Mothering Corner

It’s something simple again for today’s bento. My initial plan was to fix a brown egg sheets for Chip and Dale, but I was out of eggs. So, this is what I did yesterday:

I cut the cheese with the cutter and mold.

Try not to press hard with the imprint mold. What I wanted was to get the outlines of the chipmunk, then I cut off the excess cheese with an exacto knife. You can also use a toothpick to cut the cheese.

I wrapped the cheese pieces and kept them refrigerated. This morning, I cut some bread with the same cutter, and fixed some butter and sugar toasts for today’s bento. Once the toasts cooled down, I topped the cheese on them and added nori as decoration. The nori bits were punched with the chipmunk puncher, which came in the same set.

So, here are the bentos:

My gal’s Chip and Dale bento, with strawberries, blueberries and rose apple too.

This bento belongs to my boy.

When my boy saw his bento, he asked me why are there only 2 chipmunks but not 3? I was puzzled, then I realized that he was expecting to see Alvin and the chipmunks!

But I fixed Chip and Dale! LOL!

Ok, next time boy! I think the same set can be used for Alvin and his friends too.

Stitch and Marie sets

The kids wanted me to use the new tools for their bentos, so here they are:

My boy’s Stitch Bento with sandwiches, lychees, cherries, baby carrots and some stacked ham and cheese.

Too bad I don’t have Stitch bento box for the theme so I’ll order one for him next time.

My gal picked Marie the Cat for today’s bento.

Both kids bring after school bentos to school since yesterday. The teachers help them to keep the bentos in the fridge until 3.30pm, so I still have the option of packing fruits. The fridge is located in the pantry where the fresh milk is kept, the kids are served with 2 times of fresh milk daily.

The teachers actually encourage them to bring after school bentos, that’s why they don’t mind keeping the bentos and bring them out for my kids after school. My kids will still be taking the lunch and snack prepared by school, but if I’m late in picking them up after school, they can help themselves with the bentos first.

Most of the kids will buy junk food and ice-cream from the cafeteria, but I only allow my kids to help themselves with rubbish junks on Fridays, on which they will bring some pocket money to school. I know that the temptation is there.  Even if I prefer them not to have any, I can’t just let them be “aliens” among their friends. Thus, we came with an agreement that they can buy ice-cream or junks on Friday. After some time, I will tell them that if they don’t spend the money, they can save it up.

For the time being, I’m so sure that they will go grab junks like their friends! LOL!

Here’s the bento I planned to submit for VIRTUAL BENTO BOX BATTLE but I didn’t. Interested to know the reason why? It’s because I have forgotten to snap a photo of me holding the bento!!!!

How to enter:
Send an email by March 31 to bentobattle@japansociety.org with the following information.
Attach 1) a JPEG of your bento design and 2) a JPEG of you holding your bento (for verification only, not for display). Photos should be less than 20 MB combined.

I’ve been very busy this week, so a lot of things tend to slip off my mind. The bentos were all eaten already, and I don’t want to redo.

Anyway, let me explain how I came out with this idea of Mickey and Minnie meeting the Nippon brothers. If I would to go to Japan, I would love to visit the Tokyo Tower. It’s a famous landmark in Japan, so I’m not going to miss it. The Noppon brothers are the mascots of Tokyo Tower. Besides that, Mickey and Minnie are “originated” from US, and almost everyone knows Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

I’m trying to create a bento based on this mission:

• The mission of Japan Society: “…to bring the people of the United States and Japan closer together in their appreciation and understanding of each other…”

“Mickey and Minnie meet the Noppon Brothers” bentos symbolize the strong friendship between US and Japan. All characters were cut from ham, cheese, nori, artificial crab meat (for red) and kamaboko (for pink).

Mickey Meets older Noppon Brother Bento for my boy. Both characters are shaking hands.

My gal’s Minnie Meets younger Noppon Brother Bento. He’s giving Minnie a flower as a token of friendship.

I had a great sense of regret when I realized that I have forgotten  to bring my camera to the office, if not I would have snapped a photo of me holding the bento. But now I realized that I can just do it with my phone!!! Argh!!!

So, in short, I would give this bento war a pass.

I’ve lost count of the number of Pooh Bear and friends bentos I’ve fixed over the year, but my kids love them a lot, so I decided to repeat this theme again. But this time, Tigger and Piglet would have the limelight instead of Pooh. LOL!

The bentos before decoration.

The sandwiches were cut with these cookie cutters, as shown above. There are kiwi, grapes, rambutans and strawberries in the bentos too. It’s very windy and cool in Bangkok, so I hope that my kids won’t get any running nose by having more fruits daily.

