Mothering Corner

I had some marinated minced chicken in the fridge, so I decided to fix my kids a little kitty patty today. I added some egg yolk, corn flour and bread crumbs with the minced chicken marinated with soy sauce and pepper, then use a teddy bear mold to form the shape. I guess my mixture was too watery, so the shape didn’t come out nice when I released the meat onto the frying pan. I will try this again, probably with lesser egg yolk. When the patty is almost done, add in some ketchup and let it shimmer for awhile. My kids prefer to have some ketchup, so I coated the patties with it.

Here are the patties.

You can actually use them for burgers, but I was out of bread today. I added a duck pick to each patty, and continued with cutie details.

Ears, eyes and noses were cut from cheese and ham with this cutter.

I tried to make it looked like a cat. The ketchup helps to “hold” everything in place.

Add in some nori, and the kitty patties are done.

Here end results…

My gal’s Minnie lunch box with a kitty patty, a piece of corn and some blueberries. I think the patty is quite stuffing, so I didn’t pack a lot for them today.

This is my boy’s Mickey lunch box. This lunch box is pretty small, but sufficient for today’s meal.

Most of the time, I will refrigerate my kids’ bentos since they only come back to the office at about 5pm. But today, I will leave the lunch boxes in insulated bag, with an icepack so that the patties won’t be too cold and hard by late afternoon. That’s why I didn’t add in a lot of fruits, but just some blueberries. They should be able to stay fresh until my kids’ tea time.

Hubby’s down with flu bug, but I don’t want our kids to catch the virus. So, I packed more fruits for them today to boast their immunity. *crossing my fingers*

At the same time, I packed some strawberry jam rolls, and to make the bentos more attractive, I topped the rolls with My Melody and Winnie the Pooh. Here’s how they are done…

I cut the base for Winnie the Pooh with its sandwich cutter from cheese, and did the same for My Melody with its cutter from a piece of ham.

For My Melody, I cut another tiny piece of cheese with the Pooh cutter. You can do this with any oval cutters, but I was too lazy to dig out the cutter box.

Then, cut off the horizontal base line with My Melody cutter, so that it can be placed on the ham.

I hope that you get what I mean. LOL! I’m not good at writing tutorial, and if possible, I prefer to show you how it’s done visually.

Lightly press the pattern cutter on the leftover piece of ham.

Can you see the line of the ear, done by the pattern cutter? Then, use My Melody cutter again to cut out the ear. You can also use a knife, it should work the same.

Place the tiny piece of ear on My Melody. I added a piece of smoked cheese as nose too.

After that, it’s all about punching and cutting the details from nori and carrot. So, here’s my gal’s bento today…

My Melody with strawberry jam rolls, a tangerine, and some kiwi, mango, cantaloupe melon, and carrot cut in flowery shape. The eyes are too small huh?

As for Winnie the Pooh, I used the paw puncher to form the eyes and nose. Then, I punched a few “smiles” with the smiley puncher to form the eyebrows and lips.

My boy’s Tomica bento with Winnie the Pooh, and the same bento meal as his sister.

Pretty simple huh?

I know that it’s a bit late to say Happy New Year now but it’s my first bento for 2009.

 After more than a week of vacation, I lost my speed in preparing and packing. It took me an hour to fix today’s bento, and luckily my gal woke up late. In today’s bento, there’s a piece of ham sandwich in each lunch box, and it’s topped with nori. The letters were cut with alphabet cutters and cheese. There are some kiwi and blueberries too. Since it’s the year of ox, I slipped in a quail egg, which supposed to look like a bull.

My kids will have bananas too, but I could only slot one in this banana carrying case from Daiso. I thought it was too big, but who knows? The banana by Dales are quite big too! So, maybe I should get another banana carrying case…

My vacation is over, even if I’m a bit reluctant about it. LOL!

My boy asked me why I didn’t prepare him bento when we went for our second half of vacation, which was just 2 hours drive from Bangkok. I asked him why must I prepare bento, and he said, “You HAVE TO prepare bento for us, we NEED TO EAT in the car.” See? That’s how demanding my little boy is.

