Bento #29 - Macar Garden

Thank God for his blessing that today is Sunday again. As usual after our early church service, Rey and I will go to the market and pick up some goodies that he wants me to prepare for him as lunch and dinner. Along at the fruit stall, Rey prompted me that he would like to have some cherries in his bento box to accompany the rest of the berries at home.

Today we are having cheesy macaroni with some blanched broccoli and Komoboko cut into small dual colour flowers using the tools shown. So after showing Rey with an example of how to use the cutter to assemble the flower, I leave the rest of the task to him while I start to work on the macaroni and packing of the bento.

Tata.... so after about 30 minutes of work in the kitchen, we finally come out with Today's lunch bento. We called this Macar Garden because of the flowers, cheese rabbits and colourful fruits. Overall, Rey do enjoy making and eating this bento but he is a bit upset when one of his favourite "Cheese Rabbit" melt while during my photo taking session :p

Err... sorry darling, mummy should have wait for the Macaroni to cool down a bit first before putting the "rabbit" on top of it.

Bento #28 - Reyon & Buddy

It had being quiet a while since our last bento because Reyon is having a few weeks of mid year school holiday and I am kind of caught up at work so I don't have much time working around with those fancy stuffs. But Shoppingmum's website is a must to visit daily site due to cute and innovative bento for her two kids.

I love her latest design by using this dual cheese strips to cut out various cute figures. You can click on the link to have a better explanation on how she made the stripe cheese. Today our theme is base on my dear son and his favour pooh teddy bear. I use the face cutter and assorted mini food cutter for these design. I used the compartment divider to cut the shape out from the chocolate bun so that it will fix nicely. Next I place the cheese cut outs on top of it and serve the bento with some orange slices and mangosteen. Lastly Rey still use the Alphabets pasta to arrange his name on it.

Bento #27 - Salmon Onigiri Bento

Today is Mother's Day and after our usual Sunday Church service, we went to the nearby Supermarket to get some ingredients to prepare our lunch. After looking at the ingredients, we settle for Salmon Fillet, Button Mushroom and Corn.

With the ingredients in hand, we made some Salmon Flake & Corn Onigiri. Rey and I love the colour combination as our Church dress code for Mother's Day is Pink this year. I pan-fry the salmon fillet with shredded ginger and spring onion until brown then set aside. I cook the rice as per normal by adding some fresh corn kernel and chestnut and cook until done then I add in the salmon flakes and mould them into round onigiri.

With some olive oil, I do a quick stir-fry using the sliced button mushroom and carrot to serve it as a side dish. Tata... so after assemble above is what we have for our lunch today....

Bento #25 - Happy Mother's Day

This coming Sunday, 10 May 2009 will be the once a year Mother's Day. And we had this Pre-Mother's Day Bento last weekend just in case we are out for celebration on the actual day. It's done by me and my 5 years old boy. He helps to remove the shell from the cooked quail eggs, cut the features and assemble them into cute little farm animals. Cut the jam sandwiches and kiwi slices using the heart-shape cutter. We did have a lot of fun making all and it's a great way to bond with kids too.

Tata... this is what I did for the finally arrangement. After Rey had finished all the cutter and sticking of the features, I will do the finally touch up as well as the arrangement into the bento box. So in the end, this is what we have..........

This is the set of Quail Egg Cutter which CP from Bentomarket get it for us through the suggestion of Amy(Shoppingmum) from MotheringCorner to source for this cute cutter. Amy has a cute froggies bento using this quail cutter to make the frog too... take a look :)

I have help Rey cooked the Quail Eggs, then he did all the peeling and using the cutter to cut the features and assemble these cute little Farm Animals. Out of the 5 animals, I only help him to cut the zig-zag outline for the chick using the special cutter available in the set. He really have a lot of fun doing these and it's the best Mother's Day present for me because these cuties are from the hand of my darling......

Look at this row of farm animals queuing up in action..... starting from Little Dog, Chick, Rabbit and Piglets......

