Mothering Corner

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.

We are back from a short trip to Korat and Muek Lek, and it’s so tiring! The drive to Korat from Bangkok is only less than 3 hours, but it took us more than 7 hours to reach there on Friday as the traffic was very slow on the road. It’s public holiday and long weekend here, and if only there are 10% of Bangkok people getting out from the city, that will be more than 1.5 million of cars heading out on the roads. Aiyo…so bad traffic la…

Luckily, I packed something for my kids on the road, and besides milk and numerous stops for drinks, they had these bentos in the car too.

My kids don’t normally eat meat and veggie when we are traveling. They would just go for plain rice and pasta. Weird leh… So, I packed some corn, chicken rolls, a quail egg and deep fried prawns for them. They had a Santa Clause candy each as sweety treat too.

For fiber intake, I packed some fruits for my kids. My boy doesn’t eat pineapples, so he had some local grapes and a cherry.

Anyway, my back hurts after the long hours drive, and my left foot is hurt after the long walks at the sunflower field, but not to the extend of needing the Plantar Fasciitis la. It’s just so tiring la…

It’s been a busy day for me, but I started the day earlier than usual, and this morning cool breeze was great. I had such a good feeling when I opened the door and windows to get some fresh air, like I do every morning, and I decided to make some snowmen for my kids. Both of them haven’t seen a real snowman before as we haven’t brought them to colder countries with snowing, so they were puzzled with the snowmen. LOL!

My boy’s bento with a little snowman

I saw some Japanese blogs with snowman from quail eggs and it’s really not hard to make one. Instead of using toothpick to join the eggs together, I used tiny carrot stick as I’m afraid of choking my kids. The scarf was cut from the top part of artificial crab meat and wrapped around the “neck”. The nose was actually carrot stick again and the details were punched with seaweed.

 There are 2 pieces of garlic toasts with cheese and LOVE spelled with ham, a snowman, some kamcort oranges, grapes and a piece of sapodilla. The lettuce is used to “cushion” the sapodilla so that it won’t smash easily. No cherry tomatoes in my gal’s HK though…

I’ve gone through my photos in the flash memory and I found that my bento creations have improved. It’s really something good as I can see some progress over the past 3 months. Most importantly, my kids enjoy having their bentos, and that’s my greatest reward.