Relaxing Pooh Bear & Piglet

As expected, with every report of my bento, there are bound to be some rather 'interesting' comments. Don't worry, I'm not affected by them. I can't be bothered to clarify or explain anything to these Internet trolls, who are of no importance in my life, furthermore, I doubt they will understand anyway. However, do click HERE and HERE to check out these posts by my bento friends, Lunchbox Dad and Eats Amazing, love both their write-up on this. :)


I made this Pooh Bear food art in August and posted it on my Instagram. A few weeks later, I wanted to make Piglet in a similar pose, but I wasn't sure how Piglet's tail should look like, so I went to search online, only to realise Piglet and Pooh both have no tails. Really!?! I always just assume Pooh has a tail. -_- And I also realised there's no way Pooh's legs could be positioned this way while lying flat on his tummy. I even went to try it out to make sure, or maybe it's possible and I'm not flexible enough, hahahaha.


Anyway, I decided to make Pooh Bear again, in the exact same pose, minus the tail and with the legs adjusted, now he feels more comfortable. :P


Dinner that day was a one pot meal, soup with shabu shabu pork, veggies, prawns, squid and mushrooms.


Pooh bear is made using rice mixed with mashed egg yolk, nori and crabstick.


Piglet was made on a different day, even though the soup behind looks similar, so happened to cook the same one pot meal again, lol.


Piglet was made using rice coloured using pink sushi seasoning, ham and nori.


A close up shot of Piglet.

Where to get same or similar items used in today's post:

  

Doggy Sausage Bread Bun

Hello there, if you are dropping by for the first time. :) I'm very thankful to Mail Online for the article about my bento on Wednesday,  which lead to many other sites reporting about my bentos. I have actually been busy the past few days,  going about my usual stay-at-home-mom chores.  I've not had a chance to sort out my thoughts, so when the reporter asked how I felt, I could only say I'm happy. Now that my thoughts are better organised, I just want to say a big thank you to all the sites that reported about my bentos, I really appreciate it. :)


Now, onto these doggy sausage bread buns I'm sharing today, made them back in July. I think you might be quite familiar with this doggy bread bun design, as I've seen them being shared online before. I can't take credit for this wonderful idea, I got this idea from Pitachan on Cookpad. She has lots of cutie bread design, I've always wanted to try many of them but yet to find time to do so.


I did not use her recipe for the bread buns. I've included my recipe and also the steps on how to shape this doggy below. :)

DOGGY SAUSAGE BREAD BUN RECIPE

Ingredients:
Bread Flour 400g
Instant Yeast 5g
Cold water 220ml
Egg 30g
Sugar 40g
Butter, room temperature 70g
Salt 6g
Sausages
Raisins

Method:

1. Mix all the ingredients, except butter, in a large bowl to get a dough. Add in butter and knead until dough is springy and soft, this takes around 10 minutes. If you have a bread maker, you can just use the dough function for this step, as well as step 2.

2. Cover the dough with cling wrap and keep in a warm place for it to rise. This takes around an hour and the dough should double in size. Do a finger test to check if it's ready.

3. While the dough is rising, soak raisins in water so that they will soften and expand. Dry them on a paper towel and set aside. These will be for the doggy's eyes and nose.

4. Slice sausages and set aside.

5. Dust your work table with some flour, place dough on it. Punch out the air from the dough with your fist. 

6. Divide the dough into 60g portions. Roll them out and form them into balls. Cover with cling wrap and let the dough rest for 15 minutes.

7. Roll out bread dough using a rolling pin.

8. Place a sliced sausage on one end, and make a small cut on the other end.

9. Fold the dough in half.

10. Make slanting cuts for the ears.

11. Place on parchment paper, cover with cling wrap and let it rise for 40 minutes.

12. At the end of 40 minutes, place the raisins onto the bread dough and press gently.

13. Brush with egg wash and bake at 180 degrees celcius for around 20 minutes or till they turn golden brown.

The Giving Tree Bento

September 25th is Shel Silverstein Day and I'm joining a blog hop with my fellow bento friends from Bento Bloggers & Friends to pay tribute to the late author. Look for the image at the end of this post, it will link you to more bentos inspired by Shel Silverstein.

