Mothering Corner

I didn’t pack anything for my kids yesterday and guess what, my gal wailed her lungs out in the car on the way home! Oh boy, I guess I must have really “spoiled” them for the past 3 years to have their after school bentos or snacks, whether if it’s rain or shine. *faint*

Thus, I felt a bit guilty and wanted to cheer her up by fixing one of her many bento requests…. Arlene, Garfield’s girlfriend!

It’s actually ham and cheese, and for Arlene, the cheese is at the bottom. Garfield is just the opposite way around.

Here’s what I did last night, and it took me about 30 minutes for both characters:

Stack ham and cheese together, and cut the outline of the cat with an exacto knife.

For Arlene, the ham will be on top.

Prepare a hard boiled egg and gently slice it for its eyes. I used a cutter to cut them out.

I got this idea from LoveBones, check out her awesome Garfield!

I placed the oval egg white on the drawing and cut off the excess part.

Pardon the low quality photos taken as if they were snapped by a phone on this HD7 page. I was trying to get them done fast so that I could attend to my kids. Once both character were completed, I wrapped everything up with cling wrap and kept them refrigerated in an air tight container.

This morning, I punched some nori, randomly with some punchers. I didn’t cut the nori though as I was running out of time! Next, it’s more about adding nori on the cats to make them look like Garfield and Arlene.

So, here are the bentos:

Arlene, she’s Garfield’s girlfriend. My gal was so delighted when she saw her.

And Garfield for my boy.

My boy drew this black angry bird in my sketch book and told me to find some time and fix one for him. At first, I thought of brushing off his request but he said something yesterday while eating his plain looking bento in the car, Mommy, you don’t pack nice nice bentos often anymore huh? O.o

Ok boy, there you have it! It’s a last minute thingy as initially, I only planned to pack fruits and sweet potatoes for the kids, and after looking at the plain looking bentos, I decided to add a quail egg wrapped in nori and decorated it as the black angry bird. The red angry bird was cut from rose apple, and I realized now that I didn’t decorate it well. It didn’t have the white feathery top on its head.

Black Angry Bird Bento

Angry Birds Fruity Bento

I’ve obviously slowed down a lot in kyaraben!!! LOL! As you know, my life has been pretty busy lately, and I’ve started going back to yoga this month. This means I would have to prepare dinner (yeap I do in the morning), breakfast (occasionally), pack bentos (mostly plain looking ones) and get myself ready for yoga class in the morning before heading to the office. If hubby is away, I would have to send the kids to school too. So, how’s that to kick start my hectic morning?

But this morning, I managed to fix something simple for the kids, just to let them know that I still want to do kyaraben if I may.

My gal’s hotdog bun bento

Oh no, I didn’t bake the bread, I bought the buns. I just cut out part of the crust and decorated it as a little girl dressed up in Rilakkuma costume.

Of course, I did one for my boy too.

Anyway, my kids will have a term break soon so there will be less kyaraben for the coming month. Besides that, work is piling up, and condo renovation is still on going, and the office routers are giving me a problem uploading photos!!! I shall just do my best for the next 2 weeks ya!

My kids complained that it’s been so long since they did kyaraben, thus I let them fixed their own decoration for today’s bentos. Our theme is the characters from The Wizard of Oz, which is one of their favorite books at the moment. Both kids picked their favorite characters, except the Tin Man. Poor thing, no one wants the Tin Man in their bentos. LOL!

As for scarecrow, it’s too hard for my kids to fix it, so I resorted to use a pick. Most of the characters were cut from cheese, with various cutters, and I helped them to add in the seaweed. So, here they are:

The Coward Lion and the Scarecrow bento

My gal’s Dorothy and her dog Toto.

My gal can only manage cutting cheese with cutters. So after stacking the cheese on nori, I helped her with the cutting.

When I mentioned that I will fix bumblebee this morning, my boy thought that I was fixing the Bumblebee from Transformers. O.o Oh no, I didn’t have time for complicated kyaraben lately, and this is the bumblebee I had in mind:

Little Bumblebee (decorated with sandwich balls) in fruity bento

It’s simple and quick! LOL!

Today’s bento theme is inspired by some Japanese blogs. I can’t remember where I saw the bentos though, but I’m pretty sure that some of us might have come across some Japanese blogs showing these kyarabens. You don’t have to create exactly the same as the actual characters, but try to add in some elements and let your kids guess what’s the bento theme.

I prepared the bentos with this loaf of fancy bread from S&P.

It comes in 4 colors in the same pack.

I planned to fix Mickey and Minnie Mouse with the bread, so I did some preparation last night. Firstly, I prepared a pink (egg white mixed with pink food gel) and orange (egg york) egg sheets. I could have used kamaboko, but I had forgotten to buy one. The orange egg sheet was used for Mickey’s shoes.

Then, I proceeded to cutting the details:

I cut Minnie’s ribbon with this cutter (recently bought from Jmama)

Cut another ribbon.

Cut off the tips and stack the second ribbon on the first one.

