Left to right – Angel hair spagetti & prawn, sausage & cheddar cheese, baby mandarin orange.

In Cantonese Prawn is called ‘har’ which is also ‘siew har har’, that is lots of laugh.  So if you want a happy new year ahead, cook lots of prawn and make sure you eat them too!

Since I have quite a collection of girly food picks, I decided to get something more boyish for my boy.  Love this sword foodpicks very much!

Top Left to right:  Baby french beans stir fried with sweet raddish, fish ball soup.
Bottom left to right:  Fish Paste Roll.  (You can get the recipe by clicking on the link provided), white steam rice with a dash of seaweed powder

Just a quick update as I’m doing some spring cleaning and need to run down to the store to buy a new plasma mounts. Gong Xi Fah Chai to all!!!

Waking up time – 5.30am
Completion time – 6.45am

I realised that Monday is the best time to pack a tricky bento after the body get a full recharged on weekend like catching up with sleep and such.  By hook or by crook, if I keep it up this way, I should be able to go back full swing on my bento.  The thing is, I’ve run out of new idea and today’s was a repeat from what I’ve posted up before.  The new stuff I made is the korean seaweed rice balls.

Top Left to right:  Sweet tamago sushi, korean seaweed rice balls
Bottom Left to right:  Stuffed kamaboko, baby tomatoes

For Him & For Her

Let’s talk a bit about schooling hours and I’ll bitch on the modern furniture they have in the next post.  For people like us who left school almost 18 years ago, we are shock (or rather I am shocked!) to learned that school nowadays start as early as 7.15am. During our time, school starts at 7.45am! LOL!  I didn’t know this as all these while, my children is in the afternoon session and I am still adjusting to my new routine.  Even driving to school in the wee hour of morning is a big challenge to me as the sky is still dark outside and I’m the type that can’t do night driving. Oh, don’t even talk about waking up!  After the 2nd day of school, I started to hit the snooze button.

Top to bottom: Onigiri rice, stir fried organic slim lily bud with hae bee (dry prawn), emperor pear & longan, deep fried chicken wings and unagi cawanmushi.

Our fridge is stuffed with so many veges we bought from Cameron!  Time to clear all of them before the once “fresh-vegetables” turned into “no-longer-fresh-vegetables”.

For the soup, we boiled together some anchovies, beetroot and carrot for an hour.

This is how my Son eat his meal.  He discard the carrot and beetroot.  Add in that two pieces of onigiri rice to the soup and finished up the whole thing!  This way, I save my energy forcing them to drink soup.

With kids around, we hardly cook spicy food at home.  What’s more with this nice looking squid?  This is what my Mom used to cook for us when we was younger.

Stuff some minced pork (marinate with soy sauce, papper, sesame oil and tapioca or cornflour) into the squid’s cavity, pour oyster sauce on it then steam them till done.

Top row:  Grilled Taiwan sausage, chives omelette (homegrown!), mangosteens.
Bottom row:  Inarizushi (rice stuff in tofu skin) and stuffed squid.

Good thing this is a back dated bento but looking back, I recalled that night I replied Hubby’s sms that read, “Throw away the damn food if you are not coming home to eat.”  That is because Hubby “suddenly” decided to change his plan for not coming home for dinner.  Good thing I’ve never post my bento on date and that way, I don’t put grouges in the blog.

Close up:

Grilled Taiwan sausage and home grown chives omelette

Inarizushi

Squid stuff with minced pork

Top:  Gardenia Chocolate Bread with ham, quill eggs, sausage man (using a toothpick to fasten the button mushroom as a hat.  Black sesame seed and a little photoshop as facial details *ngek*)

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On the first day of school reopen, I decided to prepared something quick as I was afraid I might got caught up in the morning traffic.  I decided to used the alpha cutters which I bought moons ago.

I hardly get to used the upper tray of this bento box cos they are too shallow and I have been wanting to prepare something like this for the longest time.  For the lower tray, I filled them up  with two slices of bread (again!).

Nothing go to waste in my house. *evil grin*

On another unrelated matter pertaining on Michael Jackson’s death. My 7 years old came home from school and told me this, “I think he put lipstick, then died.” Adoi mak, where on earth did he get that idea.

And for my 9 years old, I showed her some video clips of Michael Jackson and she goes, “HE LOOKS LIKE A GIRL!”…  “HE IS SO UGLY!” Sorry about that MJ.  I did explained to her why he become like ‘that’. Told her about black turning white, about plastic surgery, what is side effect, etc.  But she still goes, “BUT I can’t believe it, HE IS SO UGLY!” I think she doesn’t like how MJ looks like but she love the song “We Are The World” since she was a child.  Then I thought maybe I should show her some ‘nicer’ pictures of MJ in the 80s.  Too bad the video cards on the laptop decided to do the ‘Michael Jackson’ too.  Wrong timing.

Top:  Grilled Teriyaki Salmon, blanched Choi Sum cut flower, soup boiled for 3 hours with  black chicken, lotus root and chinese herbs.
Bottom:  Rice with black sesame seeds, seedless guava with sem buoi (sour plum) and fresh Lychee.

My recipe for the teriyaki marinate – Dark soya sauce, light soya sauce, dash of pepper and honey.  This dish is a big hit among my kids whenever I cook them.  Thin slices of salmon fillet grill on high heat on the pan.  Save the gravy as drizzle for the rice and the kids will go yum, yum, yum!

(Sorry, close up picture was a bit blurry due to tummy growling and kids fighting over who-gets-the-bigger-piece) o.O

Bento #85

Top:  Buttered corn with Hello Kitty fishcake, star shaped chicken nuggets.
Bottom:  Grapes, carrot sticks with ketchup as dip for nuggets and carrot.

Fyi, school canteen is selling nuggets at RM1.00 for 2 pieces.  I think that is so freaking expensive!  The next day the kiasu me went and bought a big packet of nuggets too. *ngek, ngek, ngek*

Many Mummies out there was wondering where I bought the Hello Kitty fishcake from.  My current stock is all from Takashimaya Singapore.  The last time I was in Singapore, I sapu about 5 packets of it.  Of late, I saw the same thing selling in Mid Valley Jusco (the entrance where you will see a pool furniture umbrella).  They are hot selling stuff.  Whenever you are there, just take a peep.  I’m sure by luck you may chance upon it.  Price was S$6.90 or RM12.90.

Bento #86

Left to right:  Wholemeal mantou with cut-out cheeses, stuffed kamaboko and crappy-looking-vampire-eyes kamaboko.  Fruits – checkered apple.

How I wish someone warned me earlier that this Hello Kitty crust cutter is a little bit too small for our local Gardenia bread size.  The only time I get to use the cutter is when my eldest Sister bake me some home bake bread.  Nevertheless, they are very cute.

Left to right:  Wholemeal mantou, carrot stick with kewpie mayo in blue side dish and checkered apple.
Bottom:  Cream cheese spread on home bake wholemeal bread.

We don’t get to use this two tier bento box very often.  Usually we just utilised the bottom tier but it sure comes handy today.  Sometimes owing two tier compartment box give us the flexibility.  You decide when you want to use them separately and when to use them whole.  Same concept as the portable laundry hamper.