Kampung Chicken Fillet Bento

Nope !! Didn't go jogging this morning. Don't have that kind of energy EVERYDAy !! haha! Just occasionally..

As usual, I put the rice in the rice cooker the moment I woke up. For just in case I like to do a rice bento for the day.

So, today is one of those days. Which is just as well, because I forgot to bake a loaf of bread last night. Was exhausted and totally forgot. I normally put the ingredients in and put the breadmachine on timer, so baking a loaf of bread everyday wasn't too much trouble.

This is Ashley's bento.

Bento #124

It's rice onigiri with fried free-range chicken fillet on the side.



Added some cherry tomatoes to fill the gaps because its the only vegetable I have left in the fridge. Haven't been doing grocery shopping lately. You can tell looking at husb's bento below. haha.

Anyhow, Ashley's rice onigiri has crab-stick filament on its bottom half. I love it's radiant red colour.



As mention, because of the sparse fridge, husb's bento is merely sushi.

Bento #125



It's the first time I am using a plastic mat instead of a bamboo mat. So the sushi don't look so good. Edible anyhow. *grin*

The top half tier is sushi with pickled radish and zucchini.



The bottom half tier is spam with , what else, pickled radish again.

Told u fridge is bare today!

Will need to go to the supermarket tonight, much as I hate to waste time there.

Husb complained not much protein in there but I had thought with the spam so high in sodium, I had better tone the spam down. Didn't fry hubby some of those chicken fritter because I didn't think to pack a bento meal for him till the last minute. So, didn't have much time left.



I knowwwww !!! I need a new changgih camera. Noted your many reminders,Hijackqueen ! *grin*

Short post today again, cos need to get lots stuff done this few week.

Have a great week ahead, all, and Happy Bentou-ing !!

Homemade Fishball Floral Weiner Bento

It's Monday again. How time flies. But things has been heavenly around here.

Because...

We finally send our maid away.

The biadap maid has been with us for about 13 months or so. I don't think any of us could tolerate her one day longer, much less for the rest of her contractual 2 years.

Even before her 6 months term of pre-paid salary is up, we already knew that she is too dishonest and lazy. She does everything her way absolutely refusing to follow our instructions which means that nothing is done the hygenic way, the safe way or the clean way. Gates were left unlocked upteened times and she hurt the kids physically in her total neglect to be reasonably careful around the house. She also slept from 8am to 4pm the moment we step out of the house till we get home. But of course she lies to cover everything up when confronted or "jeling" and slam pots and pans in the kitchen when she is caught red handed.

So instead of waiting out the 6 months, we send her to my in laws for the rest of the 6 months, away from our kids.

She continues with her wilful ways at in laws, refusing to close her bathroom door when she takes her showers at father in law's house, and changing her clothes at my in law's backyard instead of in her own room. Seriously, she needs help. Those who have seen her would never dreamed this in her. She is a total Jekyl and Hyde personality. In my 10 years experience of engaging maids, she has to top the list for being the worst ever !

Anyhow, we are finally glad to send her away. And everyone including my mom and in laws are breathing easier. I sure hate to talk about maids. haha. And I sure could do so much better without them, as per the preceeding 2 years before this biadap one come along.

Anyhow, enough of the unpleasants.

Happy Monday, all! It's a glorious morning today!

I went jogging at 6am and came home feeling good, and just in time to get Kimberly ready for school. Didn't fix Kimberly a bento meal today though.

Fixed this for Ashley's bento instead today.

Bento #123



I barely have time to do much because hubby had already got up and would leave with Ashley any moment.

So I threw some fishball which I mince and shaped the night before, into the deep fryer and made a furikake rice ball with the rice I cooked for just in case before I left for jogging earlier in the morning. "Just-in-case", because I don't ever plan my bento. I usually fix them spur of the moment with whatever food is ready on hand.



Then I cut up a weiner and put it in the pot to boil, together with some oborotsuki (stuffed fishcake), and then got Ashley ready for school.

Those floral carrots were my frozen stash of pre-cut steamed carrot stored in the deep freezer. When fixing for one bento meal, I would usually cut up the rest of the floral carrots in batches and store them for convenience.

