Mothering Corner

I had to drag myself out of bed this morning. It’s Monday, and I’ve never been a Monday person. LOL!

Anyway, I promised hubby that I would fix scrambled egg for him for breakfast, so I better kept my word. To make things easy on a “sleepy” Monday morning, I decided to fix the kids some egg sandwiches for their after school tea.

My boy likes egg sandwiches, but my gal will only take it when she’s in the right mood. She has always been very picky about eggs, and so far, she won’t reject hard boiled eggs. So, I hope that she will be hungry when she’s back from school, then she will be less likely to reject her sandwich.

In order to make their sandwiches more appealing:

I imprinted the bread with their favorite Disney characters.

You can use any bread or cookie cutters of your choice. I chose Tigger and Marie for my kids.

I outline the imprint with the cutter, but make sure that the sharp part is facing up so that you won’t cut through the bread.

Here are the bread with Tigger and Marie the Cat imprinted.

I made the sandwiches, as usual, but placed the imprinted bread on the top. Then, I cut off the excess and sealed the sandwich with this bread cutter.

Don’t put a lot of bread filling in your sandwiches if you opt for a nice seal.

So, here are the sandwiches:

Tigger and Marie egg sandwiches.

You can toast the sandwiches for a few minutes, if you want to have some color contrast. I didn’t do so as my kids will only have their tea by 5pm, and by then, the sandwich toasts will be soft again.

I packed their sandwiches in Pooh bear ziplock bag as they were too big for my bentos.

Egg sandwich in Pooh bear ziplock bag and some mango and grapes in smaller bento box.

There you go! Today’s bento meal is super speedy huh?

If you are interested, check out how I used the bread cutter for Sugarbunnies.

My kids wanted me to pack the chocolate bread for them again, but this time, my boy picked the Mickey cutter and hoped that I could fix Mickey Mouse for him again. Nonetheless, I told him that he already had a few Mickey bentos, so let’s try something different with the same cutter.

Tools for today’s bento (please click on the photo for bigger view at Flickr).

Today’s bentos are pretty simple, and they can be easily done.

My boy’s bento with a boy dressed in Mickey hood, and some custard apple, cherries and blueberries.

My gal’s bento has a little girl in Minnie hood. My gal does not like cherry anymore, so I packed her a strawberry.

The ribbon was cut from kamaboko, with a heart and a round cutter respectively. Just join the 2 hearts together and top them with a circle. You may add some tiny circles on kamaboko, just like Minnie’s polka ribbon.

Winnie the Pooh and Friends have always been my kids’ all time favorite, that’s why I keep repeating the same characters from time to time. If you are interested, check out:

• Fried Rice Bento with Egg Sheets
• Winnie the Pooh and Friends for Dinner
• Winnie The Pooh Cookie Bento
• Speedy Bento with Multi Cutters

But for today, I packed spaghetti bolognese for my kids, and decorated the bentos with Pooh bear and friends. Here’s the preparation I did last night, as it’s quite time consuming.

I traced a picture of Winnie the Pooh from this tissue pack on a piece of tracing paper (you can use mahjung or baking paper too).

Then, I tried to prepare the “shapes” for Pooh.

Please click on the pic to go to my Flickr for bigger view. BTW, you might need an art knife or exacto knife to cut the shapes of Pooh’s body and his tee.

I cut Pooh’s face from a piece of high calcium cheese with this cutter.

Then, I placed the paper cuttings on cheese and artificial crab meat and cut out its body and tee with the exacto knife.

Store the pieces of cheese in cling wrap and keep them refrigerated in air tight container.

Piglet was cut from a piece of ham with this cutter.

Sorry about the photos as all my indoor and outdoor lights are rather yellowish.

Anyway, here are the bentos, after packing in the spaghetti, kiwi, banana, rose apple and a small piece of guava:

My boy’s bento with Winnie the Pooh, Piglet peeping from the back and Eeyore.

