Friendly Lions Sandwiches Bento (267)

Made 3 lions sandwiches from 2 pieces of breads, some meat floss, butter and mayo.  Bento used only about 10 minutes to prepare.

Lion sandwiches, fruit gummy and nectarine wedges

Note of the day

Shoyu Meehoon Bento (266)

I prepared some meehoon for meehoon soup as our lunch today, as I don wanna think of other stuffs to pack into the bento, I basically just splashed some soy sauce, men shoyu and garlic oil into the meehoon, mixed it and dumped it into the container.

It was prepared fast which took me roughly 15 minutes.

Shoyu meehoon and some veggies

Nectarine wedges

Hokkien Style Udon Bento (265)

Fried 2 packs of udon Hokkien style this morning, for the bento and our lunch.  Able to cook and pack fast this morning, all ready in about 20 minutes.

Fried udon Hokkien style and 2 halved quail egg fish ball that I cooked last nite

pineapple cubes

Note of the day

Mayo Egg Sandwich Bento (264)

My brain has called for a halt this 2 days, I couldn't think of what to cook for the bento and our lunch at all, sigh... must be the sign of aging ...

Simply boiled 2 eggs to make do some mayo egg for the sandwiches, 1 for little girl, and 1 for myself.  Used about 20 minutes to complete both the bento.

Other than the mayo egg sandwich, I included 2 tiny pieces of the orange & poppyseed cake and some pineapple cubes

My lunch bento

Fruit Pastry Cake - Orange & Poppyseed

As we didn't eat much on the previous cake, I baked it again yesterday, and doubled the recipe this time. I changed the recipe slightly as I didn't have yogurt.

Ingredients
200g butter
300g sugar
100ml orange juice
2 tsp orange zest
5 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
420g flour
1 tsp baking powder
3 oranges
2 tsp blue poppyseed

U may refer the method of baking the cake on previous posting, but the time I baked in the oven was changed to 60 minutes as I baked it in 2 loaf tins.

From the 2 cakes I baked, gave 1 to my uncle, 1/2 to mum and kept 1/2 to myself.  The cake tasted good, a bit on the sweet side, but I like the taste of orange and the little 'pop' of poppyseed in the mouth.

Fruit Pastry Cake - Peach & Grapes

There were lots of bloggers commenting that this fruit pastry cake is not only easy to bake and very delicious too, u may check out here and here.  I managed to give it a try on Sat as we were meeting our friends at the evening.  Instead of baking it in the cake pan, I used muffin paper cups.

Ingredients
100g butter, soften at room temperature
180 caster sugar
50g yogurt
3 eggs, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp lime zest
210g flour
1 tsp baking powder
Fruits of ur choice (I used peach and champagne grapes)

1. Wash, cut (chunks or slices, as desired) and drain fruits, set aside
2. Cream butter, sugar and yogurt with an electric mixer til light and fluffy
3. Dribble in the lightly beaten eggs gradually and beat til incorporated in the batter
4. Add vanilla extract and zest, mix til combine
5. Mix a portion of fruits into batter (if desired), mix til combine
6. Sieve over flour and baking powder and blend with a spatula til smooth
7. Pour batter into muffin paper cups, arrange fruits on top, remember not to press the fruits down into the batter
8. Bake in pre-heated oven at 180C for 25-30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the cake

I ate 1 at my friend's hse, it tasted just like what other bloggers mentioned, it is not greasy, moist and very addictive, yummy.

Ice-creams & Alphabet Cookies Bento (263)

Hahaha... I hope the title didn't con u here or surprise u :p  No, I neither put ice-creams nor cookies into the bento, the ice-creams were actually sandwiches, whereas the cookies were alphabet chicken nuggets.

Those 'ice-creams' have 2 flavors, savory & sweet: 1 with the pork/meat floss & mayo filling, then the other with peanut butter filling.  If u wanna know how the 'ice-creams' were shaped, u may check out here, this is a Chinese site but the photos are detail enough to explain the steps.

I used about 25 minutes to get this bento ready.

Alphabet cookies, ice-creams and grapes

(chicken nuggets, sandwiches and mini champagne grapes)

Close up of the 'ice-cream with strawberry topping'

(sandwich with meat floss & mayo filling, top with a dash of ketchup and cucumber bits)

Close up of the 'ice-cream with chocolate topping

(sandwich with peanut butter filling, top with nutella and assorted colors heart sprinkles)

Note of the day

Ham Mantou & Meat Floss Mantou Bento (262)

I didn't plan for the bento last nite, thus this morning waked up with blank and full of ????  Opened up the fridge then freezer to check out for the proper ingredient for the bento.  At last, I decided on the mantou, quickly steamed 1, halved it, cut a split at the center, stuffed 1 with ham and the other with meat floss.

