Mothering Corner

Today’s bento is pretty simple. I try to make it “vegetarian” as my kids ate too much meat for dinner last night, and they don’t take veggie when we are eating out. So this is what I packed for them today.,..

In each bento, there are some sandwiches, a small piece of corn, 2 quail eggs, some kiwi, grapes and a Pooh Bear carrot.

My friend asked me to pack for her son Marcus. Actually, I told her to do so by herself but I would prepare the food first. Nonetheless, she didn’t wake up early. *Slap head* Thus, I packed for Marcus la…if not later she will say that I’m “sui hei”. LOL!

 This is for Marcus. He has almost the same food but added in a banana cake bought by his mom. I slipped in 2 animal printed sausages as protein too.

Those sausages are printed like that and it’s my first time seeing cute chicken sausages like these too…

Bought them from Carrefour

Cute or not? But I will have to finish them in less than a week. If not, have to dump liao…

We are having friends from Malaysia for the next few days, and my friend has asked me to prepare another set of bento for her son, Marcus. *slap head* When she heard that I have to wake up 6 something everything to prepare bentos and get kids ready for school and rush to work, she shivered. I guess my life was like them last time, so senang. No need to do anything much but just attend to the kids. All got kakak at home to do the housework, no need to go to work, and just go online when I was free. Gosh, how can my life be so boring previously? LOL!

For yesterday, my kids had finger food as we went shopping in the city. My gal ate her bento meal standing outside of the stores because her stroller was occupied by my friend’s son. Thank god it’s all finger food!

Simple finger food

In each bento, there are some strawberry jam sandwiches rolled up in nori, some jackfruits, grapes and a jelly.

Ya, it’s fake sushi. It’s easier to prepare “sushi” with bread instead of rice.

This morning, I prepared mini pizzas again.

There are a piece of mini pizza, some strawberries, edamame and cute sausages with animal faces printed. I matched the sausages with the animal picks, and it’s fun.

I left a piece of mini pizza for Marcus and a hotdog roll for him. I found that he likes bread, but not sure what else he wants. I let his mother packed for him, that’s the best thing to do. I really think that a mother knows best what to pack for her kids. Some mothers don’t let their kids have sausages or wieners, but I don’t mind serving mine since I buy those wieners without preservatives. If I can’t to finish them in less than 5 days, I’ll have to dump them away.

My kids are quite picky with food, so in order not to waste the food in the bentos, I need to know what to pack for them. Frankly, packing food is not too hard, I guess most bento mommies will agree on this.

I brainstormed with my kids about their bentos yesterday, and my gal wanted Princess Snow White while my boy wanted a Power Ranger. O.o It’s mission impossible to me, so we came out with Mickey and Minnie in the end.

It’s not so hard preparing the rice balls with nori as comparing to cutting out Mickey shape with cheese! So, if you are interested to know how to make rice balls, check out Kaerenmama’s blog. I think she showed the steps in one of her posts. I don’t have any seaweed punchers, so I cut out the eyes, noses and lips for the mice.

My boy’s lunch box has a Mickey rice ball, a piece of salmon, some grapes, quail eggs, mini sausage and some asparagus and mushroom rolled up in a ham. Broccoli is used to fill in the space and some peppercorns as flowery decoration.

Here’s my gal’s bento. Minnie has a ribbon (cut from artificial crab meat) to tell the difference that she’s a girl.

My boy who said that he wanted to help decided to pack some grapes in another containers instead. I think he didn’t want to mess up his Mickey. LOL!

My boy’s helping

If you are wondering if the nori was still in place for the face features, yes they were. By the time we reached office, my boy’s bento still had everything in place as I put it in a bento bag and asked him to keep it upright. But my gal’s Minnie faced downwards because she swung the bag around while galloping. *Slap head*

So, if you would like to keep the arrangement nicely, make sure that there is no moving space in the lunch box, and keep it upright at all time.

