Bento #10: Hearts for Valentine

Today I spend 1.5 hours in the kitchen making the bento that the boyfriend will take with him on valentines day. This is so not for me, really ;) I thought it took too long and I was happy when I was done. I do have to add that I am very slow at these things, so any other person might just spend an hour in the kitchen getting the same result. I am going to enter this bento in the BOMB challenge at Hapa Bento!


It contains pink heart shaped onigiri, apple slices, also cut in heart shapes using a cookie cutter and soy sauce in the bunny cup. The bottom tier has an egg, meatballs in tomato sauce, laughing red cow cheese and mixed Mexican veggies (corn, kidney beans, paprika and green beans) & edamame. Obviously making the onigiri took the longest.

If you would like to try to make heart shaped onigiri, I have a small tutorial posted below how you can do this using a heart shaped muffin tray. (you will have to excuse me for the blurry pictures since the focus was more on cooking and I took them really quick.)

First you need to have some pieces of plastic wrapper. I always cut these beforehand so I won't have to cut them during the progress. For this batch I cooked 2 cups of sushi rice in the rice cooker. (I really love my rice cooker!) I used some raspberry food coloring to get the pink color. Just add some drops in the bowl with the rice and stir really well until you got the color you want. I tasted the rice afterward but it didn't really leave an aftertaste so everything worked out fine :)


I placed some plastic wrapper over the tray and I filled it with a spoonful of rice. I pressed the rice in the hole so it would fill it nicely.


Then close it all up and pressing it down some more. I do this so it will stick after I remove the wrapping.


Turn the muffin tray around and gently (!!) squeeze in the tray until the rice comes lose. Carefully unwrap the onigiri and place them in the bento. You can use the same piece of wrap several times, but after 3 times it does get a bit too sticky, so it is better to have some more pieces ready.


When you want to freeze the onigiri for another time, keep the wrappers on and just put them in the freezer once the rice has cooled. I got 9 hearts out of my 2 cups of rice so I have frozen some for a next time.

I hope you all find this useful :) It is an easy technique and you can make some in advance like this :)

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