My gal helped me to cut a small oval and top it on the 2 ribbons. This will be Minnie’s element.

Draw Mickey’s hand on a piece of baking paper, and cut it out from a piece of cheese. I did the same for Minnie too.

Cut the leftover cheese with these round and oval cutters.

The smallest circles will be used for Minnie’s ribbon, while the medium sized circles are for her dress. Cut 2 ovals as Mickey’s buttons.

Wrap all ingredients with food wrapper and store them overnight in air tight container.

The next morning, I proceeded to cutting the bread with the bento box so that the sandwich will fit nicely in the box.

Cut a strip of nori and stick it on the sandwich with jam, butter or mayonnaise.

Top cheese on sandwiches, and add in some nori strips as shown.

Add in the rest of the elements.

Next, I packed the fruits in and here are the bentos:

Guess who am I? Of course, my boy could easily tell it’s Mickey by just looking at its glove.

My gal’s “Guess Who Am I” Bento.

We are going to have a long day today, and the kids won’t be having dinner early at home. Hubby and I have to finalize the interior of our condo, and both kids will be tagging along to the designer’s office. Considering how “cha poh” my hubby is, I can foresee that both kids will be pretty hungry and tired waiting at the sofa, and after a late eating out, they will probably doze off in the car on the way home.

So I decided to pack them some ham sandwiches and fruits, and maybe I might grab some snack for them too, just in case they are too bored waiting for us.

Since I had already fry some ham for the sandwiches, I used another piece of ham and a piece of cheese as decoration.

I prepared these Minnie and Stitch cookie cutters.

Cut 2 pieces of ham with Minnie’s cookie cutter. Make an imprint on one of the pieces.

Cut the cheese with the same cutter.

Stack the cheese on the ham without the imprint.

Gently cut off the excess part of the imprinted ham to get the outline of Minnie’s face.

Add a flower kamaboko for Minnie.

Punch nori with this Mickey seaweed cutter and add in the details.

Repeat the same steps for Stitch. With the cookie and puncher set, this kyaraben can be done in less than 15 minutes each. So here are the bentos:

My gal’s Minnie Mouse on her sandwiches.

A Stitch Ham and Cheese for my boy.

My camera is back, so I’m back to bentoing.

Today’s bento is pretty simple (again). I bought a pack of mini donuts and they are so cute for bentos. I decided to use a doughnut as a float, with a teddy bear floating with it in a pool.

I prepared a fish ball as teddy, kamaboko and a piece of artificial crab meat.

Slice the pink off kamaboko, and cut them into thinner slices.

Cut 2 small circles as ears.

Cut off part of the “ears” and pin them with spaghetti strips.

Pin the ears on fish ball. Alternately, you may use a quail egg.

Cut the arms and legs from the leftover kamaboko.

Cut 2 small circles from smoked cheese which will be stacked as ears.

Cut a small oval cheese as teddy’s nose.

Then, I packed everything into bentos. There are garlic bread, blueberries, corn, baby carrots and strawberries in today’s meal.

Decorate tiny strips of red aftificial crab meat on the donut so that it looks more like a float.

Pin fish ball and kamaboko in the donut.

Add cheese.

Punch and add nori.

So, here’s the bento with a teddy bear enjoying himself in a “pool” (it’s garlic bread actually).

My gal’s bento.

Then, I decided to change teddy’s expression as if it dozed off floating in the pool.

Teddy’s enjoying…

Again, I love to use these bento boxes for 3D decoration.

You can think about getting one, but I’m not sure if they are BPA free though.

I still can’t manage to get the Care Bear bento boxes which I saw online. So, is there any local online store selling them?

Anyway, I fixed some sandwiches today and decorated them as Care Bears. I used to be a big fan of Care Bears, but my kids are not so fond of them. These might be my first and last Care Bears bentos. LOL!

Here’s how I decorated the bears:

I cut the bread with this Pooh bear cutter. I spread jam in between the sandwiches.

Cut the nose and eyes from while cheese with these round and oval cutters. You may use white egg sheet since cheese melts fast in hot climate.

I used a smaller oval cutter to cut the eyes from kamaboko.

Stack the kamaboko on white cheese as eyes. I cut off the tip of the eyes, but it’s optional.

Cut a heart for its nose.

Punch nori with this Pooh seaweed puncher and add the details on the bears.

Repeat the decoration steps for other bears with smoked cheese (for orange), and green peas. Hence, here are the bentos:

My gal’s Care Bears Bento.

And this is for my boy.

My gal “accidentally” watched Anpanman on TV some time ago, and she asked me to fix her an Anpanman bento. I’m not familiar with this character but since she likes it, I might as well fix one for her. Furthermore, it’s very simple!

A plain looking bento (sorry, photo was taken before I remembered to open the curtains.)

I pinned some blanched carrots on the sandwich.

Next, I punched some roasted nori with this puncher and added the facial details on the bread.

There you go! An Anpanman bento was fixed in less than 5 minutes!

A very simple Anpanman sandwich bento.