Kids Lunch Bento
My kids have having a short break until Wednesday, and we don’t have plans to go for a trip. Besides that, my boy is still down with flu and he passed the flu bug to me! 
Thus, it’s best that all of us spend a few days at home, instead of spreading the flu bug around.
Anyway, my kids and I were quite bored today, so we decided to “play with our food”.
Our simple lunch consisted of teriyaki salmon fillets, stir-fried spinach and minced pork and the spare ribs were still roasting in the oven when this photo was taken.
As for bento decoration, I boiled 2 pieces of artificial crab meat, a piece of ham, 2 pieces of fish balls and also prepared an egg sheet.
I let my kids play with the round rice mold, which I got from Daiso. My boy knows how to use most of the rice molds, but my gal still needs our help. I let her koh koh fix the rice ball for her, while she just cut some circles from the ham. After some explanation, my boy proceeded to adding nori on the faces, and I’m glad that he’s still pretty good at holding the tweezers, even if he has not done this for some time. I helped my gal with the nori since she still can’t hold a pair of tweezers well.
After the rice balls were done, I helped the kids to pack the onigiri and dishes in their bentos. My gal couldn’t wait to have her meal, and she kept picking up her rice ball! Thus, her onigiri was slightly deformed.
She chose the purple ribbon and the duckling pick from my toolbox. Too bad she tore the artificial crab meat when the pick was inserted. But overall, I think she did a great job pinning the ham onto the face.
My boy’s bento, and I’m so proud of his work! He chose Shinkansen picks, and even if they don’t quite match the rice balls, but I should respect his choice huh? 
The best thing of getting kids involved in preparing their meals is, they are more keen to finish the food. But then, my kids managed to finish 70% of the meal by themselves, while I fed them the rest. Both of them likes to leave the veggie behind and if I don’t feed them, they will just leave the veggie untouched!
Wow..this is really a good idea to in-coporate the family meal into kid’s bento version
In this way, we don’t need to cook extra set of dishes just for the kids only :p
Gosh, all I can say about this entire blog is WOW!!!
You really manage to decorate your kid’s bento so well …… me somehow can’t seems to get the cutest looks for my bento coz either the nose, eyes or mouth is out of places I think ….. maybe I really don’t have the artistic gene with me, sigh! Sometimes my bear can look like a dog and don’t know what’s wrong with it ….. how come ah??? UUrrghhh!!!! Yours looks so nice …..
I noticed your photo shooting skills is improving too
Well done!!
Ellena, wah, cook another extra set for the kids? LOL! I don’t think I can do it, especially after a long day at the office.
I think we can just try to use our normal dishes, but of course, the end result will be slightly different from those charaben bentos.
Big Pumpkin, thanks!
Caroline, thanks for your comment too. Do you mean the nori placement? Maybe you can try to visualize first, or draw a sketch a day before to get the idea on how to place the nori? Some times, I will do a simple sketch first, especially if my boy is fixing the nori by himself. He can refer to the drawing as a reference and the placement is less lightly to be out of place. Just my 2 cent ya?
As always, your bentos are so cute! The kids look like they are having such a great time too!
How to pin the ham on the face?
Am interested in bento-making. Is there any simple bento recipe book u can recommend for beginners? Jap is fine cos I can read. Thanks much!
Your bentos look really great!
Susan, thanks! Forgot to mention, mommy was having a hard time cleaning up after the bento-ing session also. LOL!
Little Prince’s Mummy, we used tiny strips of spaghetti. You can see that the hams torn a bit, and the pointed stuff is spaghetti strip.
Shi-Chan, here’s my collection of bento books. http://motheringcorner.com/2008/11/24/japanese-bento-books/ and thanks for your comment.
Hi, thanks for dropping by my blog, ur bento r amazing, i love it.. u got a patient heart to make all those pretty bentos, got to learn from u..^_^ great job.
I am so impressed, you did very well, and your kids too interested in giving out their little help! I have left behind all my bento tools, stop bentoing quite a long time .
