Mothering Corner

I woke up feeling great today because I would sleep late on Saturday! Nonetheless, I felt bored after awhile, especially after hubby left for work. My kids don’t want to do anything much except watching the TV, so I had so much free time, I fixed lunch bentos for them. Besides that, I was very bored after checking out some insurance quotes for our family here in Bangkok

My gal starts to eat veggie at meal times, but still not a lot. At least there’s an improvement. She’s more willing to eat carrots, so today’s theme is no other than Ms. Carrot itself. Ms. Carrot was cut with the green cutter from Bento#114.

My gal’s lunch with Ms. Carrot and a bunny. I used the same tools as in Bento#89 to form the bunny’s face with salmon. I sprinkled some sesame to outline the bunny, but I still need more practice on this. There are stir-fried cabbage and carrot, and 2 small pieces of pork fillets in her bento too.

My boy has a bigger portion for his lunch. I decorated his bento with a little boy.

Both of them just couldn’t wait to eat as soon as I snapped the photo. They had their lunch with a bowl of radish soup each. My kids can’t take rice properly if it’s too dry, and they always want some gravy or soup to go with their rice. My gal asked for more salmon because she likes fish. But when she’s almost done, I had to feed her the veggies. She managed to finish most of her lunch, and left some pork fillet behind. Same goes to my boy, he didn’t like the fillets. Both my kids don’t quite like frozen food like pork or fish fillets and chicken nuggets. I just wanted to introduce the fillets to them since the frozen food is easy to be prepared for bento meal. But too bad, they still don’t like it.

Since today is Saturday….have a nice weekend everyone!

I think it’s best to prepare the cheese at night lately. It’s getting hotter now, and the sun rises as early as 6am. I feel that I’m rushing to put the cheese in place before it melts. LOL!

I always have some spare time after dinner as hubby is the one who’s in charged of washing the dishes. So, when I took out my bento tools last night, my kids wanted to join in the fun. Frankly, I didn’t have anything in mind last night, so I decided to fix anything they like for today’s bento. My gal is eager to see my parents, who are coming soon to take care of them, so I prepared the faces with cheese for her. As for my boy, he wanted lions.

After I had done with my part, my kids took over the leftover and had fun with the cutters.

My gal was paying full attention with her “work”. She’s using a mini star cutter from the alphabet set, and the pin to push out the cheese.

My boy handles cutters much better now, so he wanted to practice with the tweezers.

I wonder if there are smaller tweezers for kids?

Some of their work went to today’s bentos, but most of them were eaten. LOL! That’s the thing about having my kids around the table when I’m preparing the bentos, most of the food don’t have a chance to get into the lunch boxes but into their mouths.

So, I only had to steam the corn and sweet potato, and cut the fruits this morning. Most of the details were cut last night, and I just had to punch some nori. Here’s the end result:

Gong gong (the one with glasses) and po po are coming! Yippie! My gal has been waiting for her Ribena sweets for months, and my parents promised to get some for her. Funnily, I can’t find Ribena here in Bangkok. She will have corn, watermelon, strawberries and grapes when she’s back from school.

Oh ya, my kids are going through a “carrot-and-broccoli-eating” game, which they will be rewarded with stars if they finish their veggie. So, I packed some for my kids today. This reward system seems to be working for my gal. Upon having 20 stars, she can get a small gift.

My boy’s bento with a lion and a cub. He will have the same bento meal as his sister, but with some extra sweet potato.

Those tiny little stars and hearts were cut by them. Both of them seemed very satisfied with today’s bento, maybe they feel a sense of achievement huh?

First of all, I would like to apologize to some bloggers who left their links behind for the blogroll. My spam detector will eat up all the comments with links, but I managed to retrieve a few after reading your emails. Thanks for telling me about this! I’m so sorry that I’ve forgotten to reset the comment section before askng you to leave your comments behind! I know how frustrated it is to have your comment lost in cyberspace after a few tries. LOL! It happens to me too on some mothers’ blog, I also don’t know why…

Anyway, let’s get back to today’s bento. I am pretty lazy today, so I decided to do something speedy and simple. I have this Cinnamoroll rice mold for some time, but I have never used it. The rice portion is a bit too big for my kids! So, I decided to use it as a sandwich cutter.

