My Boss came to me with his month old mobile phone:

Boss: My phone suddenly went on silent mode. Can you help me to switch it on again?

Jess: Ah, Ok. *fiddle, fiddle, fiddle* Nah, finished.

Boss: *pointing at a logo* You know what is this or not? How to switch it off?

Jess: Hmmm… this is Java. You accidentally activate it.

Boss: Me don’t want Jawa. Me want to go Bali.

Jess: HA! HA! *fiddle with phone again*. No la Boss. Java logo is not like this. Maybe it’s your bluetooth.

Boss: I just went to the dentist. No blue tooth here.

Jess: HA! HA! *fiddle with phone again*

What is this? No prize for guess it right tho. *sticking out tongue*

*pat, pat* Good girl. Good boy. I know you knew the answer. But to be precise, this is called a champagne grapes. What is the difference you might ask. The normal globe grapes is about the size of our 20 cents coin. But this champagne grapes is about the size of 10 grapes put together that formed a 20 cents coin. Don’t get what I mean?

Nah,

This is the actual size of champagne grapes. The first pic is a close up macro shot.

They are so small, so cute, so geram when I wanna eat them one by one. The little grapes fit in nicely in the bento box.

I bought the unagi (eel) from Jaya Jusco. In the morning, I just put them in the grill together with chicken nugget and salmon. Far right is peanut butter M&Ms. The size is even bigger than the champagne grapes. Awesome! Spot the silicon dish cup and also the plastic dish cup. They keep your food together in a place.  No more M&Ms rolling around in the bento box.  Most important thing, the dry food stay dry.

This is so unfair *stomping feet!*

*stomping again!*

THIS IS SO UNFAIR!

Why?

You see this.

See!

Can you see anything wrong in the picture?

See clearly!

I CAN SEE HIS TEATS!

So you tell me fair or not? Why can’t woman publish half nakid picture too? Why?!

I am so jealous at him I want to make sure he wears a tube over his chest too!

p/s: The above is a lame joke. Just ignore it. I really don’t like the thought of people messing up with nature. That’s all. Congrats on the arrival of your newborn baby girl. *blueh*

I have to too many backlog posting on my Bento. Here goes:

Bento Mania #17
Some of the days when I am too sleepy or have run out of food in the fridge OR sometimes when I am afraid kids will get bored eating ‘real’ food, I always have biscuits as back up.

Jacob’s strawberry-yogurt-sandwich biscuit. I HEARTS Pocky and even Rocky! Unfortunately I left the natural flavoured Vitagen in the fridge. Makes the picture looks a bit unattractive and bland.

Bento Mania #18

Carrot stick and yogurt as dip. Rolled processed ham with edamame in skew. 2 little rice biscuits (not easy to spot them) just in case the food is not fulling for the kids. But I doubt kids will sapu (wack) everything.

Bento Mania #19

Let’s rant a bit here. During the earlier days when Daughter brings bento to school, I used to ask her almost everyday the same question like did you finish your meal? Did your friends like them? (show off Mummy!) And she will go,

“My friend always steal my food.”
“Next time you don’t go canteen with that friend anymore.”
“I did not go with her. I put my bento box on the table and she just open it and steal my food.”
“Why did you leave them on the table?”
“I need to go and wash my hands ma.”
(Wah, my Daughter very discipline her. At home she don’t even bother to wash-her-hands-before-meal.) “Why don’t you ask your other friends to book the seat for you so that you can bring the bento box along with you.”

Cannot remember what is her reply liao la. So looks like I have added a new things to worry about her. Now I added a new question for her, “Did your friend steal your food today?” And she will say yes or so forth. After like 4 or 5 bento incident, one day I let her bring this bento:

When she came home, she told me her friend steal her mango. I was furious and really mad at that friend! Worst thing is, she (friend) did not finish the whole mango. She just bite the centre part (with all her teeth marks on it!) and return the whole piece to Daughter. I was so so furious when I see that. Good thing daughter did not threw away the half eaten mango if not I wouldn’t have know the whole scenario. I was so mad I told Daughter I am going to her school tomorrow and give her a tight SLAP! Say only la. I almost wanted to stop preparing bento for Daughter. The thought of her getting bullied really add on stress to my life and I fear for her safety too. I have read in other bento blog of the same bullying case. There is this school children out of jealousy went and spit in their friend’s lunch. This is too much!

Ok. Thanks for listening. My story finish already. Back to the bento. I did the ham sandwich previously. The only difference is the cucumber. This time I cut them in stripe and slot them in between the rolled ham. That way, the cucumber will not slide off when you bite on it. Just click on the link to see the difference la. Don’t know how to explain them in words. For the mango, the skin is still intact. The gummy bears is just a little reward for finishing their ‘real’ meal.  The mango is a bigger reward!  They kids really, really love mangoes.   I don’t even bother to buy papaya cos they won’t eat them anyway.

The pink 2 tier bento box is currently Daughter’s favourite box. All pinky and princessy. Girls are so fortunate sometimes.*rolling eye*

For Hubby and me, we had the wholemeal bread instead:

One biji (piece) of mango enough for the 2 kids. So Hubby and me had cherry tomatoes instead. Huhuhu!

What do you called a pair of old socks that has lost it’s elasticity?

I was hanging my laundry when Baby Princess came to me, “Mummy, see!  My socks is so sleepy.”

