Big Fat & Ugly Hand Roll Bento (157)

It is supposed to be a simple & fast bento, but I don understand why I took about half & hour for it! I blanched the crab sticks and cocktails while heating the rice, fix 2 hand rolls (1 for little girl's lunch), cut the cocktails into some heart shapes, placed leftover chicken & cucumber into bento box, drizzled with some sesame dressing, blanched a piece of flat Romano beans, poured soy sauce into the container, poked the fruits into the skewers and placed everything into box accordingly.

From top: chicken & cucumber salad with sesame dressing, a big fat & ugly hand roll with crab stick, cucumber, shredded cocktail (from the hearts shaped cocktails) and some mayo, 3 hearts shaped cocktails and some cut romano bean

Skewers of baby grapes and leftover marinated guava

Note of the day

I'm very happy with little girl's progress lately, she didn't drama or cry at school anymore and she finished up her bento most of the time, :) phew!

Cheong Fan Roll Bento (156)

Went to 17 wet market for grocery marketing this morning, bought a bag of soft & springy cheong fan. The idea of this cheong fan roll jumped to my mind only when I started preparing the bento. While the chicken nuggets were baking in the toaster oven, I unfolded a piece of cheong fan, sprinkled on some pork floss, white sesame, black sesame, sesame seaweed and drizzled bit of mayo, then re-roll the cheong fan and cut into bite size. Used 15 minutes for the chicken nuggets and cheong fan rolls, about 10 minutes for skinning, cutting and marinating the guava.

Cheong fan rolls

Chicken nuggets, a tube of soy sauce for the cheong fan and a container of mayo for the nuggets

Guava cubes marinated with lots of chopped preserved sour plums (酸梅, our favorite way of consuming guava)

Note of the day

Fried Potato & Minced Beef Snack Bento (155)

The kitchen in my house was officially re-open again last nite, however I cooked simple dishes only (still haven't replenish the food), fried chopped potato with some crushed beef burger and a vegetable tom yam soup.

It was obvious the contain of the bento is the leftover from last nite, I blanched some cheese cocktail and baby peas to go into the bento as well. All ready in less than 10 minutes.

Left to right: a bunch of cute tiny sweet grapes, fried potato & minced beef decorated with some baby peas, 4 halved cheese cocktails

Note of the day

Wow, for the 1st day returning from school, it was such a heavy pouring this evening, I parked my car about 500m away from the school and I was soaking wet before arriving at the gate. One of the mum jokingly said that it is plenty of "shoi" (money) flowing in :p Luckily I was well prepared for little girl with her own umbrella, rain coat & rain boots, she was not as badly wet like me. Phew! Don wanna her to catch cold as the exam will be around pretty soon.

CNY 2010

Woohoo! Gong xi gong xi!

A tiger shaped pineapple tart made specially for u!

I'd been idling from blogging for the entire CNY holiday, but we were extremely busy with visiting & makaning (eating) with relatives.

As usual, we were back to Seremban for the CNY celebration, we left on Fri after little girl finished school, we didn't really get stuck in the jam but the traffic was rather slow, we used about 2 hours to reach Seremban!

And this was greeting us when we were home:

a beautiful backdrop handmade by BIL

The eve and 1st day of CNY were passed very fast, we were visiting relatives, lazying at home, watching TV, munching cookies, chit-chatting and the days were zoomed off.

Returned to PJ on 2nd day & 3rd day, repeating the activities above again, but this time was at mum's & uncle's place, we were home for zzz-ing only.

Kept repeating the mentioned activities, plus some 'low hey' dinners from Seremban to Pandan Jaya til last nite. We were really exhausted after all those get-together times with relatives.

