Mothering Corner

Just an update, the renovation starts again this week! My flooring is done, but my KITCHEN is not!!! And the wallpaper in my living room, my boy’s bed, and some touching up here and there. But we are almost there…I think. I’m getting used to cooking and preparing meals with limited resources anyway, so I guess I can just hold on and be more patient until my stove and hood are installed!

Back to bento-ing. I did a quick kyaraben again this morning, by decorating cube cheese before topping them on ham and cheese toasts.

These cube cheese are tiny!!! But aren’t they cute as Hello Kitty and Melody, without her ears? LOL!

My initial plan was to decorate a Shinkansen for my boy, but he wanted the cube cheese to be boys with hats. So, this is even easier than I thought!

Let’s assume that the boys are boarding on Shinkansen.

Shinkansen is my boy’s favorite train, which he yearns to ride on for years. Ok, let’s see how mommy’s biz goes this year, and maybe…maybe we can plan a trip to Tokyo in the near future. Let mommy sell more sensors and odyssey pc925 batteries first then.

It’s my second attempt in creating a dragon bento, especially after my boy said that the previous dragon looked like a cow.

Due to time and space constraints, I decided to make a speedy bento with sandwich balls and quail eggs, instead of fulfilling my boy’s wish of having this dragon.

I would be out of my mind if I want to fix that dragon!

So, instead of picking a kyaraben challenge, the mom decided to do a simpler one.

Another dragon bento, with sandwich balls, quail eggs and fruits.

And a girlie dragon for my gal.

Happy Chinese New Year everyone!

It’s Mother’s Day tomorrow, and even if it’s not celebrated here in May on the land of smiles, I still feel like packing one for my kids. They will have this tea bento by the swimming pool in the afternoon.

Here’s how I prepared today’s bento:

I started by flattening the bread with a rolling pin.

Spread some jam on the bread and roll it up. Since it’s flattened, it’s unlikely to tear.

Wrap the sandwich rolls with cling wrap for a couple of minutes to hold the shape.

Then, cut the sandwich rolls into smaller bites. Since I planned to decorate one as mommy and another as a kid, I cut them in 2 different length.

I wrapped them with red artificial wrap meat and kamaboko.

Spread some jam on nori and wrap it on as fringe. Then, wrap the whole piece with food wrap so that the decorative bits will stick onto the sandwich.

I cut some cheese as fringe too.

And again, wrap them up with food wrap.

After that, I punched some nori for facial details and added them on sandwich rolls. So, here are the bentos:

Mommy and daughter bento for Mother’s Day.

The little girl gave her mother a stalk of rose.

Ok, it should be carnation but it’s easier to fix a rose. Just roll a small strip of kamaboko and pin it with spaghetti strip.

Here’s my boy’s bento, with a little boy giving his mommy a smooch on her cheek.

To all mommies, Happy Mother’s Day!

I am so not ready for Chinese New Year this year. So far, I’ve only done some shopping for my kids, and got them some new clothes. As for hubby and me, I will do it later during LUNCH HOUR!!! Did I mention that I haven’t change the angpao (red packet) money? It should be hubby’s responsibility but he said he won’t have time today, so he shall  try at the ATM tonight. OMG….

I couldn’t even get up early this morning for bento-ing, I mean I thought of fixing a nice Chinese New Year bento. So I could only came out with something simple like sandwich balls, wrapped in nori and ham. I should have used a bigger piece of ham for wrapping the sandwich balls, but I only cut them in circles, so I couldn’t wrap the sandwich ball as a whole. One lesson learned.

Anyway, here are the bentos:

My gal’s Happy Chinese New Year Bento, with bunny kids.

My boy’s bento.

Happy Chinese New Year to everyone. May the Rabbit Year bring us a lot of prosperity, health and wealth.

It’s a brand new year, and hopefully it’s going to be a great year for us. Our kids are back to school again after a short break, and mommy is back to bento-ing. I fixed them some sandwiches, nuggets, and fruits in their after school meals, and I added a quail egg decorated as a bunny to signify Year 2011.

My gal’s New Year Bento

This is for my boy.

Again, Happy New Year everyone and I hope that all of us will have a great year ahead.

I wish to have a white Christmas, and it’s been years since the last time I saw snow. Too bad Christmas is not a public holiday in Thailand, and it’s a working day for me! Argh…

Even if I can’t enjoy the cold and festive holiday abroad, I can still check out the pretty Christmas decorations at the malls. Most have set up Christmas trees, log furniture decorated with elves and stockings, reindeer, and etc. But so far, I haven’t seen anyone dresses as Santa and giving out candies to little children.

