Bento # 76 - Halloween Spider Pizza

Following the previous post, girlet requested for another pizza bento. Lacking any original ideas, shamelessly copied another pizza idea from Gourmet Mom. However, as Girlet is not fond of olives, the spider is made from a gummy snake instead. My so-called pizza was made from white bread, beef bolognaise sauce and cheese. Included two pumpkin marshmallow and some grapes. And mindful of allthingspurple's advice in keeping the food intact, I placed a plastic sheet over the bento, and then plastic cutleries and damp towel on top so there would be no space for the food to move about. Other for the spider which appeared somewhat squashed, that worked quite well. Happy Halloween!

Bento # 75 - Halloween Snake Pizza

This is the first pizza I'm packing into a bento. Reason being I had always associated pizza with being piping hot with gooey cheese. But after seeing a few other mommies packing pizza with no complains from their kids, thought I should try out too. And what better time than a Halloween bento. I took the idea of the snake pizza from here. Love this blog, has all sorts of cutest ideas.

The original recipe used bagels. Not having any bagels, I cut out semi-circular shapes on white bread instead. Using some leftover beef bolognaise sauce topped with cheese, these snakes took no time to make at all. I put the pizza in the toaster oven for 5 minutes while I washed and cut the apple into Jack-o-Lantern.And while the pizza is cooling down, I packed the rest of the bento - a marshmallow ghost which BIL brought from Oz, and a Snickers o'Lantern. Unfortunately, being clumsy, I dislodged the snake while transferring into the bento box. See how the snake have gaps which was earlier held together by cheese. And the second snake was slightly too long so Girlet got to eat the tail first for breakfast. So the final bento had 1 and 2/3 snakes.

Verdict : Girlet cleaned the bento. First time she has so much treats, that she requested for another pizza bento for the next day. *_*

Bento # 74 - Spooky Riceball

This was Girlet's bento for friday. My BIL and SIL were back from Melbourne, and SIL's grandmother made Bakchang. Girlet loves bakchang, except the chestnut, so I dug into the chang to remove it and decided to reshape it into riceballs. And thought that since Halloween's coming, to make spooky riceballs, with eyes of fishcake and black sesame seeds. Added meat dumplings, kamaboko flower, fishpaste swirl and filament stick in fishcake, some pieces of red/yellow capsicum, sweet peas, and champagne grapes. All placed on iceberg lettuce.It turned out to be too much food for girlet. She ate the Bakchang, kamaboko, part of the dumplings and surprisingly, some of the vegies. She had the rest when she came back from kindy.

Bento # 73 - A bouquet for a girl

This was Thursday's bento. Made from leftover chicken rice ala claypot style. We love this meal, delicious and very easy to make, just marinate and dump everything into the rice cooker and voila! An all-in meal with carbs, protein and vege inside. And high on the kids' list of favourites too.

For Girlet's bento, I strip the chicken thigh meat and mixed with the rice. On top, I placed 3-D carrot flowers and sweet peas cut into stalks and leaves. More vege and protein in the form of fish balls and yellow/red cherry tomatoes skewed on a pick. I cut the papaya into cubes and topped with two pieces of flower papaya just for fun.The fishballs looked remarkably like eggs, didn't they?

Bento # 72 - leftovers adult bento

This was my bento a few days ago. The lower tier has rice with salmon furikake, lettuce, yellow/red cherry tomatoes, yellow/red capsicum, and half a flower egg (placed downward as the yolk is not centered. The top tier has beansprout, minced pork & potatoes and more tomatoes and capsicum. Other than the fresh vegies, everything else were leftovers. Because unlike my sis, Biblo, who has SIL, mom and colleague's mom to cook for her, I have to fend for myself. Dear sis, tell your mom how pathetic I am and to come and cook for me instead!! Maybe playing the grandkids card will work better. *_^

Bento # 71 - A Fishy Affair

This was yesterday's bento. Last week, Girlet had been having simple bentos. Thought to compensate and make her something that requires more effort. Since I had two more of the fish sausage in the freezer, ended up with another fishy bento. It would have been better with a coloured fish egg, but overall it's quite satisfactory.