Though it was tiring, but little girl said it was the best CNY, as:

1. It was the longest CNY holiday, from 13th - 22rd Feb, a total of 10 days
2. She gets to play with some light firecracker for the 1st time, she is not afraid of the fire & sound at last
3. She gets to play with most of the cousins, about 40 of them, of course met in different days :)
4. Meeting 3 cousins: Cassie (21), Nick (17) and William (13) from KK, Sabah for the 1st time. Though they r much elder than little girl but they r really wonderful & charming, little girl had so much fun playing with them
5. She gets to sleep very late (mid nite) and wake up very late too (mid noon)
6. The most importantly: she has no homework!

Brought her back to her pre-school this morning, to see the lion dance and meet up with her ex-teachers & friends. Boy, she was so happy there, hugging the teachers, playing at the playground, even gotta join in the yoga class with her old-mates...

Lion dance in Tadika Diyana

So, how did u enjoy ur CNY celebration?

有隻老虎

Happy CNY! Watch this MTV, a very interesting CNY song :)

CNY & Valentine's Day 2010 Celebration

Little girl & hubby decorated the house this morning:

Pasted some greeting cards on the wall

Placed 8 mandarins, a nian gao (年糕) and some preserved fruits & sweet

Hubby's last minute purchase this morning, bamboos pot 步步高升

The little red packet fishes r prepared by little girl which she learned from school

And this was what I baked yesterday - Pineapple mochi cake 旺來高高, used the recipe from strawberry & grape mochi cake, but changed the fruit to pineapple ;)

The front of cake: wishing u a prosperous year ahead 一年旺過一年

The bottom view of cake: wishing u a happy Valentine's day 恩愛美滿

We r heading down to Seremban after little girl finishing her class later, hope the traffic won't be bad. And again, Gong xi fa cai & have a great tiger year, roar!

Chicken Nuggets Snack Bento (154)

Didn't pay much attention to this bento this morning, threw in a few pieces of chicken nuggets into the toaster oven bake for 15 minutes as I don wanna dirty the oledi shining stove. Other than the baking time, bento was packed in about 5 minutes.

Found this HK cutlery set in the cabinet which was gifted by cousin last X'mas, hope little girl'll be happy to see it in the bento bag.

2 chicken nuggets, some pineapples slices, 2 heart shaped marshmallow, a container storing ketchup & mayo and lastly a almondless Almond London

Note of the day

There won't be any bento coming until 23 Feb, as little girl will be having her CNY holiday.

Wishing u Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Wealth Attracting Birds 招財鳥

This afternoon, while I was busy baking, mum kept telling me dad bought her a very interesting & expensive plant (RM88) called 招財鳥 (wealth attracting bird), I thot it was just an ordinary plant which come with some fake birds (well, it's kind of ordinary nowadays, especially during CNY, by given an attractive name to certain thing, and turn it to cost a bomb), thus was not interested to check out the plant at all.

After all the baking at evening, I was doing nothing, thus asked mum where was the plant, mum pointed this to me:

The flower which looks like a bird!

Can u see the detail of a bird in the flower?

Another view

Ok, the green part is the head and body, pink part is the wings, lastly the white & yellow dot part (at the bottom) is the tail

Isn't it interesting? Mum said the florist told her it was from Indonesia and was imported for the 1st time.

So u wanna get a pot of this plant? It was sold in Ikano, but sorry, dad bought the last one from them, or u may try a luck, u still have 2 days b4 CNY reaching... ;p Good luck!

When Tigress Meet The Heart Snack Bento (153)

In Malaysia, when Chinese New Year meet with Hari Raya (Muslim's festive), we called the holiday as Kong Xi Raya, so this year, CNY meet Valentine's day, how should we call it? Any one think of it b4? I'll suggest Kong Xi Love U! Hehehe..... :p

Made the tigress & heart onigiri with some rice mixed with fried oyster mushroom, lotus root & pork we left from dinner. Used most of the time on onigiri, about 20 minutes, the rest was just merely transferred to bento box from fridge or cookie container ;p

Heart onigiri, tigress onigiri, 1 almond london (with no almond), cut pineapple and a tube of jelly

Iced vitagen

Note of the day

Today, after school...