Hi there,
Chanced upon ur blog and love the bentos… getting me inspired to start my bentos for my daughter and husband. I havethe stuff but no energy
A question….
what do you do with the little bits and pieces of cheese, ham, seaweed, after cutting out all the shapes for the faces and all?
Thanks
Your kids are really good at this! I need to take lessons from them soon. Super cute!
Hi shoppingmum,
thanks much for ur bento book link. There is a Kinokuniya bookstore over here too, so I’ll drop by to check the books out.
I have a question too: How do u know wat to cook everyday? Like when u make a bento, do u make do with whatever food u have in the fridge or go out to get the ingredients before making?
Is there any trick to food storage? Cos if I only need to use a small amt of say, carrots or broccoli, wat do i do with the remainder? can i like freeze them for later use? Any tips for cutting short preparation time, besides cutting and preparation the ingredients the night before?
Sorry I have so many queries all at once…no hurry to reply ok??
I’m soo motivated to start now..have just ordered some bento tools from New Stylist Tokyo, my very 1st set! Hope I know wat to do with them when they arrive! *apprehensive*
Sorry another quick question abt Bento Books:
I couldnt find the 2 books by akinoichigo at kinokuniya store here in singapore. (searched online )
Apart from Amazon-co-jp website, where else can we get the books from?
Does any bookstore in Japan carry these books? If so, I will get someone to get it for me.
Thanks much for your time!
Rachel, I love your blog too!
It’s nice to know another good blog to read.
Mummy Moon, thanks for your comment. BTW, take your time in bento-ing! I have bento break also once in a while.
Wendy, firstly, welcome to my blog. I guess a lot of newbies here are puzzled with the same question too.
Actually, you can actually refrigerate the bits and pieces again and use in 2 days. I pack 2 kids bentos each time, so I use them up pretty fast. You can go to http://motheringcorner.com/2009/06/26/sugarbunnies-sandwich-bento/ and http://motheringcorner.com/2009/02/27/bento127-anything-they-like-bento/ and see how you can use up the leftovers.
3lilangels, thanks for your comment. Nonetheless, mommy is busier when they are taking part. LOL!
Shi-Chan, I only do my grocery shopping like twice a week, but if there is a need, I will go out and grab some bread or whatsoever, and see what I can do with the food ingredient. As for ideas, I shared my tips here. http://motheringcorner.com/2009/02/20/bento121-char-siew-pao-bento/
You can always cut the food in smaller pieces, like I usually do with kamaboko, before freezing them. Just take out a small piece to thaw each time a night before u need it. As for the rest of the leftover, I already pasted the links to Wendy (refer above) and written here too http://motheringcorner.com/2009/02/17/bento118-simplified-charaben/. Do you mind to take a peep?
Don’t get a lot of tools first, just give them a try and see how much you can come out with them. Don’t say I din warn you that collecting bento tools can be addictive ya? LOL!
About the books, maybe you can talk to the staffs at Kinokuniya and see if they can help you to order. As for Japan, I’m not sure as I haven’t been there. Just grab one or 2 and see how you feel about them first. As for Akinoichigo, you can go through her blog, right from her first post until the latest, and you will basically get most of the info you can get from the books. Again, it pays to read the whole blog! Haha!
looks like your boy has inherited yr artistic skills…..very soon yr little girl will too
the kids looked so focus & enjoy in their works….what a great sight !!
shoppingmum,
thanks so much for taking the time to answer my lengthy queries. Appreciate.
Got it got it, will go look up the links u posted and also go thru ur archives too.
Talk abt bento tools, u dont need to warn me abt the addiction..i get so excited whenever i go onto their website…everything’s so cute and pretty! But i noticed that most stuff from BMP are sold out so it’s a pity. Ya guess i need to experiment making my 1st proper bento first to see how i fare.
Thanks so much again and keep those yummy bentos going! Good job as always.
so lovely, Oyako cooking ^^~
This is really fantastic, beautiful and sweet