Mothering Corner

Today’s bento is very simple, and my kids helped me with it. They were excited to see the confetti sprinkles I bought yesterday because they love sweets. What I did was cutting the pandan cake rolls into smaller pieces and arranging them as a Christmas tree. The tree truck is a piece of mini chicken wiener, and there is a little pressie (cut from striped cheese) placed under the tree. We slotted some strawberries and cherries to fill in the gap, but I guess they will move around, if the bentos are not being handled carefully. Oh well, it’s a kiddie bento (means that it’s done by kids), so as long as they love it, why kill their creativity?

So, here are the Christmas tree bentos:

My gal’s Christmas tree. She was so happy to spread lots of confetti sprinkles on it.

My boy decided to do something different with his star on the Christmas tree.

We managed to get the bentos done in 15 minutes, including the striped cheese. LOL! It’s a speedy Christmas bento that can be easily done by kids. Give it a try.

And BTW, I’m in holiday mood now, and I’m not sure if I will update this blog. With Christmas being 2 days away, I still have some shopping to do, an implant dentist Plano to visit with FIL, cleaning the house for our guests who’s coming for Christmas, and figuring out where to go for next week’s holiday. So, just in case I’m away from blogging…

MERRY CHRISTMAS everyone!!!

And a very HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

God bless.

Just as I thought that I can relax a bit this week, my boy was picked as the drum major for their school marching band. I thought that they won’t be having their sports day this year, since they already participated in an inter-kindy sports day a few months ago. But I was wrong, the school will still hold their own mini sports day in January, and the marching band has been practicing hard start from yesterday.

So, we have to drop him at school slightly earlier for the practice, and I can’t do much kyaraben in the morning, unless I wake up EARLIER than ever. LOL! Nonetheless, this is what I managed to do this morning, by repeating the same Santa Clause idea like I did previously but with different food ingredient. Santa’s head was done with a quail egg, topped with a cherry tomato. The beard was cut from kamaboko with a flower cutter, and the rest is almost the same as previous bento.

Hohoho! Santa’s playing peekaboo. LOL!

There are pasta Bolognese, mango, kiwi, guava and a rambutan in the bento. I packed another small bento with lots of fruits for him, just in case he feels like having more. Besides that, it’s getting chilly today, so hopefully he won’t catch a cold and need any prescription medication if he falls sick. Seeing those kids marching so hard on a windy day is simply impressive, but worrying.

On top of that, my boy might be very tired today because he has taewondo class after school. Yeap! Marching in the morning, then normal school lessons, and then taewondo, all in a day for a 5-year-old.

Hence, I packed some carbo and protein for him like a complete meal. If he sleeps through on the way home and can’t get up for dinner, at least he’s already taken a balance bento meal at our office.

My gal’s bento

I packed the same meal for my gal, but I doubt that she can finish it. I guess she will pass some of her food to her brother, and that’s what she does usually. LOL! Sharing food!!!

It’s another simple Christmas bento again. But today, I managed to snap some photos during the preparation and I shall share with you how I fixed the mini Rudolf with hotdog and the little snowman with quail eggs.

I cut the hotdog into smaller pieces. I only used the 2 ends.

Add a red nose for Rudolf.

Punch some nori and add the eyes and mouth.

Pin the quail eggs together with tiny spaghetti strip. Add a “scarf” for him.

Add the eyes, mouth and starry buttons for the snowman.

Pin 2 picks as Rudolf’s antlers and a small hat for the snowman.

Hence, here are the simple Christmas bentos:

My gal’s Christmas bento with Rudolf, snowman and some fruits.

This belongs to my boy.

I’m packing more fruits for the kids today as we will be having dinner at MIL’s place. She’s here for the holiday and she cooks for us mostly now. My kids won’t have to starve wait for the mommy to frantically prepare dinner after we get home in the evening, and hot meal will be served earlier by MIL. Thus, I’m packing lighter bento meals these days.

Hubby bought some buns last night, and I packed 2 in the kids’ bentos. Since the buns looked rather “boring”, I thought of decorating them as Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer by adding a cherry tomato and 2 mini chicken wieners on each of them. It’s something speedy and simple, and the reindeer were ready in less than 5 minutes (excluding the time used for boiling the wiener). LOL!

Rudolf, before he was allowed to join in any reindeer game.

And the happy Rudolf after he’s gone down in history. LOL!

Very simple huh? Their fruits were packed in the lower tier of these basket bentos and are not shown in this post.

My kids have been listening to Christmas songs these days, so I thought it would be nice to fix them some bentos based on their favorite Christmas songs. Frosty the Snowman is one of their favorites, and thus today’s bento is all about snowmen.