Cinnamoroll rice mold. I used the center piece as a cutter.

Since Cinnamoroll does not have a lot of details, I just prepared the drawing of its face the night before.

I traced the face by placing the center piece at the bottom of the paper. Ya, it’s the same paper I used yesterday. LOL!

 The main reason why I did this is because I wanted to have some 3D effect. The disadvantage of using bread, as comparing to rice, is that most of the characters can only be done in 2D. But Cinnamoroll is a bit too plain, if it’s in 2D, so I topped another piece of bread on the peanut butter sandwiches. Just put that traced paper on a piece of bread and cut it out with a pair of scissors. I flattened the edges of the smaller piece with a roller so that it can lie flat on the sandwiches, instead of curling up.

For Cinnamoroll’s face, it’s pretty simple. If you have the cat puncher by Carla, it would be easier. But since mine is still in Malaysia… I used this method, which I stumbled upon when blog hopping some time ago, but I can’t remember where I’ve seen it. If you know which blog it’s from, let me know, I will link back to the bento-er.

I used this heart puncher. After the first punch, you will get a heart, which is unwanted. Then, turn the puncher over and try to get that small curly nori. Give it a punch and you will get Cinnamoroll’s lips (or is it nose?). Pardon the paw on the nori because I’m recycling the same piece of nori until it can’t be punched anymore.

Here’s the end result.

My boy’s bento with peanut butter sandwiches, a black plum, a strawberry, some oranges and blueberries. I told him I would fix him a cute puppy, but when he saw Cinnamoroll, he was not excited. Maybe it’s not something he had expected. BTW, Cinnamoroll’s cheek is out of the place. LOL!

For my gal, it’s Cinnamoroll’s friend, Mocha. If you use wholemeal bread or bread in brown, it will look nicer. My gal said she’s cute. Phew…

Today’s bentos are definitely speedy. So, give it a try!

Some of you have been asking me to snap my bento tools, so there you have it! Actually, I still have some tools with CP, but not a lot this time. I’m slowing down in buying tools because I have quite a handful of them already!

My toolboxes at my little bento corner. There are toolboxes, food wrapper and some lunch mats.

 The lunch boxes are kept away in the cabinet, and I place my bento tools in a few boxes, placed on this coffee table. This table is located at the corner by our dining table, and most of the time, the curtains are opened so it’s very bright. I like this spot a lot because it has a lot of sunlight coming in and it’s great for photo shooting. I didn’t snap my dining table, and it’s just nearby. By sitting there, I can reach my toolboxes.

Various cutters and silicon cups

There 2 boxes are for cutters and silicon cups. As you can see, the one on the left is more for wheel cutters or those tiny details. The one on the right are for bigger shapes, which I normally cut the bread and fruits with.

Nori punchers

I have quite a lot of punchers, and my favorite ones are from Carla Crafts. I have the Hello Kitty punchers too, but I must have kept them away for too long, I forgot where they are. LOL! Anyway, I don’t like to use them, so I can’t be bothered to look for them. Same goes for the bigger smiley punchers, they are highly depending on how thick and hard the nori is to get a nice punch, so they are not really my favorites too. As for the punchers in yellow, pink and blue, they are from Daiso. I like them a lot because they are cheap in price and good enough.

Picks and barans

Here are my picks and barans. I have a lot of them, but I hardly use them these days. Some gone missing, so I will buy once in a while if there are nice designs. If you check out my early bentos, I used quite a lot of picks.

There’s one box which I put away in the cabinet because I hardly use them. There are rice molds and egg molds, all kept in this transparent shoe box.

