cheese snowmen,
three quail eggs,
two Babybels,
and a teri chicken bento fo-or me.
On the eighth day of bento, Santa gave to me… eight sauce containers, (Monica Lavoie)
seven edamame,
six checkered apples,
five MU-SU-BIS!
four cheese snowmen,
three quail eggs,
two Babybels,
and a teri chicken bento fo-or me.
On the ninth day of bento, Santa gave to me… nine cute baran, (Sheri)
eight sauce containers,
seven edamame,
six checkered apples,
five MU-SU-BIS!
four cheese snowmen,
three quail eggs,
two Babybels,
and a teri chicken bento fo-or me.
On the tenth day of bento, Santa gave to me… ten octodogs, (Leslie Carter)
nine cute baran,
eight sauce containers,
seven edamame,
six checkered apples,
five MU-SU-BIS!
four cheese snowmen,
three quail eggs,
two Babybels,
and a teri chicken bento fo-or me.
On the eleventh day of bento, Santa gave to me… eleven bento cookbooks, (Lil’Chan)
ten octodogs,
nine cute baran,
eight sauce containers,
seven edamame,
six checkered apples,
five MU-SU-BIS!
four cheese snowmen,
three quail eggs,
two Babybels,
and a teri chicken bento fo-or me.
On the twelfth day of bento, Santa gave to me… twelve sandwich cutters, (DaiDai)
eleven bento cookbooks,
ten octodogs,
nine cute baran,
eight sauce containers,
seven edamame,
six checkered apples,
five MU-SU-BIS!
four cheese snowmen,
three quail eggs,
two Babybels,
and a teri chicken bento fo-or me.
Hawaiian version:
Numbah twelve day of bento, Santa gave to me… twelve sandwich cutters,
eleven bento cookbooks,
ten octodogs,
nine cute baran,
eight sauce containers,
seven edamame,
six checkered apples,
five MU-SU-BIS!
four cheese snowmen,
three quail eggs,
two Babybels,
and one teri chicken bento fo-or me.
Congrats to the winners! It took me quite a while last night to figure out who won what, since I made sure to pay special attention to the amount of syllables that people used in their entries while still trying to keep the most relevant bento items in mind. Day 4 really had me stumped and eventually I settled on the cheese snowmen.
I’ll be in touch about addresses and such soon!
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Tags: Bento, Contests, hamburger stew, Onigiri, rice krispies treats