Exam and Halloween Bentos

I'm so GLAD Girlet's exams are finally over. Cos we've not only struggled with Mandarin, there was Malay Language to contend with too. Sigh!

Bento #138 was a quick and simple Good Luck in Exams bento. Just peanut butter, and chocolate sandwich with cheese accents, ham flower and papaya flowers. I forgot about the brocolli that was left in the steamer, otherwise it should go in the empty spot beside the ham. Yup! I was that stressed. Have I mentioned how GLAD I am that the exam's over.
Bento # 139 & #140

I'd admit to being a procrastinator ...... waiting for the very last day to make a Halloween bento. For Girlet, there was a chicken rice (with chicken stuffed in) coffin, with bones on top (from the Scooby Doo pasta), poison beans (edamame), sausage fingers (copied off Kel here) with bloody nails (chinese sausage stuck on with ketchup), quail egg eyeballs (raisin pupils and foodmarkers) and a blood-filled mouth with fangs (the blood being red dragonfruit, and the fangs was a gummy candy).
Boylet's bento had a blood-filled tombstone (strawberry jam sandwich), a sausage finger, an eyeball (made a hole in the egg to stuff the raisin in), Frankenstein (pandan eggsheet, seaweed & cheese eyes), decaying flesh with bone (leftover sausages and pasta) and Jack O'Lantern carrot (using the facial expression multi cutter). The finger at the bottom left was a gummy candy.

Lastly, a pic of Girlet in her witch costume.

Bento #137 - Giraffes Galore

I'm slowly unearthing the bentos from the past few months. One of Boylet's fav was this Giraffe themed bento. He only stays back in school once a week, so I try too make something interesting for the picky eater.

The giraffes were made from Butterscotch Bread, so chosen because it looked like the print on giraffe's skin. The tree trunk was half a chocolate Twiggies, and the leaves were from an egg sheet (egg white coloured green by the juice of pandan leaves - smelled yum). The grapes were fruits from the tree - looked like coconut, so that we would just make that a coconut tree *_*. Had some watermelon, so cut out giraffes for snack time, accessorised with a giraffe pick. Of course, mustn't forget the giraffe box, which inspired this theme.

Of Papaya Trees and Dengue

So what do the above two have in common? You may have heard of it, but this is really news to me.

First, I’ll talk about our attempt to plant papaya trees at our front yard as part of the kids’ science project (we’re tired of planting green beans). My mom has a few papaya trees and gave us mini papayas, which were simply adorable. Perfect for bento, like the one below:
(Sorry, can’t resist sneaking in a bento, lol!). That's half a papaya, onigiri, teriyaki chicken, grapes and a strawberry.

My mom made it sound so easy, that the black-thumbed moi decided to try planting papayas too. The kids helped to clear part of the lawn and scatter seeds from the mini papayas at 3 different spots. To our amazement a tree actually grew, and started flowering almost immediately. Then it grew taller and taller, without any sign of fruits despite ample flowers. We salivated and applied more fertilizers to no avail. Then my mom came for a visit and declared that the plant was a ‘MALE’ plant, which would only flower and never bear fruit. The flower of a 'Female' plant is different. Huh??!! I knew it was too good to be true. I griped to a few people about it and vowed to chop down the tree.

Two days later, Sue, my good friend who had heard of my misadventure, requested for some papaya leaves as she is suspected of contracting Dengue fever. Fortunately, the procrastinator moi had not bother to chop the tree yet. Apparently, papaya leaves contained something that helps platelet to increase. Take the Raw papaya leaves and blend (or pound with mortar and pestle). Squeeze out the juice, strain and drink. It’s very bitter, so do add honey to it. But do not cook, or add hot water. Well, her platelet count increased enough for her to avoid hospitalization, even after it was confirmed as Dengue.

As Sue also drank spotted frog soup cooked with bitter gourd, (another bitter concoction, why do these natural cures taste so awful?), I thought the papaya leaf juice may be another urban legend. The skeptic in me asked around and heard anecdotes of so-and-so’s relative whose stay in hospital was shortened after drinking this juice. Even googling ‘papaya leaves’ came back with more anecdotes but not proper verification or test. The only confirmed fact is that papaya leaves contain papain which aids digestion.

