Transformer and Baby Milo Bento

The boys are generally quite easy-going with the bentos, they will not complain even if I give them girly and cutie stuff. But when I do characters they like, they will be very happy and excited. So after all the recent cutie bentos, I decided to do one of their favourite characters, Optimus Prime. I added baby milo to the bento as well, got the pick for a while but have yet to use it. The idea to combine the two came from their tee, which had both characters together. :)

I also tried out my new betty crocker markers. They were quite different from the usual hard tip food markers, they were soft tip and worked like paint brushes. The colours show up very well on the cheese, but I did a terrible job with the painting. I don't do justice to these pens, do check out Bento for Kidlet's tutorial on how to paint with them. Jenn does really awesome cheese paintings, mine's so messy n uneven. :(


Bento for IT, in the box are multi-grained rice, cheese, Parmesan crusted chicken, broccoli, strawberries and blueberries.


This one is for LT, same food as above. Argh, did a terrible job with the painting. :( The boys thinks otherwise though, they said it's very nice. lol.


Bento for LT to bring for School, in the box are strawberry sandwich, Parmesan crusted chicken and grapes.


Bento for IT's recess, same food as above, except he gets nutella sandwich. I cheated with the two nori logos, instead of cutting holes in the nori, I cut out cheese and stacked on top, because it's easier. :P


I'm not sure whether I got the layering for Optimus Prime correctly, I was copying from a 2D picture, should have dug out their toy to check.


Pesto pasta, sirloin steak and broccoli/carrots for for me. This is the first time I cooked a steak at home. I love steaks but my hubby does not eat at all, so I've never thought of cooking one. But last week, I came across a recipe while net surfing and it looked easy, so I decided to give it a try. :)

My Giveaway will be closing on Friday, good luck to those who have joined, winner will be picked randomly. :)

Bear Bento Again

Yes, like what I said yesterday, it's bears again for today. :) This time, the bears are moulded out of mashed potatoes instead. I've seen these mashed potatoes bears on Japan sites since rather long ago, but I can't read Japanese and I was not sure what I should mix in, so I did not try. But last week, thanks to a fellow Japanese bento Mummy who knows English, I can finally try this. :) If you want to try, just mix in some margarine(or butter), milk and a pinch of salt after mashing up the potato, leave it in the fridge after that and you can start moulding once it's cold. :)


This one is for IT, in the box are chicken/cheese burgers, mashed potatoes, strawberries, grapes and blueberries. :)


LT's crate, same food as above. It's the first time I've made chicken patties for their burgers, I've always made beef patties. :)


This one is for IT to bring to School, just a cheese/chicken burger inside. I'm not sure whether this bear can last till recess, I'll have to check with him. :P


My crates are back again. :) Love 'playing' with the mashed potatoes, will be trying out other animals with it. :)


Burger for me too, had mine with chicken patty, egg and curly crisps. It's a mini burger using butter rolls. So, I kept some dishes from last night's dinner to go with it, Szechuan spicy pork and cabbage/enoki stir fry. lol, yes I know it's a wierd combi. :)


I bought picks again. Lovely picks from Jmama. Aren't they sweet? :)

Bear Bento

It's the second last week of Term 1. Time flies really fast once they start School. For the bentos today, I made bears out of quail eggs. I peeled the eggs once they are cooked and then I moulded them with cling wrap while they are still hot. It's quite easy to mould them when they are hot as the egg white is soft. I'm going to be doing bears again for tomorrow. lol. :)


LT's bento, in the box are rice, egg sheet, quail egg, crumbed beef patties, carrots and strawberries. LT hates vegetables but he is ok with carrots. I think it's because carrots are orange, not green. :P


IT's bento, same food as above. I accidentally broke the bear, sob sob. :(


IT's box for School, in the box are nutella sandwich, egg sheet, quail egg, crumbed beef patty and grapes.

Oh, and I'm skipping LT's box for School for today and tomorrow. He does not like quail egg, so I do not want him to bring to School and not eat that. I'm also not sure whether he'll want to eat the decor for tomorrow, so I'll just be making a box for him to eat at home, where I can make sure he'll finish all his food. :P


Waving bears, with a mushy message for the boys. :)

HotDOG Bento

I was craving for bratwurst and sauerkraut, so to make things easier for myself, I made hotdog buns using bratwurst for the boys' bentos. I used butter rolls instead. I just wanted to make a random dog, but the boys said I've made Snoopy when they saw the bento. I guess it does look a little like him. lol. :)


IT's lunch, in the bento are bratwurst buns, drumlete, strawberries and gapes.


