Mothering Corner

I can’t believe it, I didn’t snap any photos for today’s bentos! Serious! I was in a bad rush this morning (I’m not a Monday person), and I thought that I’d taken the photos of the bentos before packing them up. When I was looking through the photos in my camera just now, I got a shock when I couldn’t find the complete bento photos. But then, I took some while decorating the garlic bread into little tigers, so at least there is still “something” to share. LOL!

This is what I did last night:

I cut a regular hotdog bun into 3 segments. I would only used the ends.

Make a cut on the top of the ends but don’t cut through the buns.

Spread some butter and garlic spread in the opening of the buns.

I stored the buns in air tight container, and kept them refrigerated over night.

By doing so, it would save me some time in the morning! So, the first thing I did this morning was to toast the buns for 10 minutes, boil some quail eggs and a small piece of kamaboko, and prepare the fruits.

Once everything was done and cooled down, I proceeded to decorating the buns.

Cut the quail eggs into halves.

Pin the quail eggs on the buns with spaghetti strips.

Cut the kamaboko into small circles.

Slip in the kamaboko as ears for the tigers.

Punch some nori with this puncher and add the stripes for the tiger.

Then, add the rest of the face features.

Cut 2 small circles from the pink layer of kamaboko and add them as cheeks.

So, here are the little tiger garlic breads.

It’s been a few months since my kids last tasted donuts, and my gal is craving for one. So, I bought some donuts yesterday, and I thought that my kids would love the sugar. But what do you know? They asked me to shake off the sugar! Argh…Next time, I will get sugarless donuts!

Besides the half piece of donut, I packed hard boil egg for the kids as well. I decorated the hard boiled egg as the cute raccoons in Tenorikuma. Here’s how I did the characters in Tenorikuma.

I prepared 2 hard boiled eggs.

Cut halves for one of the eggs.

For the other egg, I gently sliced of the egg white, and use a small round cutter to cut the ears.

Use spaghetti strips to join the ears to the eggs.

I Cut some cheese as nose and ears too.

Place the cheese on the eggs as shown.

Punch some nori and add in the facial details.

Then, I packed the donuts and fruits in the bentos and slipped in the eggs. So, here are the bentos:

My boy’s little raccoon named Latte, who is the manager of Tenorikuma cafe.

My gal will have Maple instead.

The fruits are slightly lesser in today’s bentos because my kids snacked on them when I was packing their meals.

I thought of stopping bento for awhile as my gal is on a food strike, but she is still willing to take fruits as after school tea. However, my boy has a long day at school today, and he will be very hungry after his taekwondo class. Thus, I fixed some spaghetti carbonara for both of them, and hopefully my gal won’t reject her food.

My gal used to love wieners, but she’s been rejecting it for days. But I shall try my luck and see if she’ll take the wiener, if I made cut one into little piggies.

I cut the mini wiener into smaller pieces.

Cut 2 ovals for the noses. Gently cut out the tiny circles on the noses. You may use a straw, if you don’t have the right size of cutter.

Cut a small piece of wiener into tiny triangles.

Then, pin the triangles to the wieners as piggy’s ears.

Besides mini wiener and spaghetti, there are rambutans, persimmon and mango in their bentos too.

The little piggies on spaghetti carbonara.

Pretty simple huh?

I’ve seen a few blogs with goldfish lately, especially those from Japanese bentoers. Thus, I wanted to give this a try too.

I prepared 2 quail eggs, blanched carrot cut in hearts and mini circles, and tiny bits of kamaboko.

Make a cut at the end of the quail egg.

Gently slip in the heart-shaped carrots.

Add the eyes (kamaboko, or you may use egg white) to the eggs with spaghetti strips. (Why I use spaghetti strips)

Make a small cut on the top of the eggs and slip in the tiny bits of carrots as fins.

Then cut semi circles of nori for the eyes.

Punch some nori for more facial details.

Besides the goldfish quail eggs, I packed some garlic toasts, grapes, edamame and apple in the bentos too.

My boy’s bento with his little goldfish.

And here’s my gal’s goldfish bento.

I should have snap the quail eggs in different view but I was running out of time. If you dye the egg in yellow, black or orange, it will look more like a goldfish.

I didn’t sleep well last night as my gal cried and screamed in her sleep throughout the night. I’m not sure what kind of nightmares she had, but by the time she’s sleeping soundly, it was about 5am. Thus, I had a hard time dragging myself off the bed when the alarm clock rang in the early morning.