Hmm, true or not, if one contracted Dengue, there’s no harm in trying out this method. If can take spotted frogs, why not raw papaya leaf juice? Only, don’t come asking for papaya leaves from me. The tree has finally been chopped down. Glad that it could be of use despite being a barren tree. Plus point : identifying papaya leaves is part of Girlet’s science curriculum, and she saw it first hand instead of just from textbook.

Back to school again with Smiley Sandwiches.

It's back to school again for Term 2. Phew! I must say that I'm glad to have two kids out of the house. Finally some peace and quiet.

Just noticed it's almost 1 month since my last update. Was busy with Girlet's revision for exams back then. Thought I would have time to update this blog during the hols, but as it turned out I was busier than ever. The kids are getting more demanding as they grow older. Who said it'll be easier?

After two weeks vacation, Girlet refused to go to school today, and offered to go Kindergarten with Boylet instead. Haha..... Don't we all want to do that! And that's despite having a new roller Barbie schoolbag. Her previous bag was looking battered. Even with her new bag, it came back with black patches all over only after one day. She doesn't seem to cherish her possessions. D'hubby says it's because she gets things too easily. Maybe, I should have let her continue using her old bag. It is still in working order, just look old even after cleaning. The rate she's going, her new bag is going to look the same after one week.

Anyway, here is Girlet's bento for today. Finally took out the facial expression multi-cutter from its package. Even Babylet willingly eat up her sandwiches with such cute smiling faces.

Contents : Sandwiches with kaya (it's wholemeal bread on the bottom layer), fishball with mayo, a piece each of fried chicken and fish, egg roll, grapes and a cherry. Drats! Forgot to use the smiley faces picks.

I still have 3 months worth of bentos to post, as well as the activities done over the hols. To my dearest sis and Emily: I've updated. Now it's your turn!

Bento # 134 - Cheesy Baked Pasta

Thanks everyone for your prayers and good wishes for baby Amelia. So far, reports are well. She had a hole in the heart, but it mended by itself (Praise God!). Have yet to check her eyesight and hearing. She has opened her eyes, so we are hopeful.

Anyway, I'm taking a break from studying, erm, helping Girlet revise for exam to post outstanding bentos. It was an easy bento from (yup, still) Feb. The telltale item was the lunchsheets which expired early March.

This bento consisted of baked pasta (made individual portion while making dinner). I decorated the pasta with cutout cheese (obviously it would melt, which is all the better for the pasta). There were nuggets under the deepfried lotus root (which Girlet complained had turned limped by recess), grapes, cherry tomatoes and flower lunchsheets.

To my dear Janet who requested for the 'recipe'. Well, as usual, I don't have fixed recipe, just by estimation, and what's available. But this baked pasta is ridiculously easy to make.

1) Boil your fav pasta shape (I used shells here, but have used elbow macaroni and spirals).

2) Meanwhile brown some minced beef (I used a small pack of Aust Weight Watchers from supermkt) and chopped onions, then pour in a can of tomatoes, some water, a dash of oregano, salt & pepper to taste. Let simmer and thicken.

3) In an oven-safe dish, pour in half the cooked pasta, layered with half the meat sauce and plenty of cheese, then repeat the same layers.

4) Make (and later freeze) individual portions for bento.

5) Then dump into preheated oven for 20 - 30 mins (I used 180`C as my fan forced oven is rather hot). Use higher 190`C if yours is not.

Note: For cheese, I put cheddar & a little powdered parmesan in the middle, and topped with mozzarella as my kids love the cheese to be really gooey. But you can put in any processed cheese you like.

Easy-peasy and less work than fried rice!!

Bentos # 131 - 133

I made more bentos than I expected in Feb since I'm still unearthing unposted pics. How do I know these bentos were from Feb? Well.... each pic has a clue. Let's see who can guess the answer. *_*

Bento # 131 - Two sleepy brown bears made of ricepot chicken rice, with bite size chicken thigh meat stuffed inside. This was an easy bento. Skewered the grapes with picks, cut some sweet peas at an angle, and placed the fishball and strawberry as they were in the box. Had some place, so added in a piece of chicken for more protein. All in took less than 20 mins.

Bento #132 was even easier - fried rice with carrots, frenchbeans and egg, with two pieces of sweet n sour pork - all leftovers from previous night. Thought it was too plain, so made a mandarin orange man, surrounded with grapes. Fifteen mins including steaming time.