I decorated the sandwiches with cheese, nori, ham and kamaboko. Most of the bits and pieces were cut last night, and nori was added this morning. My boy helped me with Tigger, but I had to “touch” up his work after that. As the result, we spent quite some time on today’s bentos!

My girl’s Piglet and Pooh bento.

My boy’s Tigger and Pooh. He loves his pinkish nose.

We were running late but my boy still insisted on snapping his Tigger.

I was very touched to see him bringing out his camera and snap a photo of his bento. It showed that he appreciated my effort and his is proud of helping me with his meal.

Both my kids were very sensitive with food when they were babies. When I first supplemented my boy with formula milk at 9 months old, he was admitted to the hospital for cow milk intolerance, and it scared the h*ll of me as a first time mother. I was pregnant with my second baby, and my milk production subsided significantly. Besides that, I had low lying placenta and a few bleeding episodes and my gynae was against the idea of me breastfeeding during pregnancy. So, I had no choice but to wean him off.

But after that incidence, I was very careful with the food I introduced to my babies, especially my gal. Egg is definitely something I try to avoid, including seafood. She had very sensitive skin and mild eczema, and even her skin doctor took her skin photo (some kind of unidentified rash) as case study. LOL! Nonetheless, I’m very glad that they slowly grow out of “these problems” as they are older now. However, they are very picky with those “sensitive” food which I avoided when they were younger.

My gal only took hard boiled quail egg at first, that’s why you hardly see any chicken egg or fried egg in my bentos. But recently, she loves eggs! Any form of eggs! I’ve been trying to introduce eggs to them for a few months, and I’m so happy that both of them love eggs now.

The trick is…I let them prepare their eggs. My kids love to crack the egg and beat it up by themselves. They will request to mix some carrots or tomatoes or meat in their eggs, just like scrambled eggs, but some times, they will just take it alone. By getting them involved in food preparation, they are more keen to try new food now. But I still haven’t let them cook their eggs on their own yet.

Since both of them love having eggs, I have more food options for their bentos! Yippie! Not to mention, it’s easier to order food or eat out as eggs are pretty common at buffet breakfast. Mmm….one less worry about food when we are out on our trip to one of the south beach hotels next time.

I guess I will be fixing more egg sheets in their bentos, and there is so much we can do with egg sheets.

Fried rice covered with egg sheet, decorated as Pooh bear

Another egg sheet bento decorated as Pikachu.

 That’s what I prepared for their last weekend, with just a simple fried rice but decorated with egg sheets. Too bad the egg sheets were not nicely done, my “skill” must have gone rusty after a month of holiday. LOL!

Today’s bento is something simple again, and the main tools used is this mickey veggie cutter.

I prepared both Mickey and Minnie last night, when my kids were occupied by the idiot box. They will take every opportunity to watch TV in the weekends since they can’t watch any on school days. They will also stop by the bell tv at the shopping complex just to check out the programs, if we pass by one. LOL!

I didn’t snap any photos during the preparation of Mickey and Minnie, but here’s a summary of what I did last night:

1. I cut the ham as base for the characters by using the veggie cutter.
2. Trace the outline of the cutter and cut a piece of Mickey-shaped nori with an exacto knife.
3. Place the nori on the ham.
4. Then, cut a piece of cheese with the cutter and cut of the excess cheese with an exacto knife so that you will get the shape of Mickey’s face.
5. Stack the cheese on nori.
6. Repeat Step 1 – Step 5 for Minnie.

I wrapped the decoration pieces in food wrapper and kept them refrigerated in an air tight container. The face features were added this morning, after I’ve prepared the sandwiches and fruits.
Hence, here are the bentos:

Mini Mickey and Minnie in Sandwich Bentos

Here’s a closer shot of one of the bentos:

There are raspberry jam sandwiches, 2 tangerines topped with a smiley strawberry and a dwarf apple in each bento.

It’s easier to prepare both bentos with the same decoration. I shall do this more often to speed things up!

My kids love the chocolate milk bread from Oishi, so I bought them a loaf yesterday. This bread is yummy to be eaten on its own, that’s why I love to pack bentos with it. I only cut the chocolate bread with the stitch cutter set, and decorated them with cheese and nori. So, it’s a simple and speedy bento.

Stitch cutter set

Besides chocolate bread, I packed some strawberries and kiwi in the bentos too. Hence, here they are:

My boy’s Stitch Bento in his new Cinnamonroll bento box.

This is my gal’s Stitch bento.

