Another one to go and it’s my first 100th bento! It’s exciting, but I’m not sure what should I do with my 100th bento. Maybe I won’t be packing one tomorrow too as I’ve been so busy this week, I need to catch up with my beauty sleep.
Chinese New Year is just a few days away and I’m not well prepared yet. I haven’t stocked up those drinks and cookies for my guests, haven’t washed the curtains, haven’t checked out Sferra linen for the beds and argh!!! There are so much to do!!! Did I mention that I haven’t started spring cleaning and we are leaving to the beach this Saturday once we pick up our guests from the airport? I’m rather panic on how to get things done, as some of them will be staying over at my place, and I haven’t cleaned up the whole place yet…
Anyway, I managed to fix bentos for my kids this morning as I woke up early. Since they won’t be having bread, which is pretty easy to prepare, I had to spend some time in the kitchen preparing the chicken rolls and steaming the sweet potatoes. At the same time, my boy found the airplane cutter in my toolbox and asked me to fix one for him. So, here’s how I did it:

I prepared 2 pieces of cheeses.

Use the airplane cutter to cut out the shape. Try not to do it in the middle of the cheese so that you will have bigger leftover of cheese for next use ( I managed to cut a teddy bear out from the leftover). The cheese got stuck with this cutter, so you might need to use a round pointed pin to gently push it out. I found that toothpick tear my cheese, so I prefer to use this pin.

Turn the cutter over and use it to cut out the fine details. I used the top layer of crab meat, kamaboko and high calcium cheese for the details, and you can use other alternatives. Just gently press them down so that you will get the shapes. You can do this free hand with a knife too, but I tend to use the cutters.
So, here’s the end result:

My boy’s Tomica bento with chicken rolls (topped with an airplane), some sweet potatoes (cut with a flower cutter), a sapodilla, some mangosteens, and a teddy bear peeping out from the kiwis. He likes the teddy bear peeping out in his previous bento, and he requested me to do this again.

My gal has almost the same food but I replaced the mangosteen with strawberries. She refused to try it that day and gave all to her brother. As for sweet potatoes, it’s my second attempt. She refused it the other day, even without trying out the taste! I will coax her into taking a small bite again later…
By all means, I don’t have to worry about my gal not taking her meal as her brother will most likely finish everything for her. LOL! My boy is not as picky as he used to be anymore, and he always finishes his bento, including the lettuce! I hope to see my gal eating like her brother one day, but for the time being, she’s still very picky. The only thing she eats more than her brother is junk food!!! Other than that, her brother “wins”.
Just in case I don’t update my blog tomorrow….
Happy Chinese New Year!!!