My kids couldn’t finish the main lunch box as they started eating at 10.30am. It’s way too early for their lunch but they insisted. My boy left some asparagus while my gal left one rice balls, 2 quail eggs, some mushrooms and asparagus. They won’t normally take the lettuce because I’m the one who eats it mostly. I think they ate too much grapes which were placed in separate containers because they are sweet! Thus, the leftovers went to our food disposal aka hubby’s tummy.

My kids will be going to international school in 2 years, and the school fee is worrying me. For a 6 years old, you can expect to pay RM50k and above for a year school fee, excluding extra classes, admin fee, and other expenses. That’s how expensive education is in Bangkok! It gets more and more expensive until the kid graduates from high school.

That’s why homeschooling comes across my mind, but hubby doesn’t agree on that. He prefers to kids to go to school like most children so that they don’t miss out their school life. I know that kids can still have friends if they don’t go to school, but then I feel that that’s a difference.

It’s like we are paying for my kids’ college fees in oversea at least 15 years earlier, and we need to have a solid financial base for that. I guess getting an online university degree won’t cost as much as paying for elementary at international schools in Bangkok huh?

That’s why I dare not think of having a nice holiday or buying anything expensive. Our kids’ school fees is our main priority now.

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Sometimes, I prefer the kids to spend Saturdays at home. That’s the only day they can stay at home doing whatever they want. But hubby likes the kids to follow along so that we can go some place together if we leave early. I feel that our home is just a hostel or hotel because we hardly spend time at home!

My kids are at the kiddie room in our office now, enjoying their bentos (which will be posted later) and watching Tom and Jelly. But still, I think they will have more fun at home with all their toys and books. Maybe we should really bring them to the park or indoor playground later for some fun. So boring going to coming to work with us…

If they go to indoor playground, mommy can go shopping for a while. LOL! Let’s see if I can find anything nice than Beautifeel shoes…

My kids are getting more interested in bentos, and this morning, my boy asked me to teach him how to fix his own bento. They will normally wake up seeing me placing the food in their lunch boxes, so maybe they thought that it’s fun. I will let them join in the fun tomorrow, but I will have to think of something simple first. I only have a pair of tweezers, so maybe I should ask them to dig out their toy tweezers and wash them for tomorrow.

As for today’s bento, it’s something simple. I bought some bacon cheese buns yesterday, and broke them into half to fix in the lunch box. I managed to buy some quail eggs, so I decorated them like faces. It’s a blur look, and that’s how my kids look like when they wake up in the morning. LOL!

In each lunch box, there are bacon cheese buns, 2 quail eggs (one with the face and another one with the picks), some apples and edamame. 

When I was about to close the cover, my boy reminded me that I’d forgotten to pack them ketchup to go with the eggs. Ya, they won’t take eggs without ketchup! Thus, I had to “squeeze” in the mini sauce container of ketchup in the end. The lunch boxes come with 2 tiers, so it’s not hard to put in another sauce container at the lower layer.

BTW, I have to go shopping for another lunch box for my gal. My boy threw a tantrum and broke his sister’s Melody lunch box. Sigh…it’s from Sanrio and it’s an expensive one. So $$$ flew away already… I think I will get her a replacement at Daiso, if the one in strawberry design is still available!

I found my idea of fixing mini pizza from Kel’s Place. Actually, I wanted my kids to fix their own bentos this morning, but they woke up late, so I had to start without them. This time, I had my Canon camera with me in the kitchen.

It’s pretty simple, and I just used wholemeal bread as the base. Since I prefer to minimize the wasted when using a cookie cutter, I would normally try out the cutters first and see which designs fit the most.

Trying out the cookie cutters

After that, I spread some ketchup, put in some mixed veggie and sausages and topped the bread with cheddar cheese and mayonnaise. I prepared another 2 pieces for hubby and I too before placing the tray in the oven for about 5 -10 minutes. As long as the cheese melted, the mini pizzas should be ready.

Mini pizzas on the tray

While waiting, I cut the mini cocktails and steam some corns and broccoli. Place the cocktails in boiling water for a few minutes so that you will have the shapes you wanted.

Cutting mini cocktails

When everything’s ready, let them cool down in room temperature. I got myself busy with the strawberries and decorating 2 little octopuses for my kids and then place everything in their lunch boxes. I decided not to use any baran or silicon cups today and just do something like “hide and seek”. I mean hiding the little octopus!

The end results…

For a closer look, check them out…

My gal’s bento as the octopus hiding under the broccoli.

Boy’s octopus chose a wrong spot.

As for strawberries, I placed them in a separated container as I would keep it in the fridge at the office. I try not to refrigerate the mini pizzas so that they won’t turn soft by late afternoon.

The strawberries with animal picks. My kids know which picks belong to them and they will have equal shares.

That’s my bentos for today. I hope that my kids will wallop all the broccoli before I serve them their daily Yakult!

I started packing home cooked food for my kids since we moved here, but previously, I didn’t blog about it as I wasn’t aware of bento blogs. Most of the time, I would just pack the food with a thermal food container and bring them to the office. However, once I got the hang of packing food, I would like to add more cutie details into the lunch boxes, just like most mothers do.

I have to admit that I found most of my ideas from Japanese mothers. I just happened to Google for bento ideas and I came across this directory of bento blogs. Check this out. I can’t read Japanese, so I just look at the photos, and guess how the food arrangement is done. However, there are a few blogs which share their tutorials and bento workshops, especially Kaerenmama. Her tutorial is pretty simple to follow, if you can get the ingredients. But if you don’t fancy preparing rice, just use her ideas and come out with something on your own. Khongfamily, I found the ways of cutting sausages from her blog!

Another blog which I like personally is this. Maybe her name is akinoichigo. Correct me if I’m wrong! She has great ideas on how to prepare bentos with simple home cooked dishes. I have to pack lunch for my kids on Saturdays mostly, so this blog is another informative website to me.

As for other blogs, I just look how the bentos are nicely decorated and do my own “homework”. I saved a few nice ones in my flash drive and I will think of what to prepare for the kids a day before. I can’t prepare charaben all the time due to time constrain and lack of gadgets. Besides that, I’m not so creative or smart enough to figure out how some characters are done! LOL!

But wait ya? If I can manage to snap photos while preparing food, I will show them step by step. But hoh, let me be more “expert” first.

Edited: I’ve forgotten to put in another bento blog. Check out Just Bento too, if you prefer something like adult bentos.

I thought of fixing my kids some pizza, but hubby left the loft of bread we bought at the office. So, I had no choice but packed something simple today…

In each lunch box, there are some drogon fruit (pitaya) or kiwi, weiners, edamame and meat floss rice flakes.

My boy likes edamame lately, and I bought a big pack of them. I think my bentos will be filled with lots of edamame until I finish the whole bag.

BTW, I can’t seem to buy the red dragon fruit here, maybe I don’t know how to read or ask them in Thai. I always got the white ones, and I wonder if the 2 pitayas have different name in Thai?

I’ve been coughing badly since yesterday. So, this morning I woke up with my head spinning! I tried to make things simple with the kids’ bentos, and I just cut the fruits in various shape cutters and steamed some corn cobs and edamame.

I prepared the nori (seaweed) and cheese a night before, so it’s pretty easy to get the bentos ready in less than 30 minutes. My gal saw the cute flowery cheese and decided to bring her bento to school. My boy wanted to save it until after school (about 4.30pm), so I will keep his bento in the fridge at the office first. I would normally keep their bentos refrigerated if I’m packing fruits.

As for the leftovers of bread and fruits, I baked them in the oven when I was preparing myself a roasted drumstick. It’s another leftover from dinner a few days back.

I’ve forgotten to put some butter or oil on the baking cup, so I had to dig them out with a spoon. It’s yucky, I know. LOL!