Mothering Corner

We had French toast with honey this morning, and I packed some for my kids. If you have these Marie The Cat and Elmo bentos, you should know that there is a compartment in the bento, which can be used as a separator. I used that compartment to cut the French toasts, and flipped them over to the other side (since it’s symmetrical) so that the French toasts can fit nicely in the bentos. I cut them into smaller pieces for my kids’ convenience, and spread some honey on the toasts as well.

The bentos before decoration. Besides French toacts, there are lychees and seedless grapes too.

To make their bentos more attractive, I decided to decorate them with mini wieners. I cut a mini wiener into halves diagonally, and cut off a small triangle at the tip of the wieners. The wieners looked like bunnies to me.

My boy added a piece of cheese cube because he loves cheese!

And here’s my gal’s bento.

Even if the cooking time takes longer, but the decoration part took me less than 15 minutes. Thus, I would say that today’s bentos are simple and speedy again.

I spent more time preparing today’s bentos because I’m packing my kids animal pasta in Bolognese, and thus I spent more time in the kitchen.

Besides that, I wanted to have some fun with the quail egg cutters, and I fixed a little mouse for each bento.

Here’s the tools for the little mouse. I pinned some spaghetti strips as whiskers too.

What I had in mind was Three Blind Mice, but 3 quail eggs are too much for my kids, so they will only have one quail egg each. So, here are the bentos;

I packed some pasta and mixed veggie in thermal containers. The Bolognese sauce was hidden beneath the pasta. Their fruits were packed in other lunch boxes.

Here’s a close shot of the mice.

A little mouse which is running away from a cat. LOL!

If I haven’t mentioned this before, I really like the quail egg cutters! They are so much fun “to play with”.

Now, I’m waiting for my new bento tools…. LOL!

It’s a speedy bento today, and I packed my kids’ favorite food again….CORN! They just love having corns, and it’s actually part of their breakfast which I stored away a few pieces for their bentos. It’s easier for me to pack bento this way, no need to crack my head like reviewing life insurance quotes, and just something from breakfast. LOL! My boy likes sweet potatoes too, and if you are regular here, you would notice that I’ve always packed sweet potatoes.

But to make their bentos more attractive, I decorated their meals as clowns. My kids like clowns, unlike the mommy, especially those who give out fancy balloons. Thus, I cut the fruits with cute cutters and decorated one of them as a balloon for each bento.

My gal’s bento with strawberry jam sandwiches, corn, mangoes, grapes and rose apples. This lady clown has a tall hat (the corn) and meat floss as fluffy hair.

My boy’s bento has some sweet potatoes cut in kiddie shapes. Let’s pretend that they are little children gathering around the clown. LOL!

 I spread some jam on the sandwiches before putting in the meat floss so that part of it would stick on the bread. It might move around and be quite messy by the end of the day, but I guess my kids won’t mind about it. They like meat floss too!

I bought a Charmmy Kitty watch for my gal last year, but I thought it was Hello Kitty. Then one day, my gal asked me what’s the name of the cat as it looked different from Hello Kitty. I was quite surprised with her observation, and she really got me looking at her watch carefully. Charmmy Kitty looks a lot like Hello Kitty, but it’s Hello Kitty’s cat.

Charmmy Kitty is a white persian cat that Papa gave to Hello Kitty as a gift. She is well-mannered, quiet, and listens to whatever Hello Kitty says. She loves objects that are bright and sparkly! Charmmy Kitty wears a lace-lined ribbon on her left ear, and a necklace which holds the key to Hello Kitty’s jewelry box.

Since the facial details of Charmmy Kitty is pretty simple, I decided to give it a try. I prepared the white bread last night with Marie The Cat cutter as shown:

I cut a few pieces of white bread with Marie The Cat cutter.

Carefully cut off the top of the bread, and keep the small piece of “Marie’s ribbon” away.

This is what I did this morning for Charmmy Kitty.

I used these 2 cutters to cut out its body and front leg.

It’s optional, but I had some leftover bread from yesterday, and I wanted to minimize the waste. I slipped in the part of “Marie’s ribbon” between the oval bread so that it became Charmmy’s tail.

Here’s the tools for Charmmy’s face details.

Sorry that I can’t show all the steps as I was running out of time again this morning. So, here are the bentos:

My gal’s bento with Charmmy Kitty. She will have a piece of bacon and sausage roll, some rambutans, rose apples and mangoes (hidden) too.

If you take a closer look, there is a lot of gap in the silicon cup, so I could easily lie the kitty down before closing the bento.

So, do you like Charmmy Kitty? It really looks like Hello Kitty huh?

I’ve almost forgotten about Mother’s Day as the Thai people don’t celebrate Mother’s Day in May, and I only realized this after reading some blogs for the past few days. Thus, today’s bento is about Mother’s Day, and you can ask your kids to fix one for you because it’s pretty easy.

I prepared some heart shaped butter and sugar toast (I think Kel blogged about the recipe some time ago), and also cut the cheese and ham with these cutters:

The heart cutters.

Then, I let my boy did the food arrangement in the lunch boxes.

I helped him with the nori details because he had to start taking his breakfast before he’s late for his art class. My gal didn’t help out because she preferred to fill her tummy instead of packing food. LOL!

So, here’s the bentos:

Two simple and speedy bentos with toasts, ham and cheese. There are some grapes and Thai oranges too.

Here’s a close shot of my boy’s bento.

