Mothering Corner

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!

How can something so bad tastes so good? That’s how I feel about SPAM. So, to avoid myself from feeling guilty in having SPAM like once a month, I will only buy the less salt less oil version. But still, it’s SPAM! LOL!

Needless to say, my kids are thrilled to see their SPAM sandwiches in their bentos as they love SPAM as well. That’s the only way to get my gal to eat lettuce without fuss!!!

Too bad I accidentally broke her Miffy.

My boy’s bento with a panda peeping out.

I guess I’ve tried this “cute-animals-peeping-out-of-sandwiches” a zillion times in my blog, but then, it’s one of the quickest ways to make kyaraben.

I saw this method of fixing sandwich balls from some Japanese blogs some time ago, but I’ve totally forgotten about them until I stumbled upon Bento Fun’s tutorial. Too bad I can’t remember which Japanese bento blog I’ve seen previously, but the method of fixing the sandwich balls should be the same. So, I decided to try this method for today’s bento.

I used chicken floss as the fillings. Since my kids have just regain their appetite, I tried to fix mini bites instead of bigger portion for their bentos. I packed some fruits too, and decorated the sandwich balls as animals. Actually, I was running out of nori, but only a small bit left in my box! I didn’t check the box for a week, so I have never thought of replenishing it. So, it took me some time this morning to punch precisely on that tiny piece so that I could have enough for decoration.

Anyway, here are the bentos:

My gal’s bento has a kitten, a piggy and a bunny.

On the other hand, my boy will have a lion, a panda and a bear.

I’m glad that the kids have fully recovered and they should be fit to go on their field trip to Dusit Zoo next week. They have been looking forward for this trip for weeks, so today’s bento will set as a reminder to them to eat healthily, stay fit and don’t fall sick (in the near future) again!

Again, today’s title sounds weird! Anyway, you will know what I mean later.

My gal requested that I fixed her some mini heart, so I thought of decorating the hearts, instead of just packing them as plain heart sandwiches. I spread some jam on the bread and cut and sealed the bread with 2 heart cutters as shown below:

The cutters are slightly different in sizes. Make sure that the smaller one is used “upside down” so that it will seal the bread instead of cutting through.

Then, I proceeded to decorate the jam sandwiches. I fixed two hens for my gal by adding picks and cheese as wings.

They will be hens, after adding nori and kamaboko as their rosy cheeks.

As for my boy, I cut 3 pieces of cheese with 3 different sizes of round cutters to create the shell of the snails.

I stacked the cheese to create the spiral effect.

So, here are the bentos:

My gal’s Two Little Hens Bento. Let’s pretend that the hens are hatching eggs.

There are quail eggs, oranges (hidden under the strawberries) and rose apples in the bento too.

These snails belong to my boy.

Pretty simple huh?

It’s something simple again for today’s bento. My initial plan was to fix a brown egg sheets for Chip and Dale, but I was out of eggs. So, this is what I did yesterday:

I cut the cheese with the cutter and mold.

Try not to press hard with the imprint mold. What I wanted was to get the outlines of the chipmunk, then I cut off the excess cheese with an exacto knife. You can also use a toothpick to cut the cheese.

I wrapped the cheese pieces and kept them refrigerated. This morning, I cut some bread with the same cutter, and fixed some butter and sugar toasts for today’s bento. Once the toasts cooled down, I topped the cheese on them and added nori as decoration. The nori bits were punched with the chipmunk puncher, which came in the same set.

So, here are the bentos:

My gal’s Chip and Dale bento, with strawberries, blueberries and rose apple too.

This bento belongs to my boy.

When my boy saw his bento, he asked me why are there only 2 chipmunks but not 3? I was puzzled, then I realized that he was expecting to see Alvin and the chipmunks!

But I fixed Chip and Dale! LOL!

Ok, next time boy! I think the same set can be used for Alvin and his friends too.

Today’s bento theme is inspired by Mari Miyazawa’s blog post, as well as my boy’s encounter with a baby chick which fell from the nest. Just check out the link and see how creative Mari is in decorating food as cute little chicks and birds!

On the other hand, my boy found a dead baby bird a few weeks ago at his school. It’s rainy season here, and the storm can be rather strong. I guess the baby chick fell from the nest accidentally by the strong wind, so it’s quite sad to see its dead body. But my brave little boy just picked up the chick and showed it to his friends and teachers, while the mommy was basically screaming, gosh, that’s gross. Sorry, I’m not so into little animals, especially a dead one.