Since I’m very sleepy today (and I already had 2 cups of coffee!), I decided to repeat something simple and fast, just like the previous ham and cheese bento.

I used this My Melody cutter to cut the bread, cheese and ham. Then, I used an oval cutter to cut off some part of the ham.

Stack the ham on the cheese. You may replace cheese with egg sheet too.

After that, I spread some jam on the bread and packed some mango, dragonfruit, strawberries and blueberries in the bentos.

The bentos before decoration.

My gal likes My Melody but my boy wanted to have a teddy bear in bunny suit. So, here’s the end result:

My gal’s My Melody bento.

And this funny looking teddy in bunny suit is for my boy.

 I think the teddy looks rather weird but my boy likes it.

It’s Friday, so have a nice weekend everyone!

I felt like doing something simple again this morning. Anyway, since when my bentos are complicated? LOL!

I’ve always wanted to fix Sesame Street bentos for my kids, but so far, I’ve only tried Elmo. I wanted to put more characters in today’s bentos, but due to time constraint, I did it the easiest way I can think of.

I prepared 2 slices of white bread and an oval cutter.

Cut the bread in quarters.

Cut an oval out from the top pieces.

Spread some strawberry and blueberry jam on 2 pieces of sandwiches, and slip in some smoked cheese on the other sandwiches.

Then, I packed everything in the bentos and added carrots as noses, and white cheese as eyes for the characters. Ernie’s mouth was cut from a small piece of artificial crab meat.

Besides sandwiches, there is a small piece of mini pizza, some strawberries and grapes in the bentos too. I proceeded to punch and cut some nori for the eyes and mouth, and thus here’s the end result:

My gal’s Elmo and Ernie bento. She cut the small piece of teddy cheese to be placed on her strawberry.

My boy’s bento has Bert and Cookie Monster instead.

Maybe it’s too simplified, so they don’t look quite like the real characters. My boy took a look at his bento and said, “Huh? This is Bert? This is Cookie Monster?”

First of all, I would like to clarify that I don’t allow links in my comment section and if you place any links there, the comment will be held for moderation. The main reason why this is done is I don’t want any bento store owners to “simply” place their stores here for free advertisement. Bear in mind that I shall link to your store, if I buy from you or if I find any interesting products there. Please, no free ads, but if you pay, I shall put your links on my blog. LOL! Hey, I’m not being mean, but do you like to go through a lot of comments with free ads on your comment section or not? Fellow bloggers? But of course, some of the comments with links are approved, if you are meant to share something great. Good things are meant to be shared, right?

Sorry that my first paragraph sounded so harsh as the air conditioning in my offce room has officially broke down this morning. It has not been functioning well for a few days, and it’s been fixed numerous time. But this morning, it decided to take a long long rest, and I’m soaking wet in my own sweat, “enjoying” sauna at the office. How good is that? LOL! It’s too hot, and I’m out of my mind now.

Ok, let’s get back to bento. I bought the Snoopy and Woodstock rice mold set from NST some time ago, and I’ve only received the parcel this week. I’m quite excited to have the molds as I used to be a big fan of Snoopy! However, I might have bought the last set from NST, and thus I can’t seem to find the link to the rice molds just now. So, if you are interested, contact Veronica @ NST if she will reorder the molds.

I used the rice molds as bread cutters.

I cut some nori as Snoopy’s ears.

Then, I punched some nori with these punchers and proceeded to the facial features. Use some jam or butter to paste the nori on the bread.

After that, I packed their meals in bento boxes.

My boy’s Snoopy and Woodstock, and some corn, apple, cherries and blueberries.

This is for my gal. She has some pineapples and guava but not apple in her bento.

Actually, I prepared some white and yellow cheese last night for Snoopy and Woody, but I’ve totally forgotten about it when I was packing their meal. LOL! That’s why they looked so white in the bentos.

My kids wanted 2 different themes in their bentos, so I started the preparation last night. My boy wanted chocolate milk bread again, while my gal wanted Piglet and Pooh (my new cutters). Actually, it didn’t take a lot of time to do a simple preparation the night earlier, especially if you are a working mother or one who needs to rush out of the house just in time, like yours truly here. LOL!

I did the preparation at the dining table, while coaching my kids with their homework. Frankly, my kids’ school does not give a lot of homework, and their work is pretty simple. It’s totally unlike most schools in Malaysia, which are quite hectic and stressful. Maybe that’s why my kids love to do their homework, which is pretty fun. While I was cutting the bread and cheese, my boy was doing his cut and paste homework on letter “Q” while my gal did her coloring and tracing.

