Mothering Corner

My kids complained that it’s been so long since they did kyaraben, thus I let them fixed their own decoration for today’s bentos. Our theme is the characters from The Wizard of Oz, which is one of their favorite books at the moment. Both kids picked their favorite characters, except the Tin Man. Poor thing, no one wants the Tin Man in their bentos. LOL!

As for scarecrow, it’s too hard for my kids to fix it, so I resorted to use a pick. Most of the characters were cut from cheese, with various cutters, and I helped them to add in the seaweed. So, here they are:

The Coward Lion and the Scarecrow bento

My gal’s Dorothy and her dog Toto.

My gal can only manage cutting cheese with cutters. So after stacking the cheese on nori, I helped her with the cutting.

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.

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 let my kids fix their meals once in a while, and I would like to share how I do this with them.

Out of the blue, my boy wanted “to play with his food” last night, but I didn’t prepare any ingredient for him. Thus, I asked him to draft out his idea, and I promised him that I would fix one for him the next day. If you would like to get your children involved in decoration their meals, try to get them to visualize how they want the lunch box to be decorated. If they are too young for visualization, you may ask them to draw a picture first, like what I would usually do with my kids.

My boy’s drawing his favorite train.

After that, you might have to spend some time brainstorming with them about which food can they use in their lunch boxes. Try to go for colors like cheese for yellow, carrot for orange, ham for light pink and etc. Some times, I would let my kids pick the food from the fridge and freezer, and I will prepare the food ingredients according to our “discussion”. If you don’t have time for that on the same day, you can always keep their drawings away and do this during your free time. I guess I can put my kids drawings in art storage soon as they are so many pending food ideas! LOL!

I try not to pack process food every day, and I prefer to pack more fruits for my kids. I don’t worry much about those tiny details of ham, fish cake and artificial crab meat as I only use them in very tiny bits.

Try to get your kids involved in cutting the bread with cutters, and also decorating the food, if he’s old enough to use the tweezers. Just make sure that their hands are clean before they start off with the food! Rice molds are great for kids too, and it’s not too hard to form the rice balls, if you have some fancy rice molds. If you are preparing the food decoration a night before, try to wrap the food ingredient in cling wrap and refrigerate them in air-tight container. So far, I haven’t tried refrigerating rice balls as I hardly pack rice for after school tea.

For older kids, you can get them involved in packing food into their lunch boxes. Silicon cups and food dividers will be great to separate different types of food. For example, if you don’t want the bread to be moist by fruits, try to place the bread in silicon cup first. Then, add in the decorative details you and your children have prepared. Even if the end result might not be exactly the same as their drawings, it’s still a great achievement for kids.

My kids will have a satisfying smile on their faces if they take part in preparing their meals. Nonetheless, cleaning up the after mess can be quite tedious, if you don’t have an extra pair of hands at home! But it’s fun, so give it a try.

I bought some cutters from Daiso yesterday. Again, it’s an addiction. Whenever I go to Daiso, I will surely check out the bento tools (more like baking tools) section and see if I can resist myself from getting more tools. Anyway, I brought these cutters:

Simple shape cutters

Frankly, I don’t have anything in mind when I bought those cutters. But when I showed them to my kids last night, my boy wanted to try them out. He picked the house and airplane cutters and thus I asked him to draw a sketch with a house and a plane, so that he has an idea on how to decorate them.

He told me that he wanted a house with a lot of windows, a door WITH a DOOR KNOB (Haha!), a plane in the sky, some clouds, the sun, a bird and some flowers.

My gal asked her daddy to start for her, and then she continued her drawing by herself. She wanted a house, the sun and a bird.

After that, I talked to the kids about picking a few main “characters” as it would be hard to fit everything in. So, after some “brainstorming” (and washed their hands, of course), my kids started their bento work.

My boy’s working on his bento decoration. He can manage on his own with my guidance now.

As for my gal, she did what she does best….play with the food and eat it!

She tried to slice the steamed carrot with her toy knife. So, it was so smashed, I could not use it for the sun. LOL!

After my boy had done with his “work”, I wrapped the pieces in cling wrap and refrigerated them in air tight container. I did the decoration work for my gal since she didn’t do much.

So, here are their bentos before decoration:

It’s just something light with sandwiches, custard apple, strawberry and watermelon.

And here they are after I placed in the details:

My boy’s bento. He took a big piece of ham! LOL!