Even though I've only read one book, The Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein, it's one of my favourite book and it left a lasting impression on me. I first learnt about The Giving Tree from my lecturer, he read us the book before the start of his lesson. I was deeply touched by it, I subsequently bought one for myself. Tears welled up in my eyes when I read the book again at home. I remember reading this book to both my boys when they were younger. Nowadays they usually read on their own, so this book has been forgotten on the bookshelf as it's not the usual genre they would pick to read.


I'm very glad that due to this bento, I took out The Giving Tree and read it to my boys and we got to discuss about the meaning of the story. The book in the photo is the exact same one I bought for myself many years ago, I kept it all along. :)


The little boy was made out of cheese, nori and capsicum, not exactly like the boy in the book, I just did a quick cut free-hand. The apple was a mini cherry tomato.


Main for this lunch was a ham and cheese sandwich and side dishes were broccoli and shrimp salad, kiwis and strawberries.

Now, are you ready to check out the next bento inspired by Shel Silverstein? Please click on the image above, and hop over to Chaos and Confections, to see what amazing creation Jessie has in store for you. :)

Where to get same or similar items used in today's post:

Mario and Luigi Bento

This is the third time I made Super Mario and Luigi, click HERE for my previous bentos. I've fond memories of Super Mario, as it was the only video game I played when I was a kid. My uncle used to sell computers and games in his store, and every school holiday, he would bring me to his store and let me play with Super Mario.


Mario bento for my boys, they used to play Super Mario pretty often previously, but they are recently obsessed over some other games. IT would always use Mario in the game, while LT used Luigi. I read somewhere that if you are the younger brother, you will be the one using Luigi, very true, lol.


The side dishes for this bento were meatballs, broccoli, omelette (which I cut into stars and question mark box), strawberries and kiwis.


Mario was made from rice (coloured using tomato sauce and deco furi), ham, nori and egg. This ham I got looks almost white. The blue portion was ham, which I coloured blue by rubbing on some blue colouring. I must be crazy, because I did not want to substitute the blue with another colour and yet I do not want my boys to eat coloured ham, so I ended up asking them not to eat the blue ham, felt rather guilty thereafter for wasting food. -_-


Luigi and Yoshi bento were made on another day, ran out of time to make them on the same day as Super Mario. I seriously have no idea how I can make so many bentos in a day previously. -_- The side dishes that day were potato with minced pork and chicken veggie roll. Super mushroom is made from quail eggs, ham and nori.


Luigi was made using similar ingredients as Mario. Yoshi was rice wrapped in blanched veggie, with details done using carrot, ham and nori.


Same dilemma with the blue ham here, my boys remembered and asked whether they should eat the blue ham, so I told them not to again. -_- I should try soaking the ham in butterfly pea water next time and see whether it can be coloured blue this way.

Where to get same or similar items in today's post:

Cafe Cat and Paw

Have you seen this cute 3D latte art of a floating kitty from Cafe Cat and Paw online?


If you have no idea what I'm referring to, here's what the marshmallow kitty looks like. I don't drink coffee, so he's floating in a cup of green tea latte. So, so adorable!


Each box comes with 2 kitties and 4 cat paws. Even the packaging is so cute.


Japanese always comes up with the cutest stuff!


The marshmallow will slowly melt into your drink. Want to get a pack? Click HERE for the website to purchase them.


Here's my version of the kitty latte art.


This is a savoury version, my kitty is made using mashed potato, and he's floating in a bowl of asparagus soup.


I've not forgotten that I owe some of you a tutorial on how to create characters using mashed potato. I will take step-by-step pictures the next time I'm making mashed potato characters and get it updated.


I also made another version using shiratama and green tea pudding.


This did not turned out too well, the brown details on the kitty shiratama were a perfect shade when they were just cooked. But as the pudding was still setting in the fridge, I left them in a bowl of ice water in the fridge and went to take a nap. When I woke up and wanted to assemble them, I realised the brown details had smudged a little and turned more reddish. Hiaz. :(

Where to get same or similar items used in today's post: