Car Sandwiches Bento

Kimberly has a field trip today.

With her last field trip , the kids were asked to bring their backpack along, so I had made sure that her backpack is as light as possible. With this field trip, Kimberly informed me that they will be leaving their backpacks in the bus, so I gave her a bento box instead.

I thought I take advantage of the new cutter I got from www.nst.my.

It's a Tomica vehicle cutter. I had baked the egg yesterday night and put it away in a lock and lock in the fridge to ease the morning rush. Also cut out some nori wheels but had to fry the nuggets and boil the weiners in the morning.

Got up ten minutes earlier than usual, sliced and put turkey spam in the oven, nuggets in the fryer machines and frozen shu mai in the steamer and weiners in the pot. Then pressed out the bread with the cutter while waiting for the food to be cooked and cooled.

There was supposed to be lettuce, which I had remembered to lay out on the table but didnt have time to arrange cos I was like having only 5 minutes left after arranging the cars sandwiches. Was supposed to cut the weiners into flowers too. But had to abandon both the lettuce and the cutting of the weiners.

Bento #90



There are 3 sandwiches in there.

The on on top is one layer of bread and one layer of turkey spam with omelette window, nori wheels and cheese spokes.

The yellow car was supposed to go to the top for colour coordination but because I didn't have time to tie all of them sandwiches, I just layer them with clear food safe plastics and put the one and only tied one on top, which is the brown one.

The yellow car is one layer of bread with a layer of omelette, spam windows and cheese spokes on nori wheels.

With all the preparation the night before, arranging tiny details on a little sandwich still take a little time. So I forgot to snap pictures of them sandwiches before I wrap them. I had to hastily made do with snapping pics with the wrappers on, so it is kind of blurry.



The last car is 2 layers of bread sandwich between one layer of cheese with omellete windows, nori wheels and cheese spokes.

Filled the gap with my trusty fridge "staples", the grapes ! Shown at the above pic, not here.

Sorry for the bad photography. Had to strain your eyes, didn't you?

This is Ashley's bento

Bento #91



Ashley's sandwiches are tuna sandwiches roll-up and wrapped like a candy.



She gets the same food as her sister. Shu mai, nuggets, weiners except that I added some apple slices for her instead of grapes.



I put them apples inside a tomica print food wrapper to seperate them from other food. Those who like Ashley's sandwich Hello Kitty wrapper and Tomica food wrapper can get them from Veronica cos I got those from her as well.

There isn't any bento for Ashley on Tuesday and Wednesday cos to give credit to Ashley's teachers for easing her into having food with her classmates, I thought I lay off her bento meals for a few days.

I edit this post to add this picture cos Amy doesn't know what I am talking about.





I had asked Veronica , HijackQueen and Chooi Peng if they could bring in these lunch sheets. If they can, it will be bliss preparing colourful bento's, cos you dont have to cook tomagoyaki and colour them and cut them egg sheets for sandwiches.

For example, you can just cut the yellow ones into car shapes, contrast them with green wheels or orange windows and layer them on top of cheese or sandwiches instead of having to cook the eggs and colour the eggs (speaking of which, I still haven't gotten around trying them out yet).

You can even use these as a edible baran divider, tie them into ribbons to adorn your food or wrap your weiners,asparagus or other food with them. It's yellow for egg, orange for carrot, and green for spinach. Let hope our girls bring them in,yea?

Hokay, editing this again !! haha. to add the link !!

Aren't we a lucky lot ??!! Chooi Peng is bringing them in !! I have just been informed by her that she had just put it up at her market hall. Fast fast hop over to her market hall make your pre-order, okay ? Isn't she such a darling for bringing them in?

Happy bentou-ing, all !

Bento # 28

Kimberly has a field trip on Thursday.

I didn’t want her bento box to weight down her sling bag cos she would probably be carrying her bag around the factory. Her water tumbler alone would be contributing to the weight on her tiny shoulder, so I figure she could do without a bento box today.

Hence, the zipper bags!! So, not exactly a bento, ha! ha !






For her field trip, I fried some chicken nuggets for her. Fish nuggets tend to be less firm and may crumple in transport, so I thought chicken nuggets would survive better in a zipper bags. I separate them into 2 zipper bags even though I have another box of zipper bags large enough to hold 4 nuggets. This is for hygiene reason just in case she decide that she hasn’t enough appetite to finish all 4.





In the zipper bag to the left of the nuggets, are some yellow zucchini slices and cucumber slices. Kimberly complained that she prefers the “inner” but I didn’t quite relish the idea of her stowing all those cucumber seeds in her tummy. On the right of the nuggets are some sandwiches roll-up. One turkey slice with butter roll up and one cheese roll up. Cut them both into half.





This neat looking roll-up (look, no cracked corners !) is made with a tip that Rachel's mom gave me in my earlier post.

She said using a sushi mat will make it neater, and voila !!! Did it ever !! Neater, I mean. I don’t even need foodpicks for them ! Thanks, Rachel's mom !

On the bottom row of the savouries are the sweets. A zipper bag of pretzels and a zipper bag of coco crunch cereal.




I threw in a pack of chocolate coated biscuits bits for her. As well as a mini pack or raisin and smarties. The commercially packed stuff all came back untouched, together with the coco crunch cereal. She finished all the savouries, including the zucchini, despite complaining about wanting the “inners” and not the “outers”.


Toddler’s Bento #28





Ashley’s bento is somewhat similar, except she wont be able to finish that much food.

So Ashley’s bento is 3 chicken nuggets and one cheese roll up, cut into tiny pinwheel slices of 6. I secured them with foodpick so she could pick them up easily with her tiny fingers.



 
For Bento #29 and #30, I posted them at my new blog and I would love for you to drop a visit to liven up things over there.

Have a great weekend, all !

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 !!!