Bento #22 - Panda Panda

Em... this weekend Bento is...... Panda theme and ... one of Reyon's favourite movie is the Kung Fu Panda which I brought him to watch during last year school holiday.... Since today he wanted rice to be include in the bento, I decided to make him this Panda Panda Bento.

As you can see from the picture below how I roughly arrange the layout of the items in such a small kiddy bento box. I used some curl lettuce to put on the base of the box for decoration as well as lining purpose. Next I secure one side of the box with two Taiwan sausage wrapped with lettuce and I put a food cup containing poached shredded chicken breast with corn kernels.

Don't worry if you do not have a mould to make the shape of the panda head. You can used a piece of cling wrap and scoop about 2.5 tablespoons of sushi rice on it then wrapped it tightly and mould it into a ball shape then shape it according in order to fix the space in the lunchbox. When you have, cut out oval shape from the Nori sheet and cheese to form the features of the panda. You can also decorate it with some cut fruits and extra accessories like panda pick or panda chocolate cookies.

Related Posts:
1. Hidden Treasure
2. Salmon Onigiri
3. Bear & Grassland

Bento #21 - At The Beach

Today's Bento theme has being a long waiting one for my dear son. As most of the reader from my blog will have read about that my dear son loves to go picnic at the seaside. And I have also tried making a few of his meals on seaside theme before. But today's challenge will be a little difficult for me because he wants the real sight of the seaside atmosphere being present in his little bento box.

I have being scratching my head for ideas on how to make this seaside bento appear real..... so after much thought and some brainstorm chat with another bento mummy, Amy(from mothering corner website) I decided to give this bento a try. Last night, I have draft out the idea of the layout and what are the animals that I would want to include in it.

For the colour layers, I have used egg white with some blue food colouring and spinach juice to make scramble eggwhite represent the sky and ocean. As for the sand, I choose multi-grain bread and tear a zigzag layer to form the beach with some cheese stars(as starfish) and since I do not know how to make a seashell, I place a small seashell on the bread. My dear son was thrill when he saw this...........

Related Post:
1. Seafood Noodles
2. Seafood Melody

Bento #20 - Mickey Mouse

Tata..... Another weekend bento using my new Multi-purpose Mickey Mouse tools which I have bought recently. With the left over ham from making yesterday Bear Hamroll. I use a slice of it to make one of the mickey mouse side face and my dear son was thrill when he saw this Mickey Mouse Bento.

This set of Mickey Mouse design multi-purpose cutter come in a pair of two different mickey mouse design which enable you to cut out the head and face features. I also have another similar Pooh Design set which I used to make the Ham & Cheese Bear Sandwiches in another bento.

Related Post:
1. Mickey Mouse Bento Tools
2. Ham & Cheese Bear Sandwiches

Bento #19 - Bear Bread & Hamroll

My dear son had being down with flu and cough bugs for the past 2 weeks plus and just a few days ago, he was also down with high fever and bad cough. But thank God after the 3rd visit to the doctor and change of medication he is getting better today. So while he was doing his homework I secretly prepared this Bear Bread & Hamroll Bento in our new purchase Tomica Lunchbox. I hope that this artwork of mine will be able to cheer him up and as well to increase his appetite by the look.

This bento is divided into 3 parts. On the left side is a bear and heart shape cutout from two different colour tone of bread to make the contrast. Next I use the Caral Mini Craft Puncher (click here for details) to punch out the features of the bear using nori sheet. On the right side, I use the apple baked ham, lettuce and shredded carrot to make a cheese bear hamroll (click here for cutter use).

In order to make it more eye catching, I also use two tone colour cheese to make the features of the bears and also with some added cherry tomato and strawberries to make it more colourful. Lastly, I decorate it with some added parsley to make it look more like a garden with some greens.

