Mothering Corner

My kids love Toy Story 1 and 2 and they have been looking forward for Toy Story 3 for many months! It will only be shown in Thailand next month, so they have been asking us to bring them to the cinema since they saw the poster. On top of that, they requested Woody and Buzz Lightyear bentos too, which I’ve tried my best to squeeze out some time on Monday to fix it.

I was having a long weekend, so I made good use of my day off to fix the egg sheets and cutting the details. Everything was frozen until last night. I could have done the preparation yesterday, but we were out and about. Hey, it’s my long waited day off, thus I wanted to check out some clothes and lingerie at Paragon too.

Anyway, here are the bentos:

Woody Bento for my boy

My initial plan was to fix a smiling Woody, but I gave up on cutting his mouth. That’s why I just replaced it with nori. LOL!

My gal prefers Buzz Lightyear.

I think my Woody looks kind of weird. Maybe he’s too simplified.

My kids like ultraman, and they have a collection of ultraman movies in Thai. I don’t understand much about what they are talking about, but ultraman always fights with a monster (or alien) and he always wins. LOL!

We brought the kids to ultraman stage show once, and my oh my, there were so many ultraman fans! All these kids know the names of different ultramen, and you bet we spent a bomb getting some merchandises for our kids.

Don’t be surprised to see my boy running around in ultraman costume too, and he likes to wear it to the playground in the evening, WITH THE MASK! Luckily, he has a few friends who like to wear hero costumes to play, so he’s not too awkward.

These are the ultraman bentos I fixed for my kids this morning. There is a piece of SPAM sandwich (bread at the bottom) decorated as the monster with cheese and nori, and a little ultraman quail egg. Again, I’m not sure which side should the ultraman puts his arm, so I fixed 2 in different positions.

Besides that, it’s my gal who requested this ultraman bento! Thank god she has not requested an ultraman costume just like her brother, but she has an ultraman figurine, which she plays a lot too. LOL!

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.

Tomorrow is my gal’s 4th birthday, and I thought of fixing Princess Ariel, the mermaid for her since she used to ask for Ariel bento. But when I told her about my plan days ago, she said, “I don’t want Ariel bento anymore. I like Pucca now.” O.o

I know Pucca from the cartoon, but I hardly pay any attention to her when my kids are watching TV. You see, I use the TV as my babysitter to keep the kids occupied when I get myself busy in the kitchen. So, I Googled for Pucca last night, and hey, it’s quite a simple character!

So, I used a quail egg, wrapped with nori as Pucca’s head, and joined it on a strawberry as her body. I arranged the pork chop (cut into smaller pieces) as a 3-tiered birthday cake and added a candle cut from kamaboko. There are fried noodles with enokitake and minced pork, broccoli, and edamame in the bentos too.

My gal’s Pucca, and her “birthday cake” in today’s lunch bento.

Since Garu is a boy ninja in black, I fixed him by joining 2 quail eggs wrapped with nori, instead of using a strawberry.

My boy will have Garu, the ninja, whom Pucca loves a lot.

I haven’t packed buns (pao) for quite some time because my kids don’t like them anymore. Their taste buds change from time to time, so it’s best to pack their “preferred” food at the moment to avoid food wastage. I’ve always wanted to fix Hamtaro again since it’s so cute. But without using pao, just like the previous Hamtaro Char Siew Pao Bento, I resolved to using cheese with this cutter:

Rilakkuma cutter

It’s a last minute decision, so I didn’t have time to snap the step by step photos. Hopefully, you can figure out how I did the cheesy Hamtaro.

My boy’s Hamtaro and garlic bread bento, with lots of fruits too.

My gal’s Hamtaro has a smiley expression because I was running out of time to cut the eyes.

From the way I arranged the fruits, I guess you can tell that I was packing these bentos as fast as I could. LOL! I was trying my best to slot everything in before running late. It’s been awhile since I last pack papaya too. My boy doesn’t like papaya and kiwi, and he will only have them at school due to teacher’s pressure. I hope that he will finish his papaya and kiwi today!

My boy has been asking me to fix him Ultraman Max (I don’t know why my boy calls Ultraman as Ultraman Max ) for some time, but I really dread the idea of fixing a comic charaben, especially if you want to make it looks real, the preparation takes a lot of time. Thus, I decided to simplify Ultraman by using quail eggs as his head and body,  kamaboko as his arms, and I added cheese and nori on his mask.

Ultraman bentos, with garlic toast (I used hotdog buns), apples, grapes and oranges.

I have no idea if the arms are placed on the right, or on the left? My boy showed me his DVDs but none is showing Ultraman’s signature pose!

My boy likes garlic bread a lot and he wanted a BIG piece of garlic bread in the bentos. So, I could not squeeze in more oranges for them, and had to use 2 smaller bento boxes.

Oranges in smaller bento boxes of Pankunchi and My Melody and Piano. I got them from Sanrio.

Even if my boy is very happy with today’s theme, he asked me why didn’t I make it more real. O.o Now you know why I haven’t fulfilled his dream of having a full-bodied Power Ranger bento. It’s just too taxing for me in the morning! :P

Sigh…I think fixing a cute bentos is easier than fixing a superhero character. LOL!

My kids love char siew pao (barbequed pork buns), and previously, I did a char siew pao bento before, and this is my second attempt. I wanted to fix something like Hamutaro (or Hamtaro), so I cut some cheese and ham last night, and thought that I would speed things up in the morning. But then, I realized that I might have to reheat the char siew pao if it’s too hard and cold by the late evening, and cheese is not suitable for heating up. It might melt and I don’t think my kids like the taste of cheesy char siew pao. LOL!

