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 !!!

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 !

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 !

Flowers Overloaded Bentos

This is one of Kimberly's bento from last month. I have since given up trying to figure out which one is for which day, so I will just go in chronological order instead. Fortunately laptops has those auto named function for folders so I can just go by "New Folder 6".... "New Folder 7" consecutively. *grin*

This is Kimberly's bento.

Bento #118



It's rice balls secured with yellow and orange lunchsheets strips and topped with turkey spam.



Those red flowers are the red filament off the crab sticks cut outs. I topped them on top of the spam for contrast.

The red flowers were done the night before when I added crab sticks to stir fry vegetables.

I secured each spam topped rice ball with a foodpick so that the food stay in its place.

Since Kimberly likes lettuce, I lined the bento box with lettuce and opt for simplicity instead of cluttering the box with sliced zucchinis or other fruits.

I am actually suprised to learn that more kids than less don't really like lettuce. Most of my friends' kids do, and for the longest time ever, I am so used to seeing children nibbling on raw carrot sticks or steamed asparagus for snacks (as with both my kids when they were toddlers). Whenever we dined out, Kimberly and Ashley would pull the lettuce that lined the chicken or pork dishes out from the chicken/pork pieces and nibbles on them.

However, those with kids who don't touch lettuces or green, fret not, I rather think it is because kids are alos creatures of habit. There was a time when I did not introduce lettuce into their daily meals and for a time, they did not take to lettuces. But fortunately, after re-introducing greens back into their daily meals, they are now back to greens again. You may want to start with raw crunchy vege instead of cooked or steamed ones cos most kids like to crunch.

Anyhow, this here below is hubby's bento.

Bento #119



Hubby is not one for bento but he would obliged if I fix him one for breakfast. He would say "no" to a lunch bento, though. He rather eat out with his cronies.

Hubby's staff actually phoned me to exclaim over this one, haha, because I normally don't do ornamental touches for hubby. This is normal for us bento-er but non-bentoers are usually fascinated by those little details. haha. That goes to speed bento packers like hubby's staffs too, who also pack bento meals most days for their lunch.



Anyhow, hubby's bento is fried mee hoon with spams. The little green leaves are zucchinis. That's a boil egg in the divider container.

In the other divided container, there's 2 slices of oranges, 3 slices of apples and 2strawberries.



Over on the far left, that's 4 steamed shiu mai for added protein. They were supposed to be for Ashley's lunchbox but I have decided to give Ashley some soy braised kampung chicken for school instead.

Ashley's lunchbox nowadays are just protein food (seafood or poultry) packed in lettuce so I dont think it qualify as a bento, and did not take pictures of those.

For Ashley's breaktime food, I packed these for her.



It's also..*grin* what else? spam ! Yea, spam for the whole family that day.

Ashley has star shaped moulded rice on the bottom, star shaped spam in the middle and pink and white kamaboko , cut out .yea..haha..in star shaped to top them off.



I didn't put a foodpick over hers to secure them cos the food hit the roof of the bento box when I strapped it up. So I know they won't be jiggling about.

I didn't have time to take picture of Ashley's packed bento meal though, cos I had need to go to court for a decision and I was already late. And hubby was already out of the door with AShley in his arms. He took Ashley to kindy that day.

So hope this long post made up for the long absence *grin*.

I should be free of heavy datelines 2 or 3 weeks later and hopefully, can post more bento posts by then, and/or hopefully, can revert back to my earlier daily posting by then. Haha.

Ena and those waiting for CD posts,I will be uploading them at the next post. My apology for the delay.

So, Happy Bentou-ing ! And to those who cloth diaper their babies, Happy CD-ing too !!

Have a great week ahead !

Flower-Power Car Bento

I saw a pretty floral car a long time ago and knew that Kimberly would love it. I can't exactly remember how it looks like, but a vague image would be a car with flower scattered all over it. So I attempted to create one for Kimberly.

So Bento #117 is a Flower Power Car Bento.





It's a cheese sandwich at the bottom. And since it's home made bread, I sliced them thick to fit the height of the bento box.



Added 2 floral ham at the wheels position for Kimberly so she have more protein.

