Bunnies and Easter Eggs Bento (175)

Little girl requested a small bento for every wed, as she needs to do class duty (sweeping the floor) during recess and has fewer time to eat.

Made her chicken mayo sammy for breakfast and bento, all ready within 15 minutes.

Chicken mayo & lettuce sammy with bunnies, Easter eggs and grapes

Note of the day

Saw lots of bloggers had submitted their B.O.M.B entry for April, I'm going to join the crowds by entering this bento (0_<)

Spring is Coming Bento (174)

Spent a long morning in the kitchen today, getting ready for the lunch & bento, actually didn't cook much, just the fried rice only :p Used most times on skinning the prawns, also on chopping and blanching the broccoli & sausages. Used about 20 min to assemble the bento.

Spring is coming bento features 2 butterflies flying at the sky where lots of flowers blooming

Butterflies is made of 2 prawns as wings, white crab stick as body and red crab stick as antenna

Sky is made of broccoli and sausages fried rice

Bushes is made of broccoli and flowers r made of sausages & sweet plum

A honey bucket full of caramel pop corns to share with friends

Note of the day

Pop Corns

Promised little girl to make her some pop corns yesterday, I cooked about a cup and a handful of corns and it gave me about 6 honey bucketful of pop corns! I made 2 types of flavors for the pop corns:

Colorful caramel pop corns

Chocolate pop corns

In order to maintain the crispiness of the pop corns, remember to bake those flavored pop corns in oven with temperature 150C for 30 minutes.

Easter Eggs & Food Shared with Great Grandparent (173)

We had an early Ching Ming Festival yesterday, waked up very early, went to the temple to pray the grandparent in law. MIL bought lots of food: big pau, cha siew pau, loh mai kai, siew mai, roast pork and we contributed some satays. Thus there were plenty of food for us to bring home after the prayer.

I warmed the food for our breakfast and this bento this morning, boiled some quail eggs at the same time. Used about 2 minutes to tint the eggs pink and assembled the bento in less than 10 minutes.

A basket of pink Easter eggs (basket is made by loh mai kai, ribbons r some shredded lettuce), satays, roast pork, jelly, seedless grapes and a container of mayo

Note of the day

Avocado Meals in a Day

Mum gave me a big ripe avocado last week, I just threw it into the fridge and had forgotten of it til Wed. As hubby & little girl dislike it, I had to think of ways to consume it fast b4 it gone rotten.

I 1st used 1/2 of the avocado to make a avocado & tuna sandwich, had it with a mug of coffee

Have u ever eat toro sashimi? Me neither, it's so difficult & painful to spend so much on just a few pieces of the raw fish. In Japan, this dish is called toro for the poor (like me), just dip avocado into the soy sauce, as they said, it tasted just like toro

Aunt from Serdang introduced me to eat avocado with ABC (air batu campur), as I just able to get Cendol near Tmn. Tun, I tried with the balance of avocado, delicious!

Pink Easter Bunnies & Various Color Eggs Bento(172)

I didn't intend to make a Easter theme bento earlier, but everything came in while preparing lunch and the bento :)

Didn't really time the prepartion today, as little girl had misbehaved & wasted plenty of times lecturing her :(

Top left: a bunny tube of soy sauce, 4 skewers of white baby eggs (pearl fish balls), 2 pink bunnies (halved hard-boil egg tinted with light pink coloring)

Bottom left: a bowl of salad (mix of glass noodles, shredded cucumber, crab stick and a dash of sesame dressing), 3 skewers of red eggs (grapes)

Note of the day

Yesterday, after school:

LG: Mummy! I love the baked potato, so delicious!

Me: Good, did u finish the whole potato?

LG: Yes, everything! Even I don like the skin, I forced myself to swallow it!

Me: Hahaha... So, who did u eat ur snack with today?

LG: No body, I ate by myself again, all of them don't want to eat with me...

Me: Again, why? What's wrong? Did u scold them or be rude to them?

LG: No, they scolded me, they said "u don sit with us!"

Me: Hm.. That's not nice. But did they come over to see your bento?

LG: Yes, and they said they wanna eat, I told them mummy said no sharing food and they don wanna sit with me anymore

Me: Ok, but mummy also said, if u wanna share, u can share 1 out, u cannot give everything to your friends

LG: But 10 of them want to eat! How?

Me: Sigh! Mummy cannot prepare so many food for them too... hm... what about this, u bring some stickers to school 2moro, tell them u cannot share food but can share stickers, ok?

LG: Ok

However, the stupid me, forgot to put in stickers for her this morning, hope her friends will eat with her today. A big reminder, have to include stickers in bento bag in the future.