I think most kids can manage this, if they are interested to do something special for their mothers. If you are wondering why I didn’t get my bento, it’s because I don’t think anyone at home has any idea that it’s Mother’s Day tomorrow. Hubby must have forgotten about it as well.

In short, Happy Mother’s Day! And don’t over eat until you need weight loss pills ya!

I don’t cook when we were staying in Malaysia as my mother-in-law is a very good cook, and she basically prepares breakfast, lunch and dinner 6 days a week. She’s always in the kitchen by the clock, and some times, she will be busier especially on those festive Chinese holidays. Besides that, she won’t ask us for help, and even my ex-maid did not have to cook, but just cleaned the house. It is quite a big house, so the maid had her whole day occupied with cleaning and laundry already.

Thus, I’ve only started cooking daily since we moved here. My mom was pretty worried if I could manage the meals, but it seems like my kids and hubby are very well fed. LOL! But then, I don’t prepare fancy meals, and I only do simple dishes. By the time we get home on weekdays, it’s about 7pm, and I have to get dinner ready in less than an hour. So, it’s more like a veggie dish, a protein dish and a pot of soup. I would normally prepare my soup a night before with the slow cooker, especially Chinese herbs so that the soup is tastier.

Since Ellena is curious about my normal cooking, oh well, here’s what my kids and I had for lunch just now.

It’s stir-fried bokchoy with garlic and minced pork, and soy sauced sea bass. My lotus soup was still in the slow cooker when the photo was taken.

It’s public holiday here in Thailand, and I’m at home with kids again.  So, I might as well serve their lunch in bentos.

My kids’ lunch before decoration.

My boy has been bugging me for a dinosaur bento with rice, thus today’s theme is dinosaur again.

The tools used.

And here’s the bentos:

My boy’s lunch was served in stainless steel lunch box so that I could easily warm it up. I think my lotus soup looked kind of oily huh? LOL! Maybe it’s because I boiled the soup with skinless chicken thighs and drumsticks…

Here’s my gal’s lunch which was smaller in portion.

Due to MIL’s influence, hubby and my kids only drink the soup, but they won’t eat the soup ingredients. It looks kind of wasteful, but MIL said all the nutrients are already in the soup so we don’t eat the meat nor the ingredients. But maybe I will eat some of the groundnuts boiled in the soup, I just love groundnuts!

So, Ellena, my cooking looks plain huh?

It’s another speedy bento today, and I decorated my kids’ sandwiches as ladybugs.

I prepared some sandwiches. Since I can’t find such a big puncher, I had to cut the circles freehand.

I used the squid balls as the ladybug’s head. Gently wrap the squid ball with a thin layer of artificial crab meat (only use to top part). Pin a spaghetti strips on the ball so that you can easily secure it to the sandwiches.

I cut some smaller circles of wiener with this wheel cutter. Then, I pinned the wieners with spaghetti strips and they would be used as antennas.

So, here’s the end result:

My gal’s bento with a ladybug, some Thai and imported oranges and a small piece of apple. I decorated her bento with some flowers and a butterfly which are cut from cheese, ham and carrot.

If you wonder how I close the bentos, do you notice that there are gaps in the lunch box?

I would normally just tilt up the cutie details for photo shooting, then I will rearrange the food before closing the lunch box. For this bento, all I did was just to “turn” the ladybug’s head to the other direction near the apple so that I can close the lid without spoiling the details.

And I would like to clarify about using spaghetti strips and toothpicks in joining the details. Personally, I would prefer to use spaghetti strips as they are edible. Furthermore, based on my observation, the spaghetti strips will be softened after some time, probably due to moisture. So it’s less risky for little children to chew on them, as comparing to reminding them to remove the toothpicks. Not all children will be having their bentos under adult’s supervision. Try to shorten the spaghetti strips intead of securing the parts with long strips, that’s what I do mostly.

My kids love mac and cheese, but not me. All the time, I only prepare for them, and the most I will do is just try a few pieces of macaroni and check if it’s cooked. LOL! Mac and cheese looks pretty fattening to me and makes me think about swallowing ephedra if I eat a whole plate, but I guess most kids love it.

Besides macaroni and cheese, I added a piece of chicken nugget each for my kids and hopefully, my gal is willing to eat it this time. She’s still very picky with nuggets! My boy has begun to accept nuggets, so I don’t have to worry about him. I decorated the nuggets as lambs as I thought the macaronis look like fluffy lamb wool. But too bad the result didn’t turn out as expected.

I packed them some mangoes and grapes too. The mango tree behind our house is bearing a lot of fruits now, and it’s mango season in Thailand. These mangoes are so sweet, all of us just can’t help to have more, even if it’s not our tree. No one stays in that house, and the branches are growing in my backyard! LOL!

It’s Monday, and it’s always hard to get up on time, especially after a long weekend. Thus, today’s bentos are quick and easy, and I only had to cut some mangoes and strawberries, while waiting for the garlic toasts to be ready in the oven and boiling the eggs.

My boy’s teddy garlic toasts in his new stainless steel Cinnamoroll lunch box.

There is a little quail egg chick in their bentos too.

Since Sanrio is having a sale right now, if you are interested to get these stainless steel bento boxes or those made in PP material, please check out the major Central department stores. I got Cinnamoroll, Hello Kitty and My Melody stainless steel bento boxes at 30% off. But too bad I can’t find Skinkansen, if not my boy would be thrilled to have one.