Here’s my gal’s bento with Pooh bear, Piglet and Tigger.

My kids were in cloud nine when they saw the bentos this morning, and they could not wait to have their meals after school. LOL! Today’s bento is definitely one of my favorites, but it took me more than 30 minutes to prepare the ingredients last night, so it’s too time consuming for me. I would normally need less than 15 minutes of preparation a night before, and another 15 – 30 minutes in the morning. So, I won’t be fixing this kind of bento often.

Frankly, I did short cut in kyaraben, and the disadvantage of fixing it this way is, the pieces might move if you “swing” the bento hard. So, if you have concern about this, please do it the “proper” way like the Japanese mothers. Do check out this blog and see how it’s supposed to be done. I found that most Japanese bento-ers are very talented and they have a lot of patience!

At the same time, I packed a mini Mickey Mouse bento for my boy who’s going for an excursion today:

Mini Mickey Mouse Bento with bread, cheese, grapes and mini wieners.

Again, I love that chocolate milk bread!

I’ve always wanted to fix a bento, based on the characters of the lunch boxes. Thus, I prepared the details last night by tracing the details on paper, then place the paper on a piece of nori and cut them out with exacto knife. It sounds complicated, but I only did it for Elmo and Marie’s eyes. For the finer nori details, I punched them out with the shoe punchers and the smiley puncher by Carl’s. Elmo’s mouth was cut with a pair of scissors as it’s pretty easy to do so.

So, what I did this morning was to cut the fruits and lie them flat down in the lunch boxes, as shown below:

My kids will have lychees, mangosteens, strawberries and mangoes for their tea.

The bread was cut with the dividers of the lunch boxes, and since it’s symmetrical, I just flipped one of them to the opposite side to form Elmo and Marie’s faces. You can cut the bread with the lunch boxes too, but my white bread is not big enough to be cut as a whole.

I covered the fruits with antibacterial sheets first before placing the bread in. Therefore, the sheets will separate the bread from the fruits, and prevent it from getting moist.

The antibacterial sheets which I bought from CP, but you can use barans too if you don’t have the sheets.

Slot in the bread above the sheets.

Then, it’s all about placing in the details. Here’s the end result:

My boy’s Elmo bento

And my gal’s Marie the Cat

Needless to say, my kids were thrilled to see their bentos this morning. If the faces are not divided into halves, I would say that it’s one of my favorite “bento creations”.

P/S: Here’s another bento with similar idea. Do check it out!

My kids start their summer camp today, and it’s another “struggling” morning for all of us as we need to get up early and rush out of the house like normal school days. But I think we will all get used to it after this week.

So, I’m back to preparing simple tea bento for my kids, which they will take after school at 5pm. I decided to pack some peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwiches for them, and decorated the bread as Mickey and Minnie with these tools:

The Mickey cutters really make things easier for me. I used the cutters to cut the bread and cheese. You can use one of the cutters to cut the facial details too, but I preferred to stick to nori.
Here’s the end result:

My boy’s bento with peanut butter sandwiches, apple, some smoked chicken wiener, oranges and grapes.

My gal wanted to use her Minnie bento box today, and it fits today’s theme pretty well.

Mickey and Minnie will look nicer if I fixed with ears with nori, but I was running out of time. So, it’s more like simplified Mickey and Minnie, but my kids still like it.

BTW, I’ve just received a parcel from Susan today. Thanks Susan, for your wonderful prizes.

I’m in cloud nine to have your book, Susan!

 I know that the news about Bangkok is worrying everyone, but we are doing fine here. In fact, we were out of the city for the past few days, and by the time we came back last night, everything seems to be “back to normal” again. I know that Bangkok might sound like a “dangerous” place to be in since there are so many coups, demonstrations or crackdowns over the years, but most of the people staying here are not affected, but we just have to follow the news closely, and get ourselves away from the “hot spots”.

