I decided to take on one of my favorite pop culture franchises this week, Pokémon!! So an aside about my love of Pokémon for anyone who doesn’t really know me or maybe hasn’t met me in person. I LOVE Pokémon. I have played all of the main franchise games on a variety of handheld systems, many of the spinoff games, watched the anime way after I should have been ‘too old’ for it, have gone to so many of the PokeCenters in Japan, and have way too much of the merchandise. Oh, and if that wasn’t enough to convince you, my wedding ring is shaped as a pokeball and came complete with a Pokémon game proposal (I’ve never seen a better proposal or ring; I love it). So now that everyone understands my deep love for the industry, you can see why this was such a fun lunch for me to make.
So the main part of this meal in the Pikachu rice balls. These were originally going to be stuffed with baked salmon, but I didn’t think the salmon looked great at the store, so they became plain rice. I made 2 rice balls per meal. The first just had seaweed wrapped around the middle and the second had sliced cheese around it for Pikachu’s face. I used leftover cheese to make the ears that extend onto the second rice ball. I used leftover seaweed to make the facial features. I then cut up string cheese into discs. I dyed a few red for the cheeks. I also, cut some in half and dyed half red (the red and white halves would come together to form the pokeball with a piece of seaweed). The overall effect of these made me so happy.
I ended up getting sausages to replace the protein lost by not having salmon. I just turned them into the regular octopus shape. But if I had thought about it a little more, I could have made them appear more like Dugtrio. It was really a missed opportunity that I’ll need to rectify in a future bento box.
Because I like to have 2 different forms of protein I also made a beef rollup. I used asparagus and green onion rolled up in shabu shabu beef and lightly sautéed. This was pretty good; I love shabu shabu beef. But (there’s always a but), the onion was a bit overwhelming. I should have tempered them or cut them smaller or something. Overall, delicious though.
I also need to have some veggies in my lunch. It just brightens the whole meal and makes it taste fresh. For my veggies I boiled some edamame, corn on the cob, and rainbow carrots. The colors really helped liven up the look of the bento and made it even more attractive to eat.
Lastly, I need a sweet at the end of the meal so I got some candy from the Asian market. They taste like very flavorful smarties and come in small enough packs that you don’t feel bad about eating them. Well that’s it for this lunch, what do you think? Also, Abra is the best Pokémon!!