Releated Post:
1. Weekend Breakfast Bento

Bento #18 - Picnic Day

Usually Sunday will be a picnic day for most of the family to laze around in the park and enjoy the morning/evening breeze and warm sunshine in order to have a fun and relax family getaway. Like other families, Reyon and I love to prepare some of our favourite snacks and get relax in the neighbourhood park. Although we do not have those luxury park like those western countries but we do can enjoy a bit of peace and wonderful family bond in the weekend.

Since nowsaday, we have to attend morning Church service, we can't really spent Sunday morning at the park. And since today's weather is kind of Sunny and Warm we decided to have our indoor picnic at home. We prepared some refreshing afternoon snacks for our home picnic. We made two little faces out of Reyon's favourite Mini Chocolate Chips Muffins. Reyon said the one of the left is suppose to be me while the one on the left is him :) Then we cut out some flowers out of the dragon fruits and leaves from kiwi to make it look like a little garden patch. See the way he enjoys his afternoon snack, I guess a little extra dose of Chocolate on Sunday do actually makes you feel happier...... :)

Bento #17 - Spot The Hearts

Today is Valentine's Day and since we are out in the morning for excursion, we will have our Weekend Bento as Snack today on Valentine's Theme. Em.... I have being thinking of what to make for Reyon on this special day and there are so many ideas in our discussion lists. Finally in the end, we agreed on this simple and quick theme because he is so hungry to have his snack before I can snap more pictures on it.

In today's snack bento, I have include a heart shape cheese sponge cake in the middle, following by two little cheesy bear and some extra red and green grapes. Other then grapes, cherry and tangerine, I also introduce a new fruit to Reyon call the Red Rose Apple. It's kind of crunchy and sweet in texture but Reyon doesn't seems to like it and he just had a bite to try on.

While looking at the bento, let's play a QUICK GAME! How many HEARTS can you SPOT in the BENTO SNACK? :p The answer is:...........

Bento #16 - My Garden

Despite that I am not feeling well today, I still come out with this afternoon snack bento together with Reyon's help. Today he wanted to have a Garden theme after seeing Amy's Bento (Shopping Mum) for her kids on caterpillar. So after discussing with him, we agreed to have caterpillar with fruits and cherry tomato, butterfly and flower bread with cheese for our Garden Bento.

Can you spot the caterpillar? We actually, use red grapes, strawberry slices and 1 cherry tomato for the head and I thread them together using a wooden skewer and place some spring onion curls as the tail....... These two beautiful butterflies are done by Reyon. He helps me to cut the butterflies out from the kiwi slices and stick the eyes using black sesame seeds.

Bento #15 - Stamp Bread

Today's Bento theme is about Stamps. I just got a zigzag cutter from Daiso..... Now that Daiso have a new Branch near my house area, I always drop by to peep and see they whether they have a new items on the shelf. And so coincide, on Saturday I actually bum into one of my blog friend, Tona whom I have not meet before since we knew each other till now for almost 3 years. It was really so surprised and excited to meet friend that we have being corresponding thru Blog and emails........ Hope we will have another chance to meet up and let the kids get to play while we can sit down and chit chat more on our new hobby which is Kid's Bento making....

As you read from my blogs, you actually knew that Reyon loves to collect recycle envelopes and he indeed have a wide collection of envelopes. He even made a little Post Box out of a recycle parcel box.

Since I am not feeling well today(down with sore throat and fever), I don't really have the strength or idea on what to prepare for Reyon's breakfast bento. So I just fix a quick bento by preparing Stamp Bread using the new 2 in 1 Zigzag Cutter that I bought.

Bento #14 - Smiley Face

This morning Breakfast theme is on Smiley Face because Rey is feeling better today as he had down with flu for about 4 days. Yesterday he choose to have a sad and dull face for his Pizza Boy while today, he requested a Smiley Face on his jam sandwich Ritz Crackers.

Look at this cheeky boy on the pictures, he still can pose so many interesting expression while taking his breakfast. On the 2nd picture in the 1st column, you can see that he is choosing which item to start with. Although making these bento are a bit time consuming but then it's full of fun when you see your kids eating them with joy.