Forest Animals Bento

Bento #120

I have a little time today so, feeling guilthy, I thought I catch up on some bento posts. Haha!

Ernestly, I have since given up on figuring out which bento is which, having the lack of time to post bento posts in the recent weeks due to sudden avalanche of workload.

Bento meals were packed everyday, cos kids got to eat, (to quote a fellow blogger who also seems to slow down in bento posts in recent months. haha) but sometimes some of my packed bento meals are not taken pictures of for the want of time. Not all are kyaraben anyhow *grin*, cos there are days when I am not spared an extra 10 minutes. The last month has been nothing but hectic !

This here was Ashley's Forest Animal Bento.



It's all protein food and fruits.





I have been packing nothing but protein food for her lately. She ate rice in school but sometimes doesn't like the side dishes that they serve. So her packed meals are accompaniment to her lunch. Whatever she didn't finish for lunch, the teachers will bring it out again during tea time for her.

So, having a little time after fixing Kimberly's bento, I thought I top up Ashley's bento with some cheese figures.

Using cheese is way easier than cooking eggwhites or boiling kamaboko for the cutting out faces and shapes. Using cheese is just one-step. It's only a matter of taking out the cheese slices from the fridge and cut.

Using kamaboko and egg whites? Two to three steps, cos I need to either slice the kamaboko, or seperate the egg whites from the egg yolks, then cook, then cut. It takes a whole lot more time.

And it's no secret that Kimberly had warned me that she finds melting cheese all over her fruits icky, so I will not even attempt that over fruits, sliced up or otherwise. p.s. She loves cheese, but only on bread or ham or likewise savoury food, just not on top of slices of oranges or strawberries or melting on top of sweet stuff.

But since Ashley's bento meal has fishcakes on it, I thought I could get away with sitting cheese on top of them.

Hence, Ashley's Forest Animal Bento.



I thought I do some possums and bunnies.

Okay, they may not look like possums without circles under their eyebags but humor me, okay? *grin*

Ashley's bento has deep fried kampung chicken pieces at the bottom.

In most of my kids' bento meals, my nuggets are usually kampung chicken deep fried in nugget size or bite size, or fresh fish like kurau or cod cut up into even sizes and fried coated with batter.

I try not to buy processed food for my kids, save for spams and weiners, of which I try to get good ones from deli-s.

Being quite picky about my kids' food, my kids has also been having home made juice and home baked bread as long as they can remember.

Anyhow, I divide the chicken pieces with slices of zucchini, which Ashley likes.

On the other side of the zucchini wall, I slot some fishcakes slices for Ashley, cut into teddy bear figures. On the left are some carrot sticks, raw, since she is into raw carrots nowadays.



Filled the gaps with sliced up pears and some strawberries. As usual, and as with the traditional bento box meals, my kids' bento meals need to be tightly packed to withstand jiggling in the schoolbag during the kids' transport from home to school.

Those pink kamaboko flowers are from my pre-cut frozen stash. All I had to do was heat them up.

The thing about kyaraben and oakakiben bento, for the faces and shapes on top of the food,you can't figure out what food goes underneath them.

I find that I need to spend some time trying to remember what goes on underneath those faces and shapes. It's much faster posting more recent bento meals. So, I probably will just post whichever seems easier and faster in the latter posts. Haha!

So, happy bentou-ing guys !! My apology for the long absence in bento posts. Will try to make it up soon.

Have a great weekend ahead !