Bento # 33 and # 34

For Bento # 33, decided to finish the last of the onigiri in the freezer. Rolled two mini triangles in chicken floss & sakura denbu and covered the third partly with flavoured nori. These aren't the traditional onigiri, as I've added vinegar/sugar/salt to it. Added a leftover drumnet (stewed in dark/light soy and oyster sauce with a dash of pepper).

The green item was a problem. Ran out edamame and frenchbeans, and tired of sweetpeas and broccoli. Then remembered both LZmommy and Rachel made asparagus wrapped with bacon. So tried that out. Looked good, right? Made two rolls, with five stalks of asparagus. Apparently that was too much vegie for girlet, she only ate the roll with two stalks in it. Maybe I should roll the asparagus individually next time. While I was at it, decided to copy Rachel's orange flower with cherry tomato middle too. Thanks Rachel. (Oh, silly me. Just went to check the link in LZmommy's blog and found out that I should have cut the asparagus/bacon roll, for ease of eating if nothing else.)

After spending way too much time deciding what to pack for the above bento, resolved to make a speedy bento for the next. And nothing much is faster than bread and leftovers. So kaya and nutella pinwheels for carbo, and NgorHian (minced pork/prawn wrapped with beancurd sheet) for protein. Added two Japanese dessert, purple with lotus paste (I think) and pink with green tea. While making the sandwich, set girlet to cut out the dragonfruit. She chose a tiara shape which unfortunately can't be seen under all the picks she used.

No greens? Haha, I was counting pandan kaya as a green item. So was the green tea filling of the Japanese dessert. ^_^

Bento # 31 and # 32

Still posting about last week's bento.

Left : Fruits - red dragonfruit and ciku cut into star shape, with papaya (triangles) to fill in the empty spaces.
Middle : Egg noodles tossed with tomato sauce and sesame oil, topped with asparagus, sweetmeat & cheese cut into star shape.
Right : 2 pieces of star shaped nuggets, and 2 fish + vegie ball. Put a divider between the nuggets and fishballs to keep the nuggets dry, and girlet insisted to decorate with more dividers.



For bento # 32, I was inspired by my sis's futomaki, and Bento pet's very fancy futomaki. But those were beyond me. Confession - can't make maki with more than 1 filling yet. Hehe... And those in the pic below were the nicer ones. The messier lopsided ones became my lunch.


Main box at bottom : Maki with egg and crabstick. Baked honey chicken drumstick - not exactly leftovers, as I cooked extra for girlet's bento. There's another stashed in the freezer. Can expect to see that making an appearance soon. The stirfried vegies were leftovers from dinner, consisting of broccoli, sugarpeas, babycorn, red and yellow capsicum. Another confession - the capsicums were included purely for decor /colour. Girlet has yet to learn to like them.


Smaller box on top : Watermelon cut into ice cream cone shape, and half a chocolate muffin.

Bento # 29 and # 30

Trying to catch up with my backlogs, seems like back at work all over again..hehe....

Bento # 29 : On the right of the bento was wanton noodles topped with boiled wanton, stirfried baby french beans with keichi/wolfberry, chick quail egg, and fishpaste, spinach & egg rollups. On the left was part of a buttered steamed corn, grapes, breaded fish/prawn ball and a container of ketchup.
For Bento # 30, I tried out the metal cookie cutter whether can be used as mould for frying egg. Worked out alright. The flowover was minimal and was easily cut off and popped into my mouth... hehe.... And the metal cutter doesn't warp, unlike the silicon moulds which I have read a few complains of. Of course can just fry the egg and then cut with the cutter, but that means more wastage / more egg into my mouth... hehe...

Main box at bottom : Animal pasta and mixed vegies tossed with a little milk, cream cheese and powdered parmesan cheese. Packed extra in case girlet decided to share with her friends again.
Smaller box on top : Animal shaped egg & ham 'sandwich', and papaya cut into rectangles - thought already had enough animals. Of course with animal picks and divider too.

To Rachel : Red Dragonfruit

Hello Rachel. The red dragonfruit looks like the white dragonfruit on the outside. If you buy from the supermarket, they may sometimes label them as red dragonfruit, instead of just dragonfruit. I bought them from a fruit stall, and I had to ask the grocer what colour it is inside. Here are the ones I bought. Taste wise, they are both the same. But they sure have a prettier colour, don't they? Hope your mummy will be able to buy some for you too. And that you enjoy them as much as girlet does.

Bento # 28 - Rabbits hopping everywhere

I can finally update my posts. D'hubby was away for 5 days to Jakarta, so it has been chaotic around here.

Anyway, I was excited over this first use of the quail eggs mould. The rabbit shape inspired a rabbits bento with rabbit onigiri, rabbit quails egg and rabbit dragonfruits. Also made cherry tomato and cheese 'burger', an idea copied from lunchinabox. Girlet didn't like the 'seeds', so that was scooped out, and stuffed with some cream cheese instead. The cheese in between was Colby Jack's. Included some sausage to up the protein content. Too bad I didn't have any rabbit fork picks. Had to make do with the dog and the cat fork picks.

Girlet was happy with this bento as her first pet was a rabbit. We've had it for 5 years. It was named Snow White until we discovered that it was a male! Nowadays we call it Snow as the boylet and babylet couldn't pronounce Snowy...... comes out as Sno-ee. Here's babylet being 'angelic'.

Here she is showing her true colours.

New purchases from e-bay

After not checking e-bay for a few weeks, I logged on and the first thing I saw was this item which I've been watching for the past few months on the auction list..... with 40 minutes to ending. Obviously, it was an opportunity not to be passed. Bid and won at the auction price of USD1.24 (sorry to whomever I outbid!). This is a real bargain considering the normal price of USD5.99.


Furthermore it was a genuine auction in the sense the shipping cost remained the same. So often with auction, the seller (especially HongKong sellers) jack up the shipping costs instead so there is minimal differences between a buy-it-now and an auction. So it is imperative to compare prices, and compare sellers.


Anyway, *drumroll* .....tada!!..... my new mould for quail eggs. No more fiddling with toothpick and carrots to make bunny from quail egg - refer to my bumbling attempt here.... hehe... There are three shapes for quail eggs, namely chick, car and bunny, as well as a flower shape for chicken egg.

While bidding, I looked through other items that I also have on watch list from the same seller's site, with the idea of shipping discounts for multiple purchases. In the end, purchased another set of fish/car egg mould at auction price of USD0.99 (for a friend), and these cute animal fork/picks.


Good things do come to those who are patient. Am really happy with the discount of USD6.99 on shipping costs, and the speedy shipment - received the items one week after payment. Yay! Now, what should I make/do with these?

Bento # 27 - Pikachu

Although I'm not packing lunch for the boylet, there is no reason to let the bento tools I got for him go to waste. Hence a Pikachu bento for girlet using Pikachu rice mould. Beneath the fishcake were stewed chicken and quail's egg. Sweetpeas and sweetmeat filled in the gaps. The pikachu was made from chicken rice. Also had a side container for dragonfruit cut into bear shapes. Was attempting to get girlet to eat a wider variety of fruits, following Rachel's blog.
The final product in a pikachu bento box complete with cutlery set. Both were bought from a gift shop in Bangsar, opposite Czip Lee / Bangsar Village 2 a few months ago. They carry lots of Hello Kitty, My melody, Doraemon, and Disney stuff. Have bento boxes (not the face shape ones though), cutlery set, occasionally certain moulds/cutters.

Anyway, Girlet's response was : "Mummy, that doesn't really look like Pikachu....... But I know you tried your best." LOL. How encouraging was she?

Landscape and Garden Festival 2008

Girlet has swimming lessons at Lake Club on Sunday mornings. Took the opportunity to bring the two younger kids to the Landscape and Garden Festival at Lake Gardens while waiting.

Flowers galore.
Pretty orchids of various shades for sale.
Bonsai plants.
Different varieties of pitcher plant. The kids are most impressed with these.

Herb seedlings for sale.
Fruit plant seedlings for sale.
They even have rambutan and durian seedlings for sale. If I have a big garden, that would have been a buy.
There are 6 theme gardens, but we only manage to visit two, the herbs and conservatory gardens. The reason being that the kids spied the playground and clamoured to go.
Boylet at his element in the dinosaur garden.

The boylet finally garnered the courage to go down the longest slide all by himself. As we left, throngs of people were just arriving. Many equipped with picnic baskets. I had thought of packing a bento picnic. In reality, we were very hot and sweaty, and were glad to go to Lakeclub for lunch.

It was a good day. Normally the boylet and babylet are like dogs and cats. Today they were the best of friends. At Lakeclub.

Sitting together during dinner at Sri Ayutha.

Since the festival is on until the 27th July, will continue the visit next week. Hopefully can see the Floral Enclave which has a children's floral theme playground, and let Girlet join in the various activities organised.

Bento # 26 - Johor style wonton noodles

Wonton noodles. Yes, KLites, this is how Johoreans eat their wonton noodles. For kids, with tomato sauce. While adults get chili sauce. Took me a long while to get used to brown noodles when I first moved to KL. Hehe....still not my first choice. Fortunately the kids are fine with both versions.

