Bento Fun

Every morning Darrius will have a bottle of milk before he gets ready to go to school. Sometimes he will even falls back to sleep while sucking on the bottle! Ok, he is turning five end of this year so he should start switching to cup but I can’t see if that is a good move coz he is drinking his milk way too slow! Probably he will ditch the milk altogether which is something I don’t want to happen so soon. He still needs a lot of calcium from the milk.

This morning is no difference. He took almost 35 minutes to finish 8oz of milk with enlarged teat holes (yeah, I poked many holes!!!!!) *sigh* he is that slow!!! While he was still suckling there, he saw me packing his bento into his bag and he asked me ‘Mommy, what’s in my bento today?’ So I answered him nonchalantly ‘It is a snails bento’.

He perked up and asked ‘Like me ah? Slow like a snail?’ And I answered back ‘Yesh, just like you!’

I bought a mini orange chocolate chips swiss roll together with the orange loaf the other day. I kept it inside the fridge and forgot all about it till last night when hubby went to ransack the fridge for the box of ‘cempedak’ which we bought back from one of the durian plantations we went to over the weekend.

In the box there are 2 slices of the orange swiss roll with chicken cocktails underneath secured with some spaghetti stripes. The ‘eyes’ are cut from balanced chicken cocktails and held up using another 2 spaghetti stripes with details of nori. Some strawberries, golden cherry tomatoes (hidden behind the snails) some endamame on skewers and dried blueberries on skewers.

I told him he has better eat up all the snails so he won’t be so slow any more! Let see if he buys my threat or not!

That’s all for today… hope you have fun bento-ing!

Happy Monday everyone!

The time we have been looking forward to for months ended without us reliazing… So fast a week has gone by and my friend and her family’s vacation here ended yesterday when we dropped them at the airport around 7.30pm. It was a fun weekend for us with lots of food and fun catching up. We only meet once a year. Most of the time we will go to Singapore but I was glad that they could come this time round as we might not have the chance to go Singapore this year.

We are back to our regular routine this morning.

I bought a loaf of orange bread from Roti Boy last weekend when we popped by QueensBay Mall. Looking at the color of the bread, it prompted me to make something fruity stuff so the ideas of making little apricots came to mind. Thinking that this could be the perfect time I show the ‘how to make bread onigiri’ since some of my readers asked me once when I did these little chickies some time back.

First, get your biggest round cutter and cut out a circular bread.

Then lay that piece of circular bread on a cling wrap and put the desired filling.

Then put it onto your palm and slowly wrap the filling with the bread.

Once the sides meet, gently turn the cling wrap and tighten it into a ball just like how you will normally do your rice balls.

When you are done with all the ‘bread onigiri’, you do some ‘make-up’ on them and they will look like this…

In today’s box, the little apricots are filled with seaweed meat floss, a cherry tomato, carrot slices in flower shape, some flower shape apples in the little bucket and for treat, I gave the little devil a snack size bar of Cadbury Dream!

Hope all of you enjoyed the sharing today and wishing you a great week ahead!

After dropping Darrius off to kindy yesterday, I rushed home to pack another bento. This time was for my friend’s son. I was to pick them up from the hotel and drop them at Kek Lok Si and thought the boy will be hungry walking up that flight of stairs at the temple!

Since Baby G was a little cranky, I can’t do something which is intricate so I went for the simplest. My friend’s son love Ben 10 and Thomas but with that little time I have I don’t think I can do any of those so I just pack something cute.

I only have the chocolate raisin bread left so I cut 2 sets into star shape. Wanted to make those sugar eyes which Susan always used but really don’t have the time to take out my fondant to roll them so I just make do with cheese and nori. Not too bad but for some reasons, they kept dropping off! I did not want to use spaghetti to hold them as my friend’s son has never had any home made bento before so he might not know how to handle those in his sammies!

Also in the box are 2 chicken cocktails in heart shape, some strawberries, golden cherry tomatoes, endamame and a Baronia nougat.

When I went to fetch them later on my friend told me her boy loved the sammies! The only items left untouched was the golden cherry tomatoes as he don’t eat vege! Too bad my friend do not have the time nor the patience to do bento for her son, else she could train him to eat more vegetables.

On Thursday night, Darrius requested for a very simple bento. He wanted so much to eat the almond raisin cookies from Bengawan Solo that my friend bought for us that he told me he wanted them inside his bento box.

Since I will be busy ferrying my friend and her family around, I was lazy to think much or crack my brain on what to pack. Therefore, I just went ahead according to his request. As they said, Happy customer = Happy chef!

I wrapped those cookies with cling wrap and tied it with those beautiful ties which this nice mommy got for me when we met up last year. I bought some mangoes a few days back and only saw them in the morning when I was preparing the bento so I decided to cut some for him knowing that he will love them. Cut the mangoes using my smallest heart shape cutter and put them into the little bucket… Added 2 strawberries, 2 golden cherry tomatoes and some raisins in the mayo case. Easy peasy!

And guess what happened at the end of the day?

I asked him if he enjoyed the cookies when I fetch him, he said ‘mommy, you tied it up so I did not eat’ Aiks! This silly boy! He did not know that he can entied it! He ate everything in the box except the pack of cookies! o_O

Oh my! It is already Thursday! Another day it will be weekend again! Yeah!

I did not get a good night sleep again last night as Baby G keep fussing around every hour. Not sure what is the problem with her now. She has been sleeping well for a few nights but those cries are coming back.

Anyhow, since I can’t sleep I decided to wake up earlier and make a bento for Darrius. Normally I try not to pack on a Thursday as he might get a slice of cake from school. I did not pack for him yesterday as they served fried noodles which can be quite filling for him.

While looking for ideas by looking at all the cutters I have, I saw my bear shape rice mold which I have not used for a long time since I don’t do rice balls that often.

With the rice mold, I used it to cut out some chocolate bread decked with smoked BBQ cheddar cheese. There are 2 mini chicken cocktails which I made them into little bears with details from cheese and nori, some kiwi slices, strawberries and golden tomato + endamame skewers.

I’m using of my favorite box (love the color and the bear picture!) for today’s bento as the shape and size is perfect for snack bentos.

Here is how it looked like after I put on the lid…

Love the transparent lid so we can see what is inside!

Later I’m going to fetch my good friend and her family flying in from Singapore for a vacation here. This is the first time she is coming to Penang. Her son is Darrius’s age and they were good buddies even though they seldom meet coz they were born just a month a part!

That means this weekend will be a busy on for us as we are going to the durian plantation to have durian buffet!

Ok, that’s all for now… hope all of you have a great day and happy bento-ing!