Actually, before holiday, little girl had told me that few of her friends used to steal her food when she left to toilet, especially those like cocktails, jelly and chocolate. Thus, I told little girl to bring along the bento bag to toilet, sigh...

Made in Daze Bento (171)

Ok, I slept again last nite, reading manga ;p just couldn't stop myself and the end result this morning: I couldn't think well, and got 'mang chang' (annoyed) easily.

Simply baked a potato, stuffed in some tuna mayo and cheese into the potato cavity, then baked again til cheese turned golden brown. While melting the cheese, found bento still have plenty space, decided to throw in some chicken nuggets (Jamie Oliver will be shaking his head to see this in the box).

Don't remember how much time I used for the bento, I was blur and still is now.

2 chicken nuggets, 1 nian gao wantan, pineapple cubes, baked potato, some cucumber slices and a container of mayo

Note of the day

Nian Gao Wantans 年糕雲吞

Fried 12 of these babies yesterday for snacks, brought 3 for little girl when picked her up after school, and she adored it, she ate another 2 again after reaching home ;)

I wrapped the nian gao and a small piece of Kraft cheddar cheddar cheese into the wantan skin, lightly fried it til turning crispy. It was quite difficult to fry it as the cheese melt, flowed out and got burn with the above shape that I wrapped.

After changing the wrapping method to this, it fried nicely as the wantan sealed better.

The inside of the nian gao wantan

This is a very addictive snack, as it is crunchy, sweet and salty at the same time, luckily I made 15 of it only ;p

Penguin Sammies & Fried Wantons Bento (170)

Fix some tuna mayo (for little girl) & tuna avocado (for me) for breaky & bento this morning, by adding a few drops of lime, zest and mayo.

I prepared the penguins while little girl has her breakfast, they had eaten up about 15 minutes, I'm very slow today :p Whole bento was assembled in about 25 minutes.

Those fried wantons were cooked by mum on Mon nite, little girl kept this few for her bento but I'd forgotten to include them yesterday, the forgetful me...

2 penguin sammies with tuna mayo, 4 skewers of fried wanton with cucumber, 1 fried meat ball with cucumber and 3 skewers of seedless grapes

Note of the day

Bake Nian Gao 烘年糕卷

Got this recipe from 女人我最大, was amazed to see 阿布 doing it in just a few minutes, so easy & simple! I think u probably know me well that I always have frozen roti prata (or roti canai dough) on hand, hehehe... used it for the recipe ;p

Ingredients

8 pieces nian gao, cut into thumb size

2 pieces frozen roti prata

some pounded roasted peanuts

1 egg yolk

some white sesame

Place nian gao on top of roti prata, sprinkle some pounded peanut and wrap it up

Like this, then spread a thin layer of egg yolk and sprinkle some white sesame

Once all nian gao were being wrapped up nicely, let it sun-bathe (bake) in oven toaster for 10 - 15 minutes (covered with aluminum when the pastry turn lightly brown to avoid it being burn).

Taste wise, not bad, an easy snack (but I had it for breakfast) and an alternative way to eat nian gao :)

Fried Loh Shi Fan with Fish Cake Bento (169)

Been busy in the kitchen for almost an hour this morning, preparing breakfast (will show post later) and chop or cut up the ingredients for this fried loh shi fan. MIL fried a lot of fish cakes last Sat, I took 4 big pieces back, thus u keep hearing me mentioning fish cakes since yesterday's bento ;p

Actually used about 15 minutes to cook this loh shi fan, about 5 minutes for cutting the orange & pack everything into box.

Fried loh shi fan with fish cake with some shredded fried eggs (leftover after preparing breakfast)

5 raisin chocolate balls and orange wedges

Note of the day

Russian Borscht Soup 羅宋湯

I 1st heard of this soup from a HK friend Queenie during our university years at USQ, as a person who loves soup, I adore it immediately after the 1st spoonful into my mouth. Years later, there are more and more HK style restaurants mushrooming around SS2, I got to savor it whenever ordering their sets. However, when little girl comes along, I usually share the set with her, and most of the time she demanded the cream soup.

On Sunday, last day of the holiday, just staying at home and lazy to make heavy lunch, I recalled seeing this recipe at Carol's blog, decided to give it a try since I have most of the ingredients on hand.