But the lazy mommy didn’t do anything, so daddy had to get them some snacks from the rest area on the journey. In fact, he bought them anything they wanted to eat! Gee….my hubby is such a junk food lover, besides being addicted to golf and sports gifts la. That’s why I die die also pack food for my kids so that it minimizes their chances of having junks.

So, with school starts on Monday, I will get back to preparing bentos as their afternoon tea. After more than a week of “retiring” from bento, I’m a bit clueless of what to pack.

I can’t believe that I’m still fixing bento on Christmas! Ah…

I was a bit reluctant, that’s why I woke up later than usual. But then, my kids have to go to school for Christmas party, then normal class, and my boy has both taekwondo and English classes today. It’s a busy day for them, so I fixed them pasta with mixed veggie today, just in case my boy is starving after his extra classes. Sometimes, my kids will fall asleep on the way back home (after school and after our office hour), and they will skip dinner and sleep till the next day! So, a heavier bento will keep their tummies full for longer hours.

My kids’ bentos on Christmas Day with animal pasta & mixed veggie (hidden underneath the Christmas candy), Hello Kitty and Winnie the Pooh mini containers filled with tomato paste and some blueberries, kiwis and sapodillas as fruits.

I was running out of time to play with cutie details, but those candies already did a good job in beautifying the bentos. LOL!

One simple and lazy way to make the bentos look better huh?

Again, Merry Christmas!

P/S: I will go on holiday tomorrow, so there won’t be any bento until the new year. Firstly, we will go to Chiangmai, and then drive to a horse riding resort somewhere near the beach. I guess I won’t have time to go through the auto insurance quotes for our car next year, and will just dump the whole documents to hubby. So, Happy New Year to everyone.

 I prepared Christmas presents for my kids, but I didn’t buy anything for hubby. We had an “agreement” of cutting down gifts for each other, considering that we haven’t made a profit in our business yet. He knows that I have the tendency to buy something fancy and expensive, so he told me earlier not to get anything for each other, maybe not this year.

I don’t mind much about gifts nowadays, and I think that as marriage and relationship grow, it’s the everyday gesture that counts. Frankly, I would rather have him helping me out with the kids and house chores everyday instead of buying me fancy gifts like holsted jewelry once in a while and doesn’t share the daily responsibility. I think I will be a grumpy queen if I have to do everything on my own. LOL!

It’s Christmas eve, and sadly, Christmas is not a public holiday in Thailand. *sob sob* We got Christmas trees at the office and BIL’s place, so maybe we will just have some drinks together tonight, instead of eating out. My kids hardly eat anything during the trip last weekend, and we are leaving again this Friday. So it’s best to eat at home to ensure that they have proper meals.

But today, I will spoil them with another Christmas bento.

My gal’s new My Melody lunch box is full with Christmas surprises….

Her favorite Hello Kitty on the cream horn and a little Christmas gift for her, which is actually a little piece of strawberry jam sandwich wrapped with nori.

A little Christmas tree candy, which will definitely go into her tummy first! And a little tangerine decorated with sparkling eyes nori. She’s been asking for tangerines for some time. Besides that, there are kiwi and strawberry too.

Just in case if you miss it, there is a stocking, reserved for Santa Clause’s present tonight. LOL!

Stocking, cut from chicken wiener and joined with a thin strap of spaghetti. I wrapped a thin piece of cheese at the top.

My boy is a bit upset that he didn’t get a new lunch box this time, so I had to use his Tomica lunch box. I’m still thinking if I should get Shinkansen for him…

My boy has to use the Tomica lunch box again and again…

His cream horn has a teddy face and of course, he has a little gift sandwich too.

A little Christmas gift candy is added, and his tangerine has a pair of winking eyes. There are kiwi and cherries too.

