Mothering Corner

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.

I had some time to kill this morning so I decided to come out the another tutorial. This is a simple bento meal, especially for mothers who like to pack bread for children. I think it’s more practical to pack bread instead of rice, due to our norm here. But then, it seems like you can do more with rice as shown in Japanese bento blogs.

I don’t think my kids can eat a lot as usual yet, so I only packed each of them a piece of jam sandwich again. To make it more attractive, I decided to do some color contrast, with a bunny in the middle of the sandwich.

This is the bunny cutter I used. You can easily do this with bread in different colors.

I used this cutter to form the ears by cutting an oval shape from a piece of ham.

Here are the ears for my bunnies.

 But then, I suddenly remembered Mommy Moon asking me who to decorate Hello Kitty? Actually, it’s all about the same for any character.

 If you have this multi cutters of ribbon, flower, star and etc, you can easily cut out the decorative details. I used kamaboko for the flower, but you can use anything such as wiener, carrot or ham too.

I removed one of the ears of a bunny, that bunny is obviously for my gal. At the same time, I cut the noses from cheese.

I placed the sandwiches in the lunch boxes, then added in the eyes and noses punched from nori.

So, here’s the end result:

I added some cherries, strawberries, grapes and local Thai oranges in their Melody and Shinkansen lunch boxes. *Oops, my gal’s bunny ear slid off a bit*

Some mothers are worried about wasting food in the process of preparing cute bentos, but I try to pack the excess fruits in another lunch box for hubby and me.

Fruity bento for hubby and me, without any cutie detail. LOL!

As for the cheese and ham, I would normally wrap them in food wrapper and refrigerate them in a Lock and Lock container. Try to dispose them if you can’t finish in days.

I spent more time on preparing today’s bento as I was busy snapping photos along the way. Sorry that the photos didn’t turn out sharp as it’s still pretty dark at 6 something in the morning. My wet kitchen light is not bright enough, I guess. But hopefully, this clear the doubts of some readers here.

My kids are recovering well, but they haven’t got back their full appetite yet. They couldn’t finish the corn and edamame in yesterday’s bento, so I cut down their carbo intake today by just giving them a piece of raspberry jam sandwich each. Since they asked for some wieners, I cut the wieners in shapes to make them more attractive. I got this idea from Kaerenmama, who makes pretty bentos. Do check it out.

So, this is how I did it:

Cut the wiener in smaller size and use a cutter to form a shape in the middle of the wiener. If the wiener is not too soft, the shape will come out nice, with shape edges. Try my wiener tips here.

Cut some vertical lines at the outer part of the wiener.

Place the wieners in boiling water for a few minutes and if the shapes are prominent, the wieners are cooked and done. I placed some carrots in the boiling water at the same time since someone asked me how to make the flower carrots.

I would normally steam or boil the carrots first before cutting them. But I think you can do it the other way round, if your cutter is sharp enough.

Use a flower cutter, or any cutters of your choice to form the shape.

Cut out smaller holes on the flower carrot. If you don’t have this cutter like mine, just use a straw.

The carrot flower. You can keep the smaller bits for eyes or just eat them. LOL!

While waiting for the wieners and carrots to cool down, I cut some mangoes and kiwis, and prepared the sandwiches. Then, I placed everything in the lunch boxes, and continued with the decorative details. It’s my boy’s birthday today, so I decorated his sandwich with a birthday cake, cut from high calcium cheese and smoked cheese for color contrast.

My boy’s bento with mango, kiwi, carrot, wieners and a piece of sandwich. He asked me why the “4″ candle was not lid, but I was running out of time to fix him the “fire flame”. LOL!

Some of you are wondering how I did the smiley faces? I use the punchers by Carla’s or Carl’s. They are the best punchers I have, and I love them. LOL! I don’t have a smiley face puncher yet, so I have to cut out a smile from this …

Punch the seaweed to get the “nose”, and carefully hold that tiny piece with a pair of tweezers and cut out the “U” shape. It looks tedious, but once you get used to it, it’s really not that hard. 

As for my gal, I fixed her a Hello Kitty as requested. She really loves HK.

My gal’s lunch box has a Hello Kitty, and she brought it to school with her today! Luckily, I didn’t give her any picks or barans, if not they will be lost again.

I stopped using the HK puncher because it always gets stuck. I use this puncher by Carl’s (or Carla’s?) for the eyes.

I think this puncher is great for shaping eyes in different sizes.

So, it’s really not that hard in preparing bento huh? But I’m still in learning stage, so there are still a lot to learn from Japanese bento blogs.

I am always glad to get some feedback from other bloggers as well as visitors to this blog. Some visitors asked how to cut the wieners nicely, and I shared some tips here in my gingerbread man post. Please go to the link, if you miss the post ya?

I hope that I can show the step by step instructions one day, but it’s too rush for me in the morning, and I don’t have time for it yet. Someday, I will blog about it. The same goes for the flower carrots, it’s pretty simple, but I don’t mind showing the steps in the future too.

As for today’s bento, it’s another speedy bento meal as well. I only spent most of my time on the checkered apples…

My boy’s Tomica lunch box has a piece of apple, corn (top with star shaped cheese and ham), some edamame, cherries, grapes and kiwis.

My gal’s Hello Kitty lunch box has the same meal with strawberries but not cherries as I didn’t have time to remove the seeds for her!

 They have regained their appetite and asking for wieners this morning. Too bad I didn’t have any in my fridge, so it’s time to go grocery shopping again!

 We are going for a trip at an all inclusive resort by the beach this weekend, so I guess I will have another short bento break soon. My kids have recovered and regained their appetite, so I will give them more fruits for the next few days to clear out their tummies. The tummy flu lasted 3 days, and they lost some weight already.

Fortunately, they are fit for the coming trip, and we have 2 more trips to go by next weekend. It’s all about traveling this month, and everyone in the family has better be in his or her optimum condition. LOL! If there is a health competition among us, I think I’m qualified for a gold, instead of a silver because I’m the only one who hasn’t got sick for months. *touch wood*