Mothering Corner

I lost my old Doraemon cutter in the flood and had recently bought a new set from Kristie. My boy insisted that I should replenish the cutter as Doraemon was one of his favorite characters.

I packed some SPAM sandwiches for the kids today, and the Doraemon was prepared last night with cheese, blue egg sheet, and red artificial crab meat. Since I have to spend some time preparing our dinner in the morning, I only have a limited of time for bento now, and by preparing the kyaraben a night before will definitely speed things up.

Doraemon on sandwiches.

I was running out of time to fix anything nice for my gal this morning and I was too tired last night and couldn’t fix her one.

I must share this wonderful idea of molding bread with rice molds by Bento with Love. At least I have something to do with all my rice molds, which I haven’t used for a very long time! I hardly pack rice because my kids have their bento meals very late, probably like after 4 or 5pm and the food is packed early in the morning. As much as the food can be kept cool, but rice doesn’t seem to taste well after long hours. Thus, I hardly use the rice molds and stop buying them.

But this morning, I tried this method of molding the sandwich balls with small rice molds, and I’m glad that they turned out well.

Snoopy and Woodstock sandwich balls bento

It’s easier to shape the sandwiches now! But it doesn’t work for big rice molds, but you can tried “encapsulating” 2 slices of bread together to seal the sandwich fillings.

BTW, this Tomica bento is sooooo cute!

Too bad it’s a bit too small for my boy’s appetite now.

My kids have been asking for a Dragon Ball bento for some time, but I told them to wait until the kitchen is ready so that I can fix it with egg sheets. Nevertheless, they kept bugging me! So yesterday, I decided to give it a try with ham and cheese. It’s not easy to do so with the smoked cheese I bought, which is not from Chesdale and it melts faster in room temperature!

Thus, I froze the sliced cheese for about 30 minutes to harden it before cutting. It makes cutting tiny details easier too.

For this type of kyaraben, egg sheet is still a better option as you can prepare it in the desired color with food gel or natural food coloring. Besides that, egg sheets are great under room temperature and you don’t have to worry about them melting in the lunch boxes before your kids have time at break time.

But for cheese, it’s best to take these factors into consideration:

• stack the cheese on ham to avoid it from melting fast and hold to its shape.
• use  a cooler bag and icepack to keep the lunch box cold while transporting.
• freeze the cheese before cutting to prevent it from melting fast.
• you can also try coloring the cheese with food pen, but I haven’t tried this method. So far, I only stick to white and smoked cheese.

The preparation and cutting were done last night. Then, I wrapped the details in cling wrap and refrigerated these Goku(s) in an air tight container.

This morning, I prepared the sandwiches and fruits, before topping Goku on the bread. The last but not least, I added nori for facial details.

So, here they are:

Dragon Ball Super Sanyai Goku bentos

Ham and Cheese Super Sanyai Goku

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.

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.

It’s another long waited bento theme. I should be fixing Transformers by now but since the robots are so hard and complicated, my kids will have to settle for Kung Fu Panda bentos today.

Here’s how I decorated Po. First, I fixed a sandwich ball.

Place a piece of bread in the middle of a cling food wrap, and place some fillings in the middle. I used meat floss.

Fold and hold the 4 corners. Don’t squash the bread though. Alternatively, you can cut the bread into circle first before wrapping it up.

Wrap the bread with food wrap.

Twist the end of the wrapper and make it tight. Try to form a ball in this process too.

You can press lightly and reshape the sandwich ball into your desired shape. I prefer oval.

Remove the food wrap and place the sandwich ball in silicon cup so that it’s easier for you to proceed to the next time of decoration.

Prepare 2 hard boiled quail eggs or 1 big chicken egg. Only egg white is needed.

Slice a thin layer of egg white and cut the nose with an oval cutter.

Pin the nose to the bread with bit of spaghetti strips. You may deep fry the spaghetti strip first if you are worrying if it’s edible.

Add nori. I cut the nori with a pair of small scissors but you can use punchers too.

Add egg white for Po’s eyes and top with nori again.

Cut bits of egg white again and pin them as his ears.

Top nori for his ears and I changed his nose. Notice the difference?

Next, place Po in the bento box.Hence, here are today’s Kung Fu Panda bentos:

My gal’s Po, the Kung Fu Panda.

I did one for my boy too. He wouldn’t resist it! LOL!

My gal has been asking me to fix Powerpuff Girls for her since last week, so there you have it girl!

I prepared some sandwich balls last night by filling the bread with meat floss and wrapping them up as balls. Wrap and tighten the sandwich with food wrap so that it can stay in shape.

Sandwich balls

I prepared some egg sheets too. I used 2 eggs for the Powerpuff Girls.

• Separate the white from yolk and fry them as white and yellow egg sheets respectively.
• Separate the white from yolk for the second egg
• Yolk used as orange egg sheet
• Egg white was divided into 2 portion for blue and green egg sheets respectively.
• You only need a tiny bit of blue egg sheet for Bubble’s eyes.

Next, I took out some round cutters in 3 different shapes.

The cutters were used for the eyes.

Cut some white circles with the biggest round cutter.

Top smaller circles of colored egg sheet.

Add nori on the eyes. Wrap the sandwich ball with food wrap so that the decorative bits can stick on well.

Top egg white again.

Then, I manually cut the leftover egg sheets as their hair and top on the sandwich balls. Repeat the process of wrapping the whole ball with food wrap for a minute or 2.

Next, punch some nori with a small smiley puncher and add it as their lips. So here are the Powerpuff Girls.

Powerpuff Girls Bento

My boy doesn’t like girlie bentos, so I didn’t decorate his after school meal.

Powerpuff Girls bento vs plain looking bento. LOL!

My boy’s class has show and tell every Wednesday and today’s topic is about their favorite food. He’s listed some of his favorite food and he should be bring this to school:

He loves corn, sweet potato, blueberries and nuggets.

He’s asked if I can fix him Naruto for show and tell, so I started preparing the egg sheets last night, and printed out the Naruto image which I found from the internet many moons ago. Oh ya, it’s a long pending bento theme.

Anyway, he was supposed to help me with the cutting but he decided to watch the idiot box at the every last minute. So, I did all the cutting!

Then this morning, he wanted to add nori on his own but his hand was too shaky. It’s been a while since he last used the tweezers.

Again, the mother helped.

So, here is his Naruto for show and tell.

Naruto Bento

He doesn’t look like the real Naruto but a cuter version. I managed to fix my gal Bubble from Powerpuff Girls with the leftover egg sheets.

Bubble Bento

Pardon her deformed eyes. 

After days of plain looking bentos, I decided to decorate 2 quail eggs for today’s snack.

Do you know who they are? They are Crayon Shin Chan and his dog. It’s a speedy bento, so maybe Shin Chan doesn’t look like himself. LOL! Anyway, my boy likes it.

But he has declared to me that maybe, just maybe he won’t need me to pack him after school bento anymore. He’s going to primary 1 next week, and he would like to buy food from the cafeteria like the rest. So, my boy has grown up huh?

Actually, packing kyaraben bento for my boy is getting harder and harder. As he grows, his interests have changed from simple characters as Pooh bear to harder ones like Ben 10 and Naruto. I can’t possible fulfill all his bento fantasies as much as I like. But it’s a great “journey” for both of us, and I’m glad that I have a blog which captures most of the bentos I’ve made for him over 3 years.

As for my gal, I might still be packing for her because she has to  wait for her brother before I pick them up from school. She will finish school earlier but I won’t be picking her up on time.

Lets see how things go when school starts next week.