Mothering Corner

I know that I’ve done some panda bentos previously (as in here, here and here), but panda is always a nice theme in bento-ing, especially if you have those cute panda picks!

I bought a loaf of chocolate and milk bread for today’s bento, and the bread is so yummy, you can just eat it on its own.

I bought it from Oishi, but the label stated In & Out Bakery Cafe.

Here’s what I did last night. I used one of the Rilakkuma cutters to cut the bread, and …

I used the same cutter to cut the cheese.

I cut 2 ovals from the cheese for panda’s eyes. I set the oval cheese aside for later use.

Now, carefully cut off the ears from the cheese with a bigger round cutter.

Try not to press the cutter down in whole in order not to break the cheese. Try to press it down on each ear separately or you can also cut off the ears with a knife.

Then, cut some circles from the oval cheese (from the previous step). The circles would be used for panda’s eyes.

I stored the bread away and refrigerated the cheese for today’s bento. What I did this morning was preparing the fruits, and continued with decorating the pandas.

I placed the cheese on the bread.

Then I added the eyes, and the noses were last a minute decision.

Punch a few circles with this shoe puncher, or you can use a normal paper puncher.

Add the nori eyes on the round cheese. Of course, I added some smiles to the pandas too.

 Since today’s theme is panda family, we can’t leave out a baby panda, can we?

So, I prepared a quail egg and 2 blueberries. Pin the blueberries with spaghetti strips to the egg to form the ears.

Then, add some nori on the quail egg as baby’s eyes, nose and mouth.

After that, I packed the fruits in the bentos, and here they are:

My gal’s bento with the panda family, some blueberries, kiwi, guava and a strawberry.

And this is my boy’s bento.

BTW, if you have plan to visit Thailand one day, don’t miss the baby panda born at Chiangmai Zoo ya? My kids only saw the giant panda parents, Lin Hui and Chuang Chuang, last year. So I hope that we can make a trip to Chiangmai again to catch a glimpse of the baby panda!

At first, I thought of packing Spam sandwiches for my kids, but the less-salty-less-fat version of Spam is a bit costly, so I bought a can of luncheon meat from Tulip as an alternative. However, I had a hard time opening the can and got to ask my hubby for help. He too had a hard time opening it, and after a lot of “struggles” with the can opener (we broke the key of the can ), he managed to “dig” out the pieces of luncheon meat, which were all smashed and ugly. LOL! I could not cut them into thinner slices, but had to fry the luncheon meat with eggs for breakfast and pack some for my boy. My gal is very picky with eggs, and so far, she eats hard boiled quail eggs, and rejects the rest. Thus, I packed strawberry jam sandwiches for her as usual.

You may click on the photo for bigger view at Flickr.

Today’s bento, with sandwiches and grapes. I added some striped cheese into their bentos since my kids love it so much.

My boy’s bento with a teddy bear holding a balloon (which is a grape).

My gal will have a bunny instead.

Today’s bento is pretty simple huh?

My kids like to “check” their bentos every morning.

Most importantly, I hope that they swipe them all clean after school. LOL! But one lesson learned, I better just stick to Spam because the can is easier to be opened!

Occasionally, I pack lunch bento for hubby on Saturdays since he has to go back to the office for a few hours. On other working days, both of us prefer to eat out, or just “ta pao” our lunch, and I don’t have much time for “serious” cooking in the morning. If I would to pack adult bento everyday, I can totally forget about decorating my kids’ bentos, unless I am willing to sacrifise my beauty sleep. LOL!

Some of hubby’s lunch bentos, which I managed to snap photos before he rushed out to work! LOL!

That’s why I really admire some Japanese bento-ers who pack charaben bentos and papa bentos everyday. Some of them pack for 2 or more children, and another adult bento for their husbands. It’s amazing to see how determined and dedicated they are in packing home cooked meals for their love ones. I joked to hubby once that if we can pack our lunch everyday, we might save up a lot in eating out, and he might be able to get me some nice presents or bring me holiday on European cruises in the near future. LOL! But both of us enjoy going out for lunch, so I will only pack for him when he asks for one.

Thus, thumb’s up to all the bento-ers who pack kids bento and papa bento everyday! You guys are amazing.

Oops, it’s Sugarbunnies again! LOL! I just have to use the Sugarbunnies rice molds, which I bought recently at Sanrio. Besides that, I think Sanrio is promoting Sugarbunnies here as there are a lot of new items with the 2 cute bunnies, and even Sanrio shopping bags are printed with Sugarbunnies, instead of Hello Kitty.