The white and pink kamaboko is from my frozen stash as well.

And that's Ashley's bento for the day.

Happy Bentou-ing guys, and have a great week ahead !!

Salted Egg Chicken Bento

Bento #122

I am reminded by a few people that I forgot to update my blog now that I am free *grin*. Truthfully, I have more time now. Sometimes pending evenings at the gym and whenever time permit, jogging in the morning. And having time on my hand, its time to start posting again.

This is husband's bento. As with most Malaysian men, he isn't one who like to bento for work. He doesn't mind an occasional breakfast bento, but he prefers to eat lunch with his cronies or business associates instead.

This is a lunch bento. At least he obliges me for this one. haha. I fixed him this lunch bento because I woke up too early and felt like cooking salted egg chicken, and so I made him take it for work. haha.

These are the deep fried salted egg chicken.



This is the kids' leftover fried fish fillet from dinner the day before. I fried some onions in soy sauce and kicap pekat and stir fry this to combine.



Some regular apples and seedless grapes.



Packed them in this thermal bento container.



A short post to get me started. haha. Have a great week ahead guys, and happy bentou-ing !!

My purported claim to "fame" - *grin*

This was published in Malay Mail, uhhh..around 2 months back or so? My apology for the dormant blog. Certain events has taken up much of my time. But now that things are somewhat settled, I will be spending some time blogging again.

Sasha helped me with the printscreens and stuff, and taught me a thing or two about templates in the process. It doesnt take much to figure out that I am template challenged and IT challenged. ha! ha!

I only bought one copy of the paper though. And my office staff bought one to show the rest. That's about it.

If you have had to squint your eyes to read, here's the link to the online version.

http://www.mmail.com.my/content/lunch-box-%E2%80%93-mom-love







So, that's my first claim to fame ! Just kidding!

Happy bentou-ing, guys, and have a gurreaat weekend !!!

The visit at UM Hospital

The collection was an awesome success. I have been chasing time purchasing more than 79 gifts and collecting more than 20 donated gift parcels the last 4 days precedent to the day of the visit.

I stopped counting at one point and just purchased gifts based on the donation banked in as and when because donation were still pouring in on Friday itself. I had been out most days and hadn't time to put up a notice to state the last day of donation. So as at 9pm I was still purchasing last minute gifts but fortunately, had them all wrapped just in time by Saturday.



I can't thank Nancy, the gift store's owner, enough for helping wrap most of them without any service charge. She says it's her contribution to the charity. She also gave 20% off all wrappers and went down as much as she can on the prices of some of the gifts I purchased from her store.

We grouped at the entrance of Menara Timur at UM Hosp at 9.30am on Saturday morning.

When Ros came and unload her other 100(?) odd parcels and donated cupcakes from her 4 seater, and adding some more gifts that the volunteers brought along, it came to this awesome pile. This is amazing considering that the project were initiated only 10 days before. Some of the parcels which we thought weren't substantial enough in term of appearance, we combined 2 parcels into one.

.

The datuk pengarah of the hospital, Professor Ikram Shah, came out to have a look and we took this group picture together, although picture taking wasn't the main priority of the visit. This group picture is probably the only one most of us volunteers have for the visit.



My apology if some of the faces were blurred out. I distorted the features of the volunteers at their requests.

The volunteers who turn up to assist in handing out the gifts besides Ros and me were Salwa, Montessorimum, Sofhib, Geok Hong, Shamira, Wai Han (home birth consultant), Wai Leng, Suzette, Pauline, Gladys and Ellena.

We split into 2 groups. One for the ICU and pediatric ward, and one for the maternity ward. Although I have assisted My Moms Best forum in purchasing and wrapping gifts before, I have never made trips to the ward to hand out the parcels. Ashley was still very young then and I had been maidless for 2 years before this.