Then a few days ago, he found a bird nest in our garden, probably dropped from the trees as well. We saw some egg shells but no birds were found in it. Maybe they had all flown away, but the nest was still there. Again, blame it on the strong wind.

With this theme in mind, I decided to decorate a piece of sandwich as a hatching, and some nuggets as baby chicks. This is what I did last night:

I cut the bread with a stainless steel bento. By doing so, the bread can fit well in the lunch box.

Then I cut some smoked cheese with the bento too.

Cut the bread and smoked cheese into semi circles, but the cheese is slightly smaller than the bread.

Cut off 2 smaller semi circles as shown in the pic.

Next, cut a round piece of white cheese. Sorry about the lighting, I know the pics can’t show the different colors of the cheese!

Then I cut off the sides of the circle. After that, cut them in halves.

Cut some kamaboko as the chick’s beak.

This is what you would get after stacking up the details, which will be placed on the sandwiches.

For the little baby chick nuggets, cut some baby carrot as their beaks.

Try to blanch the baby carrots for a minute or so to soften them. It’s easier to pin them onto the nuggets (with spaghetti strips) if they are soft.

So, here are the bentos:

My gal’s baby chicks nuggets.

Here’s the top view of the bento, showing the baby chick sandwich.

This bento belongs to my boy.

My initial plan was to make a zoo bento, but then, due to my crazy workload this week (mommy’s out of breathe soon), I could only fix a simple giraffe.

This is what I did this morning:

I boiled some mini wieners and a quail egg.

Cut off the end of a mini wiener.

Do the same for another piece, but cut it off diagonally.

Cut the quail egg into halves.

Join all the pieces together with spaghetti strips.

I secured the wieners onto the sandwich (to prevent them from moving around) with 2 bits of spaghetti strips. I added 2 food picks as its tiny horns.

Then, I proceeded to add some nori and more details on the giraffe. So here are the bentos:

My boy’s little giraffe. He said the nose area looks like a smiley face. O.o

This is for my gal.

Actually, I thought of wrapping the wieners with egg sheets first so that the giraffes will have the right color. But oh well, you may give it a try.

I pack after school bentos for my kids 4 times per week, but I don’t do kyaraben all the time. Some times, it can just be a plain looking bentos of sandwiches, Japanese sweet potatoes, corns, fruits and some protein like eggs and processed meat. I’ve always wanted to do something with sweet potatoes, besides cutting them with cookie cutter. To do so, you can’t over steam the potatoes. I would normally set my steamer to 20 – 30 minutes so that it’s not over cooked.

But this morning, I purposely steamed the sweet potatoes for 50 minutes so that they were totally soft. You can do so with a microwave which might save you some preparation time.

I smashed the potatoes when they were still hot, and gently formed a few potato balls and joined them up with spaghetti strips. I bet the spaghetti strips would be totally cooked and soft too in the hot potatoes. LOL!

So, here are the bentos:

My gal’s froggie sweet potato bento. She had some fun rolling the leftover potatoes and ate them too.

I did the same thing for my boy but decorated it as a teddy bear.

Here’s the complete bento, with corns placed in the lower tier.

Too bad the color of smashed Japanese sweet potatoes is not as nice as those purple potatoes or normal potatoes. But then, my kids love the taste.

When I mean simple, it’s really very simple. This little fish can be done in less than 5 minutes, after you have got everything packed and ready. All you need is a small mini wiener cut into thick slices, a heart pick, and some nori and kamaboko (or artificial crab meat) for facial decoration.

So, here are the little cute fishes:

My gal’s little fish, swimming towards the octopus.

My boy’s fish has 2 picks, and I love the crown.

The picks nailed the wieners to the bread, so the fishes are well secured. As for the bubbles, I think they will move around if my kids snake the bentos.

Here’s what I did previously, but it’s a goldfish bento.

P/S: This bento was added to What’s for lunch Wednesday Week 4 as well.

For todays’ bentos, I’m repeating something similar as I did with triangular origiri mold, but I cut the bread with these chicken triangle bentos, instead of an origiri mold. The bread fits well in the bento, and I love the cute chicken design on the covers!

I decorated the sandwich as if a boy is wearing a chicken costume. The fruits are packed separately in another bento box.

This bento belongs to my gal.

The Chick Family Bento Cases came in a set of 3. Do check them out at J-Mama.