Tuesday 31 January 2012

Tiger Bento

Argh, I lost my tweezer this morning, the one I used for adding on nori to my bentos. I've no idea where it went, I suspect I threw it away while washing up yesterday. And for the record, if that is really the case, it's the second one I've lost. :( I felt so handicapped adding nori this morning without a tweezer, I was struggling between my chopsticks, scissor and toothpick. :P I mananged to buy another pair at a bookstore just now, that will tide me over for the time being, as I've an important bento for tomorrow, a promise from almost a year ago that I've to keep. :)

IMG_1484
Bento for IT, in the box are beef/spinach rice, chicken nuggets, cheese, sunny side up, strawberries and blueberries.

IMG_1486
Bento for LT, same stuff in the box as above. Hehe, there was no space for one of the tiger's ear. :P

IMG_1480
Bento for IT's recess, in the box are nutella sandwich, chicken nuggets, sunny side up and blueberries. The egg is fully cooked for this box as I'm not sure whether it's safe to keep the half-cooked version till recess.

IMG_1477
I was not too happy with the position of some of the nori bits, but I had great difficulty trying to adjust them without my tweezer, so I just left it. :(

IMG_1495
Beef/spinach rice and sunny side up in a bowl for me. :) LT did not want his egg, but I ended up throwing his yolk away coz 2 egg yolks would have been too much for me.

Monday 30 January 2012

Cinnamoroll and Mocha Bento Again

I made Cinnamoroll again today. LT asked for him after the bento last Friday. He's relatively easy to do and I like him too, so I dun mind making him. lol.

Mocha and the mini Cinamoroll are made out of fondant. The original idea was to use quail eggs, but I could not get any yesterday, despite visiting 4 supermarkets. :( I managed to find a pack of fondant at home, so I decided to mould them out of fondant instead. The boys were happy to find this rare sweet treat in the bento today. :P

IMG_1474
Bento for IT, in the box are onigiri, fondant, meat patties, sausage and egg sheet. My fridge was out of fruits. :P

IMG_1475
Bento for LT, same food as above. He did not eat the egg sheet but he did eat the kamaboko. :P And the egg sheet wrapping the sausage broke, so I covered up by placing Mocha there.

IMG_1463
Bento for IT's recess, in the box are nutella sammies, fondant, sausage, egg sheet and meat patty.

IMG_1465
The 3 bentos that I made today.

Friday 27 January 2012

Cinnamoroll and Mocha Bento

It was a mad rush to complete the bentos in time this morning. :( Nope, the bentos were not tough to make, but I seem to have this problem when I make simple bentos. I will have a tendancy to wake up later and dilly-dally, and I end up rushing most of the time. On the other hand, when I make tougher/time-consuming bentos, I will pre-mould onigiri and pre-cut cheese the day before. And I am always done rather fast in the morning. Hiaz. I must kick this bad habit! :(

I did Cinnamoroll and Mocha today. They are characters from Sanrio. :)The boys love Cinnamoroll because he is a boy! lol.

IMG_1357
Bento for IT, he had pork floss roll, ham/cheese roll, pork chops, spinach tamago, kamaboko, strawberries and blueberries.

IMG_1360
Bento for LT, same food as above. I love the flower made out of kamaboko, but you seldom see it in my bentos, because LT does not like them. And yes, I ate up his flower. :P

IMG_1354
Bento for IT, he had strawberry jam roll, pork chops, sausage and blueberries.

IMG_1356
Bento for LT, same food as above.

IMG_1352
Cinnamoroll and Mocha rolls. lol. :) Rather messy layout!

IMG_1367
Clearing up the luncheon meat (SPAM) in my fridge, so I made fried rice with them. I also added in eggs, prawns and broccoli. The peking pork chops were from last night, recipe from Rasa Malaysia. Love her recipes, I've her cooking book as well. :)

Thursday 26 January 2012

Mario, Luigi and Yoshi Bento

I'm back again, as the boys are back to School again. We had a good Chinese New Year break, stuffing ourselves with all the goodies. Now, I need to make some plans to diet again. lol. :P

For the bentos today, I pre-moulded the rice and pre-cut out the cheese while the boys were taking a nap yesterday afternoon. I managed to take step-by-step photos and I hope you will find them useful. :)

IMG_1340
Mario, Luigi and Yoshi. I'll start off with how to do Yoshi. :)

IMG_1300
First, you find a photo of Yoshi, size it and then print it out. The next step is to trace out your picture on parchment paper. I do not own a printer, so I usually sketch out my picture instead.

IMG_1301
Cut out the picture and decide how many layers you want.

IMG_1302
I am using cheese, as LT hates egg sheets. :( Cut out the outline with a toothpick.

IMG_1303
I will be doing 3 layers, these 2 cut-outs will be the second layer. :) You can wrap your cut cheese in cling wrap and store them in the fridge.

IMG_1305
And this is my last layer, Yoshi's eyes and nose.

IMG_1309
And these are what I use to color my cheese, I prefer to use the spray mist coz you just have to spray it on and wait for a while for the color to settle. :)

IMG_1326
And this is the completed Yoshi. I colored the cheese and added on the nori this morning. This is IT's box for recess, he had peanut butter sammies, blueberries and meat patty.