So this is my first visit. Nothing prepares me for the heaviness in my heart resulting from these ward visits. At our first stop at PIC One, (ICU Ward One), we were greeted by heart wrenching cries of a child. The cries sounds tired. The child must have been crying for a long time, and consistently. It echoes through the corridors. I imagine the child must be in extreme pain or in constant discomfort, and I imagine the mother of the child and the nurses must be offering the child the best comfort in whichever way they knew. It was a shadowy beginning which accompanied us throughout the rest of the rounds.

We weren't allowed into ICU One, although we were allowed in the other wards. We chosed the best gifts among them ie. those Russ Pillows valued RM52 which Nancy, the gift store owner had obligingly reduced to RM28 being her further contribution to the project, some Hello Kitty pillow unsnapped into blankets, some bolster unsnapped into pillows and other gifts of higher value, (of which the higher value were made affordable from Lilian, the founder of My Mom's Best's bigger cash contribution for 5 gifts) and the nurses pushed the trolley into the ward to distribute among the mothers.

We were instructed to just hand out, wished the mothers a Happy Mothers Day and proceeded along. Even then, it took us till noon. During the round, I note one child of around 3 years old wearing a mask over his face while cruising around his bed. It was thick and it looks heavy, like those scuba diving mask, except it covers the whole face, including nose and mouth? It was heavy enough to compress into his tender young skin. To have to endure constant discomfort at such young age, isnt that sad?

On the next bed, a wisp of a little girl of about 5 years old with puffy white skin all over her face, her neck and I presume, her whole body.

I had thought that it was calamine. On second look, it is the colour of the skin. And there is a layer of skin like tight plastic sheen over her skin. It looks as if any accidental poke or tear in her tight white puffy shiny skin would result in a spray of body liquidy. Very tender and fragile looking. She has only one hand and someone had placed an old worn out bath towel over her handless shoulder. Her other hand, peeping out from under the blanket, is terribly swollen, deformed and hasn't any fingers.

This is the most heart-wrenching experience I have ever encounter. She was labouring to breath. And her mother had stepped out during the child's nap, I suppose to run some errants. I note that under her closed eyelids, her eyes were bloodshoot, a line of red running along her closed lid. Looking at the little one, I felt this tightness at my throat. The little girl's suffering haunted me till today. I wish I could do more for her and her mother than just handing out a donated parcel and a cupcake.

We ended about 12.30 noon and had a drink to quench our thirst downstairs at the deli one floor below before bading each other goodbye. I know I haven't added the links to the above-mentioned names yet. It's my sister's wedding today and there will be stuffs to do. will add them as soon as time permit. And will upload the links of the others' blog soonest possible as when they have time to post.

Anyhow, all in all, this is a leadladen-heart experience, of which although I had prepared for it, I still have a hard time dealing with. I would still visit again the next project though.

But, thank you, all, for all your kind contribution ! And thank you to Lilian and Ros for initiating this project again this year.

May the next Mothering Mother project be as successful. Have a great Mother's Day today, all !

Mothering Mothers 2009 at UM Hospital - update

Some bloggers and friends have msn me to ask why my blog has been so quiet the last few months.

Not by choice, really. Lots of stuff which makes time scarce and things hectic. Kids sick, me sick, kids sick again, me sick again, its a vicious cycle. Then my sister was admitted to the hospital, then it was Ashley. And that is coupled with extra workload, datelines, trials and hearings, and being maidless.

Phew, it is exhausting just running through these. Haha.

Now that things are somewhat settled, I have to schedule some time to coach the kid her revision for her coming exams and get the guest room cleaned up for my brother who is coming back from Miami for holiday with his wife. So, for the moment, bento posts may still take a back seat.

That aside, the main reason for today's post is more important.

Many of us love our kids from the bottomless pit of our hearts. They are virtually our whole universe, our sunshine, our everything.

Just imagine, "if" one's own kid is terminally ill. And the kid may never ever live long enough to celebrate Mothers' Day with his or her mother on this coming 10th May, or the many many 10th May to come. How does it feel.

However, Mothers Day is probably the least issue on a mother's mind when their child is labouring to breath, or when their child is growing weaker and weaker by the day with tubes stuck all over its tiny little frame.