Thus, I prepared an egg sheet in the morning, and quickly cut out the shape out with exacto knife. I would say, you must get an exacto knife because it definitely makes things easier in bento-ing! Then, I cut the eyes from nori and punched a few more details with a shoe puncher and Carl’s smiley puncher. Everything was done in lightning speed so I didn’t have time to snap any photo while preparing the bentos.

Besides char siew paos, my kids will have mangosteens, cherimoya (nona), blueberries and lychees too.

Here’s a closer shot of Hamutaro:

Tottoko Hamutaro is a hamster, but I think mine looked more like a cat. LOL! The ears are cut from kamaboko, and pinned to the buns with spaghetti strips. Then, I placed the egg sheets and hams on the ears.

 Oh well, it’s worth trying it out, and maybe I will fix Hamutaro again and make it more lookalike.

I decided to fix Miffy again because it’s speedy and simple for a Monday morning. Today is the first day of the new term at my kids’ school, so we had to send them to school slightly earlier.

I bought this set of Miffy cutters from Bento Market, and it comes with 2 cutters in a set. I already used one of them in Bento#142, if you are interested, please check out the link.

My gal’s bento with Miffy strawberry jam sandwiches, ham, strawberries, mangosteen and rambutans.

My boy’s Miffy has a “deformed” yellow tee. I accidentally smashed the cheese while placing it on Miffy.

I was trying to get the bentos ready as quick as possible, so I didn’t have time to redo the cheese. I hope my boy won’t mind about it…

Obviously, I got the idea from Kaerenmama. Doraemon is something my gal’s been buging me for some time, but I just KIV it for as long as I can remember. LOL! When I saw her Doraemon tutorial, I was so happy! Finally, someone shared Doraemon tutorial, and Kaerenmama never fails to make things simpler for bento-ers.

But again, I modified her creation to better suit my kids. I hardly pack rice for them, except bento lunch. Since my kids have their bentos in the evening, bread is a better option. And if you are new here, please take note that I keep the bentos in the fridge at my office, that’s why I pack fruits for them. To avoid the bread from getting wet due to close contact with the fruits, you can use some barans or silicon cups.

I cut the bread and the facial details last night, so it’s easier for me in the morning. I hardly prepare nori in advance, as I did it before, and the nori curled up. I’m not sure what’s the reason, maybe I didn’t put a pack of silica gel in the container, and the nori got moist. So, what I really do in the morning are preparing the fruits, packing everything in and adding the details.

The tools for today’s bentos

For my little gal’s convenient, I prepared smaller sandwiches for her.

The details prepared a night earlier. I stored them in wrapper and keep them refrigerated in container. That’s the drawing I prepared for nori, and how to fix Dorami’s face. 

If you are wondering how much time I need, frankly, I’m not sure either. LOL! After putting my kids to sleep, I will get downstairs to do some simple preparation, if possible. I hardly watch TV, and we don’t have home theater furniture nor a nice home theater at home, so maybe that’s why I have more time?

I will wake up at 6.30am these days (ya, later than last time liao ) and start preparing. By the time my kids get up at 7am, it’s a bit hard to concentrate on my bentos. I will be juggling there and here with hubby’s help. Everything has to be packed and everyone has to finish breakfast before 8am, which is the time we get the kids ready for school. That’s why I’ve never timed myself! LOL!

I spent some more time cutting the fruits today because I bought some mayounchit. Ellena, it’s mayounchit, and SIL told me that it’s not mango, but just a fruit. They called it maprang too and they are so small!!! Besides that, I packed some Khewsawei mango, black plums, blueberries and edamame (hidden under the blueberries) in the lunch boxes too.
So, here’s the end result:

My boy likes his Doraemon. Mayounchit is the orange fruit.

My gal’s bento has Daraomon and his sister, Dorami.

Since I fixed Doraemon with bread, you need some jam or butter to stick the nori on to it. If you are using rice ball, please check out Kaerenmama’s blog.

We don’t have to rush on Saturdays mostly, so I have more time to prepare 2 sets of bentos for my children. The first set is for lunch, while the other set is for tea, after their nap. Since I have more time to kill, I decided to fulfill my boy’s wish and give him a Power Ranger bento.

He wanted a red Power Ranger, and I have no idea what’s his name. I searched around for his photos and some bento blogs with that ranger, and got some idea on how to fix it. I used the red part of the artificial crab meat as the base, or if you have red color rice, it will be easier. Just form a rice ball, cover the top part with artificial crab meat and add in the details with cheese and seaweed. Since the rice ball is quite small for my boy, I added in an ultraman (but not lookalike though), which is much easier to fix. LOL!

Besides that 2 character rice balls, my boy’s bento has blanched broccoli, some ginger pork, edamame and 2 cherries.

My girl’s U*SA*HA*NA is pretty easy as I have the rice mold from Sanrio, but the only problem is, you can’t take out the rice mold from the base, so I just left it there to hold the shape. Apparently, she likes the pink kamaboko, and I added some for Melody.

My gal’s U*SA*HA*NA rice with ginger pork, broccoli and some carrots.

For afternoon tea, my kiddos will have sushi, edamame, mango and kiwi.

My kids’s bentos for tea

 So, that’s all for today. Have a nice weekend everyone.