I prepared a slice of boiled kamaboko, a small piece of ham, an artificial crab meat and some blanched baby carrots last night. I cut 2 mittens for the snowman, as shown below:

Slice the top pink layer of kamaboko.

Cut an oval kamaboko.

Use a star cutter to cut off a small triangle. Alternately, you may use a knife.

There you have it, a pair of mittens!

I saw this mitten somewhere, but tutorial was not given. So, that’s how I cut my mittens. I wanted to snap the photos while preparing the snowman sandwiches and quail eggs this morning, but my kids were bugging me. So, no photos shall be shared today, but I guess you can figure out how I fixed the snowmen.

Anyway, there are the bentos:

My boy’s Frosty the Snowman bento, with some corn and fruits and a little snowman quail eggs.

Here’s a closer shot of his little snowman.

And here is my gal’s snowman bento:

My gal’s Frosty.

And her little snowman.

I accidentally broke my gal’s quail egg while pinning the carrot nose. But never mind la…she still said that it’s cute. LOL!

It’s been awhile since the last time my kids and I fixed bentos together. So last night, all of us decided to have some “playing-with-our-food” fun by fixing a mini Santa Claus. My boy did most of his Santa Claus by himself, but my gal was enjoying leftovers after cutting them.

I wanted to fix the Santa Claus with quail eggs, but I couldn’t get any last night. Thus, the eggs were replaced by fish balls. Besides that, I prepared a white egg sheet, a piece of ham, a blanched baby carrot and some tiny spaghetti strips. Here’s how we did our Santa Claus:

Cut the ham and egg white with a small flower cutter, and stack them together.

Actually, you may skip this step if your egg sheet is thick enough. But to prevent it from tearing, stacking it on a piece of ham will help a lot.

Cut off the top to form Santa’s beard. (The top was later used as my boy’s Santa’s mustache)

Pin the beard on a fish ball with spaghetti strips. (You may replace it with quail egg)

Cut a small heart from the egg white and cut it into halves.

Pin the beard and a nose for Santa.

Pretty simple huh? My boy had no problem fixing his own Santa Claus, but I helped him to pin on the details.

He used a bigger flower cutter though…

I refrigerated the bento work in air-tight container, and took them out this morning. I pinned the fish ball on a cherry tomato, and added the eyes and lips with nori. I’ve forgotten to add the buttons, which were cut by my boy, but I guess he’s forgotten about them too. LOL!

Mini Santa Claus

Anyway, here are the bentos:

My gal’s Santa Claus, with tangerines and spaghetti too.

My boy’s Santa, which he’s very proud of it.

You must be wondering how I closed the bentos huh? LOL! Actually, my gal voiced her concern too. She’s too worried that her Santa will smashed when I closed it, so my boy suggested that they packed the tangerines in smaller bento boxes. So, their Santa could nicely lay down in the bentos, and I filled in the gap with some lettuce. Both of them are sooooooo “kan cheong” about Santa, I guess they really like today’s theme.

It’s quite fun doing this with my kids, even if it might be kind of messy some times. My kids have been asking me to bake with them, but I’m too tired to do so by the time we are back from the office. Besides that, weekends are quite packed with activities and TV, and some times, the mommy is too lazy to do anything much. If I have a maid or central vacuum to clean up the mess, then maybe we will bake some cookies for Christmas.

In short, mommy is simply too lazy. LOL!

I can’t believe that I’m still fixing bento on Christmas! Ah…

I was a bit reluctant, that’s why I woke up later than usual. But then, my kids have to go to school for Christmas party, then normal class, and my boy has both taekwondo and English classes today. It’s a busy day for them, so I fixed them pasta with mixed veggie today, just in case my boy is starving after his extra classes. Sometimes, my kids will fall asleep on the way back home (after school and after our office hour), and they will skip dinner and sleep till the next day! So, a heavier bento will keep their tummies full for longer hours.

My kids’ bentos on Christmas Day with animal pasta & mixed veggie (hidden underneath the Christmas candy), Hello Kitty and Winnie the Pooh mini containers filled with tomato paste and some blueberries, kiwis and sapodillas as fruits.

I was running out of time to play with cutie details, but those candies already did a good job in beautifying the bentos. LOL!

One simple and lazy way to make the bentos look better huh?

Again, Merry Christmas!

P/S: I will go on holiday tomorrow, so there won’t be any bento until the new year. Firstly, we will go to Chiangmai, and then drive to a horse riding resort somewhere near the beach. I guess I won’t have time to go through the auto insurance quotes for our car next year, and will just dump the whole documents to hubby. So, Happy New Year to everyone.

It’s Christmas eve, and sadly, Christmas is not a public holiday in Thailand. *sob sob* We got Christmas trees at the office and BIL’s place, so maybe we will just have some drinks together tonight, instead of eating out. My kids hardly eat anything during the trip last weekend, and we are leaving again this Friday. So it’s best to eat at home to ensure that they have proper meals.

