Mothering Corner

I fixed 2 simple lunch bentos for my kids just now, and the rice balls were formed with the set of 45 deg rice molds as shown in previous post.

Here are the bentos before decoration. There are 2 rice balls, some steam egg with minced pork and stir-fried cabbage with carrot and glass noodles. I added some corns for them too.

Then, I decorated the rice balls as Hello Kitty and her friend Cathy, the bunny. My boy said he’s ok with having Hello Kitty for lunch, so I went ahead and fixed 2 bentos with the same decoration. It’s faster and easier for mommy!

I used the green shoe punchers for Hello Kitty facial details.

Tools for today’s bento

As for Cathy, I used the smiley and paw punchers from Carl’s to fix her nose.

Or alternately, you can use this puncher, but I can’t seem to get a nice punch, so I “dumped” it aside since the first time I tried it.

This pink puncher comes with the set of Hello Kitty rice molds.

So, here are the bentos:

My kids’ lunch bentos with Hello Kitty and Cathy.

My kids love the bentos. Due to the degree of the rice balls, it did look like Hello Kitty and Cathy were smiling at my kids when they were having their meals.

I’ve been eying on this set of rice molds for some time, and CP did a favor of getting them for me and Arlene from Japan. Thanks CP!!!

So, I decided to try them out for my kids’ dinner. You can easily fix a pig, a bunny, a cat, a teddy bear, a frog or anything else with these rice molds, and since the onigiris are “slanted” at 45 deg, it’s like the animal onigiris are smiling at you when you look down at your bento. Nonetheless, I wanted to try something else, instead of the regular animals.

Thus, I used these rice molds for today’s bentos

I stacked up the “bunny onigiris” for my boy, but only pack a “teddy” onigiri for my gal. Their dinner consisted of tempura, some fish and stir-fried kailan with prawns and fish balls.

Then, I decorated the onigiris as a bumble bee and a butterfly.

I think my gal’s bento is more like having a bee on the onigiri, instead of fixing a bumble bee onigiri. LOL!

My boy’s butterfly looked slightly better. LOL! My mom prepared some meat floss rolls today, and I added some into their bentos.

I would say it’s great to have these rice molds, if you pack rice often or if you kids like fancy rice balls at meal times.

Firstly, I’ve decided to stop numbering my posts.

Secondly, I thought of having a bento break, seriously. Thus, I packed something simple for my kids yesterday, so that they could have their bentos in the car. There were just butter cookies and raisins in their mini lunch boxes, without any decoration, and my kids didn’t want to finish their tea! My boy said, “Mommy, can you do something nice for me? I want some fruits, and some other food also, but not just raisin and “biscuits” like this…” O.o So, I guess they were rather “disappointed” when they opened their lunch boxes yesterday.

This morning, my kids asked me to pack something for them by using the new animal cutters, and I think I should oblige.

My new bento tools from Bento Market, and the animal cutters are the ones on the top right.

Besides that, I’m very IDLE at home because I skipped work today (and many days to come. LOL!). My mom is here, and I better keep her company. We have done some shopping together, but I can’t just shop all day in my Walking Boots! I’ll be broke before hubby comes back then. LOL!

So, with lots of free time on hand, I packed my kids’ bentos just now, which consisted of banana fritters, mangoes, lychees, blueberries and a cute animal sandwich each. My boy picked giraffe while my gal wanted a piggy.

My boy’s giraffe

And my gal’s Missy Piggy

I must say, I love the animal cutters! I think my kids will be very happy to see today’s bentos, when I pick them up from school.

I wonder if I should stop numbering the titles? It’s getting nearer to Bento#200, and I wonder how much further will I go? LOL!

It’s been awhile since I last involved my kids in bento-ing. They have been rather busy since school started, but they are still keen to have “fun with their food”. Thus, last Saturday, I let them fix their own tea by coaching them on how to cut the bread into shapes, pack some fruits and decorate the bentos with picks.

I got these animal picks from Daiso some time ago, and my kids have been bugging me to use them. They are quite long, so they are great as skewer picks. Here’s what my kids had come out with…

My boy packed his tea by himself, with some help from me. He also chose a dog pick to be placed on his cherimoya.

