Mothering Corner

Hi all, do you still remember the one and only bento I made for myself? *wink*

If you like my bento, please vote for me at Javapot’s blog, and you can only vote one bento.

So, let’s see if I can make to the the next stage.

P/S: If you vote for me, thanks, and thanks and thanks again!

My kids love penguins, and so am I. The only penguins I’ve seen, which are not in captivity are those little penguins in Philip Island, Australia. I would certainly love to bring my kids there one day, as all the penguins they have seen are from  zoos or aquariums.

Since I have some quail eggs left in the fridge, I decided to fix some penguin onigiri, by wrapping the quail eggs with red hom mali rice. Actually, we hardly eat only white rice at home, and I normally mix the white rice with red rice. I’m not a big fan of white rice since I was young, but due to my mom’s influence, we used to have red rice at home. Red rice can be rather hard to be chewed for my kids, so I mix both rice by 1:1 ratio.

Here’s their dinner, actually…

There are 2 quail egg onigiris, a fried buffalo wing, and some stir-fried spinach. I added some mixed veggie to fill the gaps. Since I wanted to heat up the bentos, fruits are not suitable as part of their meal.

Here’s the shoe puncher I used today, besides the smiley Carl’s puncher which is not shown here.

And here are the bentos after decoration.

I added some corns as penguin’s nose and feet. Just use thin spaghetti straps to secure the corns onto the onigiri.

I added some carrots in their bentos too.

Just in case you are wondering, the rice balls are manually formed with cling wrappers. I found that the rice is more compact this way, and the surface is smoother too.

BTW, I’m not sure if the picks can be steamed up, so I prefer to remove them while heating up the bentos. Then, I will put them back in again when the bentos are served. As for the silicon cups, I’ve read that it can withstand high temperature, but not for toaster oven. That’s why I just leave them in the bentos while heating up the meal in the rice cooker.

Correct me if I’m wrong ya?

 I know that the news about Bangkok is worrying everyone, but we are doing fine here. In fact, we were out of the city for the past few days, and by the time we came back last night, everything seems to be “back to normal” again. I know that Bangkok might sound like a “dangerous” place to be in since there are so many coups, demonstrations or crackdowns over the years, but most of the people staying here are not affected, but we just have to follow the news closely, and get ourselves away from the “hot spots”.

Last year, I accidentally went to the Government House, where the Yellows gathered to bring down the previous government. Frankly, we didn’t know that we were at the demonstration spot as we had just arrived in Bangkok not long ago. But there were road blocks and lots of police officers making sure that no one gets in, except those that sent in the food, daily supplies and medical stuffs. Ya, the Yellow demonstrators were well fed 3 times a day and well taken care of for many months, until they decided to seize both airports!

But this time, the Red demonstrators might have gone over board, and thus a crackdown is needed to bring order back in the city. I shall make a trip to the city center this weekend, and see if “everything has really gone back to normal”. I guess after all these nonsense, most tourists will be avoiding Bangkok and that will surely affect Thailand’s tourism and economy again. I surely hope that hubby’s sales career and trading business here won’t slow down further!

In short, thanks for the concerning emails and messages, we are indeed doing fine.

Since we are still on holiday here, and after a few days of trips away, we decided to spend a day at home doing nothing. I fixed my kids a simple lunch bento of Winnie The Pooh and Friends.

Here’s the tools used for today’s bentos.

Here’s their lunch. I prepared fried fish, stir-fried cauliflower, broccoli and carrot with pork, and 2 hard boiled eggs. Some of the egg yolk was used to mix with the rice so that it appeared yellowish for Winnie the Pooh. Their lunch included radish soup too, but it’s not shown.

And after some decoration, here’s the end result…

Winnie the Pooh and Friends Bentos

Ya, I cheated! LOL! I used these cute Tigger and Eeyore barans to add more friends for Winnie the Pooh. And Piglet was cut from a piece of ham.

Mmm…I should place Eeyore on the right of the bento huh?

Tigger is very happy that lunch is served.

