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.

How-to : Make flower egg/ham

To Lisa: Sorry for the late reply. I've been busy the whole day. Anyway, how I made the flower egg may not be the proper way. Like your dumpling sandwich, I saw the pic, and did it my way. Please feel free to improve on it.

First, beat the egg with salt and pepper added (you may want to add milk, suspect Japanese add Mirin and sugar).

Fry paper thin. I used a rectangular pan.

Lay the piece of egg flat on chopping board and make parallel slits about 1/4 inch apart in the middle of the egg (not all the way through). If you make long slits, the effect will be like mine, the 'petals' will open up wider. I didn't have time to fry an egg, so am showing you pics using ham instead.

Fold the egg/ham in half, perpendicular to the slits. I found out the hard way that if I cut after folding the ham, the ham tend to break.

Roll the egg/ham up and secure with a toothpick. For girlet's bento, I left out the toothpick, just wedge it tightly among other food so it doesn't unravel.

You probably would want to experiment with wider/narrower slits, longer/shorter slits, thicker/thinner egg, all of which will affect the final product.