On the other hand, my gal was trying to have a nicer meal. She only cut the bread and asked me to “finish” the rest for her. LOL! That’s why her bento was neater.

It’s really nice to see them putting in their effort , even though my gal had only participated for a little while. She likes banana, and I think banana is great for digestion, probably just as good as Bowtrol.

My bread tasted nicer because I cut them myself.

 It’s a bit hard to get my kids involved on weekdays, and partly it because we come home late and they have some homework to complete. Nonetheless, I will try to fix their bentos for them, as long as they love it.

Today’s bentos are speedy and simple again and I got this idea from Sugarbunnies, which are 2 cute puppies from Sanrio. I was trying to get the cutters but to no avail. Thus, I fixed the puppies from quail eggs as shown below:

This is my boy’s bento, with 2 puppies. I didn’t do a good job in dyeing the brown puppy, so there are patches of browhish spots. LOL!

My gal will only have a puppy due to her smaller appetite.

The quail eggs were pinned to the sandwiches with spaghetti strips to prevent them from moving around.

BTW, I might not be packing bentos for my kids daily for the next 2 weeks since my mom will be here with us. Hubby is going on business trip so I might not come to the office as often as I do. Thus my kids won’t have to be “stuck” at work with me after school and I can bring them straight home!

I will only pack for them if there is a need, so I’ll slow down in updating this blog.

My kids love char siew pao (barbequed pork buns), and previously, I did a char siew pao bento before, and this is my second attempt. I wanted to fix something like Hamutaro (or Hamtaro), so I cut some cheese and ham last night, and thought that I would speed things up in the morning. But then, I realized that I might have to reheat the char siew pao if it’s too hard and cold by the late evening, and cheese is not suitable for heating up. It might melt and I don’t think my kids like the taste of cheesy char siew pao. LOL!

Thus, I prepared an egg sheet in the morning, and quickly cut out the shape out with exacto knife. I would say, you must get an exacto knife because it definitely makes things easier in bento-ing! Then, I cut the eyes from nori and punched a few more details with a shoe puncher and Carl’s smiley puncher. Everything was done in lightning speed so I didn’t have time to snap any photo while preparing the bentos.

Besides char siew paos, my kids will have mangosteens, cherimoya (nona), blueberries and lychees too.

Here’s a closer shot of Hamutaro:

Tottoko Hamutaro is a hamster, but I think mine looked more like a cat. LOL! The ears are cut from kamaboko, and pinned to the buns with spaghetti strips. Then, I placed the egg sheets and hams on the ears.

 Oh well, it’s worth trying it out, and maybe I will fix Hamutaro again and make it more lookalike.

It’s been raining cats and dogs for the past few days, and it’s cloudy today. I haven’t checked the weather forecast, but I guess it might rain again today.

Thus, today’s bento theme is about rainy day, and it’s something simple and quick, so I didn’t draft out the ideas in mind. But if it’s something more complicated like a cad drawing or a nice portrait, then it’s best to draft out the bento in advance.

Here’s the bento meals without decoration. My kids will have corns, sweet potatoes, rose apples and mangoes for tea.

I spent a few minutes punching the nori and placing the cheese details in since my kids prefer to see their meals “smiling back at them”.

The tools for today’s bento.

So, here’s the end result:

My boy’s bento, with clouds, rain drops, smiling flowers and an umbrella. Umbrella is a must on rainy days!

And here’s my gal’s bento.

I wonder when will this raining season stop? I feel like fixing a sunny day bento. LOL!

I would normally pack a heavier meal for my kids on Wednesdays as they have PE and swimming class at school. Most of the time, they will be very tired in the evening and some times they might just doze off to dreamland on the way back home, and can’t get up for dinner. So tiring huh?

If you are new here, you might not know that my kids spend long hours at school. They will come to our office after school at 5pm, and have their bentos at our office. Then, they will wait for us  until we are ready to go home. I know, it’s very very tiring for kids!

