Corn Shumai and Hokkaido bento

During our weekly grocery shopping we found the japanese pumpkin! Yes, Hokkaido Pumpkin! I don't know why 'hokkaido', but it's THE good pumpkin!

The pumpkins we see at european supermarkets are the same pumpkins that you use to dig and empty the gut out with a big spoon to put candles for halloween.

What we found today(actually Odebu spotted it buried under other kinds) was the nice deep green pumpkin that we love to eat in Japan.

Buying a pumpkin was of course not on our shopping list, but it was the JAPANESE deep green pumpkin I just had to have it!! All the things I could do with it flashed in my mind.

Simmered pumpkin, pan fried, salad, croquette, hummm

I decided to start the tour of Japanese Hokkaido Pumpkin taste experience with odebu with simplest pan fried with salt & pepper with drops of oil.

Oh and stuffed the bento with corn shumai, the recipe I found on the net, they don't look perfect coz' I had them freezing since Thursday or so, corn bits fell off making them look bald.

I can just see how Odebu is going to cry in plain joy when he eats this bento!