Rice molds and egg molds

If you are looking for a bigger box, go for the shoe boxes. I think I bought this from Central, and it’s meant for men shoes, so it’s slightly bigger. As long as they are new and clean (they should be wrapped up when you purchase them), and after a good wash, you can use them to keep some tools away.I like to keep my tools in transparent boxes so that it’s easier for me to see what I have. So, do I have a lot of tools? I hope not. LOL!

 Edited: If I’m not mistaken, I bought these boxes from Central. The one with baran and picks come with flexible dividers which you can slot in depending on how big you want the compartments to be.

Obviously, I got the idea from Kaerenmama. Doraemon is something my gal’s been buging me for some time, but I just KIV it for as long as I can remember. LOL! When I saw her Doraemon tutorial, I was so happy! Finally, someone shared Doraemon tutorial, and Kaerenmama never fails to make things simpler for bento-ers.

But again, I modified her creation to better suit my kids. I hardly pack rice for them, except bento lunch. Since my kids have their bentos in the evening, bread is a better option. And if you are new here, please take note that I keep the bentos in the fridge at my office, that’s why I pack fruits for them. To avoid the bread from getting wet due to close contact with the fruits, you can use some barans or silicon cups.

I cut the bread and the facial details last night, so it’s easier for me in the morning. I hardly prepare nori in advance, as I did it before, and the nori curled up. I’m not sure what’s the reason, maybe I didn’t put a pack of silica gel in the container, and the nori got moist. So, what I really do in the morning are preparing the fruits, packing everything in and adding the details.

The tools for today’s bentos

For my little gal’s convenient, I prepared smaller sandwiches for her.

The details prepared a night earlier. I stored them in wrapper and keep them refrigerated in container. That’s the drawing I prepared for nori, and how to fix Dorami’s face. 

If you are wondering how much time I need, frankly, I’m not sure either. LOL! After putting my kids to sleep, I will get downstairs to do some simple preparation, if possible. I hardly watch TV, and we don’t have home theater furniture nor a nice home theater at home, so maybe that’s why I have more time?

I will wake up at 6.30am these days (ya, later than last time liao ) and start preparing. By the time my kids get up at 7am, it’s a bit hard to concentrate on my bentos. I will be juggling there and here with hubby’s help. Everything has to be packed and everyone has to finish breakfast before 8am, which is the time we get the kids ready for school. That’s why I’ve never timed myself! LOL!

I spent some more time cutting the fruits today because I bought some mayounchit. Ellena, it’s mayounchit, and SIL told me that it’s not mango, but just a fruit. They called it maprang too and they are so small!!! Besides that, I packed some Khewsawei mango, black plums, blueberries and edamame (hidden under the blueberries) in the lunch boxes too.
So, here’s the end result:

My boy likes his Doraemon. Mayounchit is the orange fruit.

My gal’s bento has Daraomon and his sister, Dorami.

Since I fixed Doraemon with bread, you need some jam or butter to stick the nori on to it. If you are using rice ball, please check out Kaerenmama’s blog.

I’m touched to see some comments from visitors who told me that they visit this site daily, and they like the bentos. I’ve never expected to see this blog going so well because I only thought of posting the bentos for my own record. But then again, it’s always great to have readers coming to see the bentos, don’t you think so?

Thus, I think I should let you know that I will have a short bento break in March because it’s my kids’ school holiday, and I need to get some rest after a minor incision. I’m not sure what’s inside, but after consulting the surgeon, it’s best to remove it and send it to the lab.

Don’t worry, it’s not going to be something serious where I need to have a lot of Medical Supply at home. LOL! But I really do need to rest well for awhile. So, if I’m not posting a lot in March, at least you know what’s the reason behind it.

In the mean time, I’m waiting for my uploader to upload today’s bentos. Stay tune!

Actually, I was running out of idea this morning, thus I decided to fix Hello Kitty and Winnie the Pooh again. I used the multi cutters, and they are very handy for speedy bentos.

