Otakugumi - Bento Boxes

At our October Otakugumi programs we made bento boxes and watched Howl's Moving Castle.  I didn't take any photos of the kids making their bento boxes, but did take some of the set up at one of the locations.

For samples of adorable bento creations, I printed out a search results page from Pinterest.  

Supplies:

•  plastic silverware - notably knives.
• paper plates
• disposable food storage containers - such as Gladware.
• cookie cutters - various sizes and shapes
• napkins
• rice cooker
• wax paper

Food:

• Asian/sushi rice.  It's stickier than American style rice (and tastes so much better!)
• veggies - I bought a small veggie tray.  It had broccoli, cherry tomatoes, baby carrots, celery, sugar snap peas, and ranch dip. 
• fruit - I didn't buy any for this program because I didn't like the looks of what they had at the store. 
• raisins (or other dried fruit)
• tortilla
• lunchmeat - I had sandwich size pepperoni and salami
• cheese - I had American cheese slices, cheddar cheese pieces and some string cheese.
• small pretzel sticks
• candy
• anything that can be used to make cute food.

The wax paper is used to make the rice into ball shapes.  Know what else works great?  An ice cream scoop.  I forgot the paddle for my rice cooker at home so grabbed the plastic ice cream scoop from our breakroom (didn't want to use metal on my rice cooker). 




 
 My sample isn't nearly as cute as some of the samples you can find online, but it is still fun.  And fun is what it is all about.