Mothering Corner

I read a lot of blogs by some Japanese mothers lately (just looking at pictures ), and boy, they can really make cute bentos. I guess it’s easier for them to get those gadgets too, I can’t seem to find as many cutters in different shapes and sizes, even if I’ve been shopping for more. Besides that, they are good at making rice balls into cartoon characters, and that’s something I don’t know much about.

I found that they have bento workshops too, won’t it be great if I can find any here in Bangkok? But fat chance, I’m staying far away from those industrial areas where most Japanese expats stay, so I can forget about attending any bento workshop.

Anyway, I prepared a simple bento for my kids this morning. They will have it as their tea after school at about 4.30pm. I think part of the reason why I don’t prepare rice balls is my kids have their bentos rather late, so I’m afraid that they won’t like the taste of cold hard rice. But maybe next time I will try, if they are going to have their bentos early or if I can use a microwave to heat it up at the office.

Clockwise: Pooh bear shaped fried potatoes,  sausage wrapped in cheese, animal picks of mini fish balls and sausages and some seedless grapes.

My kids will be having these after school. I just hope that they will eat the grapes with the skin! It’s so messy seeing them peeling off the skin by themselves.

 We went to Pattaya last Sunday, and I packed a simple bento for my kids again. I know that they would prefer to have finger food instead of rice and dishes, so it’s best to pack something that fits my kids.

Grapes and carrots in Pooh Bear shapes on corn kernels as well as assorted pasta and luncheon meat on the other side of the lunch boxes.

My kids could finish their food on the beach without making a mess. Most importantly, they ate the carrots!

I was not feeling well for 2 days, but this morning, I felt much better after a good night sleep. I decided to prepare porridge as breakfast and at the same time, I prepared the bentos as my kids’ snacks at the office after school. I try not to prepare in larger portion so that they will not lose their appetite over dinner.

Peanut butter sandwich, haw flakes, Zespri Gold kiwi and some seedless grapes

I think it’s enough to keep my kids occupied for a while before we head back home for dinner tonight.

Part of the reasons why I keep a blog for my kids is I hope that they can read it one day to know all the little details of their childhood. I snap a lot of photos of my children, but I hardly print out the photos. There are thousands of photos in my laptop now, so it’s impossible to print out all of them.

I will have to be selective, and if possible, I prefer to add in some special notes and decorations on the photos, just like a scrapbook. I’m glad that I found out about SmileBooks.com. You can easily use the free software in creating your photo album in just a few simple steps.

Once you have downloaded the software, you can start creating your photo book offline anytime and anywhere. Just choose the book size first, and then drop your photos onto the photo book. You don’t need to upload the photos as this can be done offline. You may use the SmileBooks Assistant in designing your photo book, and once it’s done, just hit “Create a SmileBooks”. Voila! It’s just as simple as that.

However, you can only print your SmileBooks in US and Europe, so it’s quite disappointing for someone who stays in Bangkok like me.

This post is brought to you by SmileBooks.com.

I’m not feeling well today. When my boy was asking for his bento, I puzzled for a while, thinking of what could I prepare in 5 minutes before we rushed out from the house.

So, I just fit them blueberry jam sandwiches. I wanted to use the cute cookie cutters I bought 2 days ago from Tesco, but the white bread was too thick. Thus, I just cut the sandwich into cubes and let my kids “decorate” them with colorful animal picks from Tesco too. Gosh, there are so many promotional products which I can get from Tesco for my bento frenzy!

My kids love it, of course. The animal picks are definitely prettier than normal tooth picks. LOL! So, today’s bento is so simple, I wonder if it can be considered as a bento.

 I suspect that one of our office staffs is having some skin problem which is similar to Herpes Zoster Infection. I can’t be too sure about this as I only checked on the internet to know more about Herpes Zoster, but her skin has blister-like rashes just like the pictures. I hope that she will pay the doctor a visit soon and get some ailment for her skin. It’s getting worse and it’s not subsiding.

She really needs some antiviral drugs now, and I hope that she won’t delay her treatment any further. No matter what’s her skin disease is, I hope that it’s not contagious!

This announcement was paid for by Epocrates.

It’s a busy Sunday for me. We had some praying ritual at the office which started as early as 8am, so I had to get up at 5am to prepare breakfast and bento. However, I wasn’t tired. I made up my mind on what to prepare the night before, so it’s pretty simple to get things done.

I bought some mini sausages a day before, and decided to put them into good use. LOL! It’s so simple to pan dried the sausages while roasting the buffalo wings in the oven. Since my kids were still sleeping and no one was disturbing me, I decided to do something fancy with the sausages. I found the way of cutting the sausages into tulip shape from a book. I used celery stick as the stem and a thicker slide of cucumber as the base. So simple!

Tulips with sausages

However, I had to cut the stem shorter to fit them into the lunch boxes.

Roasted buffalo wings, stem broccoli and tulip sausages

Of course, I prepared fruits and breakfast too…

Sweet bun and cheese for a quick bite in the car and some Zespri Gold Kiwi

My kids took breakfast in the car as we were in a hurry to reach the office by 7.30am. Gosh, it’s a stressful morning to all of us! Besides that, the serving portion is too big for my children, so they couldn’t finish the bentos as expected. Thus, I will have to reduce the serving portion next time to better fit their appetite.

Honestly, you really don’t need a fancy lunch box to start your bento fun, but then how can I resist those cute lunch boxes? There are a lot of choices of bento in Bangkok, so it took me some time to figure out which should I buy. I will still buy some more in different cartoon characters or different sizes, if I go shopping later. Gosh, how I wish I make some money from futures trading now as I’ve spent a lot on bento stuffs this week!

For the time being, I use mostly these 2 bento sets…

Shinkansen for my boy and Melody for my gal

I don’t have to use a lot of separators as the bento set comes in 3 different container and a pair of chopsticks. I just have to replace the chopsticks with kiddy spoon and fork for my kids’ convenience.

Three containers in a set.

Lastly, these containers are microwavable. So you can easily heat up the food if it’s cold.

 There’s nothing much left in my fridge this morning, but I had to prepare my kids’ lunch at the office. So, I decided to prepare pasta with chicken Bolognese instead.

Pasta with mixed veggie and minced chicken Bolognese

Since my kids will be at the office for long hours, I packed them some fruits and tit bits too.

Sapodilla and grapes as fruits, and a pack of raisin and sweets as tit bits.

Frankly, I wish that I have Nikon D90 now so that I can snap better photos of the bento! I’m still waiting for the green light from my banker aka hubby.

I booked some bento stuffs from http://nst.my, and at first I thought that I can ask my friend to bring over the parcel to me and thus I sent the parcel over to her place. However, my friends won’t be coming next week due to the state of emergency in Bangkok and so I can’t have my new toys in time! Argh…

However, I’ve just ordered a few more just now and hopefully they can satisfy my craving for more bentos. I just hope that Bangkok will restore to normal and safety instead of scaring tourists off the land of wats.