Bottom tier: White and Red Fish Dragonfruit, Fish Pretzels with cream fillings, Fish container

Upper tier: Fish sausage, cheese & nutella sandwiches, egg, ham anemones, broccoli corals.

Purchases from Market Place

These are my newest purchases through internet, from a local website called Market Place. I found the prices very reasonable and some even cheaper than e-bay. And the service is superb!! Thanks, Chooi Peng!

It's almost time for the year-end's long school holidays. I am planning a few jaunts to some local attractions. So stocking up on boy's or asexual bento stuff for Boylet's bento, to balance out all the Hello Kitty stuff. Pooh bear is a safe 'investment' as the girls can use them too, should boylet persists on refusing a bento to school.

So Pooh bento box, Pooh container with spreader, Pooh cookie cutters, Thomas dividers, mini Alphabet cutters, egg shell cups, and chick furikake container. Chooi Peng threw in some colourful baran for free. Thanks again. Also bought a pack of picks, but already given away before taking this pic. And I've already have the cookie cutters. These are for a friend.

A bigger pic of the egg shell cups. Comes with 3 picks - chick, frog and dinosaur!! The last being a delightful surprise.

And a bigger pic of the Pooh container with spreader. To quote Emily, "Cutesy"

Anyway, Shopping Therapy is very good for stress.... LOL!

Bento # 70 - My beehoon bento

This was my bento from last week. Fried beehoon with chicken, topped with egg, fishcake, and vegies. And side dishes of Johor style otak-otak, and fish kimchi. D'hubby laughed at me for making bento to eat at home. But I realise I eat better when I make bento for myself, otherwise it'll be nasi lemak or Korean instant noodles *_*

Another Award

Another award from Blessed Mom. Thanks heaps!


They all are charmed with the blogs, where in the majority of its aims are to show the marvels and to do friendship; there are persons who are not interested when we give them a prize and then they help to cut these bows; do we want that they are cut or that they propagate? Then let’s try to give more attention to them! So with this prize we must deliver it to 8 bloggers that in turn must make the same thing and put this text.

I must admit that I had to read this a few times to understand it. *_*

Far be it that I'm the one to cut the bow. So am propagating this to : Biblo, Emily, Bentopet, Mystory, Angeleyes, Kel, Family First and Sue.

Bento # 69 - Spinach Noodles and coloured eggs

Girlet's bento for today consisted of spinach noodles (thanks to Emily for introducing it to me), various steamed fishball/fishpaste/filament stick, and coloured quail eggs.

I read with interest on how Blessed Mom coloured eggs with blueberry juice here, and tried with Ribena blackcurrant juice. The egg turned nicely purple, though it was slightly too big for the bunny mould and the face broke somewhat. The yellow chick was soaked in turmeric/curry, and turned out very well.

Girlet was very happy to have her favourite colour purple in the bento.

Tests are over!

Today's Girlet's last day of test. Phew! What a relief. Especially when d'hubby left for USA last week in the midst of her tests, leaving me to handle the three kids. Now I'd better catch up with my blog posts, with the kids surrounding me like this.

Babylet on the floor with a lift-the -flap book.

Boylet spotting differences in two pictures. (He's not left-handed, just eating dried prunes with his right hand, so had to draw circles with his left)
Girlet doing Mandarin homework. She's happy her tests are over too.

I would have liked to go with D'hubby as I've not been to the NYC, but no one wanted to take in my 3 kids. And the flight was simply too long for the kids. And girlet had her tests...... basically life changes after having kids. D'hubby had better buy me something nice.... *_*

Red Rose Award

A big thanks to Blessed Mom who gave me this award. *_*

Red Roses for 7 Friends

The rules of the award are:

1. The winner can put the logo on her blog.

2. Link the person you received your award from.

3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.