For Bento # 133, I attempted a flower garden again. This time white rice was moulded into a flower, with the side dish of sweet n sour fishcake in a tulip cup, and leaves from sweet snap peas. Added egg sheet flower and grapes for colour, and also to fill up the gaps. I believe this didn't take more than 20 mins, though I wish I could be faster with easy bentos like this.

(A hint : ChooiPeng's customers may find it easier to guess) *_*

Boylet's Snack Bentos

I've been packing snacks for Boylet, which I'll loosely call bento despite not meeting the various criteria. Boylet's kindy serves fruits as snack, so I normally pack carbs and some protein to fill him up as he only drinks milk in the morning. His bentos are not tightly packed, but no worries of food moving around since I carry his things right to the door of the kindy.

Bento #126 - Reaching for the stars with a rocket ship.

Bento # 127 - A spinosaurus chomping on leaves on a cloudy day. The spinosaurus is jam sandwich decorated by Japanese lunch (egg) sheets.

Bento #128 - A herd of elephants (cheese sandwiches) meeting up with another herd (fishballs skewered with elephant picks). The grapes were extras from Girlet's bento.

Boylet thrives on themes. He likes to coordinate his clothes with his snacks. So if he's wearing dinosaur t-shirt, it's dinosaur bento, spiderman t-shirt with spiderman bento, and elephant (safari animals) with his safari t-shirt. Being picky, he eats better that way.

Bento # 129 - Croissant with nutella, cubed cream cheese, cereal, and grapes as fillers.

Bento # 130 - Dino in the jungle with oversized mushroom. The polka dot dino was an inspiration from a song in Boylet's favourite CD (bought two years ago in Sg).

I'll leave you with the lyrics of the song. It's a catchy song which I find myself humming sometimes. Even Babylet can sing the song, as of others from the CD. The link to the CD is here.

No One Ever Saw A Dinosaur

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Ever wondered what they look like

All those years ago
Anyone who knows will tell you

No one really knows

When they lived we know for sure

People weren't around

So how can we be certain

that dinosaurs were brown

They could be blue, green, purple

or a funny shade of pink
Brown or red, orange

or any colour you can think
No one knows cos no one ever saw a dinosaur

Polka dots, plain or stripy
Overall dark or faint

Multicoloured, black or whitey
Any colour you can paint

No one knows cos no one ever saw a dinosaur

More backdated bentos #123 - 125

Can't believe it's already April. I'm getting quite desperate to finish posting on Feb's stuff.

On a good note, I started my exercise program and had lost 1 kg in two weeks. Another 1 kg to go to pre-Christmas/CNY binge and then 3kg to pre-Babylet weight. I've given up trying to get to pre-babies /wedding weight. *_*

Bento #123 - Bear onigiri with lunch sheet cutouts, sausage, kanikama (artificial crabstick) & edamame, green grapes & strawberries.
Bento # 124 - contained chinese style inarizushi - aburaage stuffed with rice and charsiew (just making use of leftovers). While all four have the same contents, for visual interest, I covered some charsiew cutups with rice and top with stars (from orange lunchsheets). Also had stuffed chikuwa (tube shape fishcake) with baby asparagus, lunchsheet flowers and strawberries. Bento # 125 - Dog onigiri with lunchsheet feature, chick (moulded quail egg), stewed soy sauce drumnets, watermelon and grapes, with a dog fork pick (you can get this at 100 yen shop -Tmn Desa & Kuchai- for RM4.90).

Bentos # 117 - 122 : Bread bentos

More backdated bentos. And the bentos are no longer in chronological order since I messed up the timeline. So I'm grouping them by contents. I try to pack food in a rotating order centering on bread, rice, noodles, onigiri, pasta. Hopefully, that'll provide a variety in taste. Anyway, today I'm posting all the bread bentos for Girlet in Feb. All Speed Bentos, made within 15 minutes.

Bento #117 - Kaya sandwich with white and wholemeal bread. Added two chicks and a cheese dog chasing a cheese cat, and some grapes (no vege, so cheated with green picks *_*). First use of the red Hello Kitty box.

Bento # 118 - Egg mayo sandwich, red & orange cherry tomatoes, moulded quail eggs and a cheese cube.

