I have every reason to pack more sandwiches to work now ever since I bought myself a new triangle onigiri bento box that double up as sandwiches box too.

Top to bottom: Tuna sandwiches, blue berries & kiwi.

I was not very fond of tuna as they have a foul smell but the 8y/o love them very much except for the greens. She had a different version compare to the adults.

Yea, just plain tuna sandwiches. The only child that goes after vegetables is the 6 years old Prince and he is the only child that eat whatever I served without whinning. My two girls are the pickiest lot!

Even Daddy was complimenting the onigiri box as they looks cute and useful for storing sandwiches.

I know.  That is pun intended 😉

I have seen many bloggers out there making this dish.  I was very curious to try them and I did.  aitelyu, it was superb.  I bought Giant brand of frozen roti canai with onion and cheesy Weiner. Watch out for oozing cheese when it is done.  All you need to do is wrap Weiner in semi defrost roti canai.  It is up to individual if you want to cut the lines across the wrapped package but if you do, this will save you cooking time too.

Grilled them on 200C for approximately 45mins or till brown.  That is very time consuming isn’t it?  The usual pan fried took less than 5 minutes to brown.  They are so good kids can have 2 serving of this and because this is home cooked, there was not a drop of oil in them at all.

For dessert, they have half mandarin oranges, half plums and few jelly beans for treats.

Left to right: Hard boiled egg, grilled chicken skew with bell peppers and japanese cucumber, fried vermicelli.

I have no inspiration at all while preparing this bento. The main reason is because of the missing food separator that could not be replaced by Tupperware Company. Their agent’s excuses is so lame like, “We don’t provide spare part.” So what I did is send a e-mail to Tupperware Company asking if they could kindly spare one unit for me from their production. I attached a reference link to one of my blog post so that they can have a better idea which lunch box I am refering to.

And this morning, I get a reply from their Customer Service that goes like this, “Regret to inform you that we not able to open the file to view the picture. Appreciate if you could resend the file.”

Don’t know should cry or laugh. I send them a link. All they got to do is just click on the link ma. What file? Where got file la!

The only motivation I had is probably this cutesy egg mould that produces cutesy prints on eggs.

All you need to do is cook your hard boiled egg like usual.  Discard the shell while it is still hot, put them in the mould and soak them in ice water for approximately 5 minutes.

This is Daddy’s bento using the fish mould.  I know he will get embarrassed to have some childish imprints in his bento. Ok la, this is considered a bit macho.

It was slightly more than a year ago since I visited Siem Reap. While I was there, I bought a packet of rice paper (it is also our version of spring roll) but never get to cook them till recently when I saw the expiry date is getting nearer.

This is the method:

Brush some water all over the rice paper to soften it.

See, when the rice paper has soften, it is almost transparent and very fragile to move around. Make sure you put them where you want it to be on your working table or cutting board. I bought this orange cutting board from Tupperware for handling cooked food. It says here in their catalogue, “… quality cutting board that minimizes cut-lines to prevent bacterial growth.” I am putting my trust on Tupperware product. Hope they are what they claimed to be.

As for the ingredients, there is no rules saying what can or cannot use. Just prepare the ingredients that you favour most. As for me, jiu hu char (stir fried turnip) is a must, fresh lettuce, fresh cucumber, roast pork or lap cheong (wax pork sausage) and shrimps.

(p/s:  dSLR ran out of battery.  Took this pic using Sony T-10.  Crappy result, huh.)

It all goes into the adult bento.  You slowly wait la if the kids would eat something like this.  I have some homemake samosa too.  No tutorial for that as I have yet to mastered the wrapping skills.  Other time then.

Another backdated bento that I’ve prepared during Mid Autumn Festival.

A little large on portion so that I can have them from breakfast to lunch. I tried to bring a lunch box at least 3 times a week to my work place. This is part of my frugal budgeting and planning to save for more holiday and what’s not.  This is what I had:

Left: Homemade Siew Mai with a little of crabstick on the top, Char Siew Pau (sliced into half) and chocolate flavoured mantou (also sliced into half).

Left: Slices of Peaches and piggy mooncake (a homemade gift from a friend of mine)

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.

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.

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.