The yellow base is made of egg. I whisked some salt and pepper into them and dunked them in the microwave oven. Those white wheels are made of the white part in the hard boiled egg. The rest of the hard boiled egg goes to my breakfast. Good thing this time one egg makes 2 wheels. This is a larger egg. Most times it's 2 eggs for 2 wheels. *grin*. Most bento leftovers are my breakfast, and I guess this is the norm for most bento-ing moms.

That's a cut out quarter from a circle of ham tucked underneath the car's white windows.

Those red flowers are made from the red parts in crab sticks. It would be prettier to use pink but those kamaboko comes by in RM9.90 for only that little bit of pink at the top portion of the kamaboko. So it doesn't make sense to use them so often. For those who doesn't have access to pink topped kamaboko, you can dab a minute speck of pink or red into egg whites instead of using kamaboko.

The red flowers were pre-cut from previous bento packing when I had leftovers crab sticks, and stash frozen in the deep freezer. I took them out thinking I could use these instead of my pre-cut pink kamaboko flowers.



Packed them into this transparent Tomica Bento box that I got from NST. Not clearly seen from the above pic, yea?

This is an easy peasy bento, isn't it? So, let's power up, Bento mommas!!!

Now who was that who says girls don't get car bento? *ducking from bento boxes thrown*. Haha!

This car bento could be made prettier if you use a larger bento box and added some greens or some lettuce at the side to divide them from the fruits, and add some red based (tomatoes, strawberries, water apples) or orange base fruits (kumquats, carrots, yellow cherry tomatoes) for side dish and for colours.

But because I wanted to spend some girl-time with Kimberly when she get back that Friday, and take her out for lunch, I didn't pack a big bento meal for her. I know that I have been neglecting her for Ashley who needed more attention from me, and Friday is the only time I could make it up for her.

I am just going to get those after trials submissions out of the way first, so, will try to load more bento meals next post.

Have a great day today, guys,and happy bentou-ing !!

Flower Girl Bento

With so many outstanding bento posts, I have lost track of which bento is which day. So I shall just go by the week. Haha. This is one of last week's bento.

Kimberly likes the little flowers in the bento so much that I did this over and over again for her through the next week. So you will probably be overwhelmed by little flowers in the forthcoming posts.





As usual, speed is of issue. Even in kyaraben bentos.

Since I have always wanted sprinkle my bento with little flowers, I had those little flowers cut out and stashed in the freezer for when I need them quite sometime ago. I know Kimberly would absolutely love them. Each morning, I forgot to make use of them. And when I do remember to , I can't find them in the huge deep freezer. So when I found them again, together with my frozen stash egg sheets, I store them in the freezer in the refrigerator instead of the deep freezer for easy access.

So Bento #116 is peanut butter sandwiches with kamaboko flowers. I filled the gaps with grapes and heart shaped weiners.

The peanut butter sandwiches were cut out from a kaiser circle cutter.

On top of the peanut butter sandwiches, I lay a slice of cheese so that the Flower Girl can stay in place.

I made use of CP's cutters used below used on the bento below to make a cheese face.

Kimberly did the hair on the girl *grin*. She calls it "Flower Girl".

Instead of the cutter's regular hair shape and cloud-bunches ponytails, she had wanted to give the girl a flower tiara.

The flower tiara doesn't work cos the cutter was too big. So we added bunches of flowers at her nape to even out the space and hope that it could pass off as her hair. Kimberly was a tad clumsy with the tweezer and I helped position them back into place.




BTW, if you didn't know already, the flower hair were made out of CP's orange lunchsheets. Even with the kamaboko flowers ready made, I found that I took a good 20 minutes with this bento too, because I had needed to cut out the flowers from lunchsheets and place the flowers carefully on the face with a tweezer. That took time !!

That cutting out of little cheese heart to adorn the heart weiner took a little time too.

To keep the little pieces of floral hair in its place, I dab some mayonaise on them and also cut out a mini square shaped food grade plastic to lay it on top of the Flower Girl.

I tested it by taking the mini clear plastic sheet off again to see if the flowers still sticks to the girl. Satisfied that it, I strap the bento box up.

As bento-ers are aware, with the Halloween, there will be an onslaught of halloween themed bentos from Japanese bento bloggers, and with Christmas, snowman and Santa themed bentos. Now that the moo cow craze is over, I see some Japanese sites featuring Valentine bento contests with bento meals complete with a loving couple (a girl and a boy, Mickey and Minnie, you name it) and lots of hearts. Now let's see if I can up myself to get into the spirit of things by fixing a Valentine bento as well.