Here is my version of the soup:

Ingredients

1 boneless whole chicken drumstick, diced

2 small onions, diced

2 small potatoes, diced

2 tomatoes, diced

1 carrot, diced

1/4 cauliflower, diced

Seasonings

4-5 bay leaves

2 tbsp ketchup

pinch of salt and pepper

1. Cut onions, potatoes, tomatoes, carrot and cauliflower into bite size
2. Cut chicken to small chunks
3. Heat pan, cook chicken with medium heat til pale (for about 3 minutes)
4. Boil a pot of water, pour cooked chicken into the boiling water, keep boiling for a minute or 2
5. Skim off any froth on surface of soup
6. Lightly fried all vegetables in the pan for 2 to 3 minutes
7. Pour the cooked vegetables into soup, add in seasoning ingredients, flavor to taste
8. Cover the lid, let it simmer for 40 - 60 minutes or til the vegetables turn soft

Ok, original recipe calls for beef, but I have chicken only, with no other choice, decided to continue the cooking.

Verdict: I love every single drops of the soup, had it for lunch and dinner yesterday, then lunch again this afternoon with rice, yum!

LG: Mummy! This is not ABC soup (Malaysian version of potato soup)

Me: Yeah, this is the English version ABC soup (should be Russian)

LG: ??? * showing a blur face *

Pucca & Garu Bento (168)

For the holiday last week, whenever little girl stayed at home, she would keep watching the Pucca shows from the DVD, even though she watched it for so many times, she still enjoy watching the show very much.

I like Pucca too, she is very cute and especially adore her love to Garu. Last nite, I decided to turn Pucca & Garu into onigiri for little girl's bento on her 1st day back to school.

I used about half an hour to shape Pucca and Garu onigiri. Used some gravy from leftover stewed pork to color the rice beige and stuffed pork floss into the onigiri. The rest in box are 4 skewers of fish cake, leftover french bean omelette & cucumber, 2 hearts pork cocktails, 1 quail egg (hiding behind Garu), some cucumber hearts and a tube of jelly.

Cute & cubby Pucca closeup

The very serious looking Garu closeup

Note of the day

Steamed Pork & Cabbage Bao 菜肉包

Been thinking of trying out some bao for very long time, it was quite a last minute when I decided to make these bao yesterday. We decided to start doing it only at around 4pm, I handled the bao dough kneading part whereas mum fried the pork, mushrooms and cabbage fillings.

I got the recipe from a vegetarian cookbook I bought sometimes ago, mum modified the filling as we preferred having some meat yesterday :p

I didn't hand kneaded the dough, threw all the ingredients into the mixer to complete the job. The dough looked very rough at the beginning, I added about 60ml more water into the dough, after kneading for another 10 minutes, it turned soft.

Folding the fillings into the dough was a tough job, most of the time I just couldn't close up the opening properly and the juice/sauce kept flowing thru the opening as I pressed more, sigh... tough!

Sis handled the steaming part, she put in the 1st batch, when it was time to off the fire & opened the lid of the wok, she gave a loud scream, when I rushed out to see what happened, the baos were all almost doubling their size!

B4 stuffing the bao into my mouth, I remembered Ohbin (Nicole Lee) mentioned that u may call the bao successful unless u able to peel the skin, so here u can see, I able to peel the skin nicely, oh ho... I'm smiling from ear to ear...

I tell u, those fillings were so delicious! As for the bao, I would say it tasted good while it was still hot/warm, as it was Q, don get me wrong, they were not hard, just dense, but the bau didn't stick to teeth while savoring it, so still consider a slight success.

Mum said with a little extra water, the dough will be perfect, I think I will rather try out Carol's recipes (this or this) next time.

Made 2 bunnies with cheese filling for little girl, she & the cousin (SKY) colored the eyes & nose, yeah, it was a mess. She said they were delicious and wanna me to make again :)

Dirty Rabbit Sammy Bento (167)

Luckily I'd decided on sandwich last nite for little girl's bento, as I found that the gas cylinder was empty this morning when I was trying to fried an egg for little girl's breakfast.

U may see that those rabbits r kind of dirty as I spread too much nutella into the sammy and it was squeezed out when I was molding. It was a total mess as it was all over my fingers and the sammy. Took 15 minutes to complete the bento.

Dirty rabbit sammy, jelly and some mango

Note of the day

We are having a week holiday next week, thus I won't prepare any bento, but may be, I'll bake something... still haven't decide on what... cake? bread? or something else?

Happy holiday!

Stewed Pork, Konnyaku noodle & Zucchini Bento (166)

Stewed a big pot of pork ribs, konnyaku noodles, quail eggs and radish a night b4 for our dinner. We continued eating the stew with rice for lunch today and packed for little girl's bento as well. Bento was ready in 10 minutes.

Left: Stewed pork ribs, konnyaku noodle, a quail egg, a tiny radish and some zucchini slices

Right: raisin chocolate, gummy sweets and some mango

Note of the day

Little girl's art homework

Little girl has made sure I took the pic of her art and requested me to post on my blog, to show to everybody...