ArrrrRed Pandaaaaarrrr!

Ahoy, Cap'in!

I got to thinking on how the rowdy Red Panda -my favorite animal - might be made even more astoundingly adorable and somehow PIRATES! came to mind.

So I made a Red Panda Pirate, complete with eyeptach. You can't be a pirate with all of your parts, after all.

As always, details after the jump!

Kawaii closeup!

His most of him is rice, tinted with a mixture of ketchup and BBQ sauce so as to be "naturally occurring variant of Red Panda Fur" red. His ears are plain rice, left in "open onigiri" style.  If you have read any of my other posts, you won't be surprised to find the red rice has a filler - in this case, his fluffy exterior incases innards of delicious soboro and soybeans, and his poofy ears are filled with just the soboro. Soboro is a moist bento staple consisting of ground meat (in this case, turkey) and flavor - I'll post a recipe if anyone wants it. See the pods lined up around our pirate pal, flanking him with flavor? Inside of them are soybeans.  Inside the pods, they're known as edamame. Tasty and nutritious, they're super fun to eat - just squeeze a pod and launch a bean into your mouth!

Mouth details -  Nori freehanded with an exacto blade.

Our Red Panda's white facial markings are made of provolone cheese.  I used a bottlecap to cut out the roundness of his mouth, and both the eyebrow and cheekmarks I freehanded with a knife.  The mouth details are made of our old friend nori, as are the eye and eyepatch.  The heart on his patch is a soybean with a notch cut out of the inner curve.

I really like this little guy - best bento I've made, I do think.  ^_^  Red Pandas really are cute!

Best Dishes to you,
~Lollidorable, your Cute Lunch Lady!