That’s why his sister is left with a smaller piece of ham, which is only enough for the roof and a flower.

Here’s the little bird requested by my gal…

I cut an oval, a circle and a small triangle for its wing. The beak was a tiny bit of carrot, which I managed to “save” last night.

My boy is happy with today’s bento. I guess it means a lot to him since he made the decoration part by himself.

P/S: If your kids do not like the taste of cheese and fruits, please replace cheese with egg sheet.

My kids have having a short break until Wednesday, and we don’t have plans to go for a trip. Besides that, my boy is still down with flu and he passed the flu bug to me! Thus, it’s best that all of us spend a few days at home, instead of spreading the flu bug around.

Anyway, my kids and I were quite bored today, so we decided to “play with our food”.

Our simple lunch consisted of teriyaki salmon fillets, stir-fried spinach and minced pork and the spare ribs were still roasting in the oven when this photo was taken.

As for bento decoration, I boiled 2 pieces of artificial crab meat, a piece of ham, 2 pieces of fish balls and also prepared an egg sheet.

I let my kids play with the round rice mold, which I got from Daiso. My boy knows how to use most of the rice molds, but my gal still needs our help. I let her koh koh fix the rice ball for her, while she just cut some circles from the ham. After some explanation, my boy proceeded to adding nori on the faces, and I’m glad that he’s still pretty good at holding the tweezers, even if he has not done this for some time. I helped my gal with the nori since she still can’t hold a pair of tweezers well.

After the rice balls were done, I helped the kids to pack the onigiri and dishes in their bentos. My gal couldn’t wait to have her meal, and she kept picking up her rice ball! Thus, her onigiri was slightly deformed.

She chose the purple ribbon and the duckling pick from my toolbox. Too bad she tore the artificial crab meat when the pick was inserted. But overall, I think she did a great job pinning the ham onto the face.

My boy’s bento, and I’m so proud of his work! He chose Shinkansen picks, and even if they don’t quite match the rice balls, but I should respect his choice huh?

The best thing of getting kids involved in preparing their meals is, they are more keen to finish the food. But then, my kids managed to finish 70% of the meal by themselves, while I fed them the rest. Both of them likes to leave the veggie behind and if I don’t feed them, they will just leave the veggie untouched!

Oops, it’s Sugarbunnies again! LOL! I just have to use the Sugarbunnies rice molds, which I bought recently at Sanrio. Besides that, I think Sanrio is promoting Sugarbunnies here as there are a lot of new items with the 2 cute bunnies, and even Sanrio shopping bags are printed with Sugarbunnies, instead of Hello Kitty.

So, I used the rice mold as a bread cutter again, and trust me, you can easily cut the bread with it! I cut the bunnies from white bread and milk bread, since I planned to pack both types of bread for my kids.

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

Their noses and ears were cut from cheese and ham last night and stored away. If you ever wonder what will I normally do with the leftovers…

I let my kids “play” with the cheese and ham. My boy likes to cut the shapes and keep some away for his bento.

As for my gal, she prefers to slip all in her mouth. LOL!

There’s hardly any food wastage as most of the leftovers were eaten. As for the leftover of fresh fruits (after I cut them in shapes for my kids), I will pack them in another bento box for hubby and I at the office. The shapes might not look good, but we don’t mind about it.

Hence, here are today’s bentos:

My boy’s Shirousa sandwich bento with kiwi, watermelon,grapes and cherries. The milk bread sandwich was stacked behind the white bread.

And my gal’s Kurousa sandwich bento, with the white bread stacked behind as well.

I decorated the sugarbunnies with some flowers (my boy helped to cut some), just like what I saw on Sanrio’s shopping bag. They look lovely with the flowers huh?

It’s Friday, so have a nice weekend ahead!

I wonder if I should stop numbering the titles? It’s getting nearer to Bento#200, and I wonder how much further will I go? LOL!

It’s been awhile since I last involved my kids in bento-ing. They have been rather busy since school started, but they are still keen to have “fun with their food”. Thus, last Saturday, I let them fix their own tea by coaching them on how to cut the bread into shapes, pack some fruits and decorate the bentos with picks.

I got these animal picks from Daiso some time ago, and my kids have been bugging me to use them. They are quite long, so they are great as skewer picks. Here’s what my kids had come out with…

My boy packed his tea by himself, with some help from me. He also chose a dog pick to be placed on his cherimoya.