I have few bento boxes that doesn’t come with a buckle or fastener. To put them together, I just used the rubber band on it. They looks very unattractive but I was too kiamsiap (stingy) to buy the Bento belt from eBay. They cost about US$3.00 + US$2.50 (shipping charges) = US$5.50. You just do your own calculation on the currency conversion. I know the money is from advertising but then they are still money right? Why do I want to spent on something that is so expensive yet I can find other alternative like maybe using the rubber band or make them myself.

So over the weekend, I spent about RM9 on some elastic belt and buttons and came up with my own homemade Bento band.

Not only I made one, I came up with 4 different sizes of bento belt.

Firstly, I made this for Hubby’s bento box. This is the first tier.

I did not stitch up the joint so that I have a space in between as the chopstick holder.

For double tier, I made a bigger belt.

With different buttons of course.

And then I saw a black ribbon laying in my sewing box. So I just add them on top. So vain can die!

For another bento box, let’s presume it is the girl’s bento box.

I had a purple Hello Kitty button on it. And the double tier:

… a little sunshine definitely brightens up my day!

For RM9, I am able to come up with 4 bento belt and there are lots of extra elastic band and buttons left. They are very easy to made. Just a little stitch will do.

p/s: If you are interested to purchase some Bento accessory like the toothpick, bento cup, rice mould, egg frying pan or rice seasoning, please visit my Market Hall. Cheers!

Hubby’s friend bought for us a whole red snapper (I could be wrong though) salted fish from Kuantan. My first attempt is to had them (flesh only without the bone) stir-fried with rice. That was something like one month ago and I’ve totally forgot about the salted fish! So I cook them again last weekend. This is my all time favourite dish – Taugeh (bean sprout) with Salted Fish.

Ingredients:

Slices of salted fish
Taugeh (bean sprout)
Tau kua (A harder version of Tofu fit for stir-fry)
Homegrown Chives
Cloves of garlic
Chilies

Method:

Sliced tau kua in rectangular. Deep fried them in oil on high fire till golden yellow. Removed from wok and using the same oil earlier fried the slice salted fish till fragrant or crispy. Removed. Discard the earlier oil. Without washing the wok, saute garlic and chives. Add in taugeh and chilies. Give them a quick stir and pour in 1/2 cup of hot water. The reason why I used hot water so that the water doesn’t take a long time to boil and not overcook the taugeh. Transfer the earlier tau kua and salted fish. Season them with 1/2 tsp of oyster sauce. Once the gravy boiled, removed immediately.

Best served with rice. But I had them with porridge. That is another part of me growing up as a foochow. Old habit die hard – porridge for lunch and rice for dinner.

A personal friend of mine started blogging one year after I started.  He is surprised that I have a steady stream of readers and would like to know how I maintained the traffic.  You see, after 2 years of daily hijacking blog-hopping, I have hence reduced blog-hopping and concentrate at maintaining the quality of my blog so that readers will keep coming back.  I do read up blogging tips from internet marketing blog.  They help me to be a better writer now.  Read on if you are interested to find out how:

1. Update your blog regularly
2. Include a subscribe button for your RSS feed like the one I had on my top right bar.
3. Get to know your readers – what they like or expect to read from your blog.  Sometimes we have not choice but to pleased the readers.
4. Brush up your blogging skills.  Make them more interesting for example include a nice photographs, humour, catchy lines, grammar, etc.
5. Interact with your readers by replying to their comment or make friends with some nice readers.
6. Share your blog on Facebook.  When I do that, I can see my traffic jumps by 20%.
7. Key word is the most effective way to attract targeted traffic.  Visitor from search engine contribute a least 30% of traffic.
8. Viral marketing is something you work once and the traffic will never stop coming.
9. Please don’t cluster your blog with too much paid post!

If you like this post, please buy me a coffee.  Have a great weekend. 😉

I was in a little bad luck this whole week but that didn’t put me down when finally I am able to see the money in my PayPal account has reached an amount equivalent to the Canon Speedlite 580EX II. Woot!  And because of that excitement, I’ve prepared a slightly heavy bento for the kids. Each of them brought home a piece of untouched chicken.  Wasting food only.  Must find a day to lecture the kids!

Instead of filling the house with smoky and oily smelly so early in the morning, I’ve decided to fry them the night before and the next morning, just pop them into the microwave.  That way, I do not have to rush in the morning too.  I just need to scramble an egg before emptying a can of bake beans into it.  In a separate pot, boiled a little water with salt and blanched the french beans and carrot sticks.

I did all that under five minutes but spent the next 20 minutes arranging the food and decorating them with punched nori sheet.  Oh, not forgetting taking pictures. *sticking out tongue*

p/s:  I am still excited thinking of the external flash. *snigger*

My new bento tools – an egg frying pan. Good thing the heart shape pan ran out of stock. If not, I would have been twenty ringgit poorer. I lugged home the star and a flower shape tho. They are good for sunny side up. Too bad the kids never like egg yolk. They just threw them away.

We are in a little spring theme today. Kids had a pandan flavoured mantou, blanched french beans with ham, sausage sandwich between 2 pieces of blanched carrot and an egg with ketchup. Look at the fast finger. Baby Princess had quick hands. She is totally nuts over ketchup and fresh tomatoes.