Kiki's Delivery Service Bento

I have just been informed that Bosch has launched a coloured special edition of their very popular MUM5 kitchen machine. Click HERE to view them, comes in really yummy colours. I'm so tempted to get one myself.


This image of Kiki (the main character in Kiki's Delivery Service) has been saved on my ipad since a long time back. I wanted to make it for Halloween, but got distracted by a Blythe version of Kiki and ended up making that instead.


Kiki was made from ham, cheese, nori and capsicum.


Please pardon the sloppy job on Jiji. I only remembered I had not make Jiji when I was taking the photos. -_-

Where to get same or similar items as used in today's post:

My Melody Somen

Today's post comes with step by step pictures. :) I've received requests to show how to create My Melody somen after I shared it. I remade it again to take photos of the process, it's really not difficult to make.


This is the My Melody somen I'm talking about. The white portion is the usual somen, the pink portion is done using ume somen, which are already pink in colour. I am serving it cold, with a dipping sauce.


This was the same plate of somen, I added on a mouth for My Melody.


I like happy Melody. :)


I changed the mouth to create a surprised look for Melody.


Lol, I was just playing around, my boys chose the smiley version eventually.


To create your My Melody somen, start off by arranging your cooked somen on the plate in an oval shape. You can do it in a lunchbox, if you prefer.


Add ume somen on top. If you cannot find ume somen, what you can do is to cook your white somen in water dyed with beetroot or pink colouring.


Add on Melody ears.


For eyes, cut out ovals from nori, placed it on cheese and cut out using a toothpick. I cut out the nose from an egg sheet. It's easier to fold your nori and egg sheet in half to cut out your ovals.


I used ham for Melody's bow. You will need a round slice of ham, another strip of ham and pasta.


Arrange the round slice of ham as shown in the picture.


Wrap the strip of ham around it and secure with pasta.


Assemble all the parts together. Ta-dah, My Melody somen is completed. You can serve it this way, if you like.


Or you can add on chopped spring onions around Melody, I find this gives it a finishing touch and the spring onion also complements the dipping sauce.

Where to get same or similar item used in today's post:

Mount Takao Bento

It's the last day of school for IT already, it's prize giving day today. He has done very well in Mathematics and Science once again. He has shown improvements in Chinese, but his English results was not good this round. English was my worst subject at school too. -_- However, he did well overall, and managed to top his class. :) I can finally relax now and look forward to our vacation in December. :)


A couple of weeks back, I was sorting out photos from our last vacation to be made into a photobook, I came across photos of our trip to Mount Takao. That inspired me to make a bento related to the trip.

We had a great time hiking at Aowanda in Taiwan, during our trip in 2011. So while planning for our Tokyo trip last year, Hubby asked me to slot in a day at a nature reserve. We decided on Mount Takao, for its convenience, it's not too far from our hotel and right smack in front of the train station. Convenience has always been an important consideration, since we started traveling with kids. Those who have experienced it will know how tiring it is. The last thing we wanted to do is to walk a long distance, after taking a few hours on the train, just to reach the destination. This year, however, since my boys are older, we are going to try going on Shinkasen, with our luggage in tow for a short ski trip. It's their first Shinkansen and skiing trip and they are very excited. Keeping my fingers crossed it turns out well.


I made a mashed potato bear with dango for this Mount Takao bento. The tram was made from egg sheet and nori. The words were a rather sloppy job, as I thought the words seemed rather simple, and just proceeded to cut out nori in parts freehand.


I've some photos of Mount Takao to share, could not find photos of the beautiful autumn foliage to share as all the photos of that had us in them. My photos don't do justice to the place. If you are interested, I'm sure you can easily google for lots of better photos of Mount Takao .


There were lots of temples, a monkey park and quite a few eateries along the way. My boys had a lot of fun en route to the submit, as there was lots of sights to see. I do not know the name of the snack on the top left picture, but the texture was similar to dango, except it tasted salty instead.


We had a bowl of ramen each with chicken karaage that day. They had an outdoor seating area as well, directly overlooking the beautiful flora and fauna.


Upon reaching the top, we saw lots of people ordering soba, and it looked so delicious. We were already very full, but we could not resist ordering a bowl to share. Yums, it was really good, I feel so hungry typing out this post, lol. :)

Where to get same or similar items used in today's post:

Animal Palz Rice Panda

Have you joined my Animal Palz giveaway? Click HERE to join if you have not, the giveaway will be closing on this Saturday. And good luck to those of you who already joined. :)


Do you know you can use your Animal Palz as a rice mould too? I used my Animal Palz to mould these rice pandas.


These were for my boys' dinner. I cooked chicken karaage and dumpling soup that day. There were some fried mushrooms in the bentos as well, which were actually leftovers from lunch. I brought my parents for lunch in the afternoon and I ordered a little too much, so I brought back the fried mushrooms which we could not finished.


Can you see the little baby panda? I made it out of cheese and nori. :)


A breakfast I made just after IT's exams two weeks ago.


I used Animal Palz to stamp on the bread, the baby panda stamper is too cute!

Where to get same or similar items used in today's post:

Bunny Fruity Cream Sandwich

This is the last recipe I created using my Bosch ErgoMixx Hand Blender. I often see Japanese pack fruit cream sandwiches for their picnics. I've never tasted any before, but it definitely looks like something my boys would love. I modified my strawberry shortcake recipe, which my boys love and never fail to order for their birthdays, to create these sandwiches. :)


I basically replaced the sponge cake with bread, the whipped cream and fruits fillings are similar to my original strawberry shortcake recipe.


The whipped cream was easily whipped up in around 2 minutes using the balloon whisk attachment of my Bosch hand blender.


If you have a little time to spare, you can turn these sandwiches into kawaii bunnies.


Bunnies' ears are cut out from bread. The rest of bunnies' features are done with blueberries, cheese and strawberries.

Try out the fruity whipped cream sandwich recipe below, makes a refreshing tea time or after meal treat. :)

Fruity Whipped Cream Sandwich
(serves 2)

Ingredients:
4 slices bread
200ml heavy cream
3 tbsp sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 tbsp butter
4 strawberries
1 kiwi
1 peach

Method:

1. Leave butter to soften at room temperature. 
2. Cut up strawberries, peach and kiwi. Place the cut out fruits on a plate line with kitchen towel, cover with another kitchen towel. Set aside in the fridge.
3. Whip heavy cream with sugar and vanilla essence still soft peaks are formed.
4. Spread butter on one slice of bread, top with whipped cream. Take fruits out from fridge and place them on the whipped cream. 
5. Top with more whipped cream till the fruits are covered. Spread butter on another slice of bread and put on top.
6. Press the sandwich gently, wrap in cling wrap and place in fridge for half an hour. Repeat for the next 2 slices of bread.
7. Take out sandwich from fridge and cut into desired size before serving.