Bento Fun

Good Sunday to everyone!

Before I finished off the Orange Swiss roll that I bought, I decided to do a tutorial out of it just in case if anyone is keen to make any snails for their bentos.

Actually, you don’t have to use Swiss Roll if you don’t like sweet stuff. Alternatively, you can also use sushi rolls/maki rolls or even make your own bread rolls for the project! If I’m not wrong, there are a few how-to out there by some other bento-ists so you can check them out as well…

For the tools…

First, you slice the chicken cocktail this way…

Then you attach the chicken cocktail to the Swiss roll (about 1″ thick) or same width as your chicken cocktail with a spaghetti strip, one in the front and one in the back…

And there… using a small round cutter and cut out the 2 ‘eyes’ from the balance chicken cocktail that you sliced off earlier and attach them onto the head. Put nori details…

A side view of the snail…

Hope the tutorial is helpful in making your bento more delightful!

Wishing all of you a great week ahead and happy bento-ing!

As promised yesterday, I’ll be sharing on how I make the cheeky looking mouse using the mini chicken cocktails which I have used here and here. I’ve not seen from any sites or books so I guessed this is my own creation?

For the tools…

Firstly, you take one of the mini cocktails and cut out 2 slices of about 3mm thick for the ears.

Then you cut a small cone out of the other half for the muzzler, like this…

For the other mini cocktail – the main piece, you make a slit half way through so you can slot in the ears…

Then use a spaghetti stip to secure the muzzle onto the main piece…

Using the slice which you cut out the cone, you cut 2 oval shape which will be used as the ‘hands’ for the mouse…

Using a spaghetti strip, poke through so you can see both ends sticking out and press in the ‘hands’…

Add on the cheese eyes and complete it with some whiskers cut out from nori…

A side view of the completed mouse…

Don’t that look simple???

I know not many of you can find these mini chicken cocktails unless you stay in Malaysia. I bought them from the ‘5 Stars’ deli stall which you can normally find in major supermarkets in cities around Malaysia.

At last the weekends are here and I can’t wait for my chance to go out for shopping again! Thought of having a girls day out with Baby G later in the afternoon… will see how it goes…

Wishing you a great weekend ahead!

I did not fix any bento for Darrius to bring to school but I made him a semi-bento lunch. I did another tutorial on making cocktail sausage mouse (will post it up later as I need to touch up the photos first), so to use up the little mouse, I put it into Darrius’s lunch of home made noodles sprinkled with some prawn furikake.

This mouse is similar to the one I did earlier except that this time I have some spare time to cut nori whiskers and attached to it’s muzzler.

I added a sunny side up for him before serving him the plate of noodles and he was very happy and exclaimed ‘Mouse-katour!’ upon seeing the little mouse hiding at the corner. He loves Mickey Mouse Club House at the moment and that ‘mouse-kataur’ is a word they used in the show… not too sure what it means!

There is no bento today since it is Thursday. Darrius gets a slice of cake in kindy so he will usually finish that up (I hardly give him cakes with cream!) and won’t have any space for bento. I only packed a small box of strawberries and dried blueberries for him if he thinks he is still hungry.

Since I am not packing any bentos, guess I should be doing something to guide those new bento-ists out there… something like a give back time! Well, I am no expert myself but I did picked up quite a few tricks after learning from the different blogs ang books! I seldom have the chance to do sharing as I normally pack my bentos in a jiffy with max 45 mins in the early morning before I send Darrius off to school.I have a baby and I don’t have a maid!

The lesson for today is cocktail bear which you always see in my bentos. In my experience, bears are the most common ‘character’ in bentos. They appeal to both boys and girls as well as adults. And putting a bear in your bento will never go wrong! To do this cocktail bear, you don’t need that many tools either so it is always my favorite character (especially those last min ones!!!) to beautify my bentos.

Firstly, you sliced about a 1/4 off the chicken cocktail…

Then using the oval cutter to cut half on both side of the quarter chicken cocktail which will be the ‘ears’ for the bear…

Then you cut a small slit across the 3/4 part of chicken cocktail and slot in the ears…

Now… you can see both the ears!

For the bear’s muzzle, you use a another smaller oval cutter to cut on the cheese and another smallest oval cutter that you can find (optional) for the ears. Punch out nori details and stick on the bear face and tadaaa….

Very simple right?

I hope you find this tutorial useful though some of you may have came across this before as I am sure those veteran bento-ists may have posted something like this one up before or maybe you can find in some bento books too.

Hope you have fun bento-ing!

I use a lot of bread in my bento and especially when I am doing pocket sammies, there will be a lot of odds and ends from the cutting or sometimes I have some left over of bread skins which we don’t normally eat. Most times I will eat them but there are times when I don’t feel like having bread so I have to give them to ’someone’ else…

Hahhhaa! Yes, I am so lucky that one of my neighbour rears chickens behind our house! These chicken will run to me once they heard I open my back door with the hope that I have something for them.

Darrius gets to enjoy feeding the chickens sometimes too if I let him during some evening when it is not too hot and the kitchen was not messy… Most of the time I will just threw them out of the grille door as they  might run away out of fright. Especially when Darrius is around… that boy always frighten the chicken with his eagerness to feed!

These chicken ate very fast too!

Last time I used to keep these odds and ends and will bring to the dam to feed the fishes but with Baby G’s arrival we have stopped going there. Maybe some day when she can walk, we can go up to the dam again.

I never use these crumbs to make bread puddings or croutons coz we don’t have sweet tooth and seldom cook creamy soup.

There won’t be any bento today as the little monkey said he don’t want any bento today!