With the joyous mood around, I feel like packing a simple and speedy Christmas bento today. I saw a blog with an apple craved as Santa Claus and I thought that I should give it a try. Instead of fixing Rudolf like last year, I decorated a mini wiener as an elf.

Cut apple into triangular bites.

Cut 2 lines on the leather (don’t cut thought the apple), and imprint a small circle in the middle. Then, gently peel of the skin.

I immersed the apples in a bowl of salted water for a few minutes, and continued with fixing an elf from mini wiener and red artificial crab meat.

Ingredients for elf.

Wrap half of the wiener with artificial crab meat.

Then, I proceeded to packing everything into bentos and added nori for the facial details. So, here are the simple Christmas bentos:

Santa Clause and Elf Bento, with a piece of “Christmas tree” sandwich.

Here’s my gal’s Santa and Elf. She said they are cute.

Yippie! My kids are back to school for the new term today, and my office is back to being an OFFICE, instead of looking more like a daycare center. No more pillows and matouk or blankets scattering on my office sofa, no more toys and iPad lying around on the floor, and no more nuisance and noise! I admit that I miss them being around but I can work in peace now with them being back to school.

Both kids took a while to get up early this morning, but they didn’t fuss much at breakfast and getting ready for school. Actually, they are excited to meet with their friends again and they packed some jelly for their friends too.

I was running out of idea and time again this Monday morning, so I came out with 2 simple and speedy bentos, which took me less than 15 minutes in packing and decorating.

My gal’s back to school bento with quail eggs, chicken nuggets, apple, rambutan and strawberries.

This bento belongs to my boy.

Have a great time at school, kids!

I come from a family with breast cancer history. Both my mum and my aunt are breast cancer survivors, so I know how important it is to create an awareness about breast cancer, and to encourage all women to do a monthly self breast exam. Nonetheless, I’ve lost my discipline, especially after having kids. I used to check once in a while, and some times, those block milk ducts can be rather confusing.

Anyway, I know how a lump feels like as I’ve touched my mum’s before. So, if you are not sure how a self breast exam is done, do check out the link. I must remind myself to do this every month now!

I only came across this Pink October Event yesterday, and oh boy, I’m just in time to submit my bento! Needless to say, I rushed out this simple bento as soon as I’ve reached home and prepared the dinner. So, here it is:

A Pink Ribbon Bento

Since it’s a last minute bento, I fixed some sandwich balls, and I’m getting very good at fixing them in lightning speed. LOL! The pink ribbons are kamaboko, and I added 2 tiny ones on the girls’ hair. Of course, I added some fruits too.

If you are interested to participate in this Pink October Event, you still have a few hours away!

My kids are off to their holiday camp starts from today, so I’m packing them a simple bento each, just in case they are hungry after a day of activities. Besides that, I might not be able to pick them up on time, so the bentos will keep them occupied first. FYI, my kids are always the last to leave school because the mommy is quite busy at work.

2 weeks ago, I started reading a book about Halloween with them and they really love it. It’s not the spooky type of story, in fact, it’s rather amusing. So, I promised them that I will try my best to fix a simple but cute Halloween bento as shown below:

My boy’s Halloween Bento

As you can see, there are sandwich balls (shaped like ghosts), a quail egg which is supposed to be an owl, a piece of blanched carrot as Jack-0-lantern, and some kiwi (hidden beneath the owl) and some mangoes.

Here’s my gal’s bento:

Obviously, my gal loves strawberries.

Pretty simple right? Too bad my kids don’t like anything spooky, if not, I can work out something scary, which they might just dump the food away. LOL!

I know that it’s way too early for Qixi festival, but I felt like fixing a Qixi bento after watching Karate Kid. I really like the movie, especially the breathtaking scenes and the kungfu actions. My boy likes it too but he felt asleep before it’s over, while my gal basically closed her eyes as soon as the fighting scene started in the very beginning. *slap head* She doesn’t like any movie with fighting scene, so she preferred not to watch and felt asleep shortly after. LOL!

FYI, Qixi festival is celebrated as Chinese Valentine’s Day. It falls on the 7th day of the 7th month in Chinese lunar calendar, so it should be in August this year.

Actually, I wanted to dress up Niu Lang and Zhi Nu but I was running out of time. So, these lovely couples (made from quail eggs) are kind of under decorated in the bentos.

My gal’s Qixi bento.

This is for my boy. I should have filled up the gap with lettuce but I don’t have any.

Besides quail eggs, there are butter toasts, some apple, kiwi and rambutans in the bento too. I cut a mini wiener diagonally and joined them up as a heart.

A close up of my boy’s Niu Lang and Zhi Nu

I think some Japanese bento blogs, such as Ssmama and Mari Miyazawa, have started this theme too. Do hop around…