After Songkran holiday, my kids will join a summer camp next week. I think I will be back to packing tea bentos every weekday again. Ah…my break is over!

I have a handful of picks, and I want to make good use of them.   Some time ago, I came across a bento that made cute chicks with picks and quail eggs. I can’t remember which blog it’s from, but I clearly remember how to make it. It’s very simple and speedy.

Prepare some quail eggs. I prepared a red and yellow picks for each quail egg.

Just insert the picks into the eggs. Don’t worry about the ends of the picks and you can use them to pin onto other food so that the little quail egg chicks won’t move around. I pinned them onto a mini wiener.

So, here’s the end result:

My gal’s Marie The Cat bento with two little chicks, some oranges, two strawberries and rose apples.

My boy’s Pikkachu Bento with the same bento meal. 

I prepared some ketchup for the kids in mini container so that they are more willing to eat the eggs. It’s Easter, so must have eggs. LOL!

We are having a luncheon with the office staffs at our office today, in celebration of Songkran. My kids are not so keen to take most of the Thai dishes, except roast chicken and white rice. Thus, I packed them more fruits as brunch for their fiber intake.

I will be away again for days since it’s a long holiday not we canceled our plan of rv camping at the national park. It will just be staying at some resorts for some days. If you are traveling to Thailand, just remember not to wear anything in red or yellow, unless you are asking for trouble. Ya, there are demonstrations again.

In short, Happy Easter, Happy Songkran, and happy holiday!

I have a few “pending” bento themes, and hopefully I will manage to “create” most of them. I got this idea of Goldilocks and The Three Bears after chatting with Ellena some time ago. I guess most of our kids are familiar with this story. So, my kids were so happy to see their dinner being served as one of their favorite bedtime stories.

Here’s a photo of their dinner, with teddy bear onigiri, some green veggie and a piece of fish fillet. I added some prawns (stir-fried with the veggie actually), egg tofu and a fish ball into their bentos, which are part of the decorations.

Today’s dinner before decoration.

After some decorations, their bentos looked like these…

My kids dinner with Goldilocks and The Three Bears. 

Goldilocks’ face was actually an egg tofu, which is part of another dish. I didn’t give my kids the minced pork which was fried with the tofu because their protein intake was sufficient enough in their bentos.

The sleeping Goldilocks. Oops, Baby Bear dropped his ear. LOL!

Goldilocks’ hair was cut from fish tofu. I’m so into tofu lately, I prepared tofu dishes once a week. Let’s pretend that Goldilocks was sleeping on Baby Bear’s bed, that’s why he cried.

The crying Baby Bear,the angry Mommy Bear (with the ribbon pick) and the annoyed Daddy Bear.

Here’s my gal’s bento. Her Baby Bear was clearly not happy with Goldilocks.

If you are interested to see another Goldilocks bento, check out Pikko’s blog too.

 I don’t know what makes other bloggers blogg about their bentos, but personally, I just want to share my ideas and bento creations. I think there is a lot to learn in bento-ing and for someone who has just started a few months, I still have a lot to learn from others.

It’s only recently that I’ve started to get more visitors to this blog, and also got to know a few bento bloggers, including those who share their bentos through Flickr. I don’t think most of us are “competing with each other”, but we are just willing to share. So, I found it’s funny when I heard some “rumors” involving me. LOL!

Don’t ask me what it is, I won’t tell. LOL! Besides that, I don’t have time to “gossip” or start anything which is non-productive. I would prefer to get another online degree, or go for master degree if I have more time to spend! LOL!

Anyway, I’m not keeping this in my heart. It’s just that I found it funny.

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Ya, I’m seriously busy for the past few days! But the good thing is, I’ve finally found a new housekeeper who comes once a week to do the major cleaning of our house. Besides that, Songkran holiday is coming next week, so we will be off for a short trip again, and hopefully, I will only be splashed with water but not flour!!!

If you are wondering if I’m packing bentos these few days, yes I do, but they are all simple speedy bentos. I have to cook in the morning, so I can only come out with speedy tea bentos for my kids for their art class. They are the only kids who pack food to art class, and eat there after their class. The bentos do attraction some attention, even if they are pretty simple.