LT's lunch, same food as above.


IT's recess bento, in the box are bratwurst bun and grapes.


lol, looks like a lot of boxes, but it's only 2 lunches and 1 snack box. :)


Bratwurst, mustard, sauerkraft and butter/sugar roll for me.

It's Friday again, have a good bento break. :) Daddy is bringing the boys for a birthday party. I'm going to use the time off to visit the salon and add some pink highlights to my hair. Something I've always wanted to do, hope I don't chicken out the last minute. -_-

Stitch Soba Bento

My Eco lunchboxes just arrived from Amazon. :) I'm in love with the box, and I'm surprise I managed to squeeze in the boys' usual portion of soba in it. I'm so tempted to get another, but shipping's not cheap though. :(

My plan today was to make Stitch out of sausages but upon completion, I think he looks more like a dog instead. lol. -_- I'm not sure if you can tell it's Stitch if I do not label it as a Stitch bento. :P


LT's bento, in the box are cold soba, prawn croquettes, grapes, strawberries and sausage. IT says Stitch is in a pail from a well. After eating up the food in the small pail, he lowered the pail into his cup of water and drank from there. lol. -_-


IT's bento, same food as above.


IT's bento for recess, in the box are cold soba, grapes, strawberries and sausage. This time, I freeze the soba sauce in an air-tight container, so it'll be nicely melted and still cold by his recess. I'll have to wait for his review when he's home to see whether it works.


I tried to make a 'fierce' Stitch for one of IT's box, coz the last time I made Stitch, he told me he wants a fierce Stitch. -_-


Herbal chicken, broccoli/sea asparagus and three cups squid for me. I kept them from dinner last night. Usually, only one dish (the same one you see in the boys' bento) from my box is cooked in the morning. But for today, the boy had something totally different, so I just ate the food I kept from yesterday. :) Prawn croquette recipe given below, the recipe makes around 8, I usually make a bigger batch and freeze.

PRAWN CROQUETTE RECIPE

Ingredients:
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1/2 minced yellow onion
3/4 cup chopped prawn
1 tbsp white wine
1 egg
1 cup panko
1/2 cup plain flour

white sauce -
3 tbsp unsalted butter
1/4 cup all purpose flour
11/2 cup milk
pinch of salt

Method:

1. Melt 1 tbsp butter, add onions and cook till translucent.
2. Add in prawn and white wine. Set aside once cooked.
3. Now to make the white sauce, melt 3 tbsp butter.
4. Once butter is foaming, add in 1/4 cup flour in small increment and stir to form a smooth paste.
5. Do not allow the paste to color, slowly add in milk, stir to prevent lumps. Stop when the mixture is thick and glossy, ard 10 minutes.
6. Add salt and the mixture you kept aside in step 2.
7. Spread the layer in a pan, creating a layer around 1 in thick. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
8. Use a spatula to divide the mixture into 8 portions.
9. Coat with flour, followed by egg and lastly Panko.
10. Deep fry them till golden brown.

Note: You can substitute the prawns with crab meat.

Rilakkuma and Kiiroitori Bento

I thought I have to share this. I want to say a big thank you to Berry girl, who did up a tribute post for the giveaway. She is so kind, sweet and generous with her comments. She makes me sound much better than I am, lol. And she is one great bento artist, with lots of awesome ideas. :) And love the bear that she did up in the tribute post, I think she did a more fantastic job than me. :)


I made Rilakkuma and Kiitoitori today. This is IT's box, in the bento are rice, five spice meat balls, egg, sausage and strawberries.


LT's box, same food as above.


IT's box for recess, in the bento are butter/sugar bread, cheese, meat balls and strawberries. Rilakkuma is made out of bread crust. And I just realised I've so many cutters but I do not have bigger bear cutters, I ending up sketching and cutting out the bear shape. Hmmmm, excuse to go shopping, lol. :)


LT's box for School. I'm taking a break from his School's box for the next two days.


lol, the lunch bentos look smaller than their snack bentos today. It's misleading because the lunch bento was pack rather compactly, so it's actually much more food than the snack bento.


Multi-grained rice, eggs, asparagus/corn/bacon stir fry and five spice meatballs for me.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Bento

A big thank you to all of you who left such wonderful comments on the giveaway post, I appreciate it very much. Just want to let you know I did read all of the comments, but I will not reply you there, as I do not want to add on to the comments on that page.

