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

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.

What I bought in Singapore

My first purchase in Singapore was no surprise - more cute pasta *_*. Upon arrival in Singapore, my in-laws took us for a late lunch in Paragon. SIL showed me the DaPaolo Gastronomia shop where she bought the Disney Character pasta. Babylet was excited to see that the Mickey pasta was in stock, besides Princess and Pooh. So, bought the Mickey pasta and another pack of Princess pasta, this time in tricolour. BIL also bought more dinosaur pasta from Australia, so our pantry is well stocked with pasta for next year.
Went to the Hello Kitty counter at Takashimaya, and saw many bento boxes there - Hello Kitty, My Melody, Shinkansen, Twin Stars, and Cinnamoroll - mostly rectangular/oval shape. It took me a long time to decide and I finally bought this Hello Kitty box for its red colour and apple shape. Was also the cheapest there at SGD11.90. And picked up a HK belt too, just for the heck of it. *_^ The Shinkansen train is really popular in Sg. I've not seen any Shinkansen products in KL.
There were quite a number of Thomas the train bento boxes in the various shopping centres, which were not available in KL. I bought this box which comes with adjustable divider and upper tray for cutleries.

I didn't buy much things at Daiso. Went to the branch in Plaza Sg as arranged to meet IL there. As expected there was a huge Christmas crowd there, and I already owned most of the things left on the shelves. The only interesting thing I bought was these plastic crinkle cut knife (probably sold in Daiso KL). While I have a similar steel knife, was looking for one with a deeper groove. These are for cutting jelly, don't know if can cut harder things like potato or steamed carrots.

YL had earlier tipped me about new Mickey Mouse products in KaiKai at Chinatown Point, and I called ahead to book some items. Must be kiasu, mah. Was quite disappointed that the stock will only arrive in January. Still I had fun going through the 2009 catalogue book and seeing the new Mickey products. (Hey, YL, saw your order on a few things *_*) Now the question is how to collect the things. Looks like another trip to Sg is required if my dearest sis or SIL couldn't pick up for me. Well, I am going back hometown in Johor for Chinese New Year.........

My purchases from KaiKai were the Pooh and Tomica multi-cutters, Tomica vege cutter and Pooh furikake case.

On the penultimate day, I 'geram' didn't shop enough as too busy entertaining kids. So put the kids to nap and headed for Takashimaya again, this time Basement (Household section?) for 1 hour shopping before dinner. Found silicone moulds in the shape of dinosaur fossils for my dinosaur lover boylet. It was sold as ice tray but can also make jelly. Can withstand temperatures of -58`F to 446`F, so can also bake??, not that I'll be doing that. They were rather price-y, enough said.

More impulse buys (still at Takashimaya)- cutters, which I had seen in NST and Marketplace but didn't buy. Why did I make the plunge this time? Well, I was in a buying mood and the things were there to be bought. Make sense? haha.... Lucky for hubby I'm no longer into LV bags. *_^

Also bought some cheap books at Lucky Plaza, t-shirts for the kids, cute stationeries & stickers. Overall, I think I showed a lot of restraint this time round. ^_^

Baked Chicken Nuggets

Oh my, time has flown. I made this two weeks ago. I don't usually follow recipes exactly. Just put bits together according to what I have on hand or thought interesting. For this, I combined the recipes from allrecipes, here and youtube, forgot link.

I used chicken breast meat, because too lazy to debone the drumstick. However, I did pound (or whatever the correct word is) on the breast meat to tenderize it. Then I used metal cookie cutters to mark the outline (weren't sharp enough to cut through the meat) and cut with kitchen scissors. The leftover bits were left as strips and cooked the same way. (Not pictured here cos not pretty *_*)

I mixed plain flour with powdered parmesan cheese and pepper. Then put the flour mixture, beaten egg and crushed cornflakes onto their respective plates, arranging them in an assembly line. First the meat was rolled in the flour mixture, then dipped into egg, and covered with the crushed cornflakes. Then baked in the oven at 190*C for 15 minutes. And the results were healthful, crunchy chicken nuggets. The meat was tender but a tad dry. But the crunchiness made up for it.

