Christmas Sushi and Bread

Hello from Japan! I had wanted to do up one or two posts to auto-post while I'm on holiday, as I've quite a few Christmas creations to share. However, I was busy right up to the day of departure, so it did not work out the way I had intended. I did managed to get the photos uploaded for this post, planning to type it out if I had any free time on my trip. I finally found some time to update as these few days we are just relaxing and enjoying the snow and onsen, after a hectic and tiring one week of theme park and sightseeing.


I did not managed to make any Christmas bentos so far, I do have some from past years and you can check them out over here. The first food art I'm sharing today is a set of Christmas sushi.


I'm quite happy with how they turned out, I've made similar snowman sushi before, and this time, I added in Santa and reindeer as well.


The sushi are mainly made from rice stuffed into aburaage, details were done using ingredients like cheese, nori, crabstick, Kombu and fish sausages. I've served them on a sushi board but they can be packed for bentos too.


I also baked Christmas themed chigiri-pan. Chigiri-pan or pull apart bread buns are quite fun to make. For this, I made snowman, Santa, reindeer, reindeer, gingerbread man, present and berries.


I used cocoa powder and matcha powder for the brown and green respectively. I used food colourings for the rest of the colours. Just stocked up on vegetable powders, will have to try them out when I'm back.


I know some of you want to recipe for these, but I'm not able to share as I was still experimenting so I did not take down the exact measurements.


This was actually the first version of the Chrismas bread buns I made, but I was not happy with it. I wanted to attempt it again with some changes, but could not find the time to do so, looks like I will have to try to attempt this next year.

Christmas Cheese Wedge

More Christmas food art ideas to share for today's post. This time I'm sharing Christmas themed snacks you can make using The Laughing Cow cheese wedges, these are great for serving on a platter for Christmas parties too.


I made snowman, Santa, reindeer and Christmas tree using cheese wedges. I took some photos to explain how I craft them and will share them later in this post.


Which design do you like best? I think mine is the snowman. :)


I'm sure most of you are familiar with the cheese products from The Laughing Cow. They have a wide range of cheese products, and my boys' favourites are Belcube and Cheez Dippers. They have been snacking on them since they were toddlers and they still love to eat them now.


From now till 31 December 2015, you can receive a free Happy Bowl with any purchase of two The Laughing Cow® products. The Happy Bowl is made of high-quality, non-toxic plastic and is microwave-friendly. There are 3 colours for collection: red, yellow and green. I've the one in green. You can redeem at supermarket customer service counter. While stocks last.


Alright, now I'll go through how to create the snowman first. Use knife to cut out triangles for the hat and nose, from bell peppers and carrots respectively. Use a straw or round cutter to cut out circles from ham.


Place the cut-outs on the cheese wedge. Using a nori punch, cut out circles for eyes from nori. Use black sesame seeds for the mouth.


For the Chrismas tree, cut out a strip of cucumber first, then cut them into smaller squares or rectangles.


Cut out a star from carrot using a star cutter, arrange the cut-outs on a slice of cheese wedge.


For Santa, cut out a triangle from bell pepper using a knife. Use a round cutter or scissors to cut out circles from bell pepper and ham.


Use a flower cutter to cut out the Santa's beard from cheese.


Arrange the cut-outs on the cheese wedge. Use a nori punch to cut out nori for the the eyes and mouth.


Lastly, for reindeer, you will need two pretzels and a round bell pepper, which you can cut out using a round cutter or a pair of scissors.


Use a nori punch to cut out circles for the eyes from nori.


You can serve the cheese wedges on crackers, they go really well with them. :)

Frozen Movie Olaf Somen

We love the Disney movie, Frozen. The song 'Let it go' from the movie is so popular, I've heard so many renditions of it. The song is very nice, but I hear it so often, I'm pretty sick of it now, lol.


My boys' favourite character in Frozen, no prize for guessing correctly, is none other than Olaf.


Olaf was made using somen, cheese, nori and carrots. His hands were made using grape stems and can't be eaten. I guess you can if you want to, but it will probably taste awful, lol. -_- The somen was eaten cold with a dipping sauce.


This was quite easy to make, my boys asked me to make Olaf again, will be making another Frozen bento soon.

Where to get same or similar items used in today's post:

Hello Kitty Reindeer & Snowman Bento

I could not decide whether I should make a Hello Kitty reindeer or snowman, so I ended up making them both in my boys' bento yesterday.


These were for dinner last night. I missed the yummy grilled pork and shio koji chicken we had during our recent trip, so I tried to replicate both dishes yesterday. Mine were definitely not as good as the ones we had, but I guess it's good enough to satisfy my cravings.


Reindeer Kitty is made from rice, aburaage tofu, sausages, nori and egg. Snowman Kitty is made from rice, sausage, nori and egg. This winter bento reminds me of our recent trip. We were blessed with plenty of snow during our two days up on the mountains, it was snowing for both days. My boys are already asking for another winter holiday next year.


The original version of the grilled pork, beef and shio koji chicken I was talking about. So good we went back to the same shop again the following day.


Gorgeous scenery up on the mountains, looks like a winter wonderland. My boys did their first snow angel and we built a snowman. :)

Where to get same or similar items used in today's post:

Santa & Snowman Pancakes

I'm sharing two christmas pancakes idea for today.


Santa pancake, made out of whipped cream, strawberries and blueberries.


Definitely something easy to whip up for breakfast.


Here's an even easier one, pancakes snowman.


The details were done using blueberries, melted chocolate, strawberries and Pretz sticks.

Where to get same or similar item used in today's post:

Snowman Sushi & Marshmallow

Last year just after Christmas, I saw some inari sushi snowmen online. I thought they were rather cute, I saved the image then, so I can remember to make them this year.


These are inari snowmen I'm talking about, aren't they cute?


The snowmen are little rice balls stuffed in Aburaage tofu pouches, decorated with carrots, egg sheet, nori and crabstick.


It's the rainy season over here, the weather was just perfect for some hot chocolate. I made two snowmen out of marshmallows for my boys to have with their hot chocolate.


All you need to create these are marshmallows, sour strips and strawberries. I used melted chocolate and a sprinkler for the eyes, nose and mouth.


They look good without their strawberry hats too. :)

Where to get same or similar items used in today's post: