Mothering Corner

I’m kind of out of idea what to pack for my kids lately as I can’t do pizza or garlic toast without an oven. The renovation workers can’t fulfill their promise of completing my kitchen AGAIN so I’ve given up on rushing them. Thus, there isn’t much variety in my kiddos bento meals.

Then it strikes me that I haven’t made sausage bread rolls for some time. Oh, I didn’t bake the bread rolls but just roll the sausage on flatten sliced bread. After that I cut them into tiny bites and decorated them as boys and girls.

Boys for my boy, of coz.

And this is for my gal.

I packed some blueberries and oranges too.

It’s Valentine’s Day, but we won’t be doing anything special. Hubby is not the type who celebrates special occasions and to him, Valentine’s Day is too commercialized and just wanna rip off $$$ from lovers. Some times, I wonder how I ended up with an unromantic guy, but whenever he’s helping out with house chores and laundry, I know the reason why!

A Valentine’s Day bento for my gal.

I prepared the decoration while waiting for macaroni and cheese to cool down for packing. The mouse was made from quail egg, kamaboko and the heart was cut from mini wiener. Her grapes were packed separately in a smaller lunch box.

I did a speedy and simpler decoration for my boy.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Things are not going as fast as I expected. My kitchen is still not ready!!! It’s just a hassle trying to prepare breakfast and bentos in the morning without a proper cooking area and a kitchen sink. Sigh…

But then again, my kids are still pleased with their meals, even if the mother can’t seem to do much kyaraben as planned. I wanted to fix a cute dragon with mini wiener but it didn’t turn out what I had in mind. LOL! Pardon the zigzag cutting line on the dragon as I cut the wiener with a spreader, instead of a proper knife. That’s how unorganized my kitchen is!

Year of Dragon Bento

Since the dragon doesn’t look like one, I spelled it out with cheese. LOL!

I must admit that my bento skill has deteriorated  after the long rest.

I can finally breathe this week. We are still pretty busy, but at least things are getting back in pace. Furthermore, we might have found our new place, which I haven’t made up my mind yet. Everything will be finalized in a week, and once it’s done, I can at least stop house hunting for a couple of years. It’s not one of those fancy Table Rock lake homes but 2 small condo units which we shall break the walls and join as one.

So, I’m back to simple kyaraben this morning. I fixed the kids some mini pizzas, and decided to add some animals peeping up in my gal’s bento box. Here’s how I prepared the animals:

I prepared 2 fish balls and 1 mini wiener.

cut one of the fish ball into halves diagonally, and cut the ends of the wiener diagonally too.

For the second fish ball, cut them into thin slices.

Do the same for the “leftover” wiener too.

Next, I used these cutters to cut the decorative bits.

Cut the pig’s ears with one of the cutters.

Cut a line at the top end of the wiener to slip in the ears.

Cut the nose and secure it with a bit of spaghetti strip.

Repeat the same process for the mouse and kitten.

As for panda, I added blueberries as its ears.

Then punch some nori and add them as facial details.

The last but not least, I pinned the animals on the mini pizza with bits of spaghetti strips. You can deep fried the spaghetti strips first before using them. So, here is the bento:

My gal’s pizza with kitten, mouse, pig and panda looking up.

For today’s bento, I packed a mini pizza for my gal, and topped it with 2 pieces of mini wiener, decorated as a little girl. I will share the preparation photos some other day. Workload is driving me nuts now!

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.

I caught my kids watching Shaun The Sheep some time ago, and I love it! It’s soooo cute, simple, and funny. It’s something relaxing to watch, besides Tom and Jerry and Mr. Bean. :p

So when my kids requested me to fix them Shaun The Sheep bentos, I could not find a reason to turn them down. My initial thought was to fix with cheese and nori, by tracing and cutting the details with exacto knife. But then, I changed my mind yesterday. I came out with this idea of fixing the characters:

I prepared some sandwich balls and quail eggs wrapped with nori.

Try to wrap the quail egg with nori and wrap it tight with food wrap for a few minutes to ensure the nori sticks well to the egg.

Join the nori-wrapped quail egg to the sandwich ball as the sheep.

I decorated a mini wiener, joined with ham ears, as Bitzer the sheep dog.

Then I added the eyes and a cap pick for Bitzer, and here are the bentos:

My gal’s Shaun the Sheep Bento.

That’s her Bitzer the sheep dog.

And this is for my boy.

Of course, I had to do some food arrangement before I closed the bentos so that I won’t squash the details. These Rilakkuma and Korillakkuma bentos are great, they are tall enough for 3D kyaraben.

Too bad my gal’s Shaun was totally blocked by Korillakkuma’s nose.

My boy is requesting sandwich balls again. He totally loves the sandwich balls, especially the chicken floss inside. LOL! I wanted to try tuna or other fillings but my kids are picky with can food, so far they haven’t tried tuna nor sardine. Anyway, I used chicken floss again, but this time, besides preparing the sandwich balls, I prepared a mini wiener too.

I cut the mini wiener into halves.

Then, I joined a sandwich ball and a piece of wiener together, and decorated them as a mushroom. I topped some red artificial crab meat and smoked cheese on the mushroom heads, as you can see from the bentos:

2 little mushrooms in my boy’s bento, with kiwi, apple and grapes too.

This is for my gal. I’ve just realized one of the red flowered dots is torn.

Actually, my gal is not going to school today, so the bento shall serve as her afternoon snack. She’s still resting at home for another day, and she will be back to school tomorrow. I hope that both my kids stay fit and healthy from now onwards as I skip too many days of work and lost some weight taking care of them. I’ll probably need some vitamins for weight loss drastically now. LOL!

My initial plan was to make a zoo bento, but then, due to my crazy workload this week (mommy’s out of breathe soon), I could only fix a simple giraffe.

This is what I did this morning:

I boiled some mini wieners and a quail egg.

Cut off the end of a mini wiener.

Do the same for another piece, but cut it off diagonally.

Cut the quail egg into halves.

Join all the pieces together with spaghetti strips.

I secured the wieners onto the sandwich (to prevent them from moving around) with 2 bits of spaghetti strips. I added 2 food picks as its tiny horns.

Then, I proceeded to add some nori and more details on the giraffe. So here are the bentos:

My boy’s little giraffe. He said the nose area looks like a smiley face. O.o

This is for my gal.

Actually, I thought of wrapping the wieners with egg sheets first so that the giraffes will have the right color. But oh well, you may give it a try.

When I mean simple, it’s really very simple. This little fish can be done in less than 5 minutes, after you have got everything packed and ready. All you need is a small mini wiener cut into thick slices, a heart pick, and some nori and kamaboko (or artificial crab meat) for facial decoration.

So, here are the little cute fishes:

My gal’s little fish, swimming towards the octopus.

My boy’s fish has 2 picks, and I love the crown.

The picks nailed the wieners to the bread, so the fishes are well secured. As for the bubbles, I think they will move around if my kids snake the bentos.

Here’s what I did previously, but it’s a goldfish bento.

P/S: This bento was added to What’s for lunch Wednesday Week 4 as well.