The older kids had a few pieces each. Fussy babylet came to admire the results but refused to try. She ended up with milk for dinner again. She's already 27 months - old enough for "If you don't eat dinner, you can jolly well starve" routine yet?

Another question. Besides dinosaur nuggets from NTUC on my Singapore shopping list, what other nuggets to add?

Bento # 57 - Dinosaur Pasta

Today was speed bento day, as have to rush for Babylet's music class. Last night, we had bakuteh for dinner and girlet requested to pack that for her lunch today . But how to pack that? If put in thermos, I'm sure the teacher wouldn't be impressed with the aroma wafting through the classroom... hehe... Her second request was for egg mayo sandwich.

I thought about what other carbs I have in the freezer and remembered the leftover dinosaur pasta from last week, which was frozen without the sauce. That's how she ended up with egg mayo pasta with mixed veg today. Boiled the eggs last night so today will be cold to keep the mayonnaise fresh until lunch. This morning just heat up pasta and frozen mixed veg, wash some grapes, and mash the eggs. And assemble. Included a dino biscuit to complete the theme. Accidentally broke the stegosaurus in half, replaced with T-rex. All in took almost 15 mins.
After taking photo,
Girlet: T-Rex is boylet's favourite.
Me : So how, I broke the stegosaurus. No more left.
Girlet: Never mindlah. Let boylet have the T-Rex.
Me : You don't mind the broken one?
Girlet: It's okay. Maybe I eat it first?

And she ended up with this bento instead. Fortunately, as now the spoon can fit in.
The dinosaur pasta may be a novelty item, but boylet really eats more and faster too when we have this for dinner. Gotta ask BIL to buy some more when he comes back from Australia.

Sydney trip

We stayed at BIL’s apartment in Darling Harbour. From the living room, we had this fabulous view. The kids outside the apartment.
On the second day, we went to Taronga Zoo, via a ferry tour of Sydney Harbour. Here’s girlet with the Anzac Bridge at the background. We even saw a few groups of climbers up on the bridge. I'm not posting the photos with Opera House as I'm in all of them.
Being winter, the wind was really cold. Most of the passengers went inside after taking the requisite photos, but boylet refused to go in. He loved the ferry ride so much that he refused to alight when we reached Taronga Wharf. When he finally did, he cried in the bus all the way to the zoo. Thankfully, it was not a long ride. He must have been tired because he couldn’t register that we were going to the zoo. He was most sheepish when we finally arrived, and was upset when girlet laughed at him, calling him silly. After that performance on the bus, we thought we’d better rent a stroller for him. D’hubby complained that boylet was really ‘pahpai’, behaving like a big boss, barking out commands, “go, stop, there, faster”. His good humour was only restored after seeing his favourite reptiles, whereby he deigned to come down from his ‘throne’ for a closer look. Some photos taken at the zoo.

This was the sunset view on the way back from the zoo.
Here are the photos taken at the Sydney Aquarium. We found it very educational. Girlet was excited to learn to differentiate male and female sharks. She loved this kind of facts. They enjoyed the touching pool whereby they get to feel the differences between a few types of seastar, some rough, some smooth and some slimy. Brrrr, the water was really cold though.

After lunch, we went to watch a 3D show, Dolphins and Whales, at the IMAX theatre. It was a 45 min show, and I must admit to catching 40 winks there. So that afternoon , I took boylet back to the apartment and forced him to take a nap, while BIL took girlet, d’hubby, and his dog, a yellow Labrador, to a dog park. Dogs of all sizes and shapes congregate there, to girlet’s delight. Unfortunately, boylet isn’t a dog lover.

That evening, we had scrumptious seafood dinner at Darling Harbour, courtesy of BIL. SIL also flew over for two weeks, and met us there for dinner. We tucked in mussels, soft shelled crab, oyster, both raw and baked, prawns, calamari, etc. Look at this pic - Girlet was thrilled at the humongous ice-cream. That’s considered two scoops by the way. Ice-cream in winter, 5-6 degrees outside…. I don’t know what to say.

We also went to the Australian museum, mainly to see the dinosaur exhibition. We ended up enjoying all the other exhibits too, giving only rocks and minerals a miss. It was both a kid friendly and adult place. We love that it was huge and there weren’t any jostling. We could browse leisurely. Boylet even watched the dinosaur clip/movie twice.