Anyhow, that wrapped up last week's bento. Now for this week's bento. I am far from catching up, aren't I? *grin*

Have a great day today, guys, and Happy Bentou-ing !!

P.S. Edited to add this picture.

Milly asked me which cutter I used for the girl's hair. It's a cookie cutter. It's an old one. I probably got it from one of the cake supplier store in town.

It's the white one at the bottom far right.



It's the same as the one I used for the green flowers in the Tulip Bento below.

Hope that helps.

Tomica Car Bento

I have some time today after lunch and thought I post a quick one today. This is one of last week's bento.

I probably did this bento in about ten minutes in total, excluding the time I left kitchen to tend to other things. These speed bento works for me when I don't have time to spare, as with most of my bento meals of last year.

As some of you may know, last year (and the year before last) was a hectic year for me cos I was maidless since Atin left. To top it, Ashley as a younger baby was clingy throughout the wee hours in the morning cos she has eczema and wants to be nursed for comfort all the time.

I can rightly guess that most bento moms around here, as with myself, have learned a lot of ideas from those Japanese bento moms, but no time to implement them. For me, it could meant that the bento box may not get to school in time with Kimberly.

On that note, kudos to bento moms who took so much time to plan their bento and to go through such tedious intricate details. It's admirable. But I guess at 6am in the morning, sometimes I have other priority than kyaraben bentos. Plus, if you need to go to court that morning itself (or perhaps for some moms, a meeting or a presentation?), you probably rather run through the the issues and the facts on hand in your head rather than which size nori puncher for eyes and nose goes better than which size teddy bear cutter..*grin* I know I did.

Definitely, there are certain days where speed bento works better for me. I like kyaraben but on the practical side, I prefer to look out for pretty effects in the shortest time span possible i.e cutters rather than the intricate time consuming ones.

Cutters and punchers are the fastest tools that I know of *grin*. It sure beat tracing back the picture in the wax paper onto the cheese and then cutting out the picture meticulously with a toothpick, like this tutorial by this famous Japanese bento-er here . Lots of bento moms in Japan follows her ideas diligently. You would probably see her ideas popping up at every other Japanese bento blogs *grin* .

By the way, that tutorial link is also the link that you wanted for the bat, Brenda . Hope you find it useful !

I probably won't attempt this "wax paper trace on cheese with toothpick to cut" method unless I am free, especially since time expanded in fixing bento meals usually includes retrieving the right size tools from the drawers. But for those who doesn't mind the time, this is a good site to learn from.

And no, I am not going to wake up earlier than 6am, thank you. Ha ha.!

However, I will still do kyaraben when I can afford the time for it. Since my little girl took such delights in little girls and flowers and everything pink.





So, Bento #115 is simply prawn fritters (the last of the lot in my deep freezer, carrot stuffed kamaboko and apples.

As with most of my speed bento, I had needed to multi-task (ie run in and out of the kitchen to check). Someone I met at One Utama who read my blog (sorry I didn't catch your name, dear) asked me how I make it in time with getting to work and getting the kids ready for school particularly last year in my maidless days since I also need to clean up the kitchen.

I'll run through what I did with this bento on how I cover the shortest time possible for myself instead, okay?

Hope that will help !

With this bento box, after getting myself ready with all my files and stuff readily stowed away in the car, together with Ashley's school stuff, I put those frozen prawns in the fryer. Those were ready coated before frozen by MIL. Then I dumped the kamaboko in the pot over the stove and scoot upstairs to wake Kimberly up and get her ready for school.

I still tend to the kids myself despite having a maid now. Feeding, bathing, cooking, dressing etc. Most maids nowadays aren't reliable. With mine, something is bound to go wrong or omitted or damaged or not done safely or hygenically. So it's way faster and safer to tend to those things myself.

After dressing and tying Kimberly's hair, I went back down the kitchen to dish out the prawns fritters from the fryer and the kamaboko from the stove. Took out a carrot and cut it into strips and stuffed them inside the kamaboko, raw. If you like, you could heat it up in the microwave with a bowl of water and it would soften somewhat.