At the same time, I saw SIG’s comment and post about having problem with Hello Kitty’s face, so I would like to share how I place in HK’s face features. If you have the Hello Kitty bento book, you might be able to get a glimpse on how you can have a more accurate Hello Kitty, by tracing the face, and then place the tracing paper at the bottom of the plastic wrapper, and cut out the tiny pieces accordingly. Then just place them all into place based on the drawing. I have never done any bento like this, but it’s worth trying. The face feature will be very accurate.

But this is how I did mine.

For me, I like to place the nose first, after placing the head accessories.

Then, I will put her eyes in. The bottom of her eyes are almost parallel with the top or center of her nose. Then I will place her middle whiskers in, somewhere parallel with center of the nose too.

After that, I will place the top and bottom whiskers. If you have a bigger hair accessory, like a ribbon, just move the nose downward. Hello Kitty will still look almost her Hello Kitty, even if you place her face features slightly lower.

As for Winnie the Pooh, I didn’t use the facial cutter for its face. I still prefer to use the seaweed punchers.

I used the music note puncher from Daiso for its eyes.

The leaf puncher was used for its nose, by cutting it into halves.

For Pooh’s lips, I used one of the sparkling eye puncher, the one with the tongue? But I cut of the tongue though. The smiley puncher by Carla was used for its eye brows and the line above its nose. So, here’s the end result:

My boy’s Winnie the Pooh, with 2 pieces of garlic toasts hidden beneath. There are Khewsawei mangoes, sweet potatoes, strawberries, seedless grapes and steamed carrots too.

My gal’s all time favorite, Hello Kitty. She said “wow” again this morning, no matter how many times I fix Hello Kitty for her. LOL!

I have to admit that by having the “correct” tools help a lot. I simply don’t like to do the tracing and cutting in the morning rush, but I don’t mind doing it when I have an ample of time.

On the other hand, I’m thinking of setting up a blogroll for bento blogs. If you have a bento blog and if you would like to join, please drop you URL at the comment section. I think a lot of bento mothers in Malaysia and Singapore already started charaben, and I saw a few nice blogs around. It would be nice if we can share our ideas and creations, or maybe things like how to use a particular tool which we set aside in the toolbox?

I know how it feels to collect as many tools as we can afford, but some times, not all of them are being used. So, if you have doubt about how to use any tool, let’s see if all of us can come out with some ideas to share. How about that? It’s a waste seeing them lying down in the toolbox screaming for help. LOL!

This is something I’ve always wanted to do, a full bodied girl and a boy. Due to time constraint, it’s a bit hard to do this in the morning. Thus, I cut the body parts last night, and just spent time preparing the French toasts and cutting the fruits this morning. After the toasts cooled down, I put the details on in and voila! It’s so much faster this way…

My gal’s bento with a little girl on the French toasts. She will have a dwarf apple, some Khewsawei mangoes, oranges and a strawberry today. BTW, did you notice that I forgot to put in her arms? LOL!

My boy’s bento definitely has a little boy la. LOL!

 
Both my kids love the little boy and the little girl.

Now, my only concern is will the little boy and girl still look the same by this evening? I was out for hours this morning, and the bentos were left in the car. Hubby and I didn’t except that my medical checkup would drag so long, so we didn’t place the bentos at the office first. Even if there were cooler gel inside the bag, but it can’t stay cold for long in the hot sun. I hope that they don’t mind eating the melting cheeese later! Oh ya, I packed more fruits for them today as I’m worried that they might not take the French toasts. It’s a bit hard to get my kids to eat egg (or anything cooked with eggs), especially my gal. My boy might eat them if he’s really hungry, so we shall see.

My kids will have school break in another week, so I think I will have longer bento break this time. I need some rest, and might only fix bentos for them once in a while.

We go for prayers on Sundays, mostly, and I will pack something light for my kids to eat in the car. Some times, the journey might take more than an hour to reach the temples, so the bentos will keep my kids occupied in the car.

Eeyore should be blue and purple, but I couldn’t make it. Thus, I simplified Eeyore by just putting in his face features on the sandwich. My boy still liked it though, maybe it’s because he knew that I had done my best to please him, even if it didn’t look like the real Eeyore. Besides that, he had his favorite sapodillas, grapes and Korean strawberries in his bento.