Don't know why boylet need to give a kungfu pose when taking photos with dinosaurs.

With the extinct Tasmanian tiger.
Patting a real life lizard.

Of course we went shopping at Paddy's Market, Market City and the surrounding area. Also managed to celebrate SIL's fiance and my, ahem, birthday at an Italian restaurant. Too bad boylet was so tired out from all the walking around that he slept through dinner and didn't even have the cake. All in all, was a good vacation. The kids enjoyed it and was most reluctant to come back home.

Purchases and Bentos in Sydney

Sorry for the lack of posts. The computer and the server took turns to be down, and then there were the bad storms and lightning most of the week. Can't believe we've been back a week already. My mom came to look after babylet while we were away, but apparently she didn't missed us at all. She's even got to calling my eldest sis mummy. And she definitely put on weight under grandma's care. Hmm, while I'm glad she adjusted well, she didn't have to adjust that well, huh?

Anyway, back to update on the Sydney trip. We stayed at BIL's apartment in Sydney. Being a bachelor's part time pad, the first thing we had to do is to stock up on some groceries and fresh milk for the kids. Bought things like salami sticks, various sausages and ham, roast beef, breadrolls, tortillas, some vegies and lots of fruits : strawberries, blueberries, pears, grapes, oranges and banana (as insisted by boylet). And sorrylah, Emily. I passed on the kangaroo meat, hehe…

Then we went Chinatown, and was surprised to find bento boxes and cutleries.
Boylet really wanted the monkey box, but the clasps were hard to open even for an adult, so he reluctantly took the doraemon box instead (I think Jo-N bought the same one in KL's Pavillion). As expected, girlet chose the sugarbunny box. Also bought two cutlery sets.

I had brought along two small bento boxes there, thinking of packing snacks for kids. But after purchasing two extra big bento boxes and so much groceries, decided to pack bento for some of the outings. Also cheaper to packlah, the exchange rate is crazy.

The first bento was for Taronga Zoo. As it was a whole day trip, had to pack more. The photo on top had fish fingers, chorizos, black pepper sausage, asparagus wrapped with roast beef and eggs.

The second photo had grapes, more eggs (wished I had egg moulds with me), and cocktail sausages.
The third photo was of the rolls : plain, sesame seed and poppy seed. The intention was to make hotdog, but the kids preferred to eat the sausages and bun separately. Surprisingly, Boylet loved the poppy seed ones.

The second bento was a snack bento. We went to Sydney Aquarium, which was just a walking distance away from BIL's apartment. We had lunch at a cafe at Darling Harbour and snacked on wonderfully sweet (and cheap) grapes, blueberries, strawberries and hardboiled eggs. Not shown are stick salami which the kids really enjoyed.Finally, a picnic bento which we had at Hyde Park while walking towards Australian Museum. Tortillas rolled with ham, turkey slices, roast beef, carrots, long beans, and asparagus. All different heights, haha, was in a hurry so just simply cut. The smaller boxes had seafood pasta left over from dinner the previous night – penne with fish for the boylet, and with prawns for girlet. For fruits, more of the grapes, strawberries, and blueberries. Also packed some small packs of crisps for snacks.

We finished most of the perishables in Sydney. Just brought back some fruits and lots of biscuits and chocolates (those flavours still not available in Cold Storage like cherry ripe, bounty, minties sweets, non-halal bacon biscuits). Not forgetting macadamia nuts (unsalted, salted, wasabe and abalone flavoured) and dried fruits (apple rings, pawpaw, and kiwifruit which are cheaper than those in CS here).

Also managed to satisfy the kids (or mine?) shaped pasta mania with the following. Firstly, boylet’s favourite dinosaur pasta – both mini and tricoloured. He was really excited when I bought these, and insisted on opening immediately until I explained that they needed to be cooked.

Next is nothing new. Alphabets and animal pasta except these are tri-coloured.
Was tempted to buy tinned shaped pasta all ready cooked, just need reheating. But didn’t want to risk having d’hubby nagging that they were too heavy to carry back. So bought packet alphabet noodles to try out. The photo below also show raisin & apricots packs, and stick salami snack.That's all, next post will be photos of the kids in Sydney.