The toppings are fancy fishcakes and crabstick wrapped with egg. It is obvious which are store bought and which are homemade. Also added sweetpeas, cut diagonally, and cherries, which girlet loves but is getting quite bored with. Gotta buy different variety of fruits for next week.

And this is how the final package looked like.

Bento # 25 - Hello Kitty

Today's bento had the Hello Kitty onigiri again - trying to clear the frozen stash. Didn't dye the eggs this time because wanted to make white rabbits. But after struggling with the first rabbit, whereupon I tore the egg white while stuffing the carrots ears in, decided to turn the other two eggs into chicks instead. Also cut out star carrots to complement the star chicken nuggets. Edamame made up the green component of the bento.

Look simple right? But this bento took me waaay too long to make, almost an hour. That was because I'm a zombie today after a sleepless night. First, struggled to put babylet to sleep. "Mummy! mouth pain pain. Mummy put meyson." That's for calling her weird because her molars grew before the canine. Guess what? As a revenge, her top canine teeth chose to make a showing too. So three molars peeping out and 2 swollen gums, added up to a really whiny baby. To make matter worse, at 2.30 am, d'hubby woke me up because of a stench in the room. Sure enough, the boylet peed and pooed in bed while sleeping last night. He's really regressing. After cleaning him up, the mattress and washed his pajamas, I was left turning and tossing, unable to sleep again until 5 in the morning. So good night everyone. I'm turning in now - with or without the babylet. Sleep well and sweet dreams!

Bento # 24

My MIL gave me some swirly Japanese dessert, so decided to make sandwich pinwheel again, with Nutella and cheese. What I don't understand is why did the cheese keep breaking into pieces when I rolled them up. I used Kraft sliced cheddar cheese, and the cheese looked fine, not drying up and expiry date still some time to go. Hmm...


Nevertheless, the eggs turned out fine. Soaked them into a mixture of curry powder and turmeric - both for colour and some flavour - with black sesame eyes and carrot beaks. Cut the pink mochi in half to fit in the box and added in cherries & some chocolate cone biscuit to round out this mainly sweets bento.

Workshop - Quantum Speed Reading on August 18-19

I received this via email and thought to share. The workshop is organised by fellow "Shichida mothers" and is conducted by Mrs Yumiko Tobitani - official website is here . Unfortunately the early bird discount had ended.
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Dear all mummies & daddies:

Good news! We proudly present to you the 1st children right brain education workshop by Mrs Yumiko Tobitani this coming 18th – 19th August. Mrs Yumiko Tobitani is a 17-year experienced right brain educator and the head of research and development branch of Japan Shichida Child Academy (SCA).

Get your child trained by experienced right brain educator from Japan Shichida Child Academy (SCA). We know what is lacking in our present right brain school and our country. As a parent who is passionate about right brain education, we know we need to get the proper guidance. Only then our children ability will blossom. Here is the chance for you to meet a whole-hearted sensei from Japan and get direct training by her. Do not wait, grab the seat now. Mrs Yumiko Tobitani only takes 24 kids for the workshop. It is base on first come first serve basics.

Who is Mrs Yumiko Tobitani?
- 17 years experience right brain educator since 1992. Developer of dot program, the right brain memorization and sensory training program, Quantum Speed Reading (Wave reading) and the right brain speed calculation system and junior program at Shichida Child Academy (SCA) in Japan.

What will you get from the workshop?
- Your children get proper guidance in right brain education.
- Latest right brain training method from Japan.
- Small group, personal attention. Everyone benefit.
- Get your question and doubt answered during the parent briefing session.
- Children above 9 year old can pick up right brain method too, which is not possible from our present right brain school.
- Your investment worth every single penny.
- Be the 1st group enjoying this special privilege.

Mrs Yumiko Tobitani will only take 12 kids per session this time. Grab the seat .First come first serve. Early bird promotion price is RM 980 (save RM 300), and a FREE book written by Mrs Yumiko Tobitani. Actual price is RM1280. Registration closes at 8 August 2008. Kindly fill in your registration form and make the deposit. Seat is confirmed once the RM500 deposit is received.
Please help to spread the news. If you think your friend’s child will also benefit from the workshop, please forward this email to them. They will be pleased that you include them. We will too. Have a great day ahead.

Yours sincerely,Sue & Miki
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If interested, you can contact the organiser, at miki308m@yahoo.com.sg. When I spoke to her last, there were still 5 spots left. Too bad I will be away that week (school hols). I am getting the book though, and reading it page by page. Wish I could read just by flipping the pages rapidly, save me the allnighters with an unputdownable book *_^.