I don’t have any ham left in the fridge, so I cut the ears from kamaboko which is too pinkish for Stitch. Anyway, the colors are quite striking, so my kids didn’t complain about their bentos. Actually, I think they are too sleepy to even realize what’s in their bentos when I showed Stitch to them this morning. I’m still trying to “tune” their biological clock and get them in bed earlier because they stayed up very late during their holiday. I need to get them in bed at least an hour earlier so that they can wake up easily in the morning. Right now, it’s a struggle to get them out of their beds, and I don’t think they can even hear the alarm of the emergency alert system too if I have one!

My kids wanted 2 different themes in their bentos, so I started the preparation last night. My boy wanted chocolate milk bread again, while my gal wanted Piglet and Pooh (my new cutters). Actually, it didn’t take a lot of time to do a simple preparation the night earlier, especially if you are a working mother or one who needs to rush out of the house just in time, like yours truly here. LOL!

I did the preparation at the dining table, while coaching my kids with their homework. Frankly, my kids’ school does not give a lot of homework, and their work is pretty simple. It’s totally unlike most schools in Malaysia, which are quite hectic and stressful. Maybe that’s why my kids love to do their homework, which is pretty fun. While I was cutting the bread and cheese, my boy was doing his cut and paste homework on letter “Q” while my gal did her coloring and tracing.

For Kuromi, I cut the chocolate milk bread (from yesterday’s bento) with a round cutter for her face, and two diamond shaped bread for her ears.

Then I cut a circle from cheese.

Cut off the crescent at the top of the circle so that the cheese looks slightly oval now. You can also use an oval cutter, but I can’t find the right size in my toolbox.

Cut a V with an exacto knife or normal knife. 

After that, I wrapped the cheese and kept it refrigerated. I boiled a small piece of kamaboko and ham too.

I trace a small circle on kamaboko, and cut the shape of a skeleton.

 The ham was used for Kuromi’s nose and tongue, and Piglet’s ears. Please refer here for Piglet’s tutorial . The whole preparation took about 15 minutes, but if you are preparing one bento per day, you should take lesser time than me.

So, this morning, I just had to wash and cut the banana, oranges, strawberries and blueberries, which were all packed in their bentos. Thus, here’s the end result:

My boy’s Kuromi Bento. I think her eyes are too small since I punched it with nori puncher.

My gal’s Piglet and Pooh bento.

 If some preparation is done a night before, you might need to spend just a few minutes more on punching nori and decorating the bentos. Most importantly, the end result is all worth it.

P/S: If I’m not mistaken, Kaerenmama showed a tutorial on how to fix Kuromi some time ago. Please go through her archive if you are interested. 

I guess I should stop posting about Mickey and  Minnie bentos huh? LOL! If you have gone through my older posts, you might have seen the same characters over and over again.

Actually, what my boy requested for today’s bento is a snake, and I was clueless on how to fix one for him. Any idea on how to fix a snake? He even showed me his books about snakes and reptiles and asked me to refer to them. LOL!

But the lazy mommy was trying to fix something simple and fast (ya, again and again) so I suggested Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Luckily, my kids agreed!

My boy’s bento with Minnie kissing Mickey.

My gal’s bento has Minnie only as she has a smaller appetite.

The two characters were cut from chocolate milk bread and topped with cheese, nori, ham and kamaboko as decoration.

I didn’t pack much for my kids last week as hubby was away from the office, and I brought my kids straight home after school. My kids were pretty glad that they didn’t have to tug along with us for a few more hours while waiting for daddy to finish his work. But start from this week, it’s back to “hanging around” at office after school, and they need their tea bentos again.

I didn’t have anything special in mind, so I decided to use the Pooh bear rice mold as a bread cutter. It’s been awhile since I last used this rice mold, so I better dug it out from the tool box.

Cut the bread with Pooh rice mold.

However, this rice mold is not sharp enough, so it’s not easy to cut into the bread. If you have the Pooh toast cutter, I would suggest you use that cutter instead.

To minimize wastage, I cut the leftover bread with a bunny cutter.

I cut a small piece of ham with the mini Piglet cutter. Cut a small triangule from kamaboko (pink fish cake) for its nose too.

Use the same cutter, and cut the ears for Piglet. Just cut off the excess with a knife.

 
Stack the kamaboko ears on the ham. Then, proceed to adding his eyes and lips with nori (sorry, photo was not taken!)

After that, I packed the sandwiches, quail eggs, cherries, blueberries, mangosteen and papaya in the bentos.  Thus, here’s the end result:

Pooh Bear and Friends bento for my boy

A rabbit family bento for my gal.

Those are the bento names given by my boy.