I made the very hungry caterpillar from Eric Carle's book today. I think it's the first time I made a character from my boys' storybook. I'll definitely try to explore more in this area, will be digging out their story books and see what other characters I can come up with next. :P


LT's bento, in the box are rice, sweet and sour pork, spinach tamago and strawberries. The green rice was mixed with spinach and the red rice was mixed with tomato sauce. :)


IT's bento, same food as above. :) I think I got the mouth wrong for the bigger caterpillars, they look like angry caterpillars instead. Lol.


LT's bento for School, in the box are strawberry jam sandwich, pork nuggets and strawberries. The caterpillar is made from jelly beans.


IT's bento for recess, same food as above, except he had peanut butter sandwich.


The boys love the small boxes better because of the jellybeans. -_- I bought the jellybeans last week and they have been eyeing it for some time.


Rice, sweet and sour pork and spinach tamago for me. :)

200th Post Giveaway (Closed)

To share the love of bento-making and in celebration of my 200th post, I am holding a giveaway of a lunchbox and some bento essentials.:) I'm opening this giveaway to wherever Singapore post can deliver to. :)

To enter this giveaway, simply post a comment below with your name and email by next Friday, 2 March, 2012. Please remember to leave your email and ensure that it is correct, as I will be contacting you via email should you win. Increase your chances of winning by sharing this giveaway via twitter, facebook or on your blog. Be sure to come back and post a link to your tweet/facebook/blog post as a new comment to earn that extra entry. :)

The winner will be picked randomly, and it will be announced on Saturday, 3 March, 2012. So, please check back this post for the winner then. :)


The items are a lunch box, 3 packets of picks, 1 packet of onigiri wrappers and 1 packet of plastic food cups (can be used as barans).

RESULTS

The number picked by the random number generator is 16. And comment number 16 belongs to Mewlkitten! Congrats, I'll email you shortly to get your address. :)

Tks a lot to all of you who participated. The next one will be for my 300th post, which will be towards the end of the year, I'll be back with more goodies then. :)

Mr Potato Head Bento

We had a good staycation, the best part was the magic show. Our favourite was Dan Sperry, he's really entertaining. We were busy googling for youtube videos on him after the show. lol. :)

Back to the bentos today, I made another character from Toy Story. If you have watched the movie, you will definitely know Mr Potato Head. The boys had fun rearranging his features before eating 'him'. :P


Bento for IT, in the box are onigiri, chicken skewers, bacon rolls, strawberries and grapes. :)


Bento for LT, same food as above.


IT's recess bento, in the box are nutella bread, chicken skewer and grapes. Haha, I know Mr Potato Head is missing his hand in their bentos for School, I left it out just coz I was lazy. :P


LT's recess bento, same food as above, except he had strawberry jam bread. In order to close the box, I shifted the skewers the opposite way. This nicer presentation is for photography purpose, hahaha. :P


lol, I think he looks really hilarious. :D


Jenn from Bento for Kidlet shared where she took her bento photos. I found that interesting, so I thought I'll share mine too. I usually take mine by the window ledge, and here's how messy the set up looks. :P By the way, if you know how to take nice photos of bentos indoor at night, please share with me. I do have an external flash, but I do not like how my photos turn out with it. :(

And this is my 200th post. Hooray! My giveaway post will be up right after this. :)

Piggy Bento

Piggies are my all time favourite animal to make, they are easy to do and always looks cute. :) And I've included a piggy lunchbox in my giveaway. :P I've uploaded a picture of my giveaway items on my flickr photostream, you can click here to take a peek if you are interested. I'll post up the details next Monday. :)


LT's bento, in the box are multi grained rice, ham, broccoli, beef stew and strawberries. :)


IT's box, same food as above.


LT's bento for School, in the box are butter/sugar sandwich, ham, nuggets and grapes. They are both in love with butter/sugar sandwich and are always very happy to see it in their bentos. :P


IT's bento for recess, same food as above. Oh, and fussy LT loves grapes but does not take green grapes, so the green ones will always go into IT's box. -_-


I heart piggies! :)


I also heart transparent covers, haha. :P


Same beef stew for me. :)

We are going for a staycation and magic show this weekend, thanks to my parents. It's going to be a fun weekend for us. :) Have a great weekend too folks! :)