4. Put links of those blogs on yours.

5. Leave a message on the blogs of those you’ve nominated.

I'd like to present this award to : Biblo, Emily, Bentopet, Kel, Our Story, Angeleyes, and Lisa .

New purchases from Taman Desa's 100 yen shop

Last week, I read Emily's review on the Taman Desa's 100 yen shop, and spotted some Thomas the Train stuff. I used a visit to my eldest sis as an excuse to drop by there, and here's what I got. Alamak! If different branches have different stock, then I'll have to track Emily's footsteps to the various destinations.

Thomas snack bento box, small water bottle, small divider plate and bowl @ RM4.90 each

Bento belts in various designs.

My sister bought household stuff and we all had the yummy Mango Ice.

Bento # 68 - Hello Kitty's Photo Frame

This bento features a new cookie cutter from Daiso, which I bought recently during the Hari Raya break. When I saw it, my first thought was of a photo frame. So that's the background story of today's bento - photo frame with Hello Kitty's pic.

If I were more artistic, it would be cool to draw Girlet's pic on cheese with food markers instead. But then that'll take me 2 hours instead of 10 mins to make this bento ^_^. I had wanted to cut out little cheese & ham flowers to decorate the frame, and roll the ham into matching flowers. But was tired (read - lazy), so she ended up with a plain frame and a simple ham 'fold'. As the ham was Garlic Ham, packed a Mentos mint to prevent garlicky breath. Also included her current favourite champagne grapes.

Been packing a lot of Nutella sandwiches for Girlet recently. Reason being Nutella is cheaper in Singapore, even after currency conversion. The kiasu me, of course bought the biggest bottle the last couple of times there (which has been quite frequent since the advent of bento mania). Now, the kids have to finish the bottles before the expiry date....hehe.. Although I do have a mind to make this delicious looking Nutella Frosted Cupcakes by Kookyculinary. Next week then, after exams.

Bento # 67 - Spaghetti

Today's bento are made up of the frozen stash in the freezer - spaghetti bolognaise, and breaded prawn, fish and squid. Also included shaped cheese, carrot stick and blanched snow peas accompanied by mayonnaise dip in blue strawberry container, and champagne grapes.


Verdict : Girlet only ate two carrot sticks despite the mayonnaise. And carrots are the usual vegies that she would eat too. Sigh!

Bento # 65 and # 66 - Tigger sandwich and Piglet sandwich

This was yesterday bento - for the first day of Girlet's test in Mandarin. Just a quick bento- cheese sandwich & Nutella sandwich, all cut with Tigger cookie mould; chicken nuggets, strawberry and champagne grapes. The kids couldn't stop eating the champagne grapes, all the while competing on who can find the smallest grape.

This was today's bento: Piglet sandwich with Nutella, two types of dragonfruit, and fish wrapped with seaweed topped with mayonnaise and tomato sauce.

The Tigger and Piglet imprints turned out rather nice, didn't it? The kids love these Disney cookie moulds. You can get them from NST and Market Place.

OMG! Stressed out Mom

Two months ago, I bought 3 tickets to the puppet show "The Man Who Planted Trees" for 12th October. That was before realising when Girlet's test was. Anyway, I have been so stressed out about Girlet's Mandarin test today, that we totally FORGOT to go to the show yesterday.

Can someone give me a big kick in the ..... ?

Bentos # 62, 63 & 64 : Slapdash Bentos

I haven’t been online most of this week. Girlet is having her school assessment next week, and I've been busy studying, ahem, helping Girlet revising for her tests.

Here are the bentos for the past few days. Quoting Blessed Mom, the mommy is rather brain dead now, hence lack creativity. All bentos here met my speed bento criterion of 15 minutes and less.