Lilian of My Mom's Best ("MMB") , a breastfeeding forum, has on many occassion initiated the Mother's Day do, Mothering Mother, at the UM Hospital for those courageous mothers of the terminally ill children.

I, along with other MMB forum members, had the pleasure of helping out 2 years ago with purchase of gifts, wrapping and collection of gifts from pledgors. When Ros asked me again this year, I am more than willing to assist, since I couldn't gather as much funds as Lilian or the other MMB members and this is the only way I could assist. We have some volunteers but we may need more. This year, it is not restricted to MMB members. We welcome all volunteers.

But more importantly, we need more contributors for the presents for the mothers.

I will cut and paste the details from Ros' Blog


"Mothering Mother 2007"

How you can contribute?

1. Gifts
As much as we love to have each contributor to put their own personal choice/touch to the gifts, we are aware of certain matters regarding sensitivities related to religion, belief or taboos. Breakable items and perishable food are also not suitable. So we have come up with the following list of gifts:


"Mothering Mother 2005"

Non-perishable food/beverage
Toiletries
Journal / Diary (better the one without rigid dates daily)
Photo album
Framed painting /pictures of landscapes, beautiful moments, etc
Mini cushions (for hugs)
Mini fancy containers / boxes
Small elec. appliances
Comfy slippers or socks
As for others: mini card + dry fragrant flower, scarves, aromatherapy candles, magnetic decorative item and sarong can be put as side gifts if contributors like.

We tried not to have cash last time, but we receive it on the basis that some volunteers did the buying and packaging.


For those who interested to contribute in cash, you can make your number of pledges in numerical order in the comment box below and pay the money to the account the a.c. number as follows:

RHB Bank a.c. number : 2140-71000-98939
(and please leave a comment to let us know how much each of you have banked in on which day and we will email you with an email address for the printscreen, if any).



Packaging

Normal shoe-box size, but not so rigid - size should not be too big or small as we don't want people to think we do double standard. Not necessarily in shoe boxes, some mothers came with nice paper bags etc depends on their creativity. Make sure they are properly wrapped or tied for easy transportation. We agreed that the price per gift should be under RM20.



2. Be in the hospital
Due to some reasons, the event will be held on Saturday a day before Mother's Day 2009. More info as follows:

Venue: Menara Timur, UMMC

Date: May 9th, 2009

Time: 9.30 am to 12 pm

3. Picking up or dropping off

Volunteers to do picking up or offer a place for dropping off. Keep the pledges coming in and pass the words. Feel free to ask any question.


Please take note each gift will be RM20, so it is up to you how many gifts you want to contribute.

Current Number of pledges:
1. Mama23beas: 5
2. Moo Mommy: 10
3. Lavender: 3
4. Geok Hong: 2
5. sofhib: 5
6. Eydd: 10
7. Charine: 5
8. Christene : 5
9. Chanel :5
10. Lyza: 5 (at least)
11. Eida: 5
12. hui-wearn: 5
*updated*
13. Misha Paris's Mum - 5
14. Jacss - 5
15. Amy - 5
16. Jessytai - 2
17. Eve - 2
18. Anggie - 3
19. Michele Soo - 3
20. Elaine - 5
21. Hijackqueen - 2
updates :
22. Pek Imm - 3
23. WCP - 2
24. NST - 2.5
25. Sqkiki - 2
26. Javapot - 6
*update*
27. Lilian - 5
28. Annieq - 3
29. Adrine -5
30. Wai Han - 1
31. Redbabe - 1
32. Eva Razali, Delliah, Liza Masrina and Ninuk – 10
Update*
33. Sheryl Hen – 3
34. JO-N : 5
35. Vedis – 2
36. Pohling – 2
*update*
37. Shamira - 5
38. Zainab - 4
39. Inbha - 3
40. Salmiah - 1
41. Suzana - 1
42. Nalini - 1
43. Alina Grace - 3
44. Suzette - 2
*update*
45. chinnee - 3
46. Arthur chu - 5
47. GiddyTigerS - 5
48. 5xmom - 5 pledges
49. Elaine Lai - 3 pledges
50. Janice Loke - 2.5 pledges
51. Karen Yiaw - 5
52. motherly journal - 2
53. Kerry - 3
54. LJW - 5

total : 208 (and Big Pumpkin - contribution for petrol)

Thanks to Lildanzell and MyLovelyA for contributing 60 foldable recycled bags (Linda Linda Envirosave Eva bags) as carriers of gifts. We have decided that instead of using it as carriers for gifts, we will add them to some of the gifts to make it more substantial and the balance will be split between volunteers to be dished out for particularly deserving mothers as an extra item during visits.