IMG_1284
Now, we go on to making Mario and Luigi. I usually use this deco furi to color my rice. You can find it at Daiso. It comes with a mild salmon flavour, the boys love it.

IMG_1286
You just have to pour in when your rice is still warm and mix it up.

IMG_1287
Mario checking out on the color. lol. :)

IMG_1288
Mould Mario face using cling wrap.

IMG_1290
Luigi face is longer.

IMG_1291
Mould out the ears and nose.

IMG_1292
Mould out the hat with white rice. Then pour some deco furi only on the surface, do not mix it in. This will give you a more vibrant color.

IMG_1296
Assemble the hat. Dun worry too much about the uneven colors on the hat, it will not be obvious after you assemble the bento.

IMG_1298
Assemble on the ears. I changed to a smaller lunchbox after this.

IMG_1299
Do the same for Luigi, I've used colour mist for the green here. :)Wrap them with cling wrap if you are going to keep them for the next day.

IMG_1322
This is the completed Mario, I added on the nori and cheese this morning. I cut out the nori free-hand and used a puncher for the eyes. The nose is attached on with uncooked angel hair pasta. It will soften by lunch time and will be safe to be eaten. This box is for IT, he had onigiri, bacon rolls, meat patties, strawberries and carrots.

IMG_1325
Luigi is for LT, he had the same food as above.

IMG_1194
This is seafood hor fun, our dinner from last Friday. I was feeling lazy, so I just dished out a one dish meal. lol.

IMG_1342
This was my lunch today, rice, crabmeat omelette and carrot/asparagus pork rolls.

Such a long post today! If you are still reading until here, I would like to say a big thank you to you. :) I hope you can understand the steps, as I'm really bad with words. :)

Friday 20 January 2012

Bear Bento

It's going to be Chinese New Year next Monday, and we get 2 days of holiday over here. LT had a celebration in School today, whereas IT's School will only be celebrating it on next Wednesday. And that means he only report to School in the morning for 3 hours. :) I'll be taking a short bento break and will likely be back again next Thursday.

I've zero inspiration for another dragon bento. So, I did up some bears instead, they were modified from Japanese bentos I saw on the internet. :)

IMG_1181
LT's bento for School, strawberry jam sandwich, salmon belly, cheese and grapes. In case you are wondering, the boys ate up bears' paws before I closed the box. :)

IMG_1183
IT's bento for School, same food as above except he's having nutella sandwich.

IMG_1185
LT's lunch, in the box are cheese/ham sandwich, salmon belly, carrots, cheese, tobiko tamago, strawberries and blueberries.

IMG_1186
IT's lunch, same food as above.

IMG_1180
Happy bears. :)

IMG_1192
My lunch, rice with carrots, black pepper scallops, tobiko tamago and salmon belly.

IMG_1188
LT chose to wear this korean outfit for his Chinese New Year celebration in School. :) Here's wishing Gong Xi Fa Cai to all those who celebrate the festival. Happy Feasting! :)

Thursday 19 January 2012

Pucca and Garu Bento

IT and I knew about Pucca from a game on the internet few years ago. IT remembers her as the gal who keeps kissing the ninja. lol. LT knows nothing about Pucca, so I showed him some pictures of her and Garu on the internet. And while looking for photos of Pucca, I found out that she has her own cartoon as well. How interesting, hope we will have a chance to watch it. I wonder if it's being shown over here. :)

IMG_1176
This is for LT, in the bento are rice, parmesan chicken, strawberries and blueberries.

IMG_1172
This is for IT, same food as LT's bento.

IMG_1167
This is for IT's recess, in the bento are nutella bread and parmesan chicken.

IMG_1163
Pucca with Garu. :)

IMG_1156
Lunch today was parmesan chicken, broccoli, carrots and aglio olio angel hair. Many thanks to a fellow bento Mummy who messaged me her modified version of Jamie Oliver's parmesan chicken. Love the flavours of parma ham with chicken. :) There's a video on youtube on how to prepare this if you are interested. :)

Wednesday 18 January 2012

Bear Bento

This was a rather speedy bento, I still had time to laze around before waking the boys up from their slumber. :) The inspiration for this bear was from this cutee bear bento box from Daiso. I love this series, they have bear, piggy and froggy and comes in 3 sizes. They even have cultery set to match, which I'm so tempted to get. :)

IMG_1141
IT's box, he had ham/cheese bun, minced beef/spinach pasta,sausage, strawberries and blueberries.

IMG_1142
LT's box, same stuff as IT's.

IMG_1143
IT's box for recess, luncheon meat bun, floss rolls and blueberries. And this is the bear box that I was talking about. This is a snack box size, they have a mini size and a lunchbox size as well. :)

IMG_1146
Not sure if you can see clearly, I used bear pasta for their lunch boxes. :)

IMG_1155
My fusion pasta, spinach and minced beef in asian style sauce, topped with furikake. :)

IMG_1147
Oh, and something extra for me today, luncheon meat (SPAM) and egg sandwich. Totally unhealthy but it's my ultimate comfort food. Always feels good when I indulge in it. :)