Mothering Corner

Most schools in Bangkok are still closed this week, but my kids are back to school again for the new school year. Their new school is located in outskirt of Bangkok city, so it’s not affected. Frankly, I’m so glad that we stay in the outskirt, away from the war zone and our lives here are not much affected. We are still going out as usual, and it’s way much safer than staying in the city.

Since it’s the first day at school, the school session will finish as early as 2.30pm, so I don’t think my kids will be very hungry by then. Lunch and snack are provided at school, so I only pack a few boxes of UHT milk in their school bags. Today’s after school bento is pretty light, and there are only sandwiches topped with cheese, some rambutans, oranges and a piece of mini wiener.

Here’s how I decorated their tea bentos:

I cut the bread with Rilakkuma cutters. I spread some jam between the bread and placed them in silicon cups.

Cut some cheese with a smaller teddy cutter.

Repeat the same for smoked cheese

Turn the cutter over and cut off the ears of smoked cheese.

Stack the cheese as shown in the pic.

Next, place the cheese on the sandwiches.

Punch the eyes and nose with this shoe puncher.

Add eyes and nose to the teddies with a pair of tweezers or a toothpick.

Punch some tiny straight lines with this puncher, and add them on smoked cheese.

Today’s teddy bears looked pretty blur…just like my kids when we woke them up earlier than usual for school.

So, there are the blur teddy bears bentos:

My gal’s teddies…She’s very blur on the “back to school routine”.

This is my boy’s bento.

I will probably need a few more days to figure out my kids’ appetite after school. For the time being, I will just pack them something light.

Things really got nasty here. Upon reading that the Red protesters were getting closer to my office area, and there was a clash between the protesters and the army troop, I immediately grabbed my kids and rushed home as quick as we could. I didn’t want to be caught in a bad traffic, and thank god that the traffic back home was a smooth one. But poor hubby was caught in a bad traffic as most routes back home from where he was were blocked or closed. The only express way was very congested, but he arrived home safely as well. Gosh, I should really reconsider life insurance quotes if I’m going to have more heart attack moments like this!

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Ok, back to bento-ing. I’m quite lazy to do the tracing and cutting thingy with exacto knife, so I thought of  a way to simplify Pikkachu which was requested by my boy.

The preparation was done last night, so sorry about the ugly lighting in the photos.

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I cut the ham with an oval and diamond-shaped cutter.

My boy took over and cut the same shapes with a piece of smoked cheese.

Stack the diamond-shaped cheese on the ham.

Cut a small triangle on the cheese before stacking it on the ham.

Cut 2 small circles from kamaboko as Pikkachu’s cheeks.

I kept all pieces away in air tight container, and arranged them on the rice as Pikkachu. So, here are their lunch bentos:

My boy’s simplified Pikkachu in his lunch bento.

There are rice, grilled honey chicken, half a braised egg, some baby carrots and a piece of corn in the bentos too.

This is my gal’s bento.

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.