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.

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) *_*

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).

Bento # 80 - adult bento

Didn't pack a bento for Girlet last Wed because we're totally out of greens and fruits. After she left for school, I dropped the maid off at the wet market to buy the groceries. Babylet and I had to wait in the car as I didn't want to aggravate my sprained ankle. Then the maid cooked tempeh with tauchu / black bean paste, instead of sambal. She also cooked porridge for herself and babylet as she had sore throat, while I had leftover rice and other spicy dishes from the fridge.

Right : Yellow cherry tomatoes, strawberries, papaya, salted duck egg swiped from maid's lunch

Left : Acar, Fish Kimchi, rice with salmon furikake, tauchu tempeh

Sorry, Girlet. Mummy had a better lunch than you.

Bento # 77 - chicken rice

I haven't been posting this week's bentos. Have been lazy as it's almost school hols, and the bentos are most uninspired. Monday's bento was leftover chicken rice, moulded with a bear mould, with chicken stuffed inside. Was struggling with the darn seaweed cutter which got stuck, and ran out of time, just simply stick some seaweed on for eyes, and no mouth. I left space for carrots, but also no time to cut as Girlet's ride to school had arrived. So she ended up with a rather colourless bento.

Content: chicken rice bear, chicken rice + seaweed ball, fishpaste/egg/seaweed spiral, porkball and orange, on top of iceberg lettuce.

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 # 59 - Maki and Fishies swimming around

This bento was from yesterday. No bento today as Girlet's friend was celebrating birthday in school and food was provided.

Top: Fish shaped watermelon

Left: Maki with Ebbiko, crabstick and cucumber, with egg maki in the middle. Edamame stuffed at the sides, and soy sauce in a fish shape container.

Right: Fish shaped sausage, and sausage that I tried to cut into a fish, and fish shaped cucumber.

I found out that Girlet would eat cucumber if if was rolled up in maki. She left the fish cucumber untouched.

Bento # 58 - Inari-zushi

One dish that we always order at Japanese restauraunt or sushi bar is the orange fish roe or ebbiko. It is Girlet and Boylet's favourite, next to the red baby octopus. So, when I saw ebbiko at the supermarket, decided to get for the kids.

I was thinking of making ebbiko maki, when I remembered the balance of the aburaage/fried beancurd pouch bought a few weeks earlier in the fridge. Decided to make inari-zushi instead. In the end, I made two fillings - sushi rice mixed with flavoured korean seaweed, and sushi rice topped with a very generous portion of ebikko.

For Girlet's bento, she had one of each inari, edamame, potato croquette stuffed with sweetmeat/bakwa, fishcake roll, , egg flower and grapes. there are more edamame behind the dog divider. Her only complain was that I stuffed the inari so full that it was hard for her to eat. Oops, talk about kiasu. It was a good thing I packed a small fork. She used the fork to eat up some of the fillings first, so that the inari could fit into her mouth.
Since I still have more tofu pouches, decided to make a bento for myself too. Mine had two inari with seaweed and one with ebbiko. Saved the rest of the ebbiko for the kids' dinner. Made another egg flower, from the balance of the egg from girlet's bento. Laid them on top of a bed of green and red baby butterhead lettuce, accompanied by red & yellow capsicum, cherry tomatoes, edamame and a fan shaped strawberry. Had the salad with French vinaigrette. Delish!
A different view of my bento.

By the way, I bought more aburaage at 100 yen shop yesterday because it was only RM4.90, compared to RM6.90 I paid at Jaya Jusco. It was the same brand and same packaging. Also must add that from the making this bento, I've acquired a few Japanese vocab along the way. *_*

Bento # 56 - More Lormaikai

After a few days of bread for bento, thought better change the menu before girlet gets bored. So made lormaikai, this time went easier on the dark soy sauce unlike the previous effort. Wanted a change from my normal onigiri moulds, so tried a mushroom cookie cutter, using a cling wrap to prevent rice from sticking to the cutter. From there, the bento evolved to a sort of garden theme, with another rice flower, sugarpeas as grass and carrots as butterflies. The butterfly cup contained shredded chicken, and added the siumai for more protein and fill up the space, hehe.... The siumai were frozen leftovers from weekend-bought as I'm yet to master making it.
The top container had pulasan and lotus paste pandan angku kueh. Finally found a place selling very sweet pulasan. Every weekday, there's a lorry in front of Sekolah Kebangsaan Bukit Damansara selling fruits from 2+pm onwards. The fruits are from Thailand. Of course the fruits vary according to the season, but they are all quite consistently sweet.

Verdict: Girlet finished everything except some of the vegies and half the angku. She came home and asked for more pulasan, so it was that good.

Back from Sydney and Bento # 44

We're back, arrived late last night. D'hubby is shaking his head 'cos haven't finished unpacking, already checking blogs... hehe... Well, girlet and he are watching the Olympics closing ceremony.

