Mothering Corner

It’s hard to pick up the momentum in bento-ing especially after resting for so long. Instead of trying out something harder, I prefer to stick to simple kyaraben which can be done in 5 minutes for each bento.

Today’s bento is inspired by a Japanese blog, which I  can’t remember which. *so sorry again * I don’t have much time in blogging hopping these days, so I just browse through my Google reader feed, and if the pics show up, I can view the bentos. Otherwise, I won’t be bother much and just mark all as read. Oh boy…I’m getting very lazy!

Anyway, I remembered that it was something about decorating sandwiches as dogs and I tried the same idea by fixing rabbits and pigs as shown below:

Rabbit sandwiches for my gal. I packed her fruits separately.

Piggies for my boy…somehow, I still think they look like dogs. LOL!

It’s been raining cats and dogs for the past few weeks and suddenly, we are back to summer again. It’s so hot and sunny now that I have got a tan without going to the beach! Nonetheless, we plan to bring the kids to Hua Hin this weekend, just for a short trip and spend some quality time together. I hope that the weather stays this way, and we can all enjoy the beach and pool. Forget about pool heat pumps as it’s really hot hot hot this week!

So, for today’s bentos, I tried to modify this cute little panda from Naokyaraben, and place it on the sandwiches, as if it’s chilling out on a vacation. Ok, let’s have some imagination here. LOL!

Here’s how I did the panda:

I prepare a piece of kamaboko (slice the pink from white) and a piece of artificial crab meat.

Cut the white kamaboko into smaller pieces and cut again diagonally.

Cut them with a teddy cutter.

Here’s the side view of the teddy shaped kamaboko.

Use a small bit of spaghetti strip to join them up.

Here’s the little panda.

I repeated the same step with a bunny cutter.

And added arms for the bunny.

Next, punch some nori and add them in. So, here are the little panda and rabbit chilling out on some sandwiches:

My boy’s bento.

Side view of the little panda.

Bunny says…relax….

It’s another SPAM sandwich attack Tuesday! Yeah!

Added a pig peeping out from the sandwich.

Oink oink.

I can finally breathe this week. We are still pretty busy, but at least things are getting back in pace. Furthermore, we might have found our new place, which I haven’t made up my mind yet. Everything will be finalized in a week, and once it’s done, I can at least stop house hunting for a couple of years. It’s not one of those fancy Table Rock lake homes but 2 small condo units which we shall break the walls and join as one.

So, I’m back to simple kyaraben this morning. I fixed the kids some mini pizzas, and decided to add some animals peeping up in my gal’s bento box. Here’s how I prepared the animals:

I prepared 2 fish balls and 1 mini wiener.

cut one of the fish ball into halves diagonally, and cut the ends of the wiener diagonally too.

For the second fish ball, cut them into thin slices.

Do the same for the “leftover” wiener too.

Next, I used these cutters to cut the decorative bits.

Cut the pig’s ears with one of the cutters.

Cut a line at the top end of the wiener to slip in the ears.

Cut the nose and secure it with a bit of spaghetti strip.

Repeat the same process for the mouse and kitten.

As for panda, I added blueberries as its ears.

Then punch some nori and add them as facial details.

The last but not least, I pinned the animals on the mini pizza with bits of spaghetti strips. You can deep fried the spaghetti strips first before using them. So, here is the bento:

My gal’s pizza with kitten, mouse, pig and panda looking up.

When my boy was a toddler, he was very fascinated by owls. I bought him a couple of books about owls, but there weren’t many. Even clothes with owl characters are not a lot, except one or 2 from the Owl in Pooh’s bear collection. After some time, he switched his interests to horses and dinosaurs. LOL!

Then last night, out of the blue, he took out his old owl books and asked me to read to him. They are in Chinese, and my boy can’t read Chinese. Nonetheless, I read and translated the stories to him, and he said, “I remember these books, I used to love owls.”

That’s why I felt like fixing an owl bento today. There are a mother owl and 2 owlets, cut from quail eggs.

Owls Bento

My gal’s bento

As much as I felt like I’m walking down the memory lane, the owls didn’t excite my boy anymore. He said he would prefer me to fix him a Naruto bento. O.o

That shows how much my boy has grown up!

My kids will be having a long school break soon, and I might be slowing down in bento-ing again. So, don’t be surprised if you don’t see any bento posts but lost of cr*ps and rants here ya? LOL!

But this morning, I felt like packing a repeated theme again, chickens (or chicks)! If you are interested, check out the previous related bentos here, here, here, here and here.

This time, I’m using sandwich rolls. I used to pack sandwich rolls for the kids, and did some decoration such as this panda bento. Oh boy, that bento was like 2 years ago!

Anyway, this is what I did this morning:

I spread some jam on the bread and roll them up as shown. Wrap the sandwich rolls with food wrap for a few minutes, so that they will stay in shape.

Then I cut them into halves.

Pack them in bentos.

And prepare some heart picks.

Pin the heart picks on the bread.

Add some nori and artificial crab meat as details and that’s it!

It’s the same preparation steps just like my previous chicken bentos huh?

Here are the bentos:

My boy’s.

My gal’s rooster and hen bento.

My kids requested an angry bird bento for some time, so I managed to fix the theme for them today. I tried to simplify angry birds by only using mini square sandwiches, and topped the decorations on the bread. Frankly, I didn’t know that there are so many different types of angry birds as yours truly here can’t even complete Level 4 of the game. I know, I’m sucks!

So my boy took out the iPad and show me a few other angry birds from the store. Thank god he didn’t purchase any angry bird stuff toys online!!! No joke, I’ve seen him buying apps.

Here are the simplified angry birds bentos:

My boy’s angry birds. He likes the black one, which I haven’t seen before when I play.

I thought of adding the pigs with quail eggs but my boy said he hates the pigs because they look weird and ugly. If I fixed them, he won’t eat it. O.o

My gal’s angry bird bento.

My gal loves kueh bahulu, and I will always buy a pack if I see one. It took me awhile to remember this kueh’s name. If you a Malaysian, you might be familiar with this kueh, which is quite common during Chinese New Year, even if it’s not originated from Chinese. It comes in different shapes such as flowers, ovals or even goldfish. Has anyone seen one in rabbit this year?

Since I haven’t seen any rabbit-shaped kueh bahulu in BKK, I might as well decorating one on my own. These are the photos taken during preparation:

Prepare some kamaboko, both the pink slice and the white slices (about 5mm thick).

Cut the rabbit’s ears with this cutter.

Cut the pink flowers as decoration. It’s optional. I prepared red artificial crab meat as their cheeks too.

Cut some oval ham and cheese (stack on the ham) as nose.

Cut some flowery ham and cheese for the Chinese character of rabbit. Again, I stacked the cheese on ham.

Pack everything in the bentos. I tilted up the kueh for photo shooting. Later on, I lay them down in the silicon cups before closing the bentos.

Pin the ears with bits of spaghetti strips. You can deep fry the spaghetti strips first if you are worrying that they are edible.

Punch some straight lines with this Doraemon puncher. Alternately, just cut some thin nori strips.

It’s not easy to stick nori on kueh bahulu. I used a lot of jam.

Punch the eyes with this puncher.

Pin on their noses.

Then, I proceeded with the Chinese character of rabbit. I punched the strokes from some nori with these punchers and joined them up to form the word.

It took me a couple of minutes to fix the word “rabbit” in Chinese.

So, here are the bentos:

My gal’s rabbit year bento.

My boy’s bunny.

A close shot of the word rabbit in Chinese.

So are you ready for Chinese New Year? I’m totally not! Besides not getting new clothes yet, the house is still in a total mess. I shall have to start cleaning up the bathroom faucets and tiles soon. Sigh…

Happy spring cleaning!

We had a great trip in Singapore, even though it’s not for holiday. The kids enjoyed their stay with their cousins, and hubby and I managed to get a good look at “something which we might venture into”. It’s nothing related to our business nature here, not selling VeloBind machine or anythings we are familiar with, but we shall see how it goes.

We didn’t manage to bring the kids for sightseeing, except visiting the zoo and checking out the Merlion (which was taking a shower) at Marina Bay. Actually both kids are not interested in Merlion, they are totally clueless about the history of Singapore.

I guess they can always visit Sg again some day, and hopefully we can bring them around to more places next time. I did have my loh mee!!! And a lot of other hawker food! In fact, both hubby and I had overeaten in Singapore. LOL! I really miss the food there, maybe it’s because I used to stay in JB and I hanged out in Sg once in a while.

The bonus of this trip is, I managed to meet up with Ellena from Cuisine Paradise.

We have been reading each other’s blogs for so many years, and it’s nice to have finally seen each other in person!

Anyway, I still feel like fixing the kids a Merlion bento each today. The main ingredients are ham and cheese, and I cut the merlion with these tools:

So, here are the bentos:

My boy’s Merlion (ham and cheese) bento.

This is for my gal.

Thanks to all who had left comments about where to get good food in Sg. I really appreciate that. Muaks!

My kids love Japanese sweet potatoes, so I would normally pack some for them at least once a week, especially in those undecorated bentos. If only these sweet potatoes won’t turn black so fast, they would be great for kyaraben.

Reasons Potatoes Turn Black After Cooking:

Potatoes occasionally turn gray or dark after they are boiled; this color change may be caused by the conditions under which they were grown or stored. It’s impossible to tell which potatoes will turn dark, but the discoloration does not affect flavor, texture, or nutritional value. Contact with aluminum or iron will also discolor potatoes, so cook them in stainless steel pots.

I didn’t add any lemon juice as suggested because I doubt that my kids will like the taste. So, I just used the smashed sweet potato as it was, after steaming it. While waiting for the potatoes to be ready, I managed to snap some photos during preparation.

I boiled a piece of pink kamaboko.

Cut it into tiny bits with these cutters.

Once the sweet potatoes were cooked, I peeled and smashed them with a spoon, and formed potato balls as shown in the pic.

I packed the potato balls and fruits in the lunch boxes.

Then, I proceeded to adding the details.

So, here are the bentos:

My boy’s sweet potato balls bento, with piggies!

The first thing my gal said when she saw her oink oink bento was….Mommy, I don’t like pigs.

That’s why she replaced the pink pig food pick with a party hat pick. LOL!