My boy had Elmo lookalike peanut butter sandwiches this morning. Pretty simple huh?

I didn’t snap photos for the rest due to lack of time, and also they were only repetitive of previous bentos. I hope that I will be less busy the week after next.

I only pack fruits for myself and hubby to work, and the fruit bento is quite plain. It has fresh fruits and those leftover from my kids’ bento, and I never decorate it. Seriously, I have never packed a nice bento for myself. So, when I saw Javapot’s contest, I thought it would be a good chance for me to pack something for myself, for the first time! Hopefully, it’s not the last.

This was my lunch, actually…

 There are pork fried in dark soy-sauce, some green veggie, 2 berry tomatoes, a salmon fillet, some red hom mali rice, a piece of seafood tofu and 3 slices of sweet potatoes.

Am I a big eater? LOL!

My Bento, for Myself, and about Myself!

As you can see, I wrote “I Love (the pink heart) 2 Shop” on three shopping bags (cut from seafood tofu). You can also read it as ” 1-2-Shop” because I’m a shopaholic. Anyone who knows me personally can confirm that! I can shop all day, and my highest record was 8 hours, with 2 tea breaks. The main reason why I stopped is because I was out of money and all my shopping kaki were broke and tired too. LOL!

If you see closer, you may notice the wavy details on the blouse, and that represents my crochet and knitting works. I love knitting and crocheting, but my knitting blog has long been abandoned since I moved to Bangkok. I don’t knit as much as I did before, but I’m still working on my knit dress.

Another thing about me is I love to eat, and I’m quite a big eater for a woman. My SIL said I eat like a man as my portion is always double hers. Funnily, most women in Thailand eat rather few. I always have to order double portion of noodles for my tomyam or pig bone soup here, and I can’t believe that other patrons around me can have enough with just the normal portion.

Besides that, you might think that I don’t eat a lot of rice, which is true. I don’t really have to take rice as my source of carbohydrate. There was a time when I didn’t take a single rice grain at all for more than 6 months because I didn’t feel like swallowing it. But now, I will take some to be a “role model” to my kids. Asian la, have to eat rice…

Oh ya, I don’t put flowers on my hair on normal days, but if I’m on vacation at some nice beaches, I won’t mind wearing some flowery hair accessories. I love going to the beach, but it’s very sunny now and I have just regained my “fairness”. LOL! So, I won’t be going for sunbathing soon.

Ok, I guess that’s about all for my bento. I’m going to send this to Javapot now. Wish me luck.

Over the past weeks, I have been looking around for summer classes for my kids who are basically rotting in front of the TV most of the time. I feel that they should be doing something else than just watching TV. We read to them, but we don’t couch them a lot in academic stuffs. Furthermore, my kids aware that they can’t watch TV during school days, and they want to max out their TV time as much as possible during summer holiday!

There are a lot of summer programs available, but so far, I only picked art class and another summer camp which starts soon. I might enroll them to another class, but I’m still thinking about it as it’s pretty costly. Unless I do get some tips from options express and make some big bucks, if not I want to think about this first. When school starts in mid May, we will have to pay a lot of money for the new school term and it’s going to burn a big hole in hubby’s wallet again! O.o

Some times, I wonder if all these extra classes are necessary. But I grew up going to a lot of classes too when I was young. I may not turn out to be somebody, but at least I know “something” in nearly “everything“. LOL!

Check out my new tools and bento boxes from Bento Market. I really love the lunch boxes! My boy “snatched” over the Mickey Rice Mold as soon as I opened the parcel. He even used it to fix his rice as it’s about time for dinner when hubby brought back the parcel. I didn’t expect the mold to be so big, but it fits my boy’s appetite well. Winnie The Pooh Rice Mold is smaller, but it should be fine.

So, what new tools or lunch boxes have you bought lately?

BTW, I told you I slowed down in buying tools right? See? Only 4 new tools.