Ahhh another bento box, a cute one to boot. The “happy egg in the nest” is a cherry tomato with a face cut from a nori sheet. The egg sits in a bed of “angel hair pasta” made with zucchini and is surrounded by green bean spears and radish slices.

The pink pig is a reusable cup that holds the marinara sauce. The sauce sits on top a bed of ribboned spinach, cubbed yellow bell peppers and parsley. The little bird in the nest holds the dressing for the salad.

There are many, many types of bento boxes but I prefer the “Leaf Tight” brand because they have snapping side hinges and a rubber seal to prevent leaking, a major plus when packing a lunch. I use a bento strap as insurance to make sure things stay put together and there are no accidental openings in my bag.

The best resources I’ve found for bento boxes and supplies have been Japanese grocery stores, Ebay and the dollar store-yes the dollar store! If your interested in bento making start at the dollar store, this is by far the most affordable way of getting your bento collection rolling:) My words of wisdom when bento box shopping are to look for boxes that are dishwasher safe, big enough to hold a meal and have a tight sealing lid. This cartoonish carrying bag is courtesy of Ebay.

For the angel hair pasta I use a lemon zester to make fine zucchini noodles. It sounds tedious but you can whip up a batch of pasta in no time with a sharp tool like this zyliss zester, this baby cuts like a knife in hot coconut butter;) Happy bento making!

I love, love, love kimchi! I may actually be an addict and could possibly start a support group “Kimchi Addicts Anonymous.” I have been on an Asian food kick and here is my latest and greatest raw recipe. These rolls make great appetizer for a party or two rolls make for a filling dinner.

You may be looking at those four petite rolls thinking how artsy the presentation is but let me fill you in on a little secret. There are only four rolls on the plate because they are the four that survived my dull kitchen knife. The rest got squished and I ate them:) They were delicious! I am in serious need of a knife sharpener:)

Hot ‘n’ Spicy Kimchi Rolls

~1 Cup of kimchi

~6 Untoasted Nori Sheets

~6 Sliced Shitake Mushrooms

~4 bunches of baby Bok Choy

~2 Persian cucumbers thinly sliced length wise

~2 Tbs Mirin Sauce

~2 Tbs Sesame oil

~1 Tbs Mellow white miso

~1Tsp sesame seeds

~1 Tsp grated ginger

Slice your baby bok choy into 1/4″ thick ribbons. In a bowl combine the bok choy, sesame seeds, mellow white miso, ginger and sesame oil. In a separate bowl combine the shitake mushrooms, mirin sauce and let it marinate.

Place a nori sheet on a bamboo mat and make a two inch wide path of bok choy at one end of the nori sheet, the bok choy will take the place of rice. Then stack on the sliced cucumbers, marinated shitake mushrooms and as much or as little kimchi as you want. Using a bamboo mat roll the nori tightly using water to seal the edges if they won’t stick. Using a SHARP knife:) slice your roll into bite size pieces and artfully display. I used the kimchi juice as a decorative yet tasty sauce on my plate.

The Renegade craft fair was in Brooklyn this weekend and it was AWESOME!! I was pleasantly surprised when I found The Brooklyn Community Juice truck a.k.a “The Green Pirate” parked outside serving fresh raw and organic juice to the masses. I bought one of their young coconuts with the logic that I would need the electrolytes to shop my heart our in this muggy NYC weather.

I love the idea of a Juice truck, they have every other kind of trucks and vendors at big events so why not a juice truck? I’m sure there are lots of people who would opt for a fresh juice over a soda, I would!! The neat thing about a juice truck is that where there is one there will soon be need for more! Expand Green Pirate expand, the world needs you! VIVA LA GREEN PIRATE REVOLUTION!!

While at the fair I found some really neat and interesting items. Although not raw;) Still cool….

These bobby pins are made from recycled watch faces, I like that there are no hands on them. Thats the part of a watch I like to ignore anyways:)

The crafty crafter who makes these note books was a hot item at the fair, his booth was packed! He takes the old books that the thrift store can’t sell and reincarnates them into one of a kind note books and journals. He mixes the book pages in with seventy five pages of blank paper to make a unique and original note book. The shipping is included in the price, a book will run you thirteen dollars. www.bookjournals.com

Now I have a fun note book to keep track of all the blogging ideas I have floating around in my head. I have used up several pages already, ahhh organization awaits!

Believe it or not, there was a time not that long ago where I had no interest in kitchen gadgets, appliances, cute bowls, dishes ect. I didn’t like spending money on these things and purposely kept my kitchen wares to a minimum. Now all that has changed, the more time I spend making raw dishes the more and more I want fun dishes to serve them in and fun tools to make them with.

These are two of my latest kitchen editions. The bright, punchy bowls are from Zak designs, they’re made of recycled melamine.  At first sight I knew these babies had to be mine. You can find this set of four nesting bowls at Urban outfitters for 28.00.