We had enjoyed the trip. This was girlet's 4th trip to Sydney, but boylet's 1st. Poor babylet had to stay home as we didn't want to plan the trip around her naps. Turned out to be a blessing as it was the coldest winter in Sydney in 40 years. Boylet said he loved the cold weather. Yeah, he is such a sweaty boy. Anyway, will post pics soon (although super efficient -and obsessive- hubby has downloaded the pics, super procrastinator me need some time). Also have to take pics of my purchases from the supermarket. Yay!

Ending this post with a bento girlet had before the school break. Girlet loves glutinous rice, so cooked Lor Mai Fun for her. After steaming, used heart & star cookie cutters and clingwrap to shape the rice. There were chicken stuffed in the rice. Added two siumai, bought earlier, and half a ladyfingers stuffed with fishpaste. Fruits were heart & star shaped apples. Had to place the heart shaped cups upside down to fit in the box. Lastly, a pig shaped container of sweet sauce for dipping. Girlet ate everything except the ladyfingers. She ate the seeds though. Strange girl, she likes tomato without the seeds, and ladyfinger's seed without the ladyfingers.

Bento # 38

Round of applause, please. Doesn't this bento look absolutely beautiful?

Hehe..... this bento was from some time ago. Didn't post earlier as the bento was kind of a visual disaster. Had wanted to make a flower quail egg. It was fine as I cut it, but when transferring from the cutting board to the bento box, the yolk crumbled. Also tried to cut the sotong balls into a flower, probably not enough petals, or not enough space because they did not open up nicely. I tug at the sotong ball and the egg went lopsided. I rearrange the egg and the sotong ball clamped up again. After too much time of poking and prodding, finally got fed up. I quickly took a photo, thinking that this was another not-good-enough-to-post bento. They've been plenty. Then while playing around with this presentation, thought of salvaging this photo, because I did like the colours. The rubik cube did a good job in covering the flaws. I want to stress that tastewise, it was a winner as girlet cleaned the bento box. Hehe... did that sound a tad defensive?

Oops, almost forgot. This bento had white rice drenched with sauce, prawnball, sotong ball, quail egg, flower shaped carrots and part of a mandarin orange.

Bento # 37

Bento # 37 consisted of maki, with crabstick and egg fillings; inari with rice, egg and QP mayo-the slight saltiness of this mayo balance out the sweetness of the inari, although did rinse to reduce the sweetness; eggroll with crabstick; edamame; crabmeat on stick, and dragonfruit.

Girlet had the task of cutting shapes with the dragonfruit. She chose heart and star shapes. After finish cutting, she said "Now I can relak jack". I glanced at her, surprised by her choice of words. She saw the glance and said "Daddy taught me all the wrong things, is it?" Well, I did think of that, but didn't know she was perceptive enough to get it from one glance. So I gave a slight laugh. She responded "Why you laugh? I'm very cute, is it?". And there you are : a wordless conversation on my part. Moral learned : Never underestimate your kid!

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 # 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?

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?

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 # 12 and # 13 - Flower Gardens

On Monday, Girlet asked for her favourite egg mayo sandwich. Decided to make flower sandwiches to match a leftover egg. Half the egg was mashed up for bread, and the other half had the yolk mixed with mayo and parsley flakes. Used mayo to stick cheese and raisin to the sandwiches. A flower garden needed some greens, so in went broccoli and sweet peas. Also have raisins tucked in between.

Ended up the bento was too yellow/green. Didn't help matter that I didn't think through and took the photo against a black blackground. The only consolation was that Girlet finished up all her food and requested for the same again.

Second attempt on a flower garden on Tuesday. Cut out flowers from cucumber and steamed carrots and swapped the insides to create a visual interest. Stalks made of cucumber and leaves made of sweet peas completed the picture.

The top container had chinese sausage, thousand island sauce in pink container #1, tomato sauce in the other, extra vegies, and grapes. Also had shredded chicken thigh beneath the rice. Was very satisfied with how this bento turned out. Better than the previous, right? But not so the girlet. She agreed that it was prettier, then she left all the vegies save two carrots uneaten. How exasperating!!!

Hmm... the plot to get her to eat vegies intensifies...... *cue the creepy music & sinister laugh*

Bento # 5

Another bento from last month. Rice (claypot chicken rice style but in rice cooker), moulded into bear shapes. Used peas and carrots for the eyes and mouths but can't see clearly in this pic.

Further items : shredded chicken under the rice, leftover vegies from dinner, teochew fishball and chinese sausage. Tomato sauce in Hello Kitty container, some fish biscuit and cubed cheese for snack, and grapes.

Packed too much as girlet only managed to eat half of the bento. Reheated the food when she came home and she finished it for tea.