But today, I will spoil them with another Christmas bento.

My gal’s new My Melody lunch box is full with Christmas surprises….

Her favorite Hello Kitty on the cream horn and a little Christmas gift for her, which is actually a little piece of strawberry jam sandwich wrapped with nori.

A little Christmas tree candy, which will definitely go into her tummy first! And a little tangerine decorated with sparkling eyes nori. She’s been asking for tangerines for some time. Besides that, there are kiwi and strawberry too.

Just in case if you miss it, there is a stocking, reserved for Santa Clause’s present tonight. LOL!

Stocking, cut from chicken wiener and joined with a thin strap of spaghetti. I wrapped a thin piece of cheese at the top.

My boy is a bit upset that he didn’t get a new lunch box this time, so I had to use his Tomica lunch box. I’m still thinking if I should get Shinkansen for him…

My boy has to use the Tomica lunch box again and again…

His cream horn has a teddy face and of course, he has a little gift sandwich too.

A little Christmas gift candy is added, and his tangerine has a pair of winking eyes. There are kiwi and cherries too.

My kids are going to school tomorrow, ya, on Christmas day, but they will have a Christmas party at school. So, I guess I won’t have bento break tomorrow…

Merry Christmas everyone!

This are my first wasted bentos as my kids didn’t want to eat their meals. Both of them threw up in the car on our journey to the office, and we rushed back home to bathe them and clean up the mess. I decided to stay in with the kids while hubby went back to work. They didn’t feel like eating, but took a nap in the morning. They didn’t want to have lunch even if it’s afternoon now. I can see the cute bento meals doing to the dustbin, or my tummy, or hubby’s tummy later.

My boy’s bento with Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer, Santa Clause, broccoli as Christmas tree and his favorite roasted pork rib, which he didn’t feel like eating today! Oh ya, there are grapes to fill in the gap.

 
My gal’s bento with a bunny with a Christmas hat, and grapes as fillers. The roasted pork rib was hidden. The rice is slightly red as I mixed some organic red hom mali rice with jasmine rice. That’s how we cook our rice these days.

Nonetheless, I’m glad that they took some of the fruits which I packed as afternoon tea.

Rose apple, Thai orange, grapes and kiwi. They took a few and I keep the fruits refrigerated again.

If you are wondering how I made the Santa Clause, here’s the simple instruction. I actually used 2 different types of wieners in different colors. I saw some Japanese blogs making Santa Clause with sausages, so I wanted to give it a try.

I used a smoked chicken wiener and a mini wiener for the Santa Clause. Join the pieces together with a thin strip of spaghetti, and since it’s edible, don’t worry about it.

The beard was cut from a piece of cheese with a cookie cutter. Cut a thin strip to wrap around Santa’s hat too. Pardon my cheese with lots of holes as I don’t throw the cheese away and keep it for next use.

After that, I added Santa’s eyes and lips with seaweed and his nose with a tiny piece of ham. There you have it! My Christmas bento! Too bad it’s wasted la…

Hopefully, my kids will be alright and feel like eating again by the end of the day. They will definitely lose weight without weight loss pills, if they refuse to eat for days.

Arlene told me about this blog by R mama’s with lots of nice bento collections. The other day, I saw her making some cute gingerbread man cookies on her blog, but knowing myself well, I really don’t have time for baking! Thus, I decided to modify it and make a cute gingerbread man from cheese.

I don’t have a gingerbread man cookie cutter, if you do, it should be easier. I used the teddy bread cutter, like shown, but cut off the ears with a round cutter to form the head.

Cut out the shape with a teddy bear cutter

Cut off the ears with another round cutter. Be very careful not to cut off the other part but only the ears.

So, here’s the end result.

In each lunch box, there are garlic toasts, some Thai oranges, kiwis, mangoes and grapes.

The gingerbread man really sparks up the bento huh? The pink buttons and cheeks are cut from kamaboko. I added in a crab shaped mini wiener as protein source.

Some mothers asked me about how to cut the wieners nicely. I don’t know how the Japanese mothers do it, but personally, I like to freeze the wieners first. I will bring some out to defroze them a night before, or just place the wieners in running water to defroze it. It should be soft, but not as soft as the time we purchase it. I found that when the wiener is too soft, I can’t cut it nicely with a knife or sausage cutter.

If you are using the sausage cutters, make sure that you get the right size of wieners. If you can’t find the exact length, just shorten it.

A mini wiener for crab sausage cutter

After cutting, place the wiener in boiling water for awhile and the shape should be prominent in minutes. I hope that this tip helps.