So for this week, I’m finally going to try a bento inspired by pop culture. And I have chosen Totoro from the Studio Ghibli movie, My Neighbor Totoro. I love Studio Ghibli films and Totoro is a classic. Plus there is so much to work with in that movie. Totoro is a forest spirit that appears in a tree in a garden in the woods so I pulled in some of those themes as well.
So if i’m going to do a My Neighbor Totoro themed bento box, then I HAVE to include a Totoro. I chose to make mine out of rice. Once I cooked the rice, I mixed toasted black sesame seeds into 3/4ths of the rice. This turned the rice a grayish color perfect for Totoro’s body. I put the gray rice in a piece of saran wrap and hand shaped it into a Totoro shape. I then added some of the white rice to the belly to give it the contrast seen in the film. I added seaweed strips to make the whiskers and belly pyramids. For the eyes I used eye shaped sprinkles. This worked when I initially made the bento, but the next day they had started melting into a gray mess. In the future, I need to find a better way of making eyes out of more neutral ingredients.
Next, I decided to try a different way of making snails to bring the idea of a garden back to the bento. Last time, my snails were big and clunky, so I tried a smaller version. First I stuffed a fig with goat cheese. Then I drizzled the stuffed figs with a chili honey sauce. I cut the puff pastry in strips and wrapped the fig up most of the way up the strip just leaving a piece sticking out for the ‘head’. I was much happier with the look of these snails, they gave more of an impression of the actual snails and were super tasty.
I also tried to make caterpillars out of grapes and strawberries. Unfortunately, my strawberries were a bit big (or the grapes too small depending on your view), so it didn’t really look as much like caterpillars as the original picture I saw. I think with fruit closer in size, these have the potential to be very adorable.
For the final touch on the garden themed, I sauteed some mushrooms in a sesame-soy-chili sauce. Whole mushrooms just scream garden to me so I thought they were a nice addition. I still needed some protein though if I wanted to stay full for the rest of the day so I made some slow cooker buffalo turkey meatballs. These are just frozen turkey meatballs made in a slow cooker with buffalo sauce, minced garlic, and pineapple chunks. I really like these, but buffalo is one of my favorite sauces. It’s definitely not for everyone, but BBQ meatballs would be just as good.
So that is my first pop culture bento; how did I do? It’s not perfect, but I’m still learning a lot with every box I do. Also, I feel like I’m getting faster at a lot of the basics, like making seaweed features lol. Try it out; I bet you could do better.