LG: Mummy, teacher has removed A from being 副班長 (class assistant monitor)

Me: Why?

LG: Bcos she always talk in the class, teacher had given her last warning, but she still talk talk talk

Me: Ooh. So who is the new 副班長 now?

LG: Teacher still haven't choose yet!

Me: Did u tell teacher u were 副班長 in your tadika?

LG: No, teacher said can not choose ownself

Me: Ok, then u'll have to wait til teacher choose one

LG: I wish teacher will choose me, then I can say '安靜‘ (quiet) to the class!

Hubby: Hahaha...

Me: * shake head *

Baked Pasta Snack Bento (152)

Mixed the cooked pasta with the sauce that I kept previously, added lots of cheeses and baked for 5 minutes, at the same time microwaved the fish ball & siumai (bought from SS3 night market) and skinned the mandarin orange. Total time taken 15 minutes for this bento.

Baked pasta with cheeses, 1 fish ball, 1 siumai and 3 pieces of mandarin orange.

Note of the day

Burnt Sugared Toast Snack Bento (151)

Bought a big stick of baguette yesterday, made a few pieces of garlic toast & sugared toast from it this morning. However, while those toasts were 'sun-bathing' in the toaster oven, I was helping hubby to change our bed sheet, when I heard the 'ting' from the oven, the toasts had turned pretty charred o_O After brushing off those charred area from the toasts, found them still edible, don't have to go to trash :) Little girl and me had them for breakfast and kept 1 piece for the bento.

Burnt sugared toast, mango flowers and a HK jelly

Iced vitagen

Note of the day

Wohoo, after a month plus, little girl managed to empty her bento today for the 1st time * dancing happily *

Mantou & Cheese Cocktails Snack Bento (150)

Little girl loves mantou, and she liked it plain or stuffed with ham only, this was 1/2 of the mantou left after our breakfast. Blanched 2 cheese cocktails to go with the mantou. Everything was in the box after about 15 minutes.

Plain mantou, some cheese cocktails, cucumber sticks to fill up the space, mango flowers and a container of mayo

An iced vitagen

Note of the day

Tiger Cubs Snack Bento(149)

I know they ain't look like cubs, more like kittens, in actual I used the cat mold (bought the set of molds 2 weeks ago) to made this sammy, but added 2 extra strips to the back, tot able to fool little girl, but did not, she said they r cats the moment she saw them.

This bento was completed fast while having breakfast, all packed in less than 15 minutes.

Awww..... aren't they cute?

4 little cubs - pork floss & mayo sammy, a mandarin, a container of mayo and some cucumber sticks

Note of the day

Love these molds the moment I saw them in the box, so cute, will definitely use it for some cookies soon...

Bacon Fried Rice Bento (148)

Cook this bacon fried rice for our lunch today, packed some into the box for little girl's snack. Took about 30 minutes to chop, cook & pack the bento.

Bacon heart on fried rice, a tube of jelly and few pieces of heart shaped mangoes

Note of the day

The stupid me forgot to pack the spoon into little girl's bento bag, such a forgetful me!!! Little girl was smart enough to ask a kakak in the canteen, but either the kakak was not helpful or she went to the wrong place (she went to the tidbit selling section), she didn't manage to get any and thus she ate those mangoes only. As for the jelly, she shared it with a friend * roll eyes *

I Heart U-Baked Nutella Roti Canai Snack Bento(147)

Mold & baked these hearts this morning, cut the mango while the hearts were baking, all into bento box in 20 minutes, considered fast?

4 baked heart shaped roti canai filled with nutella and 10 pieces of heart shaped mango

Note of the day

Sunflower & Hearts Snack Bento (146)

My brain cells were inactive again this morning, couldn't even think of what to have for breakfast, after look see into the fridge, decided to steam those corns given by BIL for breakfast and packed into the box.

Excluding those steaming time, took about 2 minutes to put the bento together, I had the fruit cut last nite :)

Corn, cheese frankfurter, and kiwifruits slices

Note of the day