I fell in love with this heart shaped bamboo spoon and I needed that too:) It’s a little hard to read but it says “Made With Love” on the handle. I thought that was pretty appropriate for a raw foodie like myself-awwwww. Unfortunately the spoon is only sold in an Urban Outfitters store but you can pick it up for 8.00$.

Aliens have clearly taken over my body. I had a gift card to spend in Urban Outfitters and the normal me would have never set foot in the kitchen department, I would have purchased clothes with that card. Instead, the aliens that invaded my life convinced me that I needed these cute housewares, I never knew aliens had such a good eye for design:)

Ladies and gentleman …..drum roll please…….I’d like to introduce, my very first raw bento box! Tada! A bento box is the Japanese option to brown baggin’ it. The word Bento means “packed lunch” in Japanese. The goal of bento making is to pack as much food as possible while looking appealing and cute! Bentos are a great way to pack a school lunch, I’m a kid at heart so I have no problem admitting that I made this whimsical bento box for my own lunch:)

I named my salad bento “Forrest Friends.” It features “mushroom” shaped radishes and yellow “butterfly” bell peppers, they were made with mini cookie cutters. The spinach salad base is sprinkled with chopped celery and parsley tufts fill in the outer edges. The animal bottles holds mirin sauce for the tomatoes and an oil and vinegar dressing for the salad. The animal food picks hold blackberries, raspberries and cherry tomatoes. The mini carrots and raw almonds fill the food cups.

I must confess one of the main appeals to making a bento box is playing with my food and buying all the cute Japanese accessories that go with it:) There will be more bento box posts to come, till then check out this great bento blog. Keep in mind it’s not raw or vegetarian but it will give you a good idea of how fun bentos can be and all there great accessories that come with it. It’s pretty amazing what people can do with a bento box.

Grow a pineapple today! I found this link on www.instructables.com about growing your own pineapple. It’s pretty awesome, even if you don’t have your own outdoor space you can grow them indoors. If you live in a warmer climate you will have no problem growing your own pineapples outside. Oh, how I wish I lived in Hawaii! The down side is it takes 2-3 years to grow a pineapple but it would still be cool to have your own pineapples now matter how long it takes:)

www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Grow-Pineapples

Pretty Pineapple flower that will eventually turn into a pineapple fruit.

I DO:) After reading my post about Green Market Goodies I’m sure some of you are a little stumped as to why anyone would ever want to eat stinging nettles?!?!? Well have no fear I’m here to provide you with an arsenal of great reasons why you should eat nettles as often as you can.

• Nettles are an excellent source of Iron, they’re an ideal green for people who have anemia or are prone to it.

• Nettles make a good tonic for cleansing the blood. If your feeling sluggish grab so nettles for a pick me up.

• Nettles are reputed for making your hair thicker, shiner and brighter. That’s reason enough for me:)

• Nettles have also reputation for clearing up tough skin conditions such as eczema and acne, leaving clearer brighter skin.

• Nettles are ten percent protein, the only plant that has more protein is hemp.

• Nettles are reported to reduce allergies and hay fever.

• They also help to relieve some urinary problems associated with and enlarged prostate.

So now that your really, really want some nettles where do you get them and what do you do with them? You can buy dried nettles for making nettle tea, you can buy them as a supplement, or if your a spoiled New Yorker like I am you can buy them at the Green Market in Union Square. The fun way of getting nettles is to pick them yourself, don’t forget your gloves! Anthony the raw model has a great post on Nettles in Central Park, please watch u-tube video it talks about how to pick leaves and what to look for. http://rawmodelcom.blogspot.com/2008/05/nettles-in-central-park.html

Once you have fresh nettles you can put them in a salad, make them into juice, a green smoothie or a bomb salad dressing. Nettles have a really mild taste so you can put them into almost anything.

This nice tall glass of nettle juice was made with celery, ginger, sour green apples and of course nettles. A heads up, nettles smell weird when they’re juiced, not really a bad smell just a smell you have never smelled before-interesting I know. Nettles don’t taste the way they smell when juiced so no worries there, phew.

Green Magic Nettle Dressing

~1 Cup filtered water

~1/2 cup olive oil

~1/4 cup nettle leaves

~Juice of 1 lemon

~2 tsp Agave nectar

~2 Tbs Apple cider vinegar

~3 Tbs Tahini

~1 tsp freshly chopped ginger

~1tsp ground cloves

~1 1/2 tsp chopped jalepeno pepper

I call this dressing “Green Magic Nettle Dressing” because it’s magically delicious-haha, I know it’s silly but it’s true:) I also wanted to make a bad joke so there you have it! Really though, I think this dressing is the the bomb.com.net.org.

Place everything into a blender and blend until uniform, the dressing will thicken up and take on a creamy consistency. Serve over a beautiful, leafy green salad and eat up. This dressing also makes great dip for raw flax crackers and veggies because it’s nice and thick.