On the other hand, my gal was trying to have a nicer meal. She only cut the bread and asked me to “finish” the rest for her. LOL! That’s why her bento was neater.

It’s really nice to see them putting in their effort , even though my gal had only participated for a little while. She likes banana, and I think banana is great for digestion, probably just as good as Bowtrol.

My bread tasted nicer because I cut them myself.

 It’s a bit hard to get my kids involved on weekdays, and partly it because we come home late and they have some homework to complete. Nonetheless, I will try to fix their bentos for them, as long as they love it.

Today’s bentos are speedy and simple again and I got this idea from Sugarbunnies, which are 2 cute puppies from Sanrio. I was trying to get the cutters but to no avail. Thus, I fixed the puppies from quail eggs as shown below:

This is my boy’s bento, with 2 puppies. I didn’t do a good job in dyeing the brown puppy, so there are patches of browhish spots. LOL!

My gal will only have a puppy due to her smaller appetite.

The quail eggs were pinned to the sandwiches with spaghetti strips to prevent them from moving around.

BTW, I might not be packing bentos for my kids daily for the next 2 weeks since my mom will be here with us. Hubby is going on business trip so I might not come to the office as often as I do. Thus my kids won’t have to be “stuck” at work with me after school and I can bring them straight home!

I will only pack for them if there is a need, so I’ll slow down in updating this blog.

I’ve almost forgotten about Mother’s Day as the Thai people don’t celebrate Mother’s Day in May, and I only realized this after reading some blogs for the past few days. Thus, today’s bento is about Mother’s Day, and you can ask your kids to fix one for you because it’s pretty easy.

I prepared some heart shaped butter and sugar toast (I think Kel blogged about the recipe some time ago), and also cut the cheese and ham with these cutters:

The heart cutters.

Then, I let my boy did the food arrangement in the lunch boxes.

I helped him with the nori details because he had to start taking his breakfast before he’s late for his art class. My gal didn’t help out because she preferred to fill her tummy instead of packing food. LOL!

So, here’s the bentos:

Two simple and speedy bentos with toasts, ham and cheese. There are some grapes and Thai oranges too.

Here’s a close shot of my boy’s bento.

I think most kids can manage this, if they are interested to do something special for their mothers. If you are wondering why I didn’t get my bento, it’s because I don’t think anyone at home has any idea that it’s Mother’s Day tomorrow. Hubby must have forgotten about it as well.

In short, Happy Mother’s Day! And don’t over eat until you need weight loss pills ya!

My kids love pandas, especially the 2 giant pandas they saw at Chiangmai Zoo. Thus, we wanted to fix pandas again, but by using rice. If you are new to this blog, you might want to check out Bento#100 which featured pandas too.

At first, I suggested that we fixed Kungfu Panda or Terapanda, but my boy didn’t agree with it. He just wanted a simple panda. So, as soon as I’ve prepared the lunch dishes and bento ingredients, we got ourselves busy with preparing the bentos. I don’t know why my boy is so keen in fixing his own bentos these days. I joked to hubby before that our boy’s girlfriend will be very lucky to get bentos from him, if he is still interested in bento-ing when he grows up. Ok ok, I’m thinking too much. LOL!

Back to bentos…Here’s the simple drawing I did and some of the ingredients and tools needed.

I prepared 2 different rice molds because both my kids have different appetite. The pink rice mold is smaller and that’s for my gal.

After explaining to them on how to fix the pandas, my boy started on his own. He could easily fix the blueberries onto the quail eggs, with 2 tiny strips of spaghetti. I had to help my gal with this.

You can use blackbeans too, but I was running out of beans.

Then, I helped them to fix the eyes. I used artificial crab meat, instead of cheese for the white part. So, it will be easier to reheat the bentos, if you prefer hot meals.

My boy took over and added the noses and mouths.

My gal got herself busy with rice molds. Sorry about her messy hair, I should have tied it up.

Then, it’s all about putting in the dishes and food arrangement. Here’s the end result:

My boy’s lunch bento with pandas, chicken and potato stew, and stir-fried spinach with minced pork. I decorated the bentos with some steamed carrots.

My girl’s lunch today. She started to take some eggs, but she didn’t finish everything in her bento just now. But I’m glad to see her eating more already.

Both of them had lunch with soup, so I don’t have to worry about the rice getting cold after fixing the bentos.

If you are interested to see other blogs with pandas, check out this and this.