Totoro Italiano bento

Totoro has gone all Italiano. This bento was my entry for the Bento and co international bento contest. The theme was pasta so I made Totoro ravioli. We are having a little blog hop to show some of the ones that didn't make the top 20 finalists.

The main box is on a bed of the ravioli filling (proscuitto, mushroom, onion and spinach) with brocoli, mushrooms, rainbow carrots from the farmers market(purple, yellow,oranges and purple) these are so good I went and bought another bunch this weekend. Yellow, red and dark red tomatoes. Totoro is home made basil pasta with plain pasta belly, filled with prosciutto, mushroom, spinach and onion. 

The other tier of the box I did a caprese salad on a bed of baby spinach. This is tomatoes, mozarella cut in shape of chibi Totoro. And large olive susuwatari (soot sprites) .

For the dessert I did fresh fruit, strawberries (from the farmers market so tiny and so sweet), Raspberries, blackberries and a chocolate soot sprite and a candy melt chu totoro plus a couple of chocolate mushrooms. I made the chu totoro by melting blue, brown and white candy melts and "painting" onto parchment with a toothpick.

Recipe for ravioli.

Pasta: 

2 cups flour

3 large eggs

1 bunch of fresh basil

Pinch of salt

Put all ingredients in food processor

Pulse until mixed together and forms a ball. If it doesn't form add a couple teaspoon of water a littlest a time and. Remix until ball forms. 

Knead the ball for a few minutes on floured work surface and then wrap in cling film for 30 minutes 

The plain pasta is the same but without the basil.

You can fill with whatever you like. I used a prosciutto, mushroom, spinach, onion filling.
Roll out your pasta with a pasta machine you need it quite thin. They get creative with your cookie cutters. Put a spoonful of filling in center of one cutout then egg white wash round outside to seal together. To add the belly I cut out white pasta and stuck on with egg wash.
Boil until the pasta floats only a couple of mins. Have fun with your favorite cookie cutters and see what shapes of pasta you can make.

I hope you like my first ever bento contest attempt. Although I didn't make the top twenty there were over 350 excellent entries and I will try again next year. I learnt so much while doing this. A few fellow bloggers who entered and didn't place have banded together to showcase all the love and hard work that went into their creations so lick on the pic to hop on over or take a sideways walk to an amazing under the sea bento from Momma says.

box used in this bento.