My gal had Piglet in her lunch box. I wanted to cut a bigger smile for Piglet, but it was ugly. LOL! I can’t wait to receive the shoe puncher from CP, I think the smile should be bigger than Carla’s Craft smiley puncher.

It didn’t take me a lot of time to prepare the bentos. It’s speedy, and my kids were happy with their meals in the car.

 It’s been very hot here in Bangkok.  You don’t have to bathe with electric tankless water heater, and it’s so hot, it’s hard to sleep at night.

I can’t sleep without air conditioning, but hubby wants the kids to sleep with the fan, after turning on the air conditioning for a while. He says it’s better for their lungs, or don’t know whatever reason it is. But I feel that my kids sleep lesser this way as they wake up earlier than usual for the past few days. I will normally get myself busy at the kitchen at about 6.30am when everyone is still sleeping. It’s easier and faster for me to cook and cut the fruits without distraction, but with my kids waking up at the same time as me, I’m rather kelam-kabut (chaotic) most of the time. LOL!

This morning, we had char siew pao (barbecued pork buns) for breakfast. When we first moved here, my boy craved for char siew pao, but we didn’t know where to find a dim sum restaurant. But after some time, we managed to find some Chinese or Thai restaurants with char siew pao but the buns were not as tasty as those back home. So, whenever we fly back for holiday, we will go for dim sum and my kids can have as much char siew pao as possible.

I’m not good at fixing buns, thus I bought the frozen char siew pao from the supermarket. All I need to do is just steaming them for 15 minutes and they are ready to be eaten. And of course, as I was busy packing today’s bentos, my kids already started snacking on the char siew paos. LOL!

What I had in mind were Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse. So, this is how I did it…

I cut the nori in circles to form their faces, and placed the nori onto the buns. Since the char siew pao has uneven surface, you might need some jam or butter to stick the nori on. If it’s still hot, the nori might “melt” on the bun, so make sure that you let the buns cool down first.

Then it’s all about adding in the details and packing the fruits. Here’s the end result…

My boy has a Mickey Mouse (char siew pao) in his bento, with lots of grapes, rose apples and strawberries. I used 2 grapes to form Mickey’s ears.

My gal’s bento with Minnie Mouse, and the same bento meal.

Some mothers asked where I got my ideas from and I think it’s a great idea that I share this out…

• Blog hopping. There are a few good blogs which I bookmarked. In fact, Kaerenmama showed how to prepare Mickey and Minnie with rice balls, and that’s how I got today’s idea from. It was an old post, so please go through her achieves if you are interested to see her tutorial. But if possible, I think it would be nice if we link back to the blogs because they are willing to share their ideas, and it would be nice to give the credit back to the blog owners.

• I have a few bento books, but after flipping through them for the first few times, I stop reading them. You can get some of them from Kinokuniya or maybe anywhere which sells Japanese books.

• Brainstorm with my kids! My kids have a lot of bento ideas, and in fact, it’s me who can’t fulfill their bento fantasy. I just keep them in mind, or write them down on a notepad. I’ll go through the notepad once in a while and think about the possibility of fixing them. If not, I will just KIV them.

• Pack frequently? LOL! I think I pack bentos like 6 days a week, either I like it or not. As you get used to it, it becomes easier. I hardly have bento break because my kids already got used to having their bentos, even on weekends. But sometimes, I will tell them that mommy needs a break.

• Having a lot of tools help a lot, but I try my best not to buy too much now. I already have a lot of bento tools, and I haven’t used all of them yet. There are a few ones which I use frequently, like the wheel cutters and the Carla’s Craft punchers. If you have limited budget, don’t buy a lot yet. Most likely, part of them will be ended in the toolbox and never see the daylight again. So, if I have time, I will “stare” at my toolbox and see if I can give those “less popular” ones a chance.

I think that’s all about it. Have fun bento-ing and enjoy your weekend!