Thus, I fried some noodles for them, and added a quail egg in each thermal bento. I decorated the quail eggs as Cinnamonroll and Mocha by using these tools:

The tools used for Cinnamonroll and Mocha.

I prepared their ears and Mocha’s flowers last night with kamaboko since I would be very occupied with frying the noodles and boiling the quail eggs. Besides that, I dyed Mocha with soy sauce so that it looked brownish.

Their fruits were packed separately in another lunch boxes as shown below:

Besides fried noodles, my kids will have mangosteens, rambutans, and oranges today.

Here’s a closer shot of the bentos:

My gal’s Mocha

My boy’s Cinnamonroll

I spent an hour preparing the meals and packing the bentos. I guess I’m getting quicker these days.

I’ve always wanted to fix a bento, based on the characters of the lunch boxes. Thus, I prepared the details last night by tracing the details on paper, then place the paper on a piece of nori and cut them out with exacto knife. It sounds complicated, but I only did it for Elmo and Marie’s eyes. For the finer nori details, I punched them out with the shoe punchers and the smiley puncher by Carl’s. Elmo’s mouth was cut with a pair of scissors as it’s pretty easy to do so.

So, what I did this morning was to cut the fruits and lie them flat down in the lunch boxes, as shown below:

My kids will have lychees, mangosteens, strawberries and mangoes for their tea.

The bread was cut with the dividers of the lunch boxes, and since it’s symmetrical, I just flipped one of them to the opposite side to form Elmo and Marie’s faces. You can cut the bread with the lunch boxes too, but my white bread is not big enough to be cut as a whole.

I covered the fruits with antibacterial sheets first before placing the bread in. Therefore, the sheets will separate the bread from the fruits, and prevent it from getting moist.

The antibacterial sheets which I bought from CP, but you can use barans too if you don’t have the sheets.

Slot in the bread above the sheets.

Then, it’s all about placing in the details. Here’s the end result:

My boy’s Elmo bento

And my gal’s Marie the Cat

Needless to say, my kids were thrilled to see their bentos this morning. If the faces are not divided into halves, I would say that it’s one of my favorite “bento creations”.

P/S: Here’s another bento with similar idea. Do check it out!

I decided to fix Miffy again because it’s speedy and simple for a Monday morning. Today is the first day of the new term at my kids’ school, so we had to send them to school slightly earlier.

I bought this set of Miffy cutters from Bento Market, and it comes with 2 cutters in a set. I already used one of them in Bento#142, if you are interested, please check out the link.

My gal’s bento with Miffy strawberry jam sandwiches, ham, strawberries, mangosteen and rambutans.

My boy’s Miffy has a “deformed” yellow tee. I accidentally smashed the cheese while placing it on Miffy.

I was trying to get the bentos ready as quick as possible, so I didn’t have time to redo the cheese. I hope my boy won’t mind about it…

Today’s bento is requested by my boy. He likes the ladybug bento so much, he wanted me to fix him a bumble bee, with the same idea. I just did some slight changes in cutting the nori and I used peas and corns for the antennas.

The cutters and exacto knife used.

I placed the cutters on nori and cut out a semi circle (not quite semi though) with an exacto knife. You can also trace the circles on paper, place it on nori and cut the circles out with a pair of scissors, but using an exacto knife is faster for me. The other strips of nori were cut free hand with a pair of scissors and I used some jam to stick the nori onto the bread.

Same as previous bento, I used fish balls for the heads. And here are the bentos:

My boy’s Bumble Bee Bento with peanut butter sandwiches and fruits.

Here’s my gal’s bento.

I know that some of you are wondering how I close the bentos, and thus I decided to show it today. Most of the time, I will tilt up the cutie details for photo shooting so that you can have a clearly view of the details. But since the details are protruding out, I will have to rearrange the bento meal again to fit everything in. Here’s my gal’s bento, after a quick rearrangement.

I turned the bumble bee to the opposite direction and its head fitted well in the gap. The sandwiches were laid down flat in the silicon cup, instead of being tilted up. I try to leave some gaps behind so that I can easily rearrange the food before closing the cover. By doing so, the food won’t be “smashed”.