Mothering Corner

I fixed something simple today because my boy is starting to show some flu symptoms. Thus, I thought of giving him more fruits, and cut down on bread. So, I used the Rilakkuma cutters again to fix mini sandwiches, and packed some corn, sweet potato (for my boy) and more fresh fruits. But now, I realized that I should not have packed rambutans because it’s too “heaty”! I will probably remove the rambutans if he’s still not feeling well after school.

My boy’s bento with more fruits today.

I omitted sweet potato from my gal’s bento due to her smaller appetite.

Tools for today’s bento

 BTW, my friend Arlene said Carl’s replaced some punchers, and if you are looking for one, please go to your nearest bookstores. She’s so sweet to get another puncher for my collection. It’s the one with – . – expression, and I’ve been waiting for it for so long. Thanks for sending it all over from Malaysia to me, Arlene!!!

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’ve been eying on this set of rice molds for some time, and CP did a favor of getting them for me and Arlene from Japan. Thanks CP!!!

So, I decided to try them out for my kids’ dinner. You can easily fix a pig, a bunny, a cat, a teddy bear, a frog or anything else with these rice molds, and since the onigiris are “slanted” at 45 deg, it’s like the animal onigiris are smiling at you when you look down at your bento. Nonetheless, I wanted to try something else, instead of the regular animals.

Thus, I used these rice molds for today’s bentos

I stacked up the “bunny onigiris” for my boy, but only pack a “teddy” onigiri for my gal. Their dinner consisted of tempura, some fish and stir-fried kailan with prawns and fish balls.

Then, I decorated the onigiris as a bumble bee and a butterfly.

I think my gal’s bento is more like having a bee on the onigiri, instead of fixing a bumble bee onigiri. LOL!

My boy’s butterfly looked slightly better. LOL! My mom prepared some meat floss rolls today, and I added some into their bentos.

I would say it’s great to have these rice molds, if you pack rice often or if you kids like fancy rice balls at meal times.

I wonder if I should stop numbering the titles? It’s getting nearer to Bento#200, and I wonder how much further will I go? LOL!

It’s been awhile since I last involved my kids in bento-ing. They have been rather busy since school started, but they are still keen to have “fun with their food”. Thus, last Saturday, I let them fix their own tea by coaching them on how to cut the bread into shapes, pack some fruits and decorate the bentos with picks.

I got these animal picks from Daiso some time ago, and my kids have been bugging me to use them. They are quite long, so they are great as skewer picks. Here’s what my kids had come out with…

My boy packed his tea by himself, with some help from me. He also chose a dog pick to be placed on his cherimoya.

On the other hand, my gal was trying to have a nicer meal. She only cut the bread and asked me to “finish” the rest for her. LOL! That’s why her bento was neater.

It’s really nice to see them putting in their effort , even though my gal had only participated for a little while. She likes banana, and I think banana is great for digestion, probably just as good as Bowtrol.

My bread tasted nicer because I cut them myself.

 It’s a bit hard to get my kids involved on weekdays, and partly it because we come home late and they have some homework to complete. Nonetheless, I will try to fix their bentos for them, as long as they love it.

Today’s bentos are speedy and simple again and I got this idea from Sugarbunnies, which are 2 cute puppies from Sanrio. I was trying to get the cutters but to no avail. Thus, I fixed the puppies from quail eggs as shown below:

This is my boy’s bento, with 2 puppies. I didn’t do a good job in dyeing the brown puppy, so there are patches of browhish spots. LOL!

My gal will only have a puppy due to her smaller appetite.

The quail eggs were pinned to the sandwiches with spaghetti strips to prevent them from moving around.

BTW, I might not be packing bentos for my kids daily for the next 2 weeks since my mom will be here with us. Hubby is going on business trip so I might not come to the office as often as I do. Thus my kids won’t have to be “stuck” at work with me after school and I can bring them straight home!

I will only pack for them if there is a need, so I’ll slow down in updating this blog.

Check out my new tools and bento boxes from Bento Market. I really love the lunch boxes! My boy “snatched” over the Mickey Rice Mold as soon as I opened the parcel. He even used it to fix his rice as it’s about time for dinner when hubby brought back the parcel. I didn’t expect the mold to be so big, but it fits my boy’s appetite well. Winnie The Pooh Rice Mold is smaller, but it should be fine.

So, what new tools or lunch boxes have you bought lately?

BTW, I told you I slowed down in buying tools right? See? Only 4 new tools.

I have a collection of rice molds, but I hardly use them. Some times, I let the kids fix the shape of their rice at dinner, but there are still a few more which we haven’t used before, such as these 2 rice molds from 100 Yen Shop.

I guess most of us are familiar with these rice molds, which you can easily place some furikake on the rice. I don’t have furikake at home, so I placed cheese on them. I know, not everyone can take the funny blend of cheese with rice, maybe it’s only my kids’ weird taste buds. LOL! So, maybe you can try egg sheets which go well with rice.

So here are their lunch bentos today…

My boy’s bento with teddy rice molds. I decorated them as kids wearing the teddy suits. There are fried chicken cubes, and mixed veggie, prepared by my mom. She insisted that I stay out of the kitchen for a week.

My gal’s bento with two flower girls and the same bento meal. Both of them had some soup too.

Pretty simple huh?

I have just ordered another batch of bento tools, and I know that I have been spending a lot on this bento frenzy, and maybe I can already buy some fashion jewelry sets with the money I spent. LOL!

But then again, if we use the tools often, I guess the “investment” is worth it. Even if I slow down lately, but my kids are still playing with my tools. The only thing I have to worry about is them losing some of the pieces, and I might have to look for replacement later.