Then I took out a whole apple, cut two thick slices out and press out car shapes with the Tomica cutter. Stuff everything into the bento box. Easy Peasy.

These Japanese are so smart. They can come up with such convenient tools for creating visual delights in mere seconds. And those Japanese bento moms are so creative! Some of them even post tutorials on how to cut out cute characters, complete with pictures of the specific cutters and punchers they used, or suggest alternative tools like using straws instead of cutters, toothpicks instead of knife, tweezers instead of fingers. Unfortunately I don't have time to surf the net often, although I very much like to.

Well..haha...so much for a quick post....yea yea...I know... as usual, my short post tend to go on and on. haha !

Okay, pen off now. Have a great day today, guys, and happy bentou-ing !!!!

Tulip Bento

Bento #114

This is probably the last bento that I made before CNY, cos I can't locate any others in my laptop * sheepish grin* save for those I made after CNY.

So will post this first.

This is a speed bento.

I cooked the baked egg in the oven. It's really simple and quick. Just beat up an egg or two with salt and pepper and place them in a ceramic bowl and bake till cooked through. If you intended it to go with bread instead of rice, you may want to add some cheese or cream in them.




This was Kimberly's bento for Friday. Ashley stays in daycare till 4pm or 6pm most days but Kimberly is back by 12.30 on Fridays, as Fridays are half days. I went home to wait for her, picked her up and brought her to work with me. She ate this on the way in the car, as with most Fridays when she has to go in with me.

If you are wondering if Ashley is missing out, actually, she is missing out on regular bento, since her teachers wanted her to be part of the lunch crowd. They also mentioned that they wanted to avoid the teeny weeny little ones (Ashley is in a class of 3 to 4 years old kids) feeling dissapointed that they didn't get the same bento meal as her. I totally understand, cos I would be sad too if my kid wanted something that her mom doesn't have a clue about what the child is trying to tell her.

However, I do try to pack a bento meal for her every now and then, to remind her that her mom is thinking of her while she is spending those long hours in daycare. To be honest, my heart often feels a pinch whenever I am reminded of my 3 year old having to stay back in daycare while the other little ones gets to go home. That's why I often try to pick her up by 4pm and then set my alarm at 3am to finish up the workload.

I also try to make sure that Ashley isn't missing out on her nutrient and try to make it up by packing her to school with a protein food or two to go with her lunch.

It's usually a dual combo mix of either mincemeat balls, chicken chops fried with breadcrumbs, braised drumlets, honey & soy steamed chicken drumstick, carrot stuffed kamaboko, fishball, or whichever protein food I happened to pack for Kimberly on that day.

Anyhow, will stop digressing now.

Kimberly's bento is a simple lunch of rice, spam and egg.

I lined the bento box with vegetables first, in this case, lettuce. Then I pack the rice in.



Topped the rice with a slice of spam cut out in equal size to the bento box. As you may have noticed from my old posts, I usually use the bento box itself to cut out spam or bread to fit the box. But in this case, the lettuce took out some space so I used the circle cutter to trim down the sides to get the spam to fit.

Then I got the baked egg in.

To get the baked egg in , I turned the ceramic bowl that the egg is baked in, upside down over the bento box and stuff it to fit the bento.

Ashley has the same lettuce, spam and omelette as Kimberly, but minus the rice, packed to school with her so that she can have them to go with her lunch.

There is an uneven patch over the middle of the baked egg, so I cut a circle out of the egg lunch sheet I got from CP to cover it.

The Japanese moms advise that you should beat the egg and then strain it to achieve a smooth finish, but I only have ever done that for the Hatching Chicks Bento and the Field Trip Bento.

I thought that with the tulips covering the top, the eggs needn't be that smooth. Besides I haven't got the time.

So the baked egg were topped with tulips. Thats a spam tulip and a red pepper tulip. I sprinkle the gaps with some flowers cut out from the spinach lunch sheets.

I did warn you to expect liberal use of lunchsheets in forthcoming bento-s. Haha.

Anyhow, seeing that CP warned me that there may not be forthcoming orders of lunchsheet coming in, I had dump the last packet of lunch sheet in the freezer to preserve it longer.

Sigh.. I have found them so useful and would love it if CP would bring in more later. Those who purchase more than one lunchsheet packet from CP may want to consider doing the same, preserving them in the freezer till needed, cos you probably would have to sparing with them to make them last till she manage to get some more in.