So, I used the rice mold as a bread cutter again, and trust me, you can easily cut the bread with it! I cut the bunnies from white bread and milk bread, since I planned to pack both types of bread for my kids.

Tools for today’s bento (please click on the pic for bigger view at Flickr)

Their noses and ears were cut from cheese and ham last night and stored away. If you ever wonder what will I normally do with the leftovers…

I let my kids “play” with the cheese and ham. My boy likes to cut the shapes and keep some away for his bento.

As for my gal, she prefers to slip all in her mouth. LOL!

There’s hardly any food wastage as most of the leftovers were eaten. As for the leftover of fresh fruits (after I cut them in shapes for my kids), I will pack them in another bento box for hubby and I at the office. The shapes might not look good, but we don’t mind about it.

Hence, here are today’s bentos:

My boy’s Shirousa sandwich bento with kiwi, watermelon,grapes and cherries. The milk bread sandwich was stacked behind the white bread.

And my gal’s Kurousa sandwich bento, with the white bread stacked behind as well.

I decorated the sugarbunnies with some flowers (my boy helped to cut some), just like what I saw on Sanrio’s shopping bag. They look lovely with the flowers huh?

It’s Friday, so have a nice weekend ahead!

I found this stripe cheese idea when I was blog hopping the other day. Thus, I got myself busy last night by preparing the stripe cheese. It’s pretty simple, and it won’t take much of your time.

I cut the cheese in halves.

Then, I started stacking 2 different color of cheese alternately.

Here’s the cheese layers, when it’s almost done…Leave them in room temperature for a few minutes so that the cheese will stick on together.

Then I started slicing them into thinner pieces vertically.

I wrapped the slices of cheese with cling wrap.

Here’s the stripe cheese slices which I refrigerated away in air tight container.

You can try stacking cheese and ham too! The yellow and pink stripes should be very nice for bento.

So, there are today’s bentos:

There are stripe cheese, sweet potatoes (wrapped with nori and ham), rose apples, corns and rambutans.

Here’s a closer shot of the stripe cheese.

My kids love the cheese effect, and they ate the leftover pieces as soon as I had done decorating their bentos!

I hardly pack rice for my kids as most of the bentos are meant for after school tea. Thus, most of my rice molds are kept in the box, and I hardly use them. But today, I decided to use one of the rice molds as a bread cutter, and I picked the triangular onigiri mold, which I bought from Daiso.

Tools for today’s speedy bento

It’s quite easy to cut the bread with the mold as the edges are rather sharp. After some simple decoration, here’s how the bentos looked like:

My boy’s onigiri sandwich bento, with mini cheese wieners and lots of cherries.

And my gal’s onigiri sandwiches, decorated as a chick. She will have papaya and kiwi, instead of cherry.

Coincidentally, I found a cute chick bento by R’s mama this morning. Do check it out!

I saw Cherina Cherine from Sanrio’s catalog the other day and thought that they are cute!

Since I have some cherries in the fridge, I decided to decorate my kids’ char siew pao as Cherina. I didn’t follow exactly the same but modified the ears and ribbons so that I could speed things up.

So, here are the bentos:

Besides mini char siew pao, there are seedless grapes, cherries, strawberries and rambutans too.

Here’s a closer shot of Cherina. Cherina should have the ribbon on her neck.

Needless to say, today’s bento is pretty simple again!

CP sent me a photo of a new tool the other day, and I thought of sharing it here:

I don’t think I will buy it as I already have the panda sandwich cutter. I’m trying to spend lesser on shopping to be frugal and avoid debt consolidation if I overspend! But the idea is great, and I decided to give it a try.

Firstly, I prepared one of the Sugarbunnies veggie cutters, which I bought from Sanrio during the weekend. If you can’t find these sugarbunnies veggie cutters in your area, check out NST.

I used these cutters for today’s sandwiches.

Firstly, print sugarbunny’s face with this cutter.

Then, use this cutter (the oval shape facing down) to outline the imprint of sugarbunny.

I did an “upside down” imprint on the top of the bread.

Then, I spread some butter and placed a thin layer of meat floss on another piece of bread. Try not to place too much filling as the sandwich might not be able to seal well if it’s too full.

Use the panda bread cutter to cut off the crusts and seal the sandwich. Then, cut the sandwich into halves.

I repeated the same process for another piece of sandwich, and packed some banana, mango and an quail egg in the bentos. Of course, I added some details for Sugarbunnies too.