My kids are going to school tomorrow, ya, on Christmas day, but they will have a Christmas party at school. So, I guess I won’t have bento break tomorrow…

Merry Christmas everyone!

We went over for steamboat and drinks at BIL’s place last night. Even if we had already taken our dinner, we still went for there for a few shots of tequila. LOL! So, it’s a bit hard for me to get up from bed this morning, but I didn’t have hangover though. However, my gal woke up at the wrong side of the bed and gave me such a hard morning. There were a few interruptions in preparing today’s bento, but I still managed to snap some photos along the way.

I bought some smoked chicken sandwiches yesterday, which is one of my boy’s favorites. In order to beautify the meal, I added some cheese to the sandwiches. So, this is how I did it.

I did some color contrast with smoked and normal cheese. Just use any cute cookie cutter of your choice. I chose the set of animal cutters from Daiso. If you can’t find Daiso, check out CP’s store. 

Add in the eyes and noses for the bear and rabbits. For the pig, just add the nose with cheese. Try to put the details slightly at the top of the animal faces.

I did some adjustment after snapping this photo. Sorry ya? My gal didn’t give me much time to take every step in detailed.

Then, slip in the animal cheese into the sandwiches, and add some “hands” for them. I cut the hands with a round cutter, from cheese of course.

After that, it’s all about packing fruits and food arrangement. Here’s the end result:

My boy’s Tomica lunch boxes with the rabbit and pig popping out from his sandwich. He requested rose apples, and I obliged. I packed him a sapodilla and some mangoes too. Barans are used to separate the fruits from the sandwiches.

My gal’s Hello Kitty with different arrangement.

If you are wondering how to close the lunch boxes since the animals are popping out, you can use the bento cover to lightly press the cheese down, like what I did…But be extra careful when you do this so that you won’t break the cheese. I only pressed it down after spending some time coaxing my crying gal. By then, the cheese was softer (or melt?).

Lightly press the cheese down, before closing the bento. It’s more obvious with rabbit due to the long ears.

If not, try to use a taller lunch boxes. I should have used the basket lunch boxes, but I already took out Tomica and Hello Kitty. Too lazy to wash so many lunch boxes la…

We went to the beach for the past 3 days, and it was a great trip to us. I noticed that I hardly have bento break because my kids go to school, to the office and outings on Sundays, so it’s like fixing bentos almost everyday in a year. LOL! But then when we were away, I didn’t pack anything but just some grapes and bread on the journey. So for the past 3 days, my kids hardly had any healthy meal. They ate junks, offered by the my office staffs *slap head* or just plain rice for dinner. Thank god they managed to get some toasts at buffet breakfast served by the resort. I’m not sure about other children, but for my kids, even if they travel a lot, they are still very picky when it comes to “outside” meals. Thus, I decided to fix them some veggie and fruity bento meal today.

 It’s mixed veggie (corn, carrot, pea) pizza, added with mayonnaise and ketchup. If you are wondering how I made that “flower cup” with toast, check out this post here. I used wholemeal bread which is richer in fiber today, considering that my kids didn’t get much fiber for the past few days. The fruits are placed in separate mini lunch boxes, and I will keep them refrigerated in my office.

Since then bento meal looks a bit boring, I added a little star on the pizza. Now, it looks better. LOL!

A little smiling star

I will have another bento break again next week, so don’t be surprised if I don’t update this blog for like a week. In the mean time, I will still be fixing bentos until Friday? Mmm….

Besides that, I have tonnes of work on my table now, a few reviews including this cerebral palsy pending to be completed and hundreds of photos needed to be sorted out. Oh boy, after a short vacation, I’m busier than before.

I was talking to a friend the other day, and she was wondering whether she should go back to work. After being a stay at home mother for years, it can be a bit scary to go back to work. If it’s not because of working for hubby, I might have to consider twice if I would to work again. I was working in engineering field, and frankly, I haven’t heard or read anything about my field for many years!

Same goes to spajobs and any fields, I think we need to be well prepared before going back to work, if you want to have an easier transition from being at home to working again.