Last Saturday is the final week of replacement class for most school. I wished she will have more replacement classes on a Saturday as I find preparing a bento on a non working day (for me) is so much fun as I do not have to rush or constantly checking on the time. For example last Saturday, I manged to went to the morning wet market to buy fresh ingredients unlike normal days where I just cook whatever is left in the fridge.

Fresh corn for buttered corn:

Shitakie mushroom to be added into Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup:

Clockwise from bottom: Tube macaroni, buttered corn with edamame to go with Shitakie mushroom soup. What we did at home is to mix everything in the soup including the buttered corn. Oh la la!

I have been asked by bloggers if we can use local rice to substitute Japanese rice.  To me,  if I intend to make sushi, I will opt for Japanese rice as they are more sticky compared to our local rice.  But not necessarily.  It all depending on how firm you roll or press down the rice.

For this bento, I used the local rice and since the rice is less sticky, all I need to do is press them down a little harder so that they are firmed in the rice mould and won’t break when I removed  the mould.  I used bits and pieces of seaweed from furikaki (rice flavouring) for the facial details.

From left to right:  Rice, alphabet chicken nuggets, scramble egg with sliced button mushrooms and YAY, it’s the fruits season now.  The rambutans was given to me by my colleague.  Bless her kind soul.

Mummy:  Do you know where goes quail eggs came from?Dinosaur? *teasing*

8 y/o:  Hmm… eagle?

Mummy:  Haha!  No.  Quail eggs came from quail bird.  *teasing*

Frankly speaking, I don’t know the answer either.  Upon checking them on Google, quail bird seem to be a beautiful looking bird.

On the above, the main meal is make out of rolled Japanese rice with chicken ham and quail eggs.  I packed some Kikkoman  soy sauce in the little pink bottle to be eaten with the quail eggs.  I was surprised the soy sauce was untouch.  According to kiddos, the eggs tasted as good on it’s own.  I’m glad to hear that!  For dessert, my Parents came for a visit and they bought us some yellow kiwis.  Frankly speaking, yellow kiwi is wayyyyyyy sweeter than the green kiwi.

The yellow spoon came with kiwis that we bought sometime ago. All packed in the bento box fasten with homemade elastic bento band.

If you think the checkered apple is tedious, you should try making this sunflower sausage (just simply name them. ). This is how you do it:

Step one is like this…

The pressure you put on the knife while cutting has to be even. If not, you will get this result:

Can you imagine how frustrated I am when out of 12 pcs of frankfurt only one is perfect? The rest kept on breaking when I curl them. Step 2 should look like this:

Fasten both end with toothpick.

Step 3 - Heat a little olive oil in frying pan. Brown one side of the sausage, flip them over and break a quail egg on the centre. Reduce flame if you want a well-done egg. The finishing product looks like this:

Using a fork (in my case, I used my hand!), remove gently the excessed egg at the surrounding.

The Princess bento. I filled up the empty space with a cup of cornflakes.

This is how I shaped the rice.

Sprinkle a little furikake on the top or dab all over the rice.

The Prince bento looks like this (without the cornflakes as everything fit in nicely):

The sunflower sausage is a bit cacat because it is faulty. On the right is sun-dried pineapple. They are very delicious! Wuching courier them to me all the way from Melbourne.

Itu je. Too lazy to have lengthy post today. Maybe I will experiment with Weiner the next time. The frankfurter seems to be a bit soft and too fragile.

This is how I carved the checkered apple.

Step 1

Cut your apple into quarter or any bite size that you prefer. Core them too. In a bowl, add 1/2 teaspoon of salt into cold water. For my case, I’d prefer to used ice-cubes as I like my apple really chilled. Place apple into salt water.

Step 2

Using a carving or any knife that you are most comfortable with, lightly cut criss-cross line on the apple’s skin.

Step 3

This is the most tedious part. Skin the apple’s skin using the knife’s tip. Working alternately around the apple to form a chess board.

Step 4

Once you have finished, return the apple to the salt water. Start working on the next piece by repeating step 1 to step 4.

Some curious readers is worried that the apple might turn brown. To kill the curiosity, I did an experiment by leaving the apple in a bento box outside room temperature for 24 hours. Want to know the result? Experimented them yourself

For us, our Saturday is usually spent lazying in bed till late morning where we only managed to catch our brunch at 11.00am. Last Saturday being a schooling days for most schools to replace the upcoming Hari Raya break, I prepared hot porridge for daughter’s bento - something that I don’t get to prepare for her on a weekdays.

We have here ABC dry scallops porridge which consist of diced carrot, potatoes, onion, dry scallops and some fish balls. I season them with concentrated chicken stock and written here on the labels is a bold “NO MSG”. How true can that be? For dessert, we have red dragon fruits and checkered apple.