Bento # 119 - Pooh bear sandwiches (can't remember now what filling they were), mini mandarin (which put this into early Feb when the mini mandarin were still sold), and grapes. Didn't pack any protein as Girlet was getting fried eggs and sausages in school.

Bento # 120 - Mini poppy seed bun (again forgot what filling) with My Melody cheese, stewed oyster sauce drumnet, and grapes. This was one of the few bentos that I made decorations with cheese, since they melt in our hot weather.

Bento # 121 - Butterfly sandwiches, nuggets and red dragonfruit cut with butterfly cutter. Girlet decorated the butterfly with pink food marker to match the dragonfruit.

Bento # 122 - A boy holding a girl's hand (raisin bread with kaya), and heart watermelon. Must have been made the period around Valentine's day. Other items were nuggets, quail eggs pretending to be dogs and a jackfruit, deseeded, hence accounting to the weird shape.

Backdated Bentos # 115 & 116 - Pokemon

Pokemon pasta is every boy's favourite, at least at my boy's kindy. Suddenly, my boy decided that bringing bento to school was cool. I even had other mummies calling me to ask where to buy the Pokemon box and pasta as their boys went home requesting for the same.

Bento #115 : Pokemon pasta in cheese sauce, mini chocolate muffin, grapes and cubed cheese.

In Boylet's current favourite bento box.

For Bento #116 : Decided to be more ambitious and make a Pikachu sandwich as well (Boylet is more a bread person than rice). I used the Pikachu rice mould to cut out the shape on bread, and tried to cut the features as closely to the mould as possible. Made this for boylet's lunch (another replacement class right after kindy) so had plenty of time.

Contents : Pikachu strawberry jam sandwich (features were also stuck on with jam), pokemon pasta with carbonara sauce (in container under the bread), a crabmeat-on-stick and chicken nugget.

Unfortunately, the Pokemon bento box was too small to fit all these in. So I used another box instead. Another justification for this recent purchase (among others) from MarketPlace. With two levels, it can pack more than the Pokemon box above. For snack bento, I will just use one layer. Boylet is absolutely thrilled with this.






Pics copied from Market Place. Thanks Chooi Peng.

Backdated Bentos : # 112 - # 114

I finally processed the photos from the camera. So here's some bentos from early February.

Bento # 112 : Tried making Yaki Onigiri for Girlet. While wrapping the seaweed around the onigiri, thought that it looked like a bandit. Duly added eyes, as if the bandit was eyeing the food in the box. Jokingly told Girlet to quickly eat up her food during recess before the bandit attacked, and she scoffily replied "then I'll eat him up first". She must have thought her mother is not too bright. LOL!
Bento # 113 : Made same day as above..... identified by the maki. Must be on a Wednesday then as this was Boylet's lunch before going to replacement music class straight after kindy. Boylet had to eat in the car, so I added easy to eat food like nuggets and sausages. Even cut them up to save eating time. The monkey container held icing sugar for the strawberries, to be eaten after the class.

Bento # 114 : I had earlier made mini onigiris with the 100 yen shop's moulds - cubes and face shapes - for freezer stash. When I was making this bento, decided that mini onigiri took too much time to decorate. So after steaming, remoulded three of the mini onigiri into one bear face. Yup! I'm that lazy.... one face to decorate is more than enough early in the morning. And picks were easy way to jazz up the fishballs. Had I not remembered the ribbons cut earlier (from lunch sheet) in the fridge, the sweet and sour minced pork would have remained unadorned too. The bear container with soy sauce turned out to be ornamental, as Girlet didn't use the extra flavouring.

Bento #110 & #111- T-Rex Rampages

Made this two weeks ago, as requested by Boylet. Two T-Rex (which is factually incorrect as they are solitary animals) attacking a group of herbivores - stegosaurus and triceratops. The T-Rex were tuna sandwiches, and the dino pasta was accompanied by cheese sauce in the container supporting T-Rex's head.

Boylet had just recovered from allergies /asthma and had poor appetite. The dinosaur bento was a big hit, and he finally finished all his food for the first time since CNY.

The following week made another dinosaur bento for Boylet. Thought the previous T-rex was too white, so used lunch sheet dress it up. The green and orange dinosaurs were a big improvement. To fill the gap, added some stars - sausages and Honey Stars. I spinned a story that the T-rex (green dino) was attacking at night, this time attacking another carnivour, maybe an Iguanodon (orange dino). The Iguanodon was trying to protect it's two eggs, of which one was hatching. A dino pick was used as the hatchling.