Bento # 62 : Bread with kaya, cheese and Nutella, SiuPao, ham shaped as anemone, cube cheese, heart shaped dragon fruit, and Strawberry fruit snack.

Bento # 63 : Star shaped nuggets, onigiri, sandwich, golden kiwi, and crackers; two sticks of satay, and a strawberry gummy sweet. Not shown are tomato sauce and soy sauce. Basically just a slapdash bento. I ran out of bread, so packed the crust (which Girlet doesn't mind eating). And made do with the frozen onigiri for more carbs. Now I wonder how the food tasted like together. Girlet didn't complain and came back with an empty box. Couldn't tell if she threw anything away.

Bento # 64 : Heart & Flower shaped sandwich with Nutella, candy coated sunflower seeds, breaded prawns and fish, banana, dried raisins & apricot, and a cranberry fruit snack. Surprisingly, she didn't like the candy coated sunflower seeds. Boylet finished that for her.

Girlet loves the Kettle Valley Organic Fruit Snack. It has one apple in every bar, with an assortment of flavours, and she loves all of them. I like to think of it as a serving of fruit to meet the 7 vegies & fruits a day quota. *_^

Bento # 61 - all about cars

Found a picture of a bento, languishing away in another camera. You reckon it's the early signs of Alzheimer? From the picture, it was easy to tell that the bento was made about three weeks ago, during puasa period and mid-autumn festival. Contents: Car shaped sandwiches, three layers with nutella and cheese; two car shaped quail eggs; car shaped cup with dates, raisins and apricot. And the jelly mooncake which was given by someone.

The car shaped cutter is actually for vegetables, but I found it to be the perfect size for the 2 and 4 year old. The 2 year old can eat a whole bunch of these bread cutouts, which she would otherwise reject. She likes her bread plain, with the cheese at the side.

By the way, the raisins and apricots are organic. The non-organic dried fruits are usually preserved with sulfur to maintain the colour. Unfortunately sulfur triggers boylet's eczema and gives me puffed up lips, which is sexy but super itchy... hehe.... For more info on dried apricots, check this link.

Bento # 60 - Piggy bento

Girlet and Boylet are back to kindy today after the Hari Raya holidays last week. In fact, Girlet had the whole week off, so she was really lazy to go to school today. So, as encouragement, let her bring a fun pig bento today. The pig pau is very cute, huh? Of course not made by me. But looks easy to duplicate. Another item for my ever expanding to-try list.... *_*
Pig shaped pau, fish tofu, fishpaste wrapped with filament stick, Japanese fishcake stuffed with filament stick, pig container with sweet sauce, and grapes. Too bad I didn't have any pig picks, so have to make do with bears.

Thanks for the Award

Received this award from Irene. Thanks.

Would like to return the Awesomeness back to Irene, and pass along to everyone who reads this.

Kids Talk # 2

Have I instilled too much fear in girlet? Read this story narrated by SIL, and let me know.


Girlet is a big fan of 'My Little Pony', as the ponies have long coloured hair and are super duper cute! So anyways, Girlet went out with SIL and brought her 'flock' of My Little Ponies out. While holding her hand as they walked to the restaurant, SIL pried into her paperbag and went:

SIL: Wowwwwwwww.... so many ponies hor... you brought the whole family out ah??
Girlet: Ya, but I left one at home.
SIL: How come? Why did you leave her behind?
Girlet: It's a HIM! 'Cos he has to guard the castle.....
SIL: Icic... But what or who is he guarding the castle from??
Girlet: You mean u dunno ah? Nowadays got a lot of thieves breaking into houses u know?! *Tightens her grip on her paperbag of 'assets' & adds...* Have to be careful when walking also 'cos got a lot of snatch thieves around... *looks behind her shoulder*

Haha...... Is Girlet getting very 'auntie' too?

Btw, school hols for a week, so no bentos. We've been away too.... back hometown in Johor.... but actually the mommy's excuse to go Singapore for bento shoppping. Haha...