Cooking for Bento: Octodog Tutorial + This (Really Short) Week in Bento

Hello again!  Not a lot of bento-ing for me this week.. I know, I know.. out of character, right?  Well, I'm still not working from this back injury thing and I was in a lot of pain earlier in the week, and didn't manage to make any bentos for Steve until Friday.  Of course, I made that bento, and then he forgot it at home. Sigh. It was fine and he was able to bring it to work today, but I wanted at least one more to show you guys, so I made an at-home bento for my lunch today... featuring octodogs!

Don't know what an octodog is?  Well, it's a pretty popular (and quite easy) bento food that's simply a hot dog.. shaped like an octopus!  My beef (sorry.. pun was intended) with a lot of octodogs are that they're made from "Vienna sausages" or other little sausages that have who-knows-what in them.  The very first time I tried making them I used an all-beef Kosher dog, and it was absolutely fine... so why not, right?  So if you're looking for a fun, easy way to add some cuteness to your bento, try these out!

All-Beef Octodogs

Makes 2 dogs

• 1 all-beef hotdog 
• 4 black sesame seeds
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1. First, cut the hot dog in half so you have 2 smaller dogs.

2. Take one of the half-dogs and make a cut, starting at the cut end, a little more than halfway from the tied end of the dog.  Turn the dog 90 degrees, and make the same cut on this side.  This makes a 4-legged dog, which, while not a true octodog, is easier and certainly fine.

If you'd like the full 8 legs, just make two more cuts in-between the ones you already made.  Repeat with the second half-dog.

3.  Heat the oil in a small frying pan over medium heat.  When the oil is hot, just put the dogs in the pan and watch them magically transform into octopi!  The "legs" created by the cuts flare out to the side from the heat.  Since the hotdogs come fully cooked, they only need to be heated for a little bit until warm.  Move them around a bit so they don't burn and once warm, remove and let rest on a paper towel for a minute.

4.  To give them eyes, use a toothpick to poke little holes where the eyes should be.  Push black sesame seeds into the holes until you're happy with the look (you can use the toothpick for this, or little tweezers if you have them.)  And voila!  You are the proud owner of two little octodogs!

Here's a picture of the 4-legged one next to the 8-legged one (pre-eyes); both very cute!

See below for the full bento featuring these guys, but first, at a small attempt to be somewhat traditional, here's the first bento I made for Steve the other day.

September 24

What? A new bento box?  You bet!  I got this one from Bento & Co. just the other day.  Finally I have a 2-tier bento box!  Here we have a poblano and cheese tamal and a chicken chile verde tamal that had been in the freezer (that's right, I still have tamales in the freezer!)  The tamales have some cilantro and lime wedges to keep them company.  In the other tier are all the fixins: an avocado half, sliced black olives, lettuce, sour cream, and salsa.  A tasty, filling Mexican bento!

September 25

And here's the octodogs, featured in a rather Japanese bento!  The rice is topped with ebi fumi furikake and is next to some edamame seasoned with lemon pepper.  There's an avocado half and naruto slices.  And yes, there are the octodogs, swimming in a sea of purple lettuce!

Well, I hope I compensated for my lack of bentos with the octodog tutorial.  Hope you all enjoy it!  Have a great weekend, bento-lovers!