The red pepper tulip atop the egg was cut out the day before when I cooked stir fry red pepper, tomatoes and brocolli for dinner the night before. I had left them in a lock and lock intending to use them the next day for bento. These little preparations can sure speed up a bento.

To pacify our Queen , haha, who complained about me not having tutorials, I posted here below tools I used for this bento instead.



I used that Kaiser circle cutter to cut out Ashley's egg into neat circles (since Ashley usually spend some time examining her bento box before eating) and to trim down the spam to fit the box. The green stems of the tulips were cut with the crown cutter. I laid a slice of cheese between the tulip and the stem so that the stems would stay in place. The small round cutters is to accentuate the spam's petals.

Hope that helps you guys too.

So that's Kimberly's bento rounding up bento posts from the week before last.

Now if I can just get out last weeks' bento posts, I will be well on the way to regularising my posts. Haha.

Wanted to post a few more bento meals together but this post is already too long, since I digress so much.

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

How-now-brown-cow Bento

Bento #113

I don't know if you guys are tired of cow bento. I know I am *grin*. Every Jap moms' blog I surfed the last few weeks has been nothing but cow bento-s. And they all look similar in one way or another. After all, a cow is a cow. Haha. I promise this will be the last cow bento for awhile Haha.





I think this was the bento made the Monday before Chinese New Year. My memory failed me, since I am all but 2 weeks behind in bento posts. haha. Its a moo cow again. A brown one this time.

This was Kimberly's breaktime bento.

It's a chicken sandwich tied up like a present and topped with a cow character.



I cut the cow shape with a round cutter and trim the sides so it doesnt look more like a pig than a cow. Haha. The cutters and puncher for the ears, horn, nozzle and eyes were the same tools as before .

Laid the moo cow on top of a round cheese which in turn is placed on top of the spinach lunchsheet for easy transfer.

Since Chooi Peng warned me that the expiry date for those lunch sheet is coming up, I have been liberal with them with the recent bento meals.

I tied the chicken sandwich with a strip of carrot lunchsheet so it looks like a box of present and bind those "ribbons" with mayonaise.

That green flower is also made out of spinach lunchsheet. I wasn't sure if Kimberly would be eating them but I thought I pretty it up for her anyhow.

Kimberly has not been eating much fruits over the last few days, so I thought I fill the rest of the box with fruits. But I have only green grapes and purple grapes left. Fill that in and hoped that it would do. I didn't want to stock up the fridge cos we would be spending a lot of time at FIL's over CNY. Kimberly ate all the purples and left all the greens.

And she ignored the spinach lunchsheet flower as well. haha. She opened it though. Probably just out of curiosity, cos I didn't stop to check on her after I left her bento box with her. I had needed to go to her school's registry to top up the money in her smart card, pay for her rythmic gymnastic and then run to work in time cos a client is coming to go through some witness statements.

So that's slowly catching up on bento posts. Will try to post as much as possible over the next few days to regularise the posts.

Have a great day today, all !! And happy bentou-ing !!!

Hatching Chick Bento

Bento #112

This was last Thursday's bento. There isn't any bento meals on Wednesday because I was late for court. I had to go in office to get some stuff so had to leave the house really early and left the kids to hubby's "good hand". They both made it to school ..haha..it was a relief to know. Besides, Kimberly would be having pizza from her school's lunch anyway so she is bound not to "starve".

Kimberly didn't get a bento Thursday because she requested to buy from the canteen like her friends does.

So, this is Ashley's bento.






Because I know that she hasn't been having much protein in school lately, I thought I top it up with some of her favourite prawn fritters for her lunch instead. They would be having fried rice, which Ashley doesn't fancy, so I gave her some white rice for lunch.

I topped the white rice with a hatching chick for her viewing pleasure. Haha.

The hatching chick is really quite simple to make. Just segregate the white and the yellow from an egg and put both in seperate ceramic bowl and dunked it in the microwave or the steamer till its just cooked. Then cut. haha.


















Ever since I set eyes on this cutters that I got from CP, I knew that I wanted to do a hatching chick bento.

Isn't this cutter just the perfect shape for egg shell?


It even come with an instructions book on how to make faces !! Kimberly would have love these little girl faces !!


