Mothering Corner

Today’s bento is something simple again, and the main tools used is this mickey veggie cutter.

I prepared both Mickey and Minnie last night, when my kids were occupied by the idiot box. They will take every opportunity to watch TV in the weekends since they can’t watch any on school days. They will also stop by the bell tv at the shopping complex just to check out the programs, if we pass by one. LOL!

I didn’t snap any photos during the preparation of Mickey and Minnie, but here’s a summary of what I did last night:

1. I cut the ham as base for the characters by using the veggie cutter.
2. Trace the outline of the cutter and cut a piece of Mickey-shaped nori with an exacto knife.
3. Place the nori on the ham.
4. Then, cut a piece of cheese with the cutter and cut of the excess cheese with an exacto knife so that you will get the shape of Mickey’s face.
5. Stack the cheese on nori.
6. Repeat Step 1 – Step 5 for Minnie.

I wrapped the decoration pieces in food wrapper and kept them refrigerated in an air tight container. The face features were added this morning, after I’ve prepared the sandwiches and fruits.
Hence, here are the bentos:

Mini Mickey and Minnie in Sandwich Bentos

Here’s a closer shot of one of the bentos:

There are raspberry jam sandwiches, 2 tangerines topped with a smiley strawberry and a dwarf apple in each bento.

It’s easier to prepare both bentos with the same decoration. I shall do this more often to speed things up!

My kids love the chocolate milk bread from Oishi, so I bought them a loaf yesterday. This bread is yummy to be eaten on its own, that’s why I love to pack bentos with it. I only cut the chocolate bread with the stitch cutter set, and decorated them with cheese and nori. So, it’s a simple and speedy bento.

Stitch cutter set

Besides chocolate bread, I packed some strawberries and kiwi in the bentos too. Hence, here they are:

My boy’s Stitch Bento in his new Cinnamonroll bento box.

This is my gal’s Stitch bento.

I don’t have any ham left in the fridge, so I cut the ears from kamaboko which is too pinkish for Stitch. Anyway, the colors are quite striking, so my kids didn’t complain about their bentos. Actually, I think they are too sleepy to even realize what’s in their bentos when I showed Stitch to them this morning. I’m still trying to “tune” their biological clock and get them in bed earlier because they stayed up very late during their holiday. I need to get them in bed at least an hour earlier so that they can wake up easily in the morning. Right now, it’s a struggle to get them out of their beds, and I don’t think they can even hear the alarm of the emergency alert system too if I have one!

The weather changed slightly after Loy Krathong, and it’s windy and cool some times. Thus, most of us will just sleep without air-conditioning, and just turn on the fans and open all the windows. But yesterday, hubby read the newsletter of our mooban (gated community) and there was a burglary in our neighborhood. So far, we have heard of 3 cases throughout our stay here, but luckily no one gets hurt as the houses were mostly empty when it happened. There are security guards patrolling from time to time, but I doubt that they will do it often once it gets colder at night.

So, I wonder if we need wireless alarms now? I don’t think any of the houses in our mooban installs any alarm system!

I should stop checking out online bento stores. The more I visit, the more I feel like buying. LOL! It’s an addiction, and a very bad one.

There are some of the cute lunch boxes which I found online, and they are listed in my bento wish list too.

Care bears! Do you still remember them? I used to love watching the cartoons when I was young. I found them here. Ah….I’m resisting the urge of buying the pink and blue bears.

BTW, if you prefer an even shape bento box, but with a fancy cover such as Rilakkuma and Korilakkuma, you can get them from Bento Craft.

Just in case you are wondering, NO, I’m NOT being paid for posting about these bento boxes!

I’m not ordering any of them yet. I’m out of space of storing the existing bento boxes, and if I can find a way of maximizing the storage space, maybe I will grab a few more bentos. Gee…I feel like I’m buying too many tools and bento boxes, I can forget about getting the new iPhone and iphone accessories already.

One of the best things of living in Bangkok is, we have a chance to learn more about Thai culture and experience its festivals. I guess most expats would agree that the real life abroad is not exactly the same as written on books, and you will only know better if you stay in that country for some time. So, if my hub gets any jobs in philly or any part of the world, I don’t mind moving to another country with him all over again. LOL!

It’s Loy Krathong in Thailand last night, and we celebrated our first Loy Krathong by a nearby river.

Pic Source

It’s a great experience of our kids as they got a chance on learning how to fix their krathongs, sitting by the street. LOL!

My kids busy fixing their krathong.

Thus, today’s bento is inspired by krathong, which is normally made of banana tree trunk or bread as base and decorated with leaves, flowers, candles and joss sticks. The kratong will be released by the river or canal, and it’s believed to “float” bad luck away and bring good luck in the future.

So, this is how I made the mini edible krathong for today’s bento:

I cut the “flower bread” with a cutter.

Gently press a circle on the flower, but make sure that you don’t cut through the bread. I did this by using the top of a cutter, which is blunt and rounded.

After that, flatten the middle circle with your finger.

Repeat the same process for a bigger flower.

I spread some butter and sugar on the flower bread, and slip them into silicon or baking cups to curl up the petals. If you have this tool, it will be easier.

Pic Source

Once the flower toasts cooled down, I placed the bigger flowers at the base of a flower silicon cup.

Then I arranged some cheese around the flowers as shown.

Next, place the smaller flower toast on the cheese petals

The krathong will look better if you add more colors to it, but I only did it with toast and cheese. Nonetheless, I decorated it with a candle, which is cut from mini smoked wiener. Please refer to this bento blog for the tutorial.

Hence, here is the bento:

My gal’s loy krathong bento with toast and cheese, and some strawberries, longan, baby carrots and mango.

I gently lay down the “candle” before closing the bentos.

 So, how’s my loy krathong bento? LOL! BTW, don’t miss the tutorial on how to cut a wiener into a candle ya?

It’s the first day at school for the new semester, and luckily, both my kids didn’t make any fuss in the morning. It took us awhile to wake them up, but we managed to get them to school just in time.

I only prepared a simple tea bento for each of them, which is consisted of a SPAM sandwich with carrot bun, an apple and a quail egg. I decorated the quail eggs as a piggy and a puppy respectively because they are pretty easy.

My gal’s piggy bento

My boy’s bento with a little puppy. Mmm…it doesn’t look like a real puppy though.

Both my kids didn’t say much about their bentos as they were pretty blur at breakfast. LOL!

I better get back to the paper work and Admin Jobs piling up on my table after a month of holiday. It’s going to be a busy Monday for me.