Mothering Corner

I was hesitating if my kids should go the school today, so I only fixed them a simple bento. If they skipped school, the bento meal can still be taken at home.

Today’s bento with jam rolls, strawberries, cherries, and kiwis.

So, in the end, they stayed on home with me. Besides taking lots of naps, they had fun playing, reading, watching TV and having fun at home. We seldom stay at home, so it’s nice to see them enjoying themselves while getting lots of rest. They have finally gained some appetite and ate some oatmeal as lunch too, and it’s a good sign of recovering.

Hubby called a few times, and I joked that we should just get 800 number to save up his phone bill. He was worried as this is the first time our kids got sick in Bangkok, and we haven’t engaged them to any pediatrician here. But since they are recovering on their own, I don’t think we need to make a trip to the hospital.

This are my first wasted bentos as my kids didn’t want to eat their meals. Both of them threw up in the car on our journey to the office, and we rushed back home to bathe them and clean up the mess. I decided to stay in with the kids while hubby went back to work. They didn’t feel like eating, but took a nap in the morning. They didn’t want to have lunch even if it’s afternoon now. I can see the cute bento meals doing to the dustbin, or my tummy, or hubby’s tummy later.

My boy’s bento with Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer, Santa Clause, broccoli as Christmas tree and his favorite roasted pork rib, which he didn’t feel like eating today! Oh ya, there are grapes to fill in the gap.

 
My gal’s bento with a bunny with a Christmas hat, and grapes as fillers. The roasted pork rib was hidden. The rice is slightly red as I mixed some organic red hom mali rice with jasmine rice. That’s how we cook our rice these days.

Nonetheless, I’m glad that they took some of the fruits which I packed as afternoon tea.

Rose apple, Thai orange, grapes and kiwi. They took a few and I keep the fruits refrigerated again.

If you are wondering how I made the Santa Clause, here’s the simple instruction. I actually used 2 different types of wieners in different colors. I saw some Japanese blogs making Santa Clause with sausages, so I wanted to give it a try.

I used a smoked chicken wiener and a mini wiener for the Santa Clause. Join the pieces together with a thin strip of spaghetti, and since it’s edible, don’t worry about it.

The beard was cut from a piece of cheese with a cookie cutter. Cut a thin strip to wrap around Santa’s hat too. Pardon my cheese with lots of holes as I don’t throw the cheese away and keep it for next use.

After that, I added Santa’s eyes and lips with seaweed and his nose with a tiny piece of ham. There you have it! My Christmas bento! Too bad it’s wasted la…

Hopefully, my kids will be alright and feel like eating again by the end of the day. They will definitely lose weight without weight loss pills, if they refuse to eat for days.

 I’m glad that my kids adjusted well in Bangkok, and even if they can’t speak Thai fluently yet, but they can understand better what’s been taught at school. In fact, they learn better than I do, and I’m the only one who can’t speak much Thai in the family. Maybe I hardly speak to the office staffs too because my job is more like setting our websites or sorting the stocks and data. I better look for data protection solutions soon to backup and protect my files!

I guess it’s due to my lack of determination in learning the language and I hardly have time to listen to the CDs now. I guess I better start speaking more in Thai, if I would to pick up the language faster.

I’m out of idea what to fix for the kids this morning. So, I decided to make their bento meals cute by using picks and mini containers. This is one of the fastest way to beautify a bento, if you don’t mind washing more tools later on. LOL!

My gal’s bento basket has a piece of fried chicken, kamcort oranges,  a Hello Kitty container filled with ketchup and another HK container for jellybeans.

My boy’s basket has the same bento meal, but different mini containers and animal picks.

As usual, I packed some fruits for them in the lower compartment of the 2-tiered lunch boxes, which will be refrigerated at my office.

A fruity treat of rose apple, cantaloupe melon and grapes

My kids can take a lot of fruits in a day, so the portion is just right for them. Frankly, if I have a maid who washes the dishes and lunch boxes for me everyday, I don’t mind using more picks, barans, and bento tools. LOL!

I went to Daiso again, ya, I go there almost every week. LOL! I will surely get something when I’m there, and this time, I bought some craft punchers. I only use the punchers on seaweed, and maybe lunch sheets too. So don’t worry about hygiene issue.

One of the snowflake punchers are reserved for Arlene.

I can’t seem to find any Carla’s punchers here, so if you are from Bangkok and know which shops sell Carl’s punchers, please let me know. Thanks!!!

Arlene told me about this blog by R mama’s with lots of nice bento collections. The other day, I saw her making some cute gingerbread man cookies on her blog, but knowing myself well, I really don’t have time for baking! Thus, I decided to modify it and make a cute gingerbread man from cheese.

