Mothering Corner

After days of having plain fruit bentos, my kids were delighted to see the little snails peeking out in their fruits. I bought some mini cake rolls from S&P Bakery for breakfast, and they are the same cake rolls I used for this Christmas tree bento. All I did was cut 2 mini wieners diagonally and boiled them. They should curl up slightly after cooked. Then, I cut the cake roll into smaller bites, and pinned the wieners to the cake rolls with spaghetti strips. The eyes were cut from a slice of kamaboko, and pinned to the wiener. All nori were punched with Carl’s smiley puncher.

So, here are the bentos:

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These snails belong to my boy. He loves them!

There are rose apple, mango, blueberries (or strawberry) and guava packed in the bentos too. I cut the fruits with a metal flower cutter.

Here’s my gal’s bento

So, which bentos look better? The big snail or the smaller snails? My kids prefer the smaller snails though.

I bought some butter cakes from the supermarket yesterday, and packed some for my kids. The bentos looked rather plain, so I decided to decorate them with a bee and a butterfly, and some flowers. The decorative bits are actually:

• White: Cheese and kamaboko
• Pink: Kamaboko and ham
• Orange: Smoked cheese and carrot
• Brown: Mini wiener
• Red: Artificial crab meat
• Head: Quail egg
• Black: Nori

I only boiled a small piece of each, and cut them with various shaped cutters. The quail eggs were “pinned” on the cake with 2 heart picks to prevent it from moving around. The mini wiener was pinned to the egg instead.

Hence, here are the bentos:

A bumble bee for my boy. I hope that he will eat the piece of pineapple!

A pink butterfly for my gal.

My kids will be quite full by having a piece of butter cake, so I cut down on the fruit portion. They can always have more once we get home.

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.

Today’s bento is requested by my boy. He likes the ladybug bento so much, he wanted me to fix him a bumble bee, with the same idea. I just did some slight changes in cutting the nori and I used peas and corns for the antennas.

The cutters and exacto knife used.

I placed the cutters on nori and cut out a semi circle (not quite semi though) with an exacto knife. You can also trace the circles on paper, place it on nori and cut the circles out with a pair of scissors, but using an exacto knife is faster for me. The other strips of nori were cut free hand with a pair of scissors and I used some jam to stick the nori onto the bread.

Same as previous bento, I used fish balls for the heads. And here are the bentos:

My boy’s Bumble Bee Bento with peanut butter sandwiches and fruits.

Here’s my gal’s bento.

I know that some of you are wondering how I close the bentos, and thus I decided to show it today. Most of the time, I will tilt up the cutie details for photo shooting so that you can have a clearly view of the details. But since the details are protruding out, I will have to rearrange the bento meal again to fit everything in. Here’s my gal’s bento, after a quick rearrangement.

I turned the bumble bee to the opposite direction and its head fitted well in the gap. The sandwiches were laid down flat in the silicon cup, instead of being tilted up. I try to leave some gaps behind so that I can easily rearrange the food before closing the cover. By doing so, the food won’t be “smashed”.

It’s another speedy bento today, and I decorated my kids’ sandwiches as ladybugs.

I prepared some sandwiches. Since I can’t find such a big puncher, I had to cut the circles freehand.

I used the squid balls as the ladybug’s head. Gently wrap the squid ball with a thin layer of artificial crab meat (only use to top part). Pin a spaghetti strips on the ball so that you can easily secure it to the sandwiches.

I cut some smaller circles of wiener with this wheel cutter. Then, I pinned the wieners with spaghetti strips and they would be used as antennas.

So, here’s the end result:

My gal’s bento with a ladybug, some Thai and imported oranges and a small piece of apple. I decorated her bento with some flowers and a butterfly which are cut from cheese, ham and carrot.

If you wonder how I close the bentos, do you notice that there are gaps in the lunch box?

I would normally just tilt up the cutie details for photo shooting, then I will rearrange the food before closing the lunch box. For this bento, all I did was just to “turn” the ladybug’s head to the other direction near the apple so that I can close the lid without spoiling the details.

And I would like to clarify about using spaghetti strips and toothpicks in joining the details. Personally, I would prefer to use spaghetti strips as they are edible. Furthermore, based on my observation, the spaghetti strips will be softened after some time, probably due to moisture. So it’s less risky for little children to chew on them, as comparing to reminding them to remove the toothpicks. Not all children will be having their bentos under adult’s supervision. Try to shorten the spaghetti strips intead of securing the parts with long strips, that’s what I do mostly.

My boy went for a school trip to butterfly farm and train museum yesterday, and he was very happy to see the butterflies. Seeing how happy he was talking about his trip gave me an idea on how to fix today’s bento with butterflies and bees flying in the garden. I wanted to come out with my own idea, so I didn’t do it the same way as I did for Bento#112. You can go to the link and check out R mama’s blog as reference.

Here’s how I prepared the bentos:

I prepared the butterfly wings with this cutter and cheese in different tones. I added pink kamaboko onto the wings to make them more attractive.

For my boy, I fixed the body with 2 quail eggs but for my gal, I cut the shapes from kamaboko. Later on, I cut out a bigger head for her butterfly because she wanted big big eyes!

The bee’s body was cut from a sausage and joined with spaghetti strip. I added nori and a heart pick to form the wings.

Here’s the end result…

My boy’s bento with sweet potatoes, mangoes, rose apples and a strawberry.

Here’s my gal’s butterfly with big big eyes. LOL! I used a divider to separate the fruits from her sandwich to avoid it from getting wet. For my toodler’s convenient, I packed a flag pick for her so that she can easily pick up the fruits.

If I still have the green lunch sheets, I might add in some leaves. But then, the garden is flowery enough huh?

I like this bento blog by R mama’s Cooking Note. From her blog, you should know that her bentos are featured in magazines too, so she’s very very good in bento-ing! I found her ideas are very cute and more detailed as the color combination is great. A quick browse through her bentos will give you a better idea! So, if you are into making cute bentos, I would suggest that you bookmark her website, like I did!

Today’s bento is something I learned from Cooking Note. She has a few cute bentos with bugs, and when my boy asked for ladybird, I know that I should go to her blog as reference. Since Valentine’s Day is coming soon, today’s theme is Lover Bugs Celebrating Valentine’s Day.

I prepared macaroni as breakfast, so I packed some for my kids. The sauce was placed in the heart cutters to represent lots of love.

Here’s the end results:

My gal’s bento with a ladybug (dwarf apple) who’s waiting for her Valentine because I couldn’t fit her boyfriend in. LOL! The other two were actually lover bees (cut a mini wiener into halves) hiding behind the oranges. As you can see, there are macaroni and Bolognese sauce too.

I guess you can have a better view of the bees in my boy’s lunch box. His ladybugs are actually berry tomatoes. A little cherry was hidden beneath the flower ham.

My kids were thrilled to see how cute the bugs are. R mama really has a lot of good ideas huh?