Baking cookies

Made cookies the previous week with the kiddoes. Yes, yes, I know. I'm totally backlogged. But blogging is supposed to be fun and not pressurising. Hehe.... another excuse for procrastination. Back to topic, we had fun, too much fun that we forgot to take photos except for this in the beginning. Girlet holding the mixer, with boylet looking on. The real fun began after the dough had chilled in the fridge.

Boylet asked : Mummy, I want more playdoh please?

Me : This is not playdoh. It is real cookie dough.

Boylet : Then can I have more cookie playdoh, please?

Well, that's exactly what they did, play with it like playdoh. Boylet kept dusting his portion with flour, that his dough were harden and i'm sure unedible, overwork as it is. Anyway, just dumped them after he had his fun. He did made a few cookies with his before-turned-lumpy dough. Girlet did a better job, obviously. At least the surface of her cookies were smooth. Here's the photo of what they made. No prizes for the correct guess of which cookie belonged to whom.

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 # 36 - more pita bread

Had pita bread for the second day running. Just with different fillings. D'hubby's snack was made with tuna mayo and parsley flakes. Didn't have time to take photo as he left earlier than usual for work. Just as well since it was a boring though practical bento.

I put in more effort into girlet's bento. She had her pita bread with egg mayo cum parsley flakes. Other things included a fish shaped egg, steamed baby carrots, baby corn with grapes hat, more grapes, and a piece of layer cake.
Don't you just love this presentation? I copied it from Emily's blog. Check out here and here for other cool presentations. Doesn't her bento make you drool?

Chinese primary school?

I've finally received the letter confirming the allocated primary school for girlet. Still in a dilemma whether to send her to a chinese school as both d'hubby and myself were not chinese educated. In fact we're 2nd generation of non-chinese educated people. What we like about chinese school is of course learning mandarin, the discipline, and supposedly better teachers (compared to the kebangsaan schools). Also more affordable than private schools, which she'll probably attend in secondary school. But we're worried that she can't cope, or we can't help with her homework.... don't even know half of what she's learning now in kindergarden. Have to formally enrol her by end of the month. Would appreciate if any experienced mothers share your thoughts.

Bento # 35 - pita bread

Bought pita bread for a change. Since d'hubby didn't want to be anti-social and eat lunch by himself in the office, offered to make him a mid-morning snack instead. His pita bread was filled with ham, bacon, cheese and carrots. No lettuce because ran out, and no tomatoes because he won't eat them.... hehe. There was some space in the bento box, hence added in a piece of Layer Cake which he bought from Jakarta. Was going to cut some papayas too, when he commented "Is this for snack or lunch? Why so much?". So left it as it was. Girlet's bento had pita bread as well, but only half. The other half I had for breakfast with the same ingredients as d'hubby's. For girlet's bento, instead of ham & bacon, I shredded some leftover chicken cooked with 'kicap manis' or sweet sauce, then topped with cheese and carrots. Quartered the pita bread to fit in the box. There were some extra chicken, so packed into a silicon cup. Also added 3 quail eggs shaped as bunny, chick and car, cubed cream cheese, mini steamed chocolate cupcake and papaya. Some smiley faces fruit & vegie dividers kept the food apart.
Experimenting taking pics of the bento box from different angles. Did this photo look too congested? How about from the top? Which photo do you prefer?

I'm Shortlisted!!!

Well, this is old news. I didn't think of writing until I saw everyone else had blogged about it. Yup, I'm referring to Bento Pet's bento competition. I've entered and surprise, surprise, was actually shortlisted....... what an honour, especially after seeing the fantastic bentos that was shortlisted. *blush* A bit 'paiseh' also to have mine posted next to theirs.

Bento Pet has put up a poll for votes to be casted. The one with the most votes will be announced the winner on Friday. So please hop over to Bento Pet's blog to vote - poll at sidebar - for me, if possible..... I'm not expecting or even think that I qualify to win, but like fellow finalist allthingspurple said, very embarassing to get "zero" vote, lah. Thanks, I'm a new blogger.... 7 weeks old now....... and not many friends in the blogsphere...... so any vote is appreciated.