Last year, I accidentally went to the Government House, where the Yellows gathered to bring down the previous government. Frankly, we didn’t know that we were at the demonstration spot as we had just arrived in Bangkok not long ago. But there were road blocks and lots of police officers making sure that no one gets in, except those that sent in the food, daily supplies and medical stuffs. Ya, the Yellow demonstrators were well fed 3 times a day and well taken care of for many months, until they decided to seize both airports!

But this time, the Red demonstrators might have gone over board, and thus a crackdown is needed to bring order back in the city. I shall make a trip to the city center this weekend, and see if “everything has really gone back to normal”. I guess after all these nonsense, most tourists will be avoiding Bangkok and that will surely affect Thailand’s tourism and economy again. I surely hope that hubby’s sales career and trading business here won’t slow down further!

In short, thanks for the concerning emails and messages, we are indeed doing fine.

Since we are still on holiday here, and after a few days of trips away, we decided to spend a day at home doing nothing. I fixed my kids a simple lunch bento of Winnie The Pooh and Friends.

Here’s the tools used for today’s bentos.

Here’s their lunch. I prepared fried fish, stir-fried cauliflower, broccoli and carrot with pork, and 2 hard boiled eggs. Some of the egg yolk was used to mix with the rice so that it appeared yellowish for Winnie the Pooh. Their lunch included radish soup too, but it’s not shown.

And after some decoration, here’s the end result…

Winnie the Pooh and Friends Bentos

Ya, I cheated! LOL! I used these cute Tigger and Eeyore barans to add more friends for Winnie the Pooh. And Piglet was cut from a piece of ham.

Mmm…I should place Eeyore on the right of the bento huh?

Tigger is very happy that lunch is served.

After Songkran holiday, my kids will join a summer camp next week. I think I will be back to packing tea bentos every weekday again. Ah…my break is over!

I felt like fixing bentos for my kids before my bed rest, which starts tomorrow.

So, after some “discussion” with them, today’s theme is Marie The Cat. It’s not the same as the previous Baby Marie The Cat in Bento#101, and surprising, it’s not as hard as I’ve thought it would be.

I prepared a drawing of Marie last night to get a better idea on what to do this morning.

You can actually trace the facial details on paper, place it on a piece of nori and cut the details with a knife or scissors. But for me, I prefer to use my punchers and see if I can get the shapes as close to the drawing as possible. I used that heart puncher to get Marie’s eyes.

Since it’s school holiday here, I don’t have to get my kids ready for school. Furthermore, my mom is around to help me with them. Thus, this time, I managed to time myself on how long did I take to make 2 simplified kyaraben bentos. I started with cutting the fruits, frying the hams (some went for breakfast), and boiling a small piece of kamaboko. Then, I proceeded to cutting the bread with Marie cutter while waiting for the ham and kamaboko to cool down.

I used Marie The Cat cutter to shape the sandwiches.

Then, I used these cutters to form some ribbons for Marie.

Marie’s ears were cut from a piece of ham with the semi-circle of this Hello Kitty cutter. If I’m not mistaken, this cutter comes with rice molds too.

Then I added some details for Marie.

The nose was punched with the orange Carl’s puncher, and the eyebrows and double eyelids were punched with the pink puncher. The whiskers were cut free hand, and it took me some time to stick them on with jam. LOL! I should have cut some eyelashes for Marie, but I gave up. The eyes were cut with the tiny cutter on the right and I cut the cheese into smaller pieces to get the shapes of Marie’s eyes.

I used the circles from this shoe puncher to form the eye balls.

So, here’s the end result…

My girl’s Marie The Cat in her tiny Hello Kitty lunch box. She wanted to use this bento box from Sanrio, so I had to put her fruits in another lunch box for her. She cut the bunny, while her brother cut the teddy bears. I think she cut the tiny flowers too.

My boy didn’t place the nori this morning because he wanted to play with daddy.

So, how long did it take for me to fix 2 bentos? It’s about 50 minutes, from the beginning to the end. Most of the time were spent on Marie’s whiskers! But if I added the time I used for drawing and “brainstorming” last night, it should be an hour.

