Bento # 43

I hardly post up Baby Princess bento. This 3 year old of mine is a fussy eater and she eats very little food only. I’ve decided to post up her bento this time consisting of Pancake with blackberry jam on the side, Champagne grapes and two pieces of Toblerone chocolate.

Of course the older kids get 3 pieces of pancake each.

The pan I used this time is flower shape. Recently I’ve bought a whole lot more of other pans like Hello Kitty shape and such. Haven’t really find the time to utilize them yet.

Bento # 44

Before this, I took things for granted thinking that some of you can tell which bento is for adult and which one is for kiddos till I get comment like, “Those portion is too big for a kids.” “Are you sure your kids eat such stuff?”. Duhh! Do I have to be so precise to mentioned all the time if the meal is for kids or adult? It take ones intelligent to tell actually (depending which category you fall under).

Bacon, asparagus and enoki mushroom

This one is definitely adult bento.

Top tray: Avocado & a squirt of kewpie mayonnaise, spiral macaroni + onion + red and yellow bell peppers toast in french dressing.

Lower tray: Grill rolled bacon + baby potatoes at 200C for 30 minutes.

Hubby was telling me he don’t like the taste of the baby potatoes. So what he did is gave one to Annie, Victor and Brian.  And he ate the rest of the potatoes.  So smart of him!

Traditional Bento Box sold in Market Hall

The lower tray was then loosely wrapped with cling wrap before being stacked up to avoid the bottom of the upper tray smear with mayonnaise.

Top: Sweet potatoes
Left to right: Inarizushi (sold in MarketHall), grilled shishamo and grilled salmon

The tofu skin (aburaage) is also known as brown bag sushi that has been cooked in a sweet-soy sauce based.  Since it is pre-packed, all I need to do is stuff the cooked rice in the Inarizushi. Some people may squeeze the sauce out but I prefer mine to be wet as they are able to retain moisture like a disposable diaper. Inarizushi is ready to eat and often, people like to put them in a bento box and I love them as they make great finger food during party too. Since the bags prevent the rice from drying out, it is actually even better after they have ‘rested’ for an hour or so for the flavor on the skins to penetrates into the rice.

It’s the time of the year again we stick to our tradition to celebrate the Kids birthday in TGIFridays. My Sister cringed whenever I told them we are dining out in TGIF. LOL. What to do, Sis. Unless you can find a similar restaurant like TGIF then we will switch venue, ok? Since it is the Ramadan month, we was there super early at about 6pm to avoid the crowd. TGIF have changed their menu and even their cutleries.

All their bowls and plates are red. I likey! This is also one of the new dishes called something Garupa. And our all time favourite is the Friday’s Platter consist of fried mozzarella cheese.

Now you tell me how not to love their food? It reminded me so much of the cruises that I went. We had five meals a day and all we did was eat and eat and eat!

And the must-have each time we dined there is their mud pie.

So chocolatey can die!

It is also TGIF tradition to present the birthday Boy a slice of their signature chocolate cake. And why it always have to be TGIF? Cos they make such a stomping ruckus during birthday celebrations that the next country also can hear. The birthday boy or girl will appreciate the attention (although some pretend to be shy and all lah).

Before blowing out the candle, the staff aked the Prince to make a wish. And I interrupted, “His wish already came true.” Haha! The little boy has been bugging us for a PSP so we decided to get him one after 2 months of empty promises. If you look carefully at the 2 most bottom picture, the big sista was asking him to “sheesh…” “sheesh…” . Basically the boy is jumping out of joy that the next table is able to hear him.

One for the album.

So you think 2 girls and 2 boys make a happy family?  Cringed man!

Fyi, little boy in navy blue is my nephew.

See you again TGIF, Gambate!

There is currently some confusion I stirred when I put up my status in Facebook that read: “Jessie is proud to own a 5 Million Dollar Home.” Yes, with capital letters! I do get messages like:

• Wah you so rich!
• When is the house warming?

But the name is no stranger amongst photography enthusiasts.

We are talking about the Million Dollar Home of the stick man with the brand named Crumpler that doesn’t crumple!

Yes, it’s a bag! I hear ye!

You should check out Crumpler website. They have all sort of wacky names for their bags and their product description doesn’t help much cos they word them way too imaginative, creative, exaggerative and not forgetting expensive! Yes, all the ‘tive’ that you can think of!