The cutter didn't offer the inner shape for the egg yolk, so I use a cicle cutter and trim it down the sides to fit the eggshell.



CP's cutter has this puffy little cloud shape too, which I just love, hence I fix Ashley one little Ms cloud to accompany Little Chick.



Oh yea, be mindful not too overcook the eggs, else it will curl up like Ms Cloud's tail ends over there. If you use a smaller bowl, you get a nice thick egg white, but I hadn't wanted to dig out the small bowl since the larger one was within reach. The egg white didn't turn out nice and thick, but long and thin. I had to top them up double instead.

I sat them both on cut out pieces of lunch sheet for easy transfer and to distinguish the whites from the rice.

As usual, I topped the bento meal with cut out carrots, since both my kids are those for carrots. Instead of scattering my usual teddy bear carrots on top, it's little bunny carrots this time. The teddy bear cutter was the only cutter I have small enough for carrots *grin* till bunny cutter came along. Got those bunny cutters from 100yen shop a few weeks back. Man, I was happy when Chooi Peng told me about them. Grab one for myself and one for CP and just as well too, cos they were all sold out like the next 2 days itself.

Once you get into bentou-ing, you have an idea of what kind of food you can fit into the shape you that wanted to create on your bento meal,and it keeps getting easier and faster. If you check those Japanese mom's blogs, its always the same stuff, ie, egg for anything yellow or white, (unless you colour them), vegetables for any trees or plant creations, quail eggs or any round food for characters. After awhile, you catch on and you get to know what you can create out of a character or an object. The ideas are more or less the same. The only modification is that you suit your pantry and the stuff you have in your fridge to fit into them. Sounds simple, yea? *grin* It is, truly. Haha. Hope this will get you guys on the track to kyaraben bento every once in awhile. It really is only another 5 or 10 minute's extension of your time.

Happy bentou-ing guys !! And have a great week ahead !!

Moo Cow Bento 2

Bento #111

Well, I did warn you about an onslaught of moo cow bento-s!

Not happy with the earlier moo cow, I did another one again soon after. And didn't stop there either *grin*.

This was last Tuesday's bento. There wasn't any bento on Monday cos I woke up late. haha, and of course if I woke up late, everyone is late as well. I am their designated alarm clock around here, besides the designated slave, driver, errant runner and so on, as is with most moms.

I had some time on Tuesday cos I let Kimberly sleep in till 7.30am. Kimberly slept late the night before. I got her dad to send her to school ten minutes before her classes starts at 7.50am. It's only 5 minutes drive from home to school.

So, having a little time, I decide to top the bento box with a hopefully, prettier version of the earlier moo cow.

Kimberly's bento is a thick crust butter sandwich topped with a slice of cheddar cheese and a slice of smoked ham. I had wanted to sit the cow on a thick cut ham but it would take time to take out a can of spam, fry it and cut it, so a deli smoked ham it is then.

The bread is home made, so I slice it the height of the bento box. The thing about home bake bread, you can slice it as thick or as thin as you like. But you can get those thick sliced bread at supermarkets as well.

I added two chicken drumlet on the side for her. Segregated the greasy drumlet from the sandwich with some cherry tomatoes.






Filled the gaps with crab stick stuffed kamaboko (fishcake) and minced meat filled kamaboko so that the sandwich doesn't move around. As usual, the lettuce helps cushion the sandwich and keeps it in its position.

This cow shape is created with the same teddy bear cutter I used earlier, except that I trim it a bit with a sharp knife to make it more rounded at the side and flatter at the top. I have seen a yellow teddy bear cutter at CP's site which is the perfect shape for the cow with some minor trimming, but I dont have that one, so I made do with this existing one that I have and trim it a little bit more.





Instead of lunch sheet, I use cheddar cheese slice this time for its noose and horn. Use a different puncher for its eyes and nostril as well. Jessie had asked for a tutorial. Kawan, as usual, in my haste, I may not have time to take pictures, so will just show you the cutters and punchers I used instead.



I used that small tupperware to cut out the bread, the cheddar cheese and the smoked ham. The blue cutter for the cow, with some trimming, and the yellow cutter for the noose and horns. And that's the puncher for the eyes. Hope that helps.

Have a great day today, guys ! And happy bentou-ing !