Happy Bento-ing!

We go for prayers on Sundays, mostly, and I will pack something light for my kids to eat in the car. Some times, the journey might take more than an hour to reach the temples, so the bentos will keep my kids occupied in the car.

Eeyore should be blue and purple, but I couldn’t make it. Thus, I simplified Eeyore by just putting in his face features on the sandwich. My boy still liked it though, maybe it’s because he knew that I had done my best to please him, even if it didn’t look like the real Eeyore. Besides that, he had his favorite sapodillas, grapes and Korean strawberries in his bento.

My gal had Piglet in her lunch box. I wanted to cut a bigger smile for Piglet, but it was ugly. LOL! I can’t wait to receive the shoe puncher from CP, I think the smile should be bigger than Carla’s Craft smiley puncher.

It didn’t take me a lot of time to prepare the bentos. It’s speedy, and my kids were happy with their meals in the car.

 It’s been very hot here in Bangkok.  You don’t have to bathe with electric tankless water heater, and it’s so hot, it’s hard to sleep at night.

I can’t sleep without air conditioning, but hubby wants the kids to sleep with the fan, after turning on the air conditioning for a while. He says it’s better for their lungs, or don’t know whatever reason it is. But I feel that my kids sleep lesser this way as they wake up earlier than usual for the past few days. I will normally get myself busy at the kitchen at about 6.30am when everyone is still sleeping. It’s easier and faster for me to cook and cut the fruits without distraction, but with my kids waking up at the same time as me, I’m rather kelam-kabut (chaotic) most of the time. LOL!

This morning, we had char siew pao (barbecued pork buns) for breakfast. When we first moved here, my boy craved for char siew pao, but we didn’t know where to find a dim sum restaurant. But after some time, we managed to find some Chinese or Thai restaurants with char siew pao but the buns were not as tasty as those back home. So, whenever we fly back for holiday, we will go for dim sum and my kids can have as much char siew pao as possible.

I’m not good at fixing buns, thus I bought the frozen char siew pao from the supermarket. All I need to do is just steaming them for 15 minutes and they are ready to be eaten. And of course, as I was busy packing today’s bentos, my kids already started snacking on the char siew paos. LOL!

What I had in mind were Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse. So, this is how I did it…

I cut the nori in circles to form their faces, and placed the nori onto the buns. Since the char siew pao has uneven surface, you might need some jam or butter to stick the nori on. If it’s still hot, the nori might “melt” on the bun, so make sure that you let the buns cool down first.

Then it’s all about adding in the details and packing the fruits. Here’s the end result…

My boy has a Mickey Mouse (char siew pao) in his bento, with lots of grapes, rose apples and strawberries. I used 2 grapes to form Mickey’s ears.

My gal’s bento with Minnie Mouse, and the same bento meal.

Some mothers asked where I got my ideas from and I think it’s a great idea that I share this out…

• Blog hopping. There are a few good blogs which I bookmarked. In fact, Kaerenmama showed how to prepare Mickey and Minnie with rice balls, and that’s how I got today’s idea from. It was an old post, so please go through her achieves if you are interested to see her tutorial. But if possible, I think it would be nice if we link back to the blogs because they are willing to share their ideas, and it would be nice to give the credit back to the blog owners.

• I have a few bento books, but after flipping through them for the first few times, I stop reading them. You can get some of them from Kinokuniya or maybe anywhere which sells Japanese books.

• Brainstorm with my kids! My kids have a lot of bento ideas, and in fact, it’s me who can’t fulfill their bento fantasy. I just keep them in mind, or write them down on a notepad. I’ll go through the notepad once in a while and think about the possibility of fixing them. If not, I will just KIV them.

• Pack frequently? LOL! I think I pack bentos like 6 days a week, either I like it or not. As you get used to it, it becomes easier. I hardly have bento break because my kids already got used to having their bentos, even on weekends. But sometimes, I will tell them that mommy needs a break.

