It was slightly more than a year ago since I visited Siem Reap. While I was there, I bought a packet of rice paper (it is also our version of spring roll) but never get to cook them till recently when I saw the expiry date is getting nearer.

This is the method:

Brush some water all over the rice paper to soften it.

See, when the rice paper has soften, it is almost transparent and very fragile to move around. Make sure you put them where you want it to be on your working table or cutting board. I bought this orange cutting board from Tupperware for handling cooked food. It says here in their catalogue, “… quality cutting board that minimizes cut-lines to prevent bacterial growth.” I am putting my trust on Tupperware product. Hope they are what they claimed to be.

As for the ingredients, there is no rules saying what can or cannot use. Just prepare the ingredients that you favour most. As for me, jiu hu char (stir fried turnip) is a must, fresh lettuce, fresh cucumber, roast pork or lap cheong (wax pork sausage) and shrimps.

(p/s:  dSLR ran out of battery.  Took this pic using Sony T-10.  Crappy result, huh.)

It all goes into the adult bento.  You slowly wait la if the kids would eat something like this.  I have some homemake samosa too.  No tutorial for that as I have yet to mastered the wrapping skills.  Other time then.

Another backdated bento that I’ve prepared during Mid Autumn Festival.

A little large on portion so that I can have them from breakfast to lunch. I tried to bring a lunch box at least 3 times a week to my work place. This is part of my frugal budgeting and planning to save for more holiday and what’s not.  This is what I had:

Left: Homemade Siew Mai with a little of crabstick on the top, Char Siew Pau (sliced into half) and chocolate flavoured mantou (also sliced into half).

Left: Slices of Peaches and piggy mooncake (a homemade gift from a friend of mine)

Bento # 43

I hardly post up Baby Princess bento. This 3 year old of mine is a fussy eater and she eats very little food only. I’ve decided to post up her bento this time consisting of Pancake with blackberry jam on the side, Champagne grapes and two pieces of Toblerone chocolate.

Of course the older kids get 3 pieces of pancake each.

The pan I used this time is flower shape. Recently I’ve bought a whole lot more of other pans like Hello Kitty shape and such. Haven’t really find the time to utilize them yet.

Bento # 44

Before this, I took things for granted thinking that some of you can tell which bento is for adult and which one is for kiddos till I get comment like, “Those portion is too big for a kids.” “Are you sure your kids eat such stuff?”. Duhh! Do I have to be so precise to mentioned all the time if the meal is for kids or adult? It take ones intelligent to tell actually (depending which category you fall under).

Bacon, asparagus and enoki mushroom

This one is definitely adult bento.

Top tray: Avocado & a squirt of kewpie mayonnaise, spiral macaroni + onion + red and yellow bell peppers toast in french dressing.

Lower tray: Grill rolled bacon + baby potatoes at 200C for 30 minutes.

Hubby was telling me he don’t like the taste of the baby potatoes. So what he did is gave one to Annie, Victor and Brian.  And he ate the rest of the potatoes.  So smart of him!

Traditional Bento Box sold in Market Hall

The lower tray was then loosely wrapped with cling wrap before being stacked up to avoid the bottom of the upper tray smear with mayonnaise.

Top: Sweet potatoes
Left to right: Inarizushi (sold in MarketHall), grilled shishamo and grilled salmon

The tofu skin (aburaage) is also known as brown bag sushi that has been cooked in a sweet-soy sauce based.  Since it is pre-packed, all I need to do is stuff the cooked rice in the Inarizushi. Some people may squeeze the sauce out but I prefer mine to be wet as they are able to retain moisture like a disposable diaper. Inarizushi is ready to eat and often, people like to put them in a bento box and I love them as they make great finger food during party too. Since the bags prevent the rice from drying out, it is actually even better after they have ‘rested’ for an hour or so for the flavor on the skins to penetrates into the rice.

I love cooking tau yu bak. You just need to throw everything in a big pot and simmer for 2 hours to get some sinful porky, tofu and eggs dishes. Since kids love this dish, I cooked them quite often too.

I separate the gravy in a different container so that the rice won’t soak up and gets too wet. Note: The container came with a cover too so no gravy has the chance to spills out. I throw in a few sticks of fresh cucumber too.

How do you like your fried noodle to be? I love mine with lots of sprouts (taugeh) and cabbages.

Left to right: Zucchini + egg + wasabi + kewpie mayonnaise = salad, alfalfa, stir-fried rat’s tail noodle (low shee fun) + carrot + shrimps

Close-up:

This is how I made the salad:

Mashed roughly 2 hard boiled eggs, mixed wasabi according to your tastebud and squirt kewpie mayonnaise in there. Grate (don’t use a knife to cut) thinly zucchini and mix well with egg.

For dessert, we have rambutans, or was it pulasan? I can’t remember as this is a long back dated bento during the fruits season.

Top left clockwise Bento belongs to Baby Princess, Eldest Princess, Daddy and Prince.

Food consist of Unagi & zucchini maki, edamame in skew and California strawberries which is 10x sweeter than Cameron Highlands strawberries. This, you have to agree with me, right?

Usually when I finished packing their lunch box in the morning, kids and Daddy will still be in bed by the time I left for work. I will layout all their bento boxes on the table. By now, kids are familiar with which-bento-belongs-to-who. I’m sure you are able to guess that too.

Last whole week except Monday, I get a week off from Bento making as kids is having their school term break and I was recuperating from a injured finger and at the same time my dSLR was hospitalised. I took this opportunity to check out some recipe online.  Something that I wanted to do for a long time.

This is some back dated bento I have prepared.

Daddy’s Bento:

Clockwise from left to right: Fish balls, steam rice with a little furikaki as garnishing, fresh veges consist of butterhead, tomatoes, carrot and an egg.

The Prince bento same ingredients as Daddy’s:

I was out of idea as to how I should arrange the food. So I just simply grab a normal sandwich box from Tupperware. And hey, not a bad presentation! If you want to prevent your food from running around in the container, this is how you should do it. Make sure you filled up all the space in the box.

The Princess bento:

That morning, my 8y/o doesn’t want rice. I have them replaced with cereal instead and a pack of raisins to nibble.

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.