This proved to be another favourite. Now to spin more stories.

Valentine Bentos

I have plenty more bentos unposted, but thought better post the Valentine Bento first in keeping with the season. Haha... that's coming from someone who hasn't posted the Christmas and CNY pics. I've actually been bento-ing practically every schoolday. But more misses than hits, so not inspired to post them.

Anyway, although Valentine was on a Saturday this year, Girlet had school as replacement for the long CNY break. So she had her Valentine bento on the day itself. Made her a heart shape onigiri and two stewed drumnets wrapped with ribbon (made of Jap lunch sheet) for ease of holding.
The day before, I made heart shaped Nutella sandwiches. Now that I put the photos next to each other, I realised the similarities between the two. Same box aside, the lettuce and mandarins were at the same position, and the colours are alike. I'm really stuck in a rut or what??!! Accompanying the wheat shaped pasta was cheese sauce in the orange container. I admit that the lettuce is purely for decoration. While Girlet now is eating lettuce, this particular bunch of lettuce was yuckily bitter even for me. The pet rabbit gets to enjoy it instead.

Didn't make any Valentine bentos for the men in my life. D'hubby had conferences and didn't need any bentos, while Boylet preferred dinosaurs to hearts.

This skipping of posts really messed up my numbering system. Sheesh.... I'll just label them as Bentos # 108 & 109 for continuity sake.

Ox themed bentos for CNY

I'm jumping into the fray by making ox-themed bentos in conjunction with Ox Year this Chinese New Year.

Bento #105 is an ox onigiri for Girlet, with salmon sausage and corn. Thanks to shoppingmum for the idea of using the bone pick for the ox's horn. Saved me lots of time. I made the ox from a Pikachu (pokemon) rice mould and moved the ears down to resemble an ox. Was late and didn't have time to shell edamame, so the middle portion of the bento was left empty. Bento # 106 - A simple cow made of cheese on top of sandwiches, with salmon sausage, broccoli and corn. Lastly Bento # 107 was a snack bento for Boylet. It contained an ox made from quail egg, ham and spaghetti strip. Surrounded the ox with various farm animals cut out from bread & cheese. Corn, salmon sausage and a rooster pick completed the bento .

GONG XI FA CAI to everyone.

Bentos # 102, 103, 104

Bento # 102 - for Girlet. Tried to fashion a small charsiew pau and two pieces of fishpaste/ seaweed roll into a dog, with dismal results *sigh*. How did I pass art exams last time? Anyway, my mum gave me some mini papayas from her tree, and they were the perfect size for bentos. I halved 2 papayas and they just evolved into a man. Added edamame for some green as we're out of lettuce. Babylet had the rest of the papayas for brunch.
Bento #103 was for Boylet. He started classes in a new nursery, and they serve mainly fruits at snack time. It must be insufficient for Boylet as he would gobble down his lunch when he's home. On one hand I'm happy that he's eating lunch unlike last year where I have to either persuade, bribe, threaten or force him to have lunch. On the other I'm afraid he's starving. Am hoping that his appetite is growing as he's getting older. Fortunately many of the kids bring their own snacks, so he's not so adversed to a snack bento for himself. I tried to make a bunny out of the mini pau & grapes, and a flower out of jelly & edamame.

Bento # 103 was a breakfast bento for d'Hubby. Consisted of pancakes with maple syrup and mandarin oranges. The pancakes were just too plain and I couldn't resist adding facial features. A first cutesy bento for d'Hubby. All the container were too small to store the maple syrup, so made do with a silicon cup covered with a clingwrap.

Bentos # 99, 100 & 101

Being very blur, I didn't realised until now that I've reached and passed the 100th bento milestone. *duh*

Bento # 99 - Egg and Filament stick maki, nuggets, kamaboko flower, grapes and sweet peas. The quail eggs were embossed with facial expressions but indistinct, hence used foodwriter to enhance them.
Bento # 100 - Girl & Boy onigiri, prawn fritters, mandarin and grapes.

Bento # 101 - Sweet & sour chicken, My Melody apples, and under the Hello Kitty carrot was Onigiri mixed with Korean seaweed. There were more grapes in front which I removed for the pic as they were blocking Melody's face.