We manged to fit everything nicely into a insulation bag. I was moved when Daughter blurted this, “Mummy, you don’t go to work so that I have hot and nice lunch to bring to school.” I also wish lor.

According to Daughter, she took a longer time to finish the porridge as it is still hot (but not piping hot). The poor girl only managed to finish half of her apple as the “Prefect-Has-Blew-The-Whistle” and “We-Must-Stop-Eating”. *sigh… Talking about which, I have prepared a tutorial on how to craft the checkered apple. Stay tune for my next post.

The Bread Story

When come to preparation of bread, I tried to keep them as simple as possible preferably without using the cookie cutter if I can. One will have to be very creative and imaginative in presentation to impress the child.

Bento Mania #23

My usual way will be cutting up criss-cross forming triangle shape. You will be thinking that I’ve threw away the crust from the bread. But you are wrong. In this photoshoot, the one with crust was hidden under the first layer. Nothing go to waste this way as the kids doesn’t mind eating the crust too.

The kids heart peanut butter jelly sandwich very much. My usual brand is always Smuckers Gobber but the price has shot up lately. To stick to my frugal living list, I bought a different brand instead. Wanna take a guess? They tasted the same anyway.

Bento Mania #24

I make a big omelet with sausages tho scramble would taste better but knowing kids can’t handle scramble egg very well as the eggs will tend to drop off while eating. Messy, messy! Come to think of it, I shouldn’t have pack Milo and a choco bar since both of them are choco. *pfft* Nevermind. Anyway, there is some rice puff in the choco bar.

That’s all for the bread story.

Bento Mania #25

When I was too tired to wake up early, kids will have non-homecook meal but was prepared as home. So who say that is not counted *sticking out tongue*

Clock wise from top:

• Mini tarts with orange jam, strawberry jam and blueberry
• Mix nuts consist of almond, macadamia and pecan.
• Marshmallow
• Checkered apple again.

If you look at Bento Mania #20, that morning, I woke up superbly early so that I have enough time to prepare 5 bentos. No major cooking required except for the rice and the rest I just pop them into the microwave. Putting them together is the one consuming most time. I am sure you will agree with me on this.

The King’s Bento

I bought the unagi from Jaya Jusco Japanese food section. The small fish is a take-away when we dined at one of the Japanese restaurant. It is no ordinary fish. I tried to take a shot of the name with my iPhone but that crappy phone (like I told you guys long time ago) is just an ordinary phone. It has got no flash, no macro and no zoom. So the wordings is all blurred out and left me with a no-name-fish.

Now, what make the fish special is the roe. The whole fish is filled with nothing but roe. Not much flesh, no bones. Just simply roe! I even eat the head as they are so crispy.

The Queen’s Bento

After distributing all the unagis (Bento Mania #20), I left one last piece for myself. Being a Mummy we always have to sacrifice for the family. *sob, sob* The furikaki (triangle) is just nice to go with the fried boneless chicken drummet (top left). The only extra things on the King’s bento is the shreaded zucchini with mayonnaise that was included last minute as when I was arranging the food, there seem to be a extra space in the bento. Instead of leaving them empty, good thing I have always stock up greens in my fridge. And with the help from the silicon dish cup, I can include anything I like be it wet or dry.

So colourful! So nice!

I know the food is nothing to shout about. Simple stuff consist of animal biscuits that BIL bought for the kids from Singapore. Do you remember during your younger days we used to munch on the colourful sugar topping biscuits. This is exactly the same version but of animal shape this time (psst.. actually the animal doesn’t looks like an animal at all. Don’t know what creature. Of course we can tell a rabbit by looking at it’s ear.) Then we have some triangle oranges and sunflower seed chocolates for the sweet tooth.

I have ran out of small bento boxes hence the one in the picture is just some shallow container from Tupperware. I can assured you that there won’t be any room left after I put on the lid so you don’t have to worry if the sunflower seed will roll out from the dish cup. This is also another reason why I have so many different sizes of bento boxes to fit the quantity food I have. Just squeeze everybody in there, use a baran aka separator or side dish cup to separate your food from the dry and the wet. I find the silicon cup is very useful and I love using them so much. They can be bent and shaped anyway you like to make place for the others unlike those plastic dish cup.

I remember quite sometime ago, Eldest Princess told me her sunflower seed chocolates has turned soggy and sticks together because of the warm weather in the afternoon (her lunch break is at 3pm). This time, I had her bento box wrapped with insulating wrap. This is how they looks like:

The insulating wrap can be used for cold or hot food. This item is available in my Market Hall if you are interested to purchase them.

Another bento accessories that I love is the food pick. Beside using them as decorations, a food pick is nothing but a food pick. Cut your food into bite size pieces and the kids happily comping down their food.

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.