I don’t have a gingerbread man cookie cutter, if you do, it should be easier. I used the teddy bread cutter, like shown, but cut off the ears with a round cutter to form the head.

Cut out the shape with a teddy bear cutter

Cut off the ears with another round cutter. Be very careful not to cut off the other part but only the ears.

So, here’s the end result.

In each lunch box, there are garlic toasts, some Thai oranges, kiwis, mangoes and grapes.

The gingerbread man really sparks up the bento huh? The pink buttons and cheeks are cut from kamaboko. I added in a crab shaped mini wiener as protein source.

Some mothers asked me about how to cut the wieners nicely. I don’t know how the Japanese mothers do it, but personally, I like to freeze the wieners first. I will bring some out to defroze them a night before, or just place the wieners in running water to defroze it. It should be soft, but not as soft as the time we purchase it. I found that when the wiener is too soft, I can’t cut it nicely with a knife or sausage cutter.

If you are using the sausage cutters, make sure that you get the right size of wieners. If you can’t find the exact length, just shorten it.

A mini wiener for crab sausage cutter

After cutting, place the wiener in boiling water for awhile and the shape should be prominent in minutes. I hope that this tip helps.

We have a day off today, so we went shopping with the kids. Today’s bento is a simple one, with a butter bun, but slightly decorated to make it more attractive. I packed some jackfruits and grapes too, and used flower carrots as barans to separate the bun from the fruits.

Flowery carrots as barans, and they are hidden behind the buns.

A bunny for my gal and Shinkansen for my boy.

But what do you know, my boy left his lunch box at the shopping mall!!! Argh…Thank goodness it’s only one of the lunch boxes from 100yen shop, and not his favorite Pooh Bear or Shinkansen. If not, he will surely bug me about it. He has totally forgotten to bring it back when we ate at the food court. He didn’t want to eat “outside” food but his fruits. So, that goes his lunch box too…

Oh ya, I lost another animal pick, again!

Besides that unstable politic in Bangkok, I’m actually enjoying my life here. There’s nothing bad about my life in Ipoh, but I think my days are more occupied and full of activities here. Frankly, the only free time I have is the time spent at the office, until my kids come back from school That’s the time for working, blogging, and blog hopping! I hardly have time to do so, without distraction, when I was in Ipoh.

If I have the determination and will of pursuing an online degree, I might can allocate some office hour for it, if hubby agrees to it. We are having a joint venture soon, and I was given extra workload. But then, it’s a blessing to have a job or business these days. I better don’t complain about my busy days ahead.

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I was trying to make something like a sunflower with wieners and egg sheet, but my egg sheet torn badly when I tried to roll it around the wiener. I tried once last night, it didn’t make it, then again this morning, and finally I gave up. LOL! Really no time la…too rush in the morning already.

I read somewhere that the egg sheet can be stored and frozen for next use. So, it should be convenience to store some away for bento meals. I should practice how to form a thin layer of egg sheet one day, and I still wonder if there is any tip to make one successfully with a frying pan? I don’t have a microwave but only oven, so can it be done?

So, today’s bentos have only sausage faces, instead of a sunflower.

My boy’s bento with half a Thai local orange, some jackfruits, sausages and raspberry jam sandwiches.

The other half of the orange went into meimei’s lunch box. I really like the heart and flower shaped wiener, kind of cute huh?

 If my kids can’t have enough of fruits today, they can always get mine. I packed some local grapes (with seeds, kek sei), bananas and jackfruits for ourselves too. Hubby and I still can’t reach the 5: 7: 9 ratio ourselves!

We supposed to do some grocery shopping yesterday, but we went out all day to enjoy the nice breeze along Chao Phraya River and night walk in Khao San until it’s too late to do any shopping. So, I had to “dig” out anything which is left in the fridge this morning, on top of the new loaf of bread we bought last night.

To make today’s bento more appealing to my kids, I decided to add in some details of Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse. If you have the Mickey and Minnie cutters, you can easily cut out the sandwiches into shapes, but the top surface might not look obvious on bread, as comparing to cookie dough.

So, what I did was cutting out the shapes on a piece of cheese with the cutters. For seaweed, I traced the cutter with the tip of a knife. Most Japanese mothers will trace the faces on a piece of thin paper, then place the paper on the seaweed to cut out the shape. They will then place the seaweed or paper on the cheese and cut out the shape with a knife or toothpick. You can try this method too. My Mickey and Minnie don’t look nice enough because I didn’t use their method, which will create a nicer effect.

Since I’m using the two-tier lunch boxes today, I slipped in a piece of corn as divider between the Mickey and Minnie sandwiches and sapodilla, and packed some apples and a banana on the lower tier. That should be enough for my kids, and keep them full for at least 3 hours so that hubby and I can work late this evening.