Bento dated sometime end of 2008.

We was one of the few regulars to Dragon-I. Sometime end of last year, Dragon-I came out with new menus and additional over 30 new dishes. One of them is this Oink-oink pau.

They are quite pricey at about RM6.00 odd for a pair of Piggy pau. Baby Princess ate one piggy pau and I reserved the other one for next day bento. Note the missing ear? Baby Princess wants to eat both the piggy pau but I won’t let her. She decided to steal one side of the ear under my nose. I was so mad I kept on nagging at her. My 8y/o then suggested that I cut out a small piece of marshmallow to replace the ear. Very funny. Not!

Bento #67

At the same day, I copy another dish from Dragon-I’s menu for Daddy’s bento. But of course this is my version la.

Carrot sticks and yellow zucchini rolled up with Breakfast ham.

Since Carlgene wants just bread + butter + sugar, I woke up 30minutes later than usual.  But the big Sista wants Tuna sandwich and Baby Princess wants fairy bread. Gosh!  So many request.

This is the Big Sista’s bento.  The only food differences in my 3 children’s bento is the bread.  They all had pretzel and a bottle of Vitagen.  Since I do not have a baran long enough to act as a divider between the sandwich and Vitagen,  I had the sandwich wrapped in wax paper instead.  Anyway, they are just plain tuna sandwich cos the Big Sista doesn’t like vege or even cucumber in it.  She is so picky that I gave up on her!

The kancheong (heart throbbing) part would be in the evening when the children return from school.  And my first question would be, “Carlgene, did you finish your Bento?”

“YES!”

Yay!

I am a little phobia now and would check with him everyday if he wants a bento or buying food from canteen. And for Day 3 back to school, he wants to buy food.  Aiyah, I am so sad to hear that 🙁 .  The Big Sista still prefer a bento.  So this morning, I shoved a packet of Rocky for the two of them.  I can’t wait to find out this evening if the Prince finish the packet of Rocky AND still buy noodle from the school canteen. kekekeke… fyi, he has a very good appetite.

Guess most Mothers find it difficult to drag themselves up this morning after the long hiatus from bento’ing since the 6 weeks long school holiday. I almost ‘u-turn’ after shutting the alarm clock at 6am.

Top left to right: Blanched broccoli, slices of orange, pudding and Kewpie mayo in bear container.
Bottom left to right: Tuna roll with japanese cucumber, rolled up japanese cucumber and cherry tomatoes.

I was a little stress out and anxious since this is my Boy’s first day in Standard 1. I’ve brainwashed him the day before, “If Mummy make bento for you, DON’T BUY FOOD FROM THE CANTEEN, ok?” To him, obviously everything is A-OKAY. And guess what?

Food picks was a gift from Whoisbaby when Hubby met her last month in Las Vegas. Blessed her kind soul.

The first thing after he came home from school in the evening, he passed me back the bento box and said, “Mummy, today I bought noodle from the canteen.” LOL! I was not exactly angry but must show a bit unsatisfactory face. This is proven that boys is always boys. They are always curious and is brave to try new things. My Mom used to nag us, “the money in your pocket can bite, is it?” meaning we must buy something when we have the money. LOL.

And can you imagine I just threw all the food away? So wasted. I have to get assurance from him again, “Tomorrow how? You better tell me you want Bento or buy food from the canteen”. He can’t seem to give me an answer. I know, he felt like a big boy and buying food from the canteen is new to him but those noodle is so unhealthy! Not only that, they are just plain noodle with a miserable piece of fish cake. Read my lips. Just one piece of fish cake. Nothing else. No taugeh, no nothing! He finally said he wants a Bento for tomorrow lunch and requested bread + butter + sugar. And I offered to threw in a cultured drink. His face was gleaming. As long he is happy, I am happy too 🙂 .

I am nuts over cutesy pasta shapes. When I saw this packet of Christmas Tree pastas sold in Cold Storage (Singapore. Sorry folks) I know I have to get them even though they are a bit pricey at S$6.90 (RM16.00).

Make do with what I had in the fridge as I don’t intend to stock up anything in my fridge as after tomorrow, I will be away to Penang to celebrate Christmas with my immediate family members.

Left: Egg Pastas salad with kewpie mayonnaise and celery. I had the baby sweet corn steam with the ham. That way, the baby corn get the flavouring from the ham. Nice! In the flower silicon cup (latest loot from Michael’s, U.S.), we had canned tangerine. No fresh fruits as I am out of them.

The bento I’ve posted up is usually post-dated bento that I’ve made for the family. Since I packed ‘presentable’ lunches for my family members at least 3 times a week but only post up one bento post every week, can you imagine how much bento post is accumulating in my hard drive? The bentos have to wait for their turn to appear in the blogsphere according to dates. Since this Halloween theme bento won’t be making it’s appearance for another 2 weeks, I have to cut the queue cos it is quite embarrassing to post up a Halloween theme somewhere around Christmas. lol.

Top, left to right: Chocolates overload and cakes.
Bottom, left to right: Pumpkin cutout from carrot with nori sheets as the facial details. Strawberries yogurt for more calcium boost and the yogurt act as the dip for the carrot too.

Daddy’s Bento

Left: Steam white rice with furikaki, wakame (green seaweed) is in the blue silicon cup.
Right – top to bottom: Roasted honey chicken, stir fried aubergine (brinjal/eggplant) with minced chicken and sweet tamago.

This  time I over fried the brinjal and lost it’s purple colour.  Bad me.

Close-up on the dishes:

Zucchini  act as food divider plus Daddy love fresh zucchini very much.

For dessert:

The very aromatic with a little tinge of sweet yet sourish all blend together, passion fruits. And I am so wrong again to store Jackfruits with the passion fruits in the same container.  It’s the smell!  To keep them cool, I have them wrapped in insulation bag together with the blue ice gel.

My bento:

Sometimes, I’d prefer to use Lock and Lock bento box for myself  as I don’t need all those decorating and presentation.  But I still end up cutting my zucchini with the cookie cutter.  Vain!

For some reason, ever since I mastered the skill of making my own sushi, I hardly frequent Sushi King anymore. Making your own vinegar sushi rice is so easy. There is no rules saying you can’t use your normal cooking rice. The only difference between the fragrant rice and japanese rice is the sticky consistency. Japanese rice is more sticky and they required less water when cooking. So it is alright to use fragrant rice as they are still sticky but less sticky. Get it?

Cook rice as normal in your rice cooker. Once your rice is done, fluff them up with a pair of chopstick. For a cup of rice, drizzle 3 tablespoons of rice vinegar. While mixing, fan the rice (for unknown reason). There is a wide variety of ingredients sold in Jusco and since my kids is a fan of grilled eel I make Unagi quite often. Fish roe is another hit but I doubt they will stay any fresher as a bento meal. For dessert, kids have zucchini, golden kiwi and fresh red dates.

I bought a new tamago pan specially for the tamagoyaki (rolled egg). They are a superb kitchen gadget that I’ve invested so far. And since this is a bento lunch, you will want to make sure the egg is well done to avoid any contamination. I used baran (separator) to avoid the nori (seaweed) from sticking to one another. Not shown in the picture, I have the bento box wrapped in insulation bag with a pack of blue gel ice too. Since the recession is coming, we dine outside lesser now. No more extra expenses like buying the diet pills online.  Self control now to shed the extra pound.

Once in a while I will consolidate few unattractive Bentos that is taking up memory space in my laptop computer.  Those unattractive but taste heavenly creation is usually when I have ran out of food in the fridge or when I was dead tired to wake up at 6am.

Bento #56

Left to right: Yakult (cultured drink), mini Toblerone chocolate, biscuits in clear silicon dish and tuna mayo as dip to go with the biscuits in penguin silicon dish. Wedges of golden kiwis in oval silicon dish. There is a small spreading knife for the tuna spread next to the penguin dish if you look carefully. While I was processing this pic, my 8 y/o dotter said, “Mummy, this look delicious but too bad, I did get to eat them.” That is so pitiful to hear. What happened was she forgot to bring her lunch box to school as she left them in the fridge. As the two younger rascals came home first before the eldest Sister, they happily gobbled all the food like monkeys. You know, monkey? Greedy, fighting & making lots of noises? I promised Jie-Jie I will make a similar bento for her other time cos this girl is totally nuts over tuna.

Bento #57

Left to right: Fairy bread in a shape of tulip, Yakult (cultured drink) and cheese sandwich.
Even though this is non cook food, the preparation is quite time consuming especially the fairy bread as I try to be very careful not to spill the Hundred and Thousand on the work table to minimal cleaning.

Bento #58

Daddy’s bento consist of cheese and ham sandwich. Dessert was passion fruits and thanks to Christine for the red dates.

This time I wrapped the sandwiches in cling wrap so that they won’t fall apart.

One of my blog reader wants to know where she can get this elastic bento band that I am using. For your information, I make them myself! They are not for sale and I don’t think you would want to buy something that is hand stitched compare to machine stitched.

*psst… yes, I’m back from my cruise. Pics will come later. Haven’t started any processing yet.*

While the kids had cutie looking pastas two days in a row, I can’t wait for our chance to savour that packet of maple leaves shaped pastas.  errrr… I could be wrong on maple cos they are not maple at all.  Correct me if I am wrong.  At the mean time, let’s just pretend they are maple 😉 .

While the adult had lots of greens, the kids had ham sandwich which I do not intent to blog. The left over ham from the cut out (star), I cut them into tiny bits and they all goes into the salad. Nothing goes to waste that way. I like french dressing. Too much mayonnaise is a bit geli plus mayonnaise is fatty. NO?

The above bento belongs to Daddy. I make him a hard boiled egg out of the star egg mould which has been dusted by some black pepper. I reckoned a heart shape egg is a bit too mushy in the morning. LOL However, I make myself a heart shaped egg cos I have no other mould left except kiddie moulds.

This is my breakfast and lunch. What to do, have to jaga badan a bit. And why does Daddy had Strawberries but I have golden kiwi? That is because I share half of the kiwi with my other kids. This happen to me all the time. I just filled up what ever food I have.

This time I did not dust black pepper on my egg cos I find the pic look dirty with them. Cute eh?

Left to right: Macaroni Cheese, smoke ham and a piece of blueberry as decoration, raspberries and raspberry in konnyaku jelly.

Close up on the Animal Pasta. They consist of Giraffe, Tortoise, Lion & Elephant

I think the Mummy is more excited than the kids. LOL Few days later, I opened up another packet of Pasta Zara. This time, they are in shapes of vehicles.

Left to right: Macaroni in bolognese sauce, blueberries, bite sized burger, a small container of mayonnaise for alphabet fried potatoes.

Close up on the Transportation pasta: Train, Car, Motorbike & Aeroplane. If you look carefully, I have the bolognese gravy at the bottom. Didn’t want to mix them so that I could have a better picture showing the graphics.

I did a smaller bite size burger this time compared to previously. And the patties are homemade too. The one sold in the market has too much fats in them. This is part of my weight loss program *cough*