Easy pitsy bento, used 15 minutes to get it ready.

Top left: meat floss mantou with cucumber and a dash of mayo,

bottom left: ham mantou with cucumber and a dash of mayo,

top right: jelly

bottom right: necterine

Note of the day

Bacon, Onion & Cheese Potato Pancake Bento (261)

This potato pancake was inspired by Gourmet Mom's Easy Cheesey Swiss Potato Pancake.  As I don have cream cheese on hand, I substituted with bacon and onion which able to bring some fragrant and flavors to the potato pancake.

I used 2 medium size potatoes, 1/2 small onion, 1 piece of streaky bacon and lot of cheese to make the potato pancake.  Just followed the method Gourmet Mom showed in her video.

Bento was packed in about 25 minutes.

Bacon, onion & cheese potato pancake and a container of mayo & ketchup

Nectarine and corn

Fried Kuay Teow with Preserved Veggie 雪菜肉丝炒粿條 (260)

This fried kuay teow was our lunch too.  I preserved some daikon leafs again last week, fried it with some shredded pork, tasted good.

Took me 1/2 an hour to prepare, cook and pack the bento.

Fried kuay teow with shredded pork and preserved daikon leaf

Grapes and pineapple cubes

Preserved Calamansi Lime 咸桔

I'm one who seldom fall sick, however the only sickness that troubled me very much is coughing.  My family members are having the similar problem too, I believe it is all caused by our gene.  I tried my best to avoid getting cough, by drinking a lot of water daily and avoiding frying food.  However, I may get it at least once a year usually, and I would either suffer for weeks or sometimes months.

This year, I was hit by it 3 weeks ago, eating bottle after bottle of coughing syrups still couldn't help me from recovering, sigh....

Then early this month, I saw Ohbin posted this preserved lemons, according to her it helps to reduce coughing and soothe the throat.  I wanted to make it so badly since I'm coughing terribly, but the down side of the recipe is it needs at least a year to preserve.  Thus I didn't hurry myself into it and waiting to get the calamansi limes from my MIL once we get back to Seremban.

Then one fine day last week, I was chatting with my SIL and I brought up the topic about this preserved lemon, she immediate went to the pantry and dig out a bottle of dark brown colored preserved calamansi which was made by her mum.  Woohoo...  I quickly scooped 1 out from the bottle, mix with a tablespoon of honey, pour in 1/2 glass of hot water and pour the whole thing down into my throat.  It tasted great, it did help to soothe my throat, I didn't really feel the itchiness in my throat for a while.

Then when I was back to MIL's house, she had something similar in the fridge too!  Wow, now I had a bottle of the ready preserved calamansi, a bottle of concentrated calamansi syrup (cooked by MIL, able to cure cough too and it makes a very refreshing drink at the same time) to help removing my cough and not only that MIL gave me a kg of fresh calamansi lime so that I may preserve it myself :)

Ingredient
Calamansi lime
Hot boiling water
Boiled water
Salt

1. Lightly wash the calamansi lime with hot boiling water (to remove any pesticide on the skin)
2. Place all calamansi lime into a clean bottle
3. Mix salt with boiled water, keep adding salt until salt won't dissolve anymore
4. Pour salt mixture into the bottle of calamansi lime, covering all the fruits
5. Cover the bottle and preserve for at least a year (remember to label the date)

To consume the preserve lime:

Crush 1 lime in a glass, add in a tablespoon of honey, pour in hot water and drink everything

I'd been drinking it since yesterday for 2 to 3 times a day, and I must tell u, my throat is not as itchy, my coughing is reducing and I believe I'm able to sing beautifully in a day or 2 :p

Angel Hair Maki (259)

Don know what to make for little girl's bento this morning, not enough leftover rice for sushi, but hey, why not using angel hair instead of rice.

Used more time on preparing the bento today, approx. took 30 minutes to complete it.