The cutters and nori punchers used for today’s bentos.

So, here is the end result:

My gal’s Kurousa, which is supposed to be a brown bunny, but well, it looks cute in white too.

And here’s my boy’s Shirousa.

I painted the ears with a red edible pen which comes in this set:

Edible color pens.

If you can’t find the pens from your local supermarket, maybe you can try these coloring chocolate pens, or use any jam of your choice, and color the parts with a toothpick. It should do the trick too.

Winnie the Pooh and Friends have always been my kids’ all time favorite, that’s why I keep repeating the same characters from time to time. If you are interested, check out:

• Fried Rice Bento with Egg Sheets
• Winnie the Pooh and Friends for Dinner
• Winnie The Pooh Cookie Bento
• Speedy Bento with Multi Cutters

But for today, I packed spaghetti bolognese for my kids, and decorated the bentos with Pooh bear and friends. Here’s the preparation I did last night, as it’s quite time consuming.

I traced a picture of Winnie the Pooh from this tissue pack on a piece of tracing paper (you can use mahjung or baking paper too).

Then, I tried to prepare the “shapes” for Pooh.

Please click on the pic to go to my Flickr for bigger view. BTW, you might need an art knife or exacto knife to cut the shapes of Pooh’s body and his tee.

I cut Pooh’s face from a piece of high calcium cheese with this cutter.

Then, I placed the paper cuttings on cheese and artificial crab meat and cut out its body and tee with the exacto knife.

Store the pieces of cheese in cling wrap and keep them refrigerated in air tight container.

Piglet was cut from a piece of ham with this cutter.

Sorry about the photos as all my indoor and outdoor lights are rather yellowish.

Anyway, here are the bentos, after packing in the spaghetti, kiwi, banana, rose apple and a small piece of guava:

My boy’s bento with Winnie the Pooh, Piglet peeping from the back and Eeyore.

Here’s my gal’s bento with Pooh bear, Piglet and Tigger.

My kids were in cloud nine when they saw the bentos this morning, and they could not wait to have their meals after school. LOL! Today’s bento is definitely one of my favorites, but it took me more than 30 minutes to prepare the ingredients last night, so it’s too time consuming for me. I would normally need less than 15 minutes of preparation a night before, and another 15 – 30 minutes in the morning. So, I won’t be fixing this kind of bento often.

Frankly, I did short cut in kyaraben, and the disadvantage of fixing it this way is, the pieces might move if you “swing” the bento hard. So, if you have concern about this, please do it the “proper” way like the Japanese mothers. Do check out this blog and see how it’s supposed to be done. I found that most Japanese bento-ers are very talented and they have a lot of patience!

At the same time, I packed a mini Mickey Mouse bento for my boy who’s going for an excursion today:

Mini Mickey Mouse Bento with bread, cheese, grapes and mini wieners.

Again, I love that chocolate milk bread!

I bought the set of Rilakkuma cutters from Bentomarket.com some time ago, and I decided to use them for today’s bento.

I bought a loaf of chocolate milk bread yesterday, and I thought it would be nice for Rilakkuma. As for Korilakkuma, I cut it from normal white bread (leftover from yesterday’s bento) and Kiiroitori, the yellow chick, was cut from cheese. This preparation was done last night to speed things up in the morning rush. Then, I stored the bread away in air tight container, and refrigerated the pieces of cheese.

Tools for today’s bento, but I left out a small oval cutter in this photo.

I steamed some corns for breakfast, and packed a few pieces in the bentos. At the same time, I packed some persimmons and custard apples for my kids too. So, here are the bentos:

My gal’s bento with Rilakkuma, Korilakkuma and Kiiroitori lying on the corn. 

And here’s my boy’s bento. You may click on the photos to know more about it.

I think the chocolate milk bread is too dark for Rilakkuma, so you may use wholemeal bread or sesame bread as an alternative. But this chocolate milk bread is too delicious, even to be eaten alone, and my kids love it.

BTW, if you are packing custard apple, please make sure that the bento is kept cool at all time. I keep the tea bentos refrigerated in the office, and only take them out to room temperature before picking up my kids from school in the late afternoon. If you are packing the fruit for your kids to school, please pack along a cooler gel to keep the bento cool in  insulated bento bag. Most cooler gel packs can last for 4 hours, and if you need longer hours, go for ice bricks (I love those from Coleman!). If not, the custard apple might be watery and it won’t taste nice.

It’s just my two cents!