Keep the pledges coming in.

note : As you pledge your gifts, write down in the comment box below in numerical order and we will update accordingly time and again)

Drop-off points
Thanks to Lily of UmmikuSayang and Vivian of Fabulous Mom :

1. AlimKids Bookstore, 6-1 USJ 9/5Q, Subang Business Centre, 47600 UEP Subang Jaya.

2.Fabulous Mom Sdn Bhd, 2A, Jalan TK2/1C, Taman Kinrara, Seksyen 2
47100 Puchong, Selangor, Malaysia (First floor, corner unit, above Shanghai Coffee Shop) Tel: 03-80765262,Fax: 03-80765562
Email: info@fabulousmom.com

3. Kota Kemuning, Shah Alam - email Elaine at dragonmummy@gmail.com for instructions



Ros is waiting for confirmation from 2 more drop-off points, and will update it here.

Volunteers at UMMC (limited to 12)
1. Mama23beas
2. Sofhib
3. Geok Hong
4. Shamira
5. Eydd
6. Christene
*updated*
7. Elaine (Montessorimum)
7. Wai Han
8. Redbabe
9. Yan nie

Please confirm your participation with Ros. Due to the hospital regulation, there is a limit of 12 participants in the visit. Those who are coming can bring their gifts on D-Day, but we need the number of pledges so that we can plan better. For example which wards to go if we have extra or what to do if we have less, number of trolleys that we need etc.




Please also check Chanel's blog for any additional updates.

Each pledge is for a gift of RM20. To quote Ros, "Keep those pledges coming in".

Each additional pleadge will brighten up an otherwise dreary day of one more preoccupied harried exhausted mother of a terminally ill child.

So, in the name of mothering mothers, LET US TAKE OFF FROM HERE !!!

a simple Tea Party Bento

This is a quick post.

I find it easier to post bento meals that are more recent so will post this first. The outstanding ones that need some recollection on what food goes underneath which food, I will post as and when time permits and slot them in between recent posts instead.

This is a bento for Kimberly's school tea party. It is a tea party organised by their English teacher following the class' subject topic on the Mad Hatter's Tea Party in their textbook.

Each time the kids have a party, my contribution of either trays of jellies or skewered weiners cum grapes cum fishballs cum tomatoes would came back half full.

I thought this time I make a smaller portion of food, since the kids always have to much leftovers.

Wise choice, cos this time, Kimberly's containers came back wiped out.

As usual, when I have unplanned bento meals to pack, I fall back on the tried and true and famiiar items.

so, this was her tea party bento.



The top tray has kamaboko-s stuffed with raw carrots and raw zucchini, some furikake riceballs, heart shaped weiners and nuggets to fill the gaps so that the food won't jiggle around in her schoolbag on her transport from home to school. Added some swirly kamaboko around for colours.



The 2nd tray has some rice cubes, some with sakura denbu on top, and larger heart weiners cos this is one with cheese, since Kimberly likes her weiners with cheese in them.



Added some strawberries and halved mini pears and halved mini plums wherever I could to fill the gaps. Also slide in nuggets wherever I could to pack the food tightly to avoid the food moving around.

I got away with cheese faces on top of the nuggets. Although Kimberly doesn't like "icky melting cheese" as she calls it, on top of sliced oranges or apples or other fruits, she doesn't mind them on top of savouries. And since cheese on nuggets is okay with her, I figured whichever kid chanced upon her tray won't mind them either.

I was glad that both trays came home empty.

I did say this is a quick post, didn't I? *grin*

So, have a great day today, folks, and happy bentou-ing !