Talking about more bento tools, I have another set of tool in my wish list…

Here are some of the new bento tools added to my collection. My mom was quite shocked to see ALL my bento tools last night. I guess I have quite a lot of tools huh? LOL! My system memory does show a lot of photos of my bento gadgets.

Thanks to CP and Arlene!

I’m gatal to fix something with them, but I know I better not. Let them stay in the plastic toolbox for some time first…

I can’t think of a name for today’s bentos. Frankly, I didn’t do much in preparing their bentos as my kids did 95% of the decorative part. Furthermore, I fixed luncheon meat sandwiches for hubby and I this morning, and just packed one each for them. Both my kids only take cereals for breakfast lately, and we had some extra sandwiches. In short, today’s bento is a bliss since I didn’t do much except punching the nori and packing the fruits. LOL!

So, here’s my boy’s bento, which he cut the teddy bear by himself. I just helped him to adjust the placement of its nose because he placed it at the wrong position. He also cut that tiny heart with the cutter, by pressing down the kamaboko from the bottom of the teddy cutter.

My boy’s bento, with a peace of sandwich, a strawberry, a Thai orange and some blueberries. I cut 2 more cheese flowers for him, but his sister did the tiny stars.

My gal has better control of the bigger cutter now after some practice. She chose the bunny cutter last night, and same as her brother, I helped her to place in the nose and ears.

My gal has a little bunny peeping out from her sandwich. She almost cut off the bunny’s left ear with her cutter. LOL! So I hid that part with hams…:P

 And of course, I was the one who punched and added the nori. My boy wanted to do this by himself, but he woke up late this morning, and I couldn’t wait for him. LOL! Maybe next time ya, boy?

Some mothers mentioned that their kids won’t eat bentos with a funny blend of taste, such as cheese on the fruit. I thought about it, and maybe you can try placing a thin layer of baran on the fruits first, before putting on the cheese. Just cut the barans into smaller sizes, if you can’t find them in appropriate size. Most importantly, make sure that the lunch boxes are kept cold as cheese melts very fast and when it melts, it might affect the taste of the fruits. But for schooling children, they might need cooler bags.

And about processed food like ham and sausages, like most mothers, I have my concern too. But still, there are other options. Go for the expensive premium types, if you are alright with that. If you stay in Bangkok, you can find a lot of varieties at Siam Paragon and Tops (mostly).

I only buy them in small quantity, like 2 sausages or 4 pieces of ham at a time, and I can use them for a week’s bentos, unless it’s something like Bento#129 where the pigs already occupied one whole piece of ham. If not, use other alternatives like carrots, zucchini (if you want white and green colors),  different colors of white bread made from yam (purple), potato (yellow), carrot (orange), chocolate (dark brown) or wholemeal (brown) and etc. Over here, I can get a loaf of white bread in 4 different colors, which is great! As for cheese, I only use the cheese from Chesdale, which comes in white and yellow (hi-calcium). I found another brand here with premium cheeses and there is a type of sliced cheese in orange! Too bad it’s selling at double the price of those I usually get, that’s why I haven’t bought any yet.

I think there are still a lot of possibilities when it comes to food decoration.

Oh ya, check out my latest Carla’s punchers. *Thanks Ellena!*

My boy has an idea on how to use them already…

First of all, I would like to apologize to some bloggers who left their links behind for the blogroll. My spam detector will eat up all the comments with links, but I managed to retrieve a few after reading your emails. Thanks for telling me about this! I’m so sorry that I’ve forgotten to reset the comment section before askng you to leave your comments behind! I know how frustrated it is to have your comment lost in cyberspace after a few tries. LOL! It happens to me too on some mothers’ blog, I also don’t know why…

Anyway, let’s get back to today’s bento. I am pretty lazy today, so I decided to do something speedy and simple. I have this Cinnamoroll rice mold for some time, but I have never used it. The rice portion is a bit too big for my kids! So, I decided to use it as a sandwich cutter.

Cinnamoroll rice mold. I used the center piece as a cutter.

Since Cinnamoroll does not have a lot of details, I just prepared the drawing of its face the night before.

I traced the face by placing the center piece at the bottom of the paper. Ya, it’s the same paper I used yesterday. LOL!

 The main reason why I did this is because I wanted to have some 3D effect. The disadvantage of using bread, as comparing to rice, is that most of the characters can only be done in 2D. But Cinnamoroll is a bit too plain, if it’s in 2D, so I topped another piece of bread on the peanut butter sandwiches. Just put that traced paper on a piece of bread and cut it out with a pair of scissors. I flattened the edges of the smaller piece with a roller so that it can lie flat on the sandwiches, instead of curling up.

For Cinnamoroll’s face, it’s pretty simple. If you have the cat puncher by Carla, it would be easier. But since mine is still in Malaysia… I used this method, which I stumbled upon when blog hopping some time ago, but I can’t remember where I’ve seen it. If you know which blog it’s from, let me know, I will link back to the bento-er.

I used this heart puncher. After the first punch, you will get a heart, which is unwanted. Then, turn the puncher over and try to get that small curly nori. Give it a punch and you will get Cinnamoroll’s lips (or is it nose?). Pardon the paw on the nori because I’m recycling the same piece of nori until it can’t be punched anymore.

Here’s the end result.

My boy’s bento with peanut butter sandwiches, a black plum, a strawberry, some oranges and blueberries. I told him I would fix him a cute puppy, but when he saw Cinnamoroll, he was not excited. Maybe it’s not something he had expected. BTW, Cinnamoroll’s cheek is out of the place. LOL!

For my gal, it’s Cinnamoroll’s friend, Mocha. If you use wholemeal bread or bread in brown, it will look nicer. My gal said she’s cute. Phew…

Today’s bentos are definitely speedy. So, give it a try!