Yum-Yum Bentos on Sunrise

As I mentioned yesterday, I was scheduled for a brief appearance on Sunrise on Hawaii News Now to promote Yum-Yum Bento Box and the book signings I have coming up this weekend. The video is available online now at the Hawaii News Now website. Thank you very much to Terri and the Sunrise crew for having me on!

I took photos of the bentos I made while I was back in the newsroom waiting for my turn on air. This one is Miss Octopus, my personal fave of my own bentos in the book. I originally made her back in April 2009. LiveJournal eventually contacted me to have her put into their Anthology! That was awesome. 😀

I have to admit I was surprised that I was able to do these bentos on time. I completed the assembly for all three in a total of 45 minutes. The fried chicken took some time to fry, but I’d had it marinating since last night. I also had to cook the broccoli (45 seconds in microwave steamer) and make the Potato Tuna Salad (boiled the potato last night), but after that, I put the whole thing together in 15 minutes.

This one was very easy to make. I think I did this one in less than 10 minutes. My former bento class students will remember that I taught them how to make this one.

This last one is the one shown on the back of the book. I actually had to make modifications to it since I was in a hurry and I replaced the kabocha with carrot sticks, the quail eggs with cherry tomatoes, the Sesame Chicken Nuggets with leftover meat jun, and the pear with apple. This cut down on prep time considerably, but in my hurry I didn’t realize that the lettuce was showing so much. Eep!

In the book, Maki fries her spaghetti noodle antennae, which I tried to do, but failed at. I put the oil back on the burner and for some ridiculous reason I put it on high. Then I went to go get dressed. I came back and the kitchen was completely smoky and the oil was black. Boy am I an idiot sometimes. I had to open windows and doors and fan the smoke out.

Tomorrow I will have book signings at Marukai Dillingham at 10 AM and Marukai Ward at 1 PM. If I don’t burn my house down making sample bentos, hopefully I’ll see some of you there. Maybe I’ll bring my hoodlums…