Maki made of angel hair, meat floss, cucumber and a dash of mayo, also added some cucumber strips

Assorted grapes and chocolate muffin cubes

Pickled Cucumber

I first saw this recipe at Ohbin's, then at Carol's.  As Ohbin's recipe gotta reheat and marinate for 3 times, but Carol's called for twice only, so the lazy me chose Carol's recipe for this :p

I love this type of pickles, they are very tasty with porridge, especially the sweet potato porridge, yum!  However, the other 2 at home (little girl & hubby) dislike it, thus I made a small portion to comfort myself :)

Ingredients
2 cucumbers
1 liter water
1/2 tsp salt

Marinade ingredients
6 tbsp cold boiled water
3 tbsp brown sugar
3 tbsp soy sauce

1. Wash cucumber, chop into bite size
2. Bring 1 liter of water and 1/2 tsp salt to a boil
3. Pour cucumber slices into hot boiling water, let cucumber stay in boiling water for 15 sections then strain off the water
4. Cool cucumber under the fan
5. Mix the marinade ingredients, bring to a boil
6. Pour the boiling hot marinade into cooled cucumber
7. Cover and let it marinate overnight
8. Drain off marinade from cucumber the next day, bring it to a boil again
9. Pour marinade liquid back to cucumber, cover and once cool, let it continue marinate in refrigerator for at least 2 day.

The ratio of the marinade ingredients:
soy sauce : brown sugar : water = 1 : 1 : 2
You may adjust the marinade accordingly

I had it with a big bowl of porridge mix with some leftover steamed minced pork & salted radish (大头菜), such a comfort food, yum!

Pork Floss 肉松

Actually I didn't plan to make this pork floss at all (o_<)  It was so happened that I boiled a pot of herbal soup with a piece of lean meat this morning, something to soothe my lung or cough or whatsoever.  Well, usually the meat are very dry and tasteless to consume after boiling long for stock/soup, and I usually kept the meat for my sister's dog Blacky, but today since I used a piece of nice lean meat, I felt bad if I'd give it to Blacky (sorry, Blacky, prefer to eat the meat myself this time).  Than suddenly the clips of my aunt cooking pork floss during my childhood flashed into my mind, without doubt I fished out the pork, teased apart the meat by hand, marinated it and dried it on the pan.  Ta-da... I got my version of pork floss!

Ingredient
100g lean meat, cooked
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tbsp cooking wine
1 tbsp sesame seed

1. Tear or tease apart the meat
2. Mix soy sauce, cooking wine and sugar together until sugar dissolved
3. Pour soy sauce mixture into the teased apart meat
4. Dry the meat on a non-stick pan on low fire
5. Keep stirring the meat with a pair of chopsticks until it is completely dry
6. Mix in the sesame seed, continue frying for 3 minutes, remove from heat
7. Store in container after totally cool off

The taste of the meat floss is just like those store bought, I can't believe it myself, I'm so happy and proud of myself today :)

Egg Tarts Bento (258)

No, I didn't bake these egg tarts.  Little girl went to Chow Yang nite market with Picky eater Y, her Baby (She and Picky eater Y have been calling my cousin sister B as Baby) and the boy friend.  Baby bought her 6 tarts, I was glad to see it, as I know I don have to crack my head thinking of what to prepare for the bento :p

The bento was packed in less than a minute :),  as I oledi put the tarts into the bento box last nite and this morning just have to put in the nectarine.

So, I was busy watching '女人最痛' this morning, let little girl slept til 10.30am!  Such an easy morning :)

Teddy Bears Roti Canai Bento (257)

Molded some teddy bears from a piece of frozen roti canai.  The dhal curry was kept in the freezer, just need to reheat in microwave.  Used only 10 minutes to cooked & packed the bento.

10 teddy bears roti canai

dhal curry and 2 bunnies nectarine

Note of the day with Kirlia from Pokemon

Butter & Marmite Sandwich Bento (256)

We didn't sleep well last nite, at first, little girl waked up with stuffy nose, after feeding her the medicine, she dozed off easily, but then it was my turn of coughing.

My almost recovering cough suddenly turned worsen yesterday, the itchiness in my throat cos me coughing non-stop, sigh... I nearly cough my lungs out...  I dare not talk much last night, spoke very softly so that my throat wouldn't turn itchy and trigger another round of coughing, sigh....

Therefore, after stolen 2 snoozes from the alarm, I finally waked up with heavy head, couldn't think well and sleepy.  And it really reflected clearly on the bento, it was so simple, just a sandwich of butter & marmite, and 2 pieces of nectarine.  Luckily little girl wasn't mind of the simple bento at all, such a sweetie.

Dorayaki Bento (255)

I used almost an hour to fix the dorayaki this morning.  After frying the dorayaki, I simply threw in 3 cheese cocktails into the pan, let them grilled by themselves while I busy spreading the peanut butter and nutella between the dorayaki.

3 peanut butter & nutella dorayaki and some edamame

6 halved cheese cocktails and 8 grapes