So you want a house warming? Please come in. Let me take you for a tour around the house.

Rear view

Top View – Note two tone fabric colour

Side view on the strap

Sorry, no furniture yet.

What furniture? Camera gears la!

Why does the blue turned grey? Don’t ask me lor. *shrug*

Initially I wanted to get a backpack i.e. Keystone but the boutique in KLCC has run out of the stock. Instead of going home empty handed, I thought why not get something smaller or maybe a sling bag. 5 Million Dollar Home is just nice for a weekend outing. It can fit my Canon 400D with attached lens, additional lens, external flash, iPhone and my purse. That’s all. Nothing too big or too small. For vacation, I would definitely need a backpack. Can’t wait for their stock to arrive.

Till then….

I love cooking tau yu bak. You just need to throw everything in a big pot and simmer for 2 hours to get some sinful porky, tofu and eggs dishes. Since kids love this dish, I cooked them quite often too.

I separate the gravy in a different container so that the rice won’t soak up and gets too wet. Note: The container came with a cover too so no gravy has the chance to spills out. I throw in a few sticks of fresh cucumber too.

How do you like your fried noodle to be? I love mine with lots of sprouts (taugeh) and cabbages.

Left to right: Zucchini + egg + wasabi + kewpie mayonnaise = salad, alfalfa, stir-fried rat’s tail noodle (low shee fun) + carrot + shrimps

Close-up:

This is how I made the salad:

Mashed roughly 2 hard boiled eggs, mixed wasabi according to your tastebud and squirt kewpie mayonnaise in there. Grate (don’t use a knife to cut) thinly zucchini and mix well with egg.

For dessert, we have rambutans, or was it pulasan? I can’t remember as this is a long back dated bento during the fruits season.

Managed to take some photographs on my nephew again.

This 11 month old nephew is responding to words now. That is him doing the peek-a-boo. Sometimes I felt babies are so innocent. While holding on the bottle, they managed to melt your heart with their cutest ‘peek-a-boo’ pose of all.

This is what I meant by “sticking-out-tongue” :p

After looking at the first pic, the 2nd and 3rd pic has nothing to hoo-haa about. Furthermore, it is not easy to get him to make goofy faces. Maybe I should go kidnap older babies. Any volunteer?

8 years ago, I have problem with my first baby where she will chew or bite on the crib rail when she was teething. If we left her unattended in the crib, she will have paint crust all over her mouth. Good thing is my second and third baby doesn’t have this chewing habit. One year ago, I pass the crib to my Sister and lo and behold, her baby has the chewing habit too.

I was relating to her my past experience where we will quickly carry baby out from the crib the moment we heard her woke up. The crib has then been painted for the 2nd time when second baby came along. My Sister then managed to locate a crib teething protector from the crib bedding shop. I find the crib teething protector is very innovative. Nowadays, we are so fortunate to have brilliant people to come up with such a brilliant invention!

Unlike previous year, this year kids started playing with their lantern one week before Mid Autumn Festival which falls on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month. I have not been buying lanterns for them for about 3 years now. The paper lanterns we had from previous year and the year before is still around. Every year, I have to rant the same thing. How come the rest of the kids all hiding in the house? How come I don’t bump into any kids carrying lantern in the neighborhood? So no fun at all.

My Sister & Nephew

Come to think of that, my own children especially the 8 y/o was not that keen to play with lantern this year. She have the guts to tell me this, “Mummy, I play for 5 minutes only, ok? Later I want to watch Teevee already.” There she goes, at least she fulfilled her culture needs as a Chinese. Can someone please invent a 2 in 1 lantern with a Teevee?

Kids have been playing with this Hello Kitty lantern for the past 3 years. This time, the evil Mummy purposely let the kids abuse the lantern so that they can have a new lantern next year. LOL!

Top left clockwise Bento belongs to Baby Princess, Eldest Princess, Daddy and Prince.

Food consist of Unagi & zucchini maki, edamame in skew and California strawberries which is 10x sweeter than Cameron Highlands strawberries. This, you have to agree with me, right?

Usually when I finished packing their lunch box in the morning, kids and Daddy will still be in bed by the time I left for work. I will layout all their bento boxes on the table. By now, kids are familiar with which-bento-belongs-to-who. I’m sure you are able to guess that too.