Bento # 22 and # 23

Was determined to master the speed bento as advocated by lunchinabox. Hence this bento is mainly made from frozen stash, onigiri and chicken nuggets. Took out the nuggets earlier to defrost in the fridge. Then heated up in the toaster oven. At the same time, heated up the three square onigiri - straight from freezer to the microwave. Immediately coated with 3 different flavour - meatfloss, sakura denby, and nori - because they stick better when the onigiri are still warm and moist. For vege and fruits, packed in some broccoli blanched in salted water, and cherries.
Then realised that there was no space for the ketchup. Rearrange the vegies and there you go. Another bento done, all within 20 minutes. So, my dear 2nd sis, who has so far packed only 2 bentos, if you're lazy to wake up early to cook, suggest you build up a frozen stash as well.


I love to stash spaghetti too as it contains carbohydrate, protein and fiber all in one. Add some pretty cutouts from carrots and cheese, fruits and a snack. My dear sis, that was less than 15 minutes. What I would do differently next time is to pack a green coloured vege or fruit instead. By the way, I added more minced meat to this batch to avoid forgetting the protein again...hehe..

Bento # 21 - Heart sandwiches

This is a productive night - 3 posts, hopefully. Daddy is busy bonding with the kids, so am taking the opportunity to post about last friday's bento for girlet. It was a quick and easy bento (because babylet has a class to attend). 2 types of sandwiches, Nutella and cheese & ham. Cut everything into heart shape of various sizes using my heart shape cutter (from where else but Daiso). Quite pleased with the results - the mix of colours, shapes and texture. And even more pleased that girlet finished all of it.

Left : Custard roll, cherries, sweetmeat.

Right : Cheese & ham sandwich, nutella sandwich

Cutting molars

The past week or so has been challenging. Today was an especially trying day. Babylet is still cutting 3 molars and I didn't get much sleep the past week. So we were both pretty cranky. She finally settled down in front of the tv and I took a breather.

She's 1 month shy of 2 years, and still only has 4 front teeth on top, 4 bottom and 1 molar on bottom right side. It's weird how she skipped all 4 canine teeth, going straight to molars. Feeding her is tough. She refuses mushed up baby food (don't even mention porridge in front of her), and wants to eat whatever the two older ones are eating, but lack the ability to chew. It's funny seeing her trying to grind her food with her front teeth - looks like an old lady. So it's about time for more teeth to grow.

Today, the baby followed me to send boylet to his nursery. On the way, we passed the Science Centre with the stone dinosaurs in front. The boylet started shouting out all the names of the dinosaurs that he spotted - T-Rex, Spinosaurus, Ankylausaurus etc. The baby looked nonplused for a moment. Then not to be outdone, she started yelling "lion, lion". That is some competitive streak she has.

Parenting question : Peer pressure

A friend asked why I'm so biased and only pack lunch for the girlet, and not the boylet. (A side question : is it normal for your non-blogging friends to read your blog and comment via sms/phone, rather than on the blog itself?). Coming back to the topic, the boylet has lunch in his nursery 3X a week, when he has swimming and Mandarin classes. After packing lunch for him a few times, he said he does not want to bring lunch anymore.

"Why don’t you want me to pack lunch?" I said.

"Errr, I just want to eat the same as everyone." answered the boylet.

If at 4, he's already trying to blend in with the crowd, how will it be when he's a teenager? Aaaaaaargh!......bury that thought, will deal with it when it comes........ hang on, another idea comes to mind, better psycho him now while he's still small and still listens to me....... most times anyway... ^_^.

Is it just me or is parenting boys rather different from parenting girls? Veteran moms, any tips?? Meantime, better take out my Dr Dobson book........ where's the page on peer pressure??

Bento # 19 & # 20

Since I was cooking fried rice for girlet, decided to pack lunch for d'hubby as well. Unfortunately, couldn't fit them all into the biggest bento box that I have, so have to put into the clear plastic tapau containers. Not sure if I should invest in a bento box his size since this may not be a normal occurence.

Top : Mini apple, grilled drumstick (leftover from dinner), and portugese egg tart.

Bottom : Fried rice with chicken, prawn & mixed vege, garnished with egg and fried onion.

For girlet, I tried to design trees with egg and mixed vege. Yes, I know, it's a miserable failure. Ran out of time because spent too much time trying to fit d'hubby's lunch into bento boxes, so just left it as it was. Instead of fruit, she got a Ribena jelly in a pig silicon cup, as well as a portugese egg tart.