• Having a lot of tools help a lot, but I try my best not to buy too much now. I already have a lot of bento tools, and I haven’t used all of them yet. There are a few ones which I use frequently, like the wheel cutters and the Carla’s Craft punchers. If you have limited budget, don’t buy a lot yet. Most likely, part of them will be ended in the toolbox and never see the daylight again. So, if I have time, I will “stare” at my toolbox and see if I can give those “less popular” ones a chance.

I think that’s all about it. Have fun bento-ing and enjoy your weekend!

One of my kids’ favorite books are Winnie The Pooh. I got them from Popular bookstore, way before I was pregnant. LOL! I know that I would read them to my kids one day, and when there was a sale like RM10 for 3 books, I grabbed a lot of copies. So, I guess I did the right thing as my kids love the books, and they will choose to read one or 2 of Winnie the Pooh books at bedtime.

Previously, my boy likes Pooh, then developed to Eeyore, and now it’s Tigger. I told him that Eeyore could be a bit hard for bento as it’s purple and blue, and I would have to use food coloring, which I try to avoid. Thus, he suggested that I try Tigger today. I don’t mind fixing one for him on one condition…He would to share his Poor bear lunch box with his sister.

My mom was right. She said that I’m spoiling my kids by decorating their food and they will be very demanding one day. LOL! But to me, if it’s within my “ability”, I won’t mind giving it a try. Besides that, it’s fun.

Here’s how I simplified Tigger. You can do it the method like most Japanese mothers do. Trace the character on a tracing paper, and use it to cut the cheese with toothpick or nori with scissors. But for me, I tend to use the cutters.

Prepare 2 pieces of cheese in different tones. The cheese are from Chesdale, which I prefer over Kraft (which melts faster based on my observation la…hope that they won’t sue me ). The Tigger cutter is part of the cutters I got from CP. I can’t find the link there, please check out her store or email her for more info ya?

Use the base cutter to cut out a shape on the cheese in darker tone. This is high calcium cheese from Chesdale, and it’s slightly orangish.

Use the same cutter to cut out Tigger’s Jaw on the cheese in lighter tone.

Carefully use any round cutter to cut of the excess part at the top. That’s what you will get when you stack the cheese together.

Cut out a small oval shape with any cutter. I used this cutter for Hello Kitty. As you can see, I have a lot of cutters, and I just “simple hantam” any that can cut out the shapes I want.

For Tigger’s ear, just cut out a small circle, and cut off the excess part.

Then, I placed all the details on nori and cut an outline for them. Actually, you can omit this step if you want. But if you want to have a black outline, the shapes should be smaller. I didn’t take note of this, so it’s a lesson learned.

Cut out an oval shape to form Tigger’s nose.

Here you go, Tigger is almost done.

For Tigger’s eyebrow and stripes, I used this airplane puncher. I cut off the head and tail of the airplane, to get a shape like shown. The rest of the details were punched with Carla’s Craft punchers too.

So, here’s the complete bento:

My boy’s bento with a piece of strawberry jam sandwich topped with Tigger, some mangos, kiwis, blueberries, cherries and a dwarf apple. You can get the dwarf apples at the grocery section at Siam Paragon, or the organic fruits section at Tops (but the organic apples are slightly different in colors).

BTW, if you are too busy to mingle with cutters and details, get these cute Disney barans from CP. They will certainly spark up the bentos in seconds!

My gal didn’t want Tigger, but Piglet. Too bad I don’t have the cutter, so I could only do a small one with the wheel cutter (also from CP, but I can’t find the link anymore).

My gal can use Winnie The Pooh lunch box this time! This lunch box is smaller, but suits my gal’s appetite. She will have the same bento meal with a smaller sandwich.

Both kids will have a banana each later, which I packed separately. So, they should be very full after their tea.

P/S: Sorry ya? This post is very lengthy…