For Kuromi, I cut the chocolate milk bread (from yesterday’s bento) with a round cutter for her face, and two diamond shaped bread for her ears.

Then I cut a circle from cheese.

Cut off the crescent at the top of the circle so that the cheese looks slightly oval now. You can also use an oval cutter, but I can’t find the right size in my toolbox.

Cut a V with an exacto knife or normal knife. 

After that, I wrapped the cheese and kept it refrigerated. I boiled a small piece of kamaboko and ham too.

I trace a small circle on kamaboko, and cut the shape of a skeleton.

 The ham was used for Kuromi’s nose and tongue, and Piglet’s ears. Please refer here for Piglet’s tutorial . The whole preparation took about 15 minutes, but if you are preparing one bento per day, you should take lesser time than me.

So, this morning, I just had to wash and cut the banana, oranges, strawberries and blueberries, which were all packed in their bentos. Thus, here’s the end result:

My boy’s Kuromi Bento. I think her eyes are too small since I punched it with nori puncher.

My gal’s Piglet and Pooh bento.

 If some preparation is done a night before, you might need to spend just a few minutes more on punching nori and decorating the bentos. Most importantly, the end result is all worth it.

P/S: If I’m not mistaken, Kaerenmama showed a tutorial on how to fix Kuromi some time ago. Please go through her archive if you are interested. 

I fixed some dark soy-sauced pork cubes and noodles today, and packed some for my kids. The noodles were seasoned with the sauce from the dish so that they are not tasteless. It’s something like “gan lao mian”, but with pork cubes. I prepared 2 hard boiled quail eggs for decoration too.

I cut a zigzag line on the quail egg with this tool.

I found that one of my quail eggs could not fit into the round hole of the tool, or maybe my quail eggs here are slightly bigger? If you don’t have this quail egg cutter, just use a knife to cut some zigzag lines on the egg to separate the white from the yolk.

You might need to wet the yolk with water and slightly reform it if it’s not round after the cut.

Add a beak (cut from carrot) and eyes to the duckling.

Then, gently cover back the egg white on the yolk.

The quail egg looks like a little chick too, as you may have seen in a few Japanese bento blogs. But today, I shall name mine as a “hatching duckling”, just like that cute duckling pick shown in the photo.

So, here are the bentos, with noodles, pork cubes, longan and baby carrots:

My boy’s bento.

And the smaller bento is for my gal.

 An important note: Try not to make a deep cut on the quail egg, when you are cutting the zigzag line to avoid smashing the egg. Give it a try ya?

My boy requested meat balls and pasta yesterday, so I prepared a bigger portion and kept some away for today’s bento. My kids love pasta, and they are delighted to have pasta everyday, if possible. Besides that, I prepared some egg sheets too, by separating the yolk from egg white:

White and yellow egg sheets

Try to mix a tablespoon of corn starch (mixed with water) into your egg mixture so that the egg sheets are thicker and less likely to tear. You can freeze the egg sheets for next use.

This is what I did this morning:

I placed the spiral pasta and some tomato sauce in aluminum cups. I normally use Prego Organic Tomato and Basil Italian sauce.

Top the pasta with more tomato sauce and add a small meat ball in it.

I prepared the meat balls with minced pork and chopped onions, and mixed the meat with an egg, some soy sauce and corn starch to make it more consistent for patty or easy to form into meat balls. Then, I fried the balls until golden brown, served some for dinner last night and refrigerated a few balls away for today’s bento.

I topped the meat balls with a piece of smoked cheese. I added some mixed veggie and starry cheese on the sauce too.

After that, I baked the pasta in the oven for 10 minutes, and 5 minutes before they were done, I placed some meat balls on the baking tray to heat them up as well. The extra meat balls would be used for decoration.

Here are the reheated meat balls. I purposely formed them in 2 different sizes.

I used tiny spaghetti strips to join the smaller meat balls to the bigger ones.

Then, I packed everything in the bento boxes and here they are before decoration:

I added the egg sheets as Rilakkuma’s nose and ears.

Then, I proceeded to add some nori, punched with the following punchers:

The punchers for today’s bento.

 So, here is the end result:

My gal’s bento, with baked pasta, Rilakkuma meat balls, and 2 strawberries.

And this bento belongs to my boy.

 Let’s not forget about Kiiroitori, which was initially the piece of smoked cheese on pasta.

Kiiroitori on meat balls and spiral pasta.

Today’s bento meal is slightly heavier because my kids are more occupied on Wednesdays.