At least she enjoyed her food because there were none left when she came back. Better than having a pretty bento, but not eaten, right?

Maths tuition - Kumon or Enopi?

Strangely, I thought that a Chinese Kindergarten's maths level should be very high. But girlet so far has been doing simple addition and just beginning with subtraction. This is what she's been doing in montessori kindy last year.

Being kiasu, I went for a consultation at Kumon to find out more on Kumon's method of learning. Am impressed with the focus on developing good learning habits, concentration, responsibility of own work leading towards being an independent learner. But a little hesistant with the daily worksheets, as she has a lot of homework on writing Mandarin from kindy as it is.

Then went to check out Enopi, which is the Korean method to learning maths. Seems similar to Kumon with exception that this include problem solving, and less homework. A friend thinks I'm weird to be looking for less homework because "for Maths, the more she practise the better she becomes".

Erm, so which to choose? Proximity wise, both are about the same. In the end, chose Enopi because I can set maths problems for her to do anytime but lateral thinking is something that I don't know how to teach her. Let's hope this is the best decision for her.

Bento # 18

Two weeks ago, a fellow blogger, Angeline informed me about the Hello Kitty kamaboko in Jusco Midvalley. Since then, I had been dropping in Midvalley periodically to no avail. Anyway, I was in 1U to buy a present and on a whim, checked out the Jusco there. To my delight, they had two packs left. Very clear sign that I'm meant to buy them, right? RM12 price tag regardless. Hehe.... can you hear me clapping my hands with glee..... Thanks Angeline (Sorry, can't access your blog to thank you directly).

So yesterday's bento was wonton noodles topped with Hello Kitty kamaboko and carrots. Fried wonton, boiled wonton and sweet peas on the left. (Both type of wontons are part of my stash in the freezer.)

For dessert, Girlet got a custard tart and cherries. Notice the teeth mark on the tart? Girlet couldn't resist having a taste first. It ended up as a Hello Kitty day with all Hello Kitty boxes, sauce container, wet cloth, cutleries and bag.

Bento # 16 and # 17

Yesterday's bento. Mini cubed onigiri, made with the mini rice mould from Daiso (can you guess how much I love that place?), crabmeat on a stick and homemade breaded fish & prawn ball, carrots, unshelled edamame and cherries. Two Hello Kitty containers, one with soy sauce, the other with tomato sauce - so she can't complain of the lack of choices.

Another winner - she finished all her food, but I did make sure to pack her favourites. Probably also getting better at judging the food portion.

Today, Tuesday was another busy morning as Babylet had her Kindermusik class. So frozen spaghetti to the rescue. I followed lunchinabox's method of freezing extra spaghetti in a patty tin.
All that was required in the morning was to steam it up and let it cool down enough to pack. I actually defrosted two pieces of chicken nuggets and heated them up in the toaster oven. Unfortunately, I left it in there to cool and forgot to pack it in the rush. Oopsie!! No protein, and the nuggets were suppose to have a dual function of 'weighing down' the spaghetti to prevent less food movement.

I comforted myself that there were protein in the measly bits of minced beef in the spaghetti sauce. And she did have her nuggets when she came home for tea. But nothing can be helped about the spillage. As the girlet couldn't give a clear picture of the state of the bento at lunch, hopefully the divider would have lessen the mess somewhat. Haha, such delusions....
Spaghetti bolognaise, extra sauce in HK container, edamame, grapes, and rice crackers.

Bento # 14 and # 15 - quick bentos

I usually plan girlet's bentos around the carbohydrate - rice, riceball/onigiri, noodles, pasta and bread - and try not to duplicate the carb within the week for variety sake. But due to popular demand, the egg mayo sandwich made another appearance this week. This time used different cutters - butterfly, flower and Hello Kitty. Threw in some grapes, cream cheese and a mini pack of biscuit (not shown), it took only 20 minutes to make, and that involved waiting for girlet to slowly mash up the egg. Girlet, you can have this whenever you want.
Friday mornings are a busy time because babylet has her Shichida classes in Bandar Utama. So needed another quick-to-pack bento. Just heated up the frozen leftover noodles and charsiew, leftover egg, ham and spinach pinwheel, and edamame and left to cool, during which I sent boylet to his nursery. Then as I packed the cooled food into the bento box, enlisted girlet to punch star shapes on nori. You can tell from the number of stars punched that she enjoyed the task. Babylet also enjoyed her task of munching on the leftover nori. Added custard swiss roll and sliced apple (dipped in salted water), this bento took less than 15 minutes to assemble. All that was required was a